Baroness Spielman (Con)

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 117 in the name of my noble friend Lord Young of Acton, to which I have added my name. Although it may seem a small point, it matters. The draft guidance perfectly illustrates the consequences of poor policy-making: the cart was put before the horse and an announcement was made about reducing the number of branded items but without the clarity about the policy goal that should have informed the drafting of the legislation. I will not repeat the examples given by others, but it is unfortunate that the draft guidance is so unequivocal. It is the kind of Kafkaesque rule that brings officialdom into ill repute, and it probably will not save parents a single penny. I add that if the policy goal is narrowly to save all parents money on school uniforms, this could be better achieved through Amendment 114, which would give schools more flexibility and avoid the problem that Amendment 117 is intended to address—although I believe that an automatic inflation adjustment should be incorporated to avoid the messiness of an annual review. If this limit is enacted, will the Minister ensure that two particular impacts are fully evaluated. First, what is the social impact on children? In demonising branded clothing, the Government have lost sight of part of the value of uniforms. Uniforms are not only about badging and encouraging identification with an institution but about having all children wear clothing that is genuinely identical in quality and cut, not just broadly similar in appearance. We all know how sensitive the young are to status markers, such as having the right—usually expensive—trainers, even when the differences are all but invisible to the adult eye. Fewer school-branded items may mean more pressure on children to have the highest-status version of the unbranded items, which will inevitably bear hardest on the poorest children, so this should be evaluated. The evaluation should also consider whether parents spend less money not only on school uniforms but on children’s clothing overall. If the change reduces spend on branded items but leads to poorer families being pressured into spending more rather than less overall on children’s clothes, it should be counted as a failure. I hope the Minister can reassure me on those points.