'Families are being forced to choose between what to feed their kids and paying for school uniforms'

Families are being forced to choose between what they are going to feed their families and paying hundreds on compulsory school uniforms, says one Greater Manchester mum. The fears come as the cost-of-living skyrockets, fuel prices continue to climb and Ofgem announces that the energy price cap will further increase in the coming weeks.

Tameside mum Jessica Walker says she has witnessed neighbouring families struggling so much with the price of uniforms that they are being forced to make tough decisions, as the costs are so high that ‘a family could go on holiday for that amount of money’. The Hattersley publican, a former NHS nurse, says she has been standing in the supermarket uniform aisles with other mums as they have shared anxieties about paying for the compulsory clothes at a time when wages ‘aren’t going up nearly high enough to meet the expense’.

Jessica is now calling on the government to make uniforms free for families, arguing that an employer would provide uniforms for jobs which require them. As school uniforms are mandatory, the same policy should apply, she says.

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“One mum told me she hadn’t purchased food shopping for the week because she was having to buy these school uniforms,” Jessica told the Manchester Evening News .

“Her bill was coming to £690 for three children, and that’s before she’d got the jumpers. That’s nothing special, that’s just what schools are asking parents to do.

“It’s £60 a time for the right kind of school shoes for an eight-year-old in Clark’s, £30 a time for blazers which will be too small soon, PE kits, calculators. Children are constantly growing, they’ll have