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

Debate contribution by Mr Paul Givan on 13 October 2025.

MLA

Mr Paul Givan

Party at the time

Democratic Unionist Party

Date

13 October 2025

Type

Debate contribution (made as a minister)

Business

Executive Committee Business

Heading

School Uniforms (Guidelines and Allowances) Bill: Final Stage

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5175960

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I rise to make the final speech in the Final Stage of the School Uniforms Bill. I thank each Member who has spoken today. At the start of this element of the debate, I pay particular thanks to my officials in the Department of Education for their work. The Bill has involved a significant amount of work, which I prioritised when I first came into office. We needed to make available the necessary support in the Department in order to assemble the team to do that work. That team has engaged in good faith and diligently throughout the process. Officials made themselves available to the Committee: at every request that was made of them, they were there, and they answered the questions to the best of their ability. I put on record my thanks and appreciation for the work of my departmental officials in helping me to get the Bill to this stage. Addressing the cost of school uniforms is something that should garner support across the Chamber. Broadly speaking, I believe that it does, but I find the narrative from some Members and some parties disappointing, though, I have to concede, not surprising. I began the process with an intention to introduce good legislation that would make a difference to families struggling with cost-of-living crises and the cost of school uniforms. That is what I introduced: good, effective legislation that is informed by experts and does what it needs to do but does not replicate or conflate existing law and does not place in primary legislation requirements that render guidelines unworkable in the real world.

The Member does not have long to wait for the guidelines to come into effect, but, as I indicated in opening the Final Stage debate, we have already engaged with school principals. The Bill will not come as a surprise to schools; indeed, it was a year ago, on 24 September 2024, that we corresponded with all schools, setting out the anticipated requirements of the Bill and associated guidelines and advising schools to get ready. Some schools have already made changes in anticipation of the Bill; indeed, it has already had an impact. We have kept schools informed, so the guidelines coming into being will not come as a surprise to schools. The Member wanted to put specific detail in primary legislation — this is the difference in some of the approaches that Members have articulated. In order to make changes to that, you would need more primary legislation. Guidance, however, can be updated, evolved and changed much more speedily. In the event that guidance is found not to be effective, it can be changed without having to bring forward primary legislation. If other parties get their way and decide, after the next election, to take the Education Department, a new Minister can bring forward guidance and that can follow a process that will not necessitate primary legislation. Our job is to give the legal force behind that guidance, which then has much greater flexibility to incorporate the points that Members have made. The problem with other Members is that they wanted to put things into primary law, which is not as easily changed and amended. Indeed, the Assembly, having put things into primary law, had to change them because they were not effective. That process has been found to be a suboptimal way in which to create effective legislation. That is a broader point about how this place should, in my view, conduct its business. The guidance will be effective and the Member will not have long to wait. I know that he wants to come back in. I am happy to give way.

The Bill's broad purposes were there. They were in the Bill, which Mr Baker says is not the Executive's Bill or the Assembly's Bill, but my Bill. Well, I do not have the power to create a piece of legislation with only one vote out of 90. Mr Baker can vote against the Bill, and then it will not be his Bill. In fact, if he does not vote against it, it will be his Bill. I will watch for you going through the Noes Lobby.

I will happily give way.

Mr Baker has just confirmed that he will vote No. Let us wait and see. When the Division is called, I will see whether Mr Baker votes No and offers himself up as a Teller, or whether he just meekly allows the Bill to go through and then comes off with his highfalutin language that it is all about me. I look forward to his voting No. In fact, not only will he vote against the Bill but he will bring forward a vote of no confidence against the First Minister. That has to be what the three Sinn Féin Committee members do now, because the Bill was brought to the Executive and agreed to by the First Minister — it was placed on the agenda and voted for at the Executive by the First Minister. Then, when it came to Second Stage, it was voted for by Sinn Féin. Mr Baker will now vote against the Bill and lead the charge internally to get rid of his First Minister who allowed a "defective, weak piece of legislation" to go through on this, "no day for celebration". I look forward to seeing how brave Mr Baker is. I think that I already know the answer to that. When it comes to making the legislation, I have made it clear that I am not a legal expert. Others in the Chamber have said that they are not legal experts. On recent evidence, that can hardly be gainsaid. It has been said that mistakes have been made in legislation previously. Again, to be sure, there is evidence of that, but that does not make it acceptable. Such a description does not apply to the School Uniforms Bill. Members have talked throughout the amending stages of the Bill's scrutiny about its being a missed opportunity. Any missed opportunities relate to Members' misunderstanding of the coverage and strength of the draft legislation. It does not simply require a set of guidelines to be sent to schools, which they may, or may not, follow. Prescription of the extent that was sought by Members approaching Consideration Stage and Further Consideration Stage would not have delivered benefits for parents. Placing existing legislation in the Bill is contrary to good drafting conventions and neither strengthens nor provides clarity about how other legislation works with regard to new primary legislation.

That the Education Committee is talking about scoping amendments through a Committee Bill before the Bill even comes into operation and before the guidelines are produced — I have assured Members that the guidelines will be shared with schools as a matter of urgency in the coming weeks — demonstrates to me that some of its members have not managed to understand fully what the Bill does. Many of the proposed amendments that did not make it on to the Marshalled List at Consideration Stage were, in my view, technically flawed, conceptually misguided, largely unnecessary and, indeed, potentially unworkable. They are therefore simply not suitable as the basis for legislative provisions if they are ever to reappear in their own Bill. This is about ensuring good law, not wider gestures. It is a matter for the Education Committee to decide how it proceeds with the Bill. Mr Baker was a little bit sensitive to my criticism of the Committee, but I believe that that criticism is well founded. I look forward with interest to the outcome of the Committee's RSE inquiry, which has taken 18 months now. It was meant to be a micro inquiry, yet we are still waiting for its report. We have not yet had a debate on that in the Assembly, and I look forward to responding to it. Its micro inquiry has taken 18 months, yet I am supposed to have confidence in the efficiency and efficacy of the Education Committee to draft its own Bill. Seriously? Perhaps when I am to appear before the Committee next week, it will again be a Star Chamber attacking a Protestant school for two hours. That is all that the members were interested in when I appeared before it the previous time.

I think that the Education Committee is having me appear before it next week, and we will see what areas it covers then. The last time, it certainly did not cover special educational needs or the budget problems that we face. It did, however, cover one school in particular. That is what it spent all its time on.

Mr Baker should understand my scepticism about this Education Committee. I will give way to Mr Brooks.

That is a matter for the Committee. I do not want to interfere in how the Education Committee handles its affairs. We will wait and see how, when I appear before it, it handles them. I will move on. I have indicated that it is not for me to dictate the direction in which the Committee goes. We should, however, allow the Bill and the guidelines to become operational and then review how the guidance gives effect to the legislation. That would be a much more appropriate action for the Committee to take. It would allow it to carry out its proper scrutiny role, and I would support it in doing so. It should then reach a decision on whether it wants to introduce its own Bill, but that, again, is a matter for the Education Committee. Let me remind the House that the Bill contains strong duties and powers. It works in conjunction with all existing legislation, including human rights and equality law. It is focused on ensuring that the guidelines cover affordability, comfort and practicality, and it allows for provisions to be put in place to cap costs or the number of branded items, to differentiate between school types, year groups and Key Stages and to support uniform banks or the lending of uniform items to pupils.

1,681 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 13:28 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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