Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Parminter Excerpts

Thursday 3rd July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Acton (Con)]

As I read it, the clause does not just limit the prohibition to items mandated by the school for every pupil. If those are mandatory for an activity facilitated by the school, I believe this prohibition would still apply. That is my reading of the clause, but perhaps the Minister will correct me on that point when she responds.

To sum up, I welcome the Government’s intention here, which is to avoid schools placing excessive financial burdens on low-income families, but making an exception for items given or lent to pupils would not impose any additional burdens on those families, so I cannot see how the Government could possibly oppose my amendment or the other similar amendments hoping to achieve the same purpose.

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

My Lords, I tabled two amendments in this group. The first, Amendment 202, follows on in a complementary manner to the amendment moved so excellently by the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed, because it addresses the cost issue of uniforms by asking for the mandating of second-hand uniforms in schools.

I am sure the Minister will say that there is already statutory guidance encouraging schools to provide secondary sales of school uniforms, but her own department did a survey in 2023 and found that some 65% of parents said that their schools provided second-hand sales. That is a significant minority of schools that are not providing it.

It has been estimated that more than 1.4 million quality items of school uniform are lost every year, which is a loss to parents in savings, a cost to us all when local authorities have to deal with the disposal of those uniforms and a cost to the environment in dealing with the plastics and the carbon that comes from disposing of those garments.

In this amendment, I call for the mandating of schools to provide second-hand uniforms. If the Minister is not able to agree to that at the end of noble Lords’ remarks, I hope that in the refresh of the upcoming sustainability and climate change strategy she might think about the issue of uniforms, which was not in the previous strategy. Clearly, looking at the affordability of uniforms and sustainability could a be a win-win for parents and for the environment.

My second amendment, Amendment 202A, deals with a slightly different issue: the health impacts of school clothing on young people and the inclusion of forever chemicals, PFAS, in much of the clothing that young people are wearing. They are called forever chemicals because they do not break down in the environment. There is now emerging evidence of significant negative health impacts in terms of cancer, impacts on fertility and, crucially for young people, neuro development. These PFAS are mainly picked up by people through the skin. For young people, this is a really important issue.

PFAS are added by the manufacturers to give a stain-resilient quality or make clothes ironing-free. But these stain-resistant surfaces do not last—they will be kept on an item of clothing for a maximum of 10 to 20 washes before they are washed away—so there is a limited benefit for a long-term potential health impact on our young people. For this reason, both France and Denmark have got rid of PFAS in clothing. My amendment would insist that the Government stop allowing PFAS to be used in school clothing because of the impact on the welfare of our children.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

My Lords, I put my name to Amendment 202A in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Parminter and Lady Bennett. This is a fantastically important amendment, and I will be very distressed if the Government do not seize the moment as the knowledge comes into view about what these kinds of chemicals in cheap clothes provide and are putting into our children’s systems.

Jeremy Grantham, who many people may know, has been one of the main funders of climate change research across the world over the last 40 years and indeed was one of the funders behind the LSE and Nick Stern report. I met him about three weeks ago and he said he is no longer providing climate change funding, largely because he thinks it is a more or less foregone conclusion that things are not going well. He has turned his entire industry and scientific might behind looking at PFAS and the chemicals that are in not just our clothing but our soils.

Let us look specifically at clothing around the world. American Airlines has recently been sued because it produced very cheap uniforms for its stewards and stewardesses. They have started to develop incredible ranges of different skin illnesses and internal illnesses. As the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, found, research in Denmark has shown that prenatal contact to cheaply made fabrics with PFAS in them has led to reductions in IQ among children. France is banning all school uniforms containing PFAS from next year.

Interestingly, Fidra, a big company that works on and looks at the environmental impact of chemicals, says that people want these chemicals in clothing because it is very easy to wash, it dries almost immediately and you never need to iron it. But interestingly, it discovered that people treat these clothes in exactly the same way as they treat something of better quality. Every time you wash it—it is not just when you put it on your skin—bits come off in the washing machine. They are now in circulation: they are in breast milk, placenta and our plants. Our plants are looking at 25% reduction in whole fertility within the next 10 years.

Some of the work that Jeremy Grantham is doing is looking at male fertility. Some people may say we have too many people in the world, but this is probably not the way we want to do it—crashing male fertility and all sorts of things. These are dangerous.

As everybody knows, I have worked on ultra-processed foods. One of the interesting things about these chemicals is that a single one of them on their own may not be dangerous, but they are if you mix them up. That is the whole point of chemistry. That is why we went into chemistry labs for our GCSEs and had fun making things explode. They change.

Those chemicals go into these fabrics. They can be manufactured at immense volume and cheapness. As I say, it is not just the school uniforms but the stuff kids are buying when they can buy 20 garments for 20 quid through a company such as Shein. These are dangerous. We can stop this.

I completely support all the amendments in this group. Yes, I want school uniforms because they are fair, and I want them to be cheap, but I do not want them to be dangerous to our children. Please can the Government start doing something about it? Europe is ahead of us. Other countries are ahead of us. We can do this.