Debate contribution: School Uniforms (Guidelines and Allowances) Bill: Consideration Stage

Debate contribution by Mr Nick Mathison on 15 September 2025.

MLA

Mr Nick Mathison

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

15 September 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Executive Committee Business

Heading

School Uniforms (Guidelines and Allowances) Bill: Consideration Stage

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5099790

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I thank the Member for her intervention. The gendered aspect of the cost was one of the repeated themes that came through to the Committee. The evidence received indicated that girls' uniforms are often more expensive than boys' uniforms. Therefore, providing some choice in that space would have had a cost impact as well as an equality impact, but that amendment is not available to us for debate today. The change to bring this aspect of the Bill into effect at Royal Assent remains a "may" provision, I hope that, at the very least, it focuses the Minister and the Department's mind on the appetite for something to be done in the space of restricting items of uniform. PE is the one that came up repeatedly. We had the gender imbalance issue because girls' items are often more expensive, but the Committee also heard substantial evidence on PE kits, and barely a session went by where that issue was not discussed — certainly the parental evidence that we heard, and the evidence from young people. Indeed, many of the uniform suppliers said that they had stepped away from the PE kit market because the manufacturers, not the local school uniform shops, are making the money in many cases. There is a real sense that doing something around restricting branded items could have an impact. I add that the real area where the Committee heard evidence that people had a serious appetite for something to be done was a cost cap, but we know that there are layers of complication to that. The Committee heard evidence that it was not a straightforward intervention. However, I put on record that we hope it does not just gather dust. The cost cap provision is a crucial part of the Bill, and I hope there will be serious action to introduce that provision.

That concludes my remarks as Committee Chair on this group of amendments.

With your permission, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker, I will briefly conclude my contribution by making some remarks as an Alliance MLA. This group of amendments is concerned with what needs to be included in the guidelines on school uniforms that will be created and that, subsequently, must be adhered to at school level. It remains a significant frustration that a clear decision was taken not to provide either the Committee or MLAs more widely with sight of the guidelines that the Bill will create. I appreciate that they would have been only in draft form, but we remain largely in the dark about the Bill's practical outworkings. I have no doubt that the Minister, as a constituency MLA, wants to be able to say to parents that he has brought down costs, but the practical outworkings are not clear. When I walk a parent through the Bill, there is often a "What does it do?" moment. I hope, for the sake of parents, that the guidelines that the Bill creates —.

I will give way.

I thank the Member for his intervention. Of course, we are dealing with legislation here, not creating a slogan that is easy for parents to understand. That is not what the legislative process is about. I agree with him on that point, but we remain unclear about what the guidelines will do. That is the impact of the legislation: it is about what the guidelines will do. I remain unclear as to what they will look like. I hope that they will be clear and robust and have a decisive impact on uniform costs. It is encouraging to hear that schools are already making changes in that space. Given how few of the amendments that the Committee or private Members tabled were selected for debate, we are inevitably left with a Bill that is very much the Minister's Bill. I know that the Minister is unhappy with some of the amendments that the Committee has tabled and that have made it to the Chamber for debate today. To my mind, however, the Bill, even after this amending stage, will be largely unchanged from what was presented to us. There may be some points on which there is disagreement, but the general principle that the Bill will not prescribe to any great extent what will be in the guidelines, which is clearly what the Minister and the Department wanted from the Bill, has been preserved. I hope that that approach to the legislation delivers, because parents and families need it to make a difference to the unaffordable costs that so many of them face when purchasing school uniforms.

763 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 13:08 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

Disagree with this assessment?

Classifications can be challenged. A person reads every challenge, and any change is recorded publicly above with its reason.

Challenge this classification