Member's statement: School Uniforms (Guidelines and Allowances) Bill: New Guidelines

Member's statement by Mr Nick Mathison on 11 November 2025.

MLA

Mr Nick Mathison

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

11 November 2025

Type

Member's statement

Business

Members' Statements

Heading

School Uniforms (Guidelines and Allowances) Bill: New Guidelines

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5349078

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I rise to highlight the need for the provision of new guidelines arising from the School Uniforms (Guidelines and Allowances) Bill. We heard repeatedly how important it was to deliver the Bill quickly to enable schools to reflect the new guidelines in their prospectuses for the 2026-27 academic year. I declare an interest as a governor of a local primary school. In an answer to a recent question that I asked on the issue, the Minister stated that primary schools needed to have their prospectuses published by 26 November, and post-primaries by 16 December. There was some suggestion that there could be flexibility, but the clock is most definitely ticking. Any school that needs to change its policy will need to have that written in now. If anything is changing in a school's policy, it will need to have consulted its pupils and parents and it will certainly need to have let suppliers know. Surely we want schools to be reflecting the new guidelines in their policies, but it now seems that no matter how quickly they appear, they will simply not have the time to reflect them in their new policies. For a start, I do not think that suppliers will be able to deliver that, and the cut-off dates for prospectuses are fast approaching. Writing a new uniform policy is not something that can be done on the back of an envelope. Aside from consultation and supplier engagement, boards of governors need to meet to scrutinise and approve new policies. I think that we in the Chamber are all in agreement that we want the cost of uniforms to come down, but it looks as if we are heading into a scenario in which policies will be retained or revised before the guidelines can be reflected. Time is simply running out. I am speaking in my capacity as a private Member, but I was clear when I argued for a longer Committee Stage that it was always better to take the time to get the Bill right rather than to rush it and end up in the strange grey area that we now exist in. Schools are being asked to reflect guidelines that they have not seen or, at best, will see very late, and then reflect them in policies before the Bill even has Royal Assent. That feels like uncertainty rather than clarity. Parents, schools and suppliers need clarity, but, with the prospectus deadlines nearly upon us, I am struggling to see how that can be provided. If we were going to see schools act on the cost of uniforms, draft guidelines should have been provided months ago. Right now, we know as little about the impact of the Bill as we did when it was introduced. Let us not miss the boat on delivering and get the guidelines out so that schools can update their policies and make the changes that parents need.

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

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 13:37 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