I won't let parents go hungry to afford a child's embroidered uniform blazer, writes Bridget Phillipson

What does it really cost to send a child back to school? Ask any parent, and you'll get the same answer: too much. The blazer with the badge. The jumper with the logo. The branded PE kit. Before you've bought so much as a pencil case, you can be hundreds of pounds down - multiplied by every child you have. Schools are breaking up for summer, and families deserve a proper break.

But I know that for too many parents, the countdown to September is a countdown to a bill they can't afford. A third of parents are worried about uniform costs. More than a quarter have gone without heating or eating to pay for them. Nearly half will reach for a credit card this summer, and a third will turn to buy-now-pay-later. Think about that. Parents skip meals so their child isn't the one who stands out at the school gates.

I know what it means when money doesn't stretch - and I am not prepared to stand by while families are pushed to the wall by the price of a logo.

So from 1 September, the law changes. For the first time, schools in England will face a legal limit on branded uniform: no more than three compulsory branded items, plus a branded tie in secondary schools. Everything else can come from the supermarket or the high street, where a plain jumper costs a few pounds – not several times that because of a crest stitched on the front.

This is not government telling parents what they need. It is government listening. More than 8 in 10 parents back the cap on branded items, and the same number say it will help with the cost of living. It is the same story across our plans for families: of ten policies put to parents this spring, not one fell below 80 per cent support.

Schools will also need to look hard at the cost of every compulsory item – the blazers and jumpers that eat up family budgets – so nothing on the uniform list is unnecessarily expensive.

Some will say uniform is about standards, about pride in your school. I agree. I want every child to walk through the gates feeling they belong. But smart doesn't have to mean expensive. A school's standards live in its classrooms, not in the price tag on a blazer – and no school should outsource its identity to an embroidery supplier at parents' expense.

Uniform is one part of how we are putting money back in parents' pockets. From September, more than 2,700 schools will offer free breakfast clubs – a calm, settled start to the day that saves families up to £450 a year and 95 hours of morning juggling. Nine in ten parents back them: the most popular policy we have. Our expanded childcare offer is saving working families an average of £8,000 per child per year, with take-up at a record high.

From this September, free school meals are also extended to every household on Universal Credit – over half a million more children are eligible, saving families up to £495 per child per year. Alongside the removal of the two-child limit, that will help lift hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty this Parliament.

It is all part of the Great British Summer Savings: VAT cut on family days out and children's meals out all summer, free bus travel for children across England in August, and now lower costs waiting at the school gates when the holidays end.

This is about whether parents face September with a plan – or with a debt. Whether a child starts the year confident and ready to learn, or anxious about what they're wearing.

No parent should be priced out at the school gates. No child should pay the price for a crest. From this September, they won't.

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Bridget Phillipson is the Secretary of State for Education.

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