Asked by: Ben Maguire (Liberal Democrat - North Cornwall)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department holds any analysis on the potential effects of the national penalty notice threshold, introduced in August 2024, on school attendance rates.
Answered by Paul Waugh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The causes of school absence are complex, and penalty notices are one part of a wider toolkit to help ensure children receive the education they are entitled to. The government remains committed to a support- first approach, with enforcement only used where support is not appropriate, has not been engaged with, or is not proving effective.
Recent data suggests this approach is having a positive impact. In 2024 to 2025, the rate of absence due to unauthorised holidays fell from 0.53% to 0.48%, equating to around 1.3 million fewer missed sessions compared with 2023 to 2024. Penalty notices are primarily targeted at term-time holidays, which accounted for 93% of notices issued in 2024 to 2025.
Asked by: Ben Maguire (Liberal Democrat - North Cornwall)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent assessment he has made of the timeliness of payments owed to former HM Prison Service staff under the Harper Judgement.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Following the Supreme Court judgment in Harpur Trust v Brazel, the Ministry of Justice developed an approach to identify and address cases where individuals may have received an incorrect amount of annual leave.
Guidance issued in 2023 made clear that former employees who considered that the judgment may have affected the amount of annual leave they received while employed by the Ministry of Justice should contact the Department. Former employees were not contacted proactively. Cases raised by former employees have been considered individually to determine whether they were affected and whether any payment is due.
As these cases have been considered on a case-by-case basis, the Department has not undertaken a central assessment of the timeliness of payments made to former HM Prison Service staff.
Asked by: Ben Maguire (Liberal Democrat - North Cornwall)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many prosecutions related to school attendance offences were brought in Cornwall in each year, over the last three academic years.
Answered by Paul Waugh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) publishes statistics on prosecutions, convictions and sentencing results at criminal courts in England for offences relating to school attendance. This data is available through the Outcomes by Offence data tool which shows how many people have been prosecuted each year and the All Offences data tool which shows how many cases have been prosecuted each year. To see data for school attendance offences select Home Office Offence codes 11203 and 11204, and to calculate the number per academic year select monthly breakdowns.
The Outcomes by Offence data tool and All Offences data tool can be found here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/criminal-justice-statistics-quarterly-march-2026.
The MoJ does not publish a breakdown of prosecutions, convictions and sentencing results for Cornwall. However, users can extract monthly figures for the Devon and Cornwall Police Force Area.
Asked by: Ben Maguire (Liberal Democrat - North Cornwall)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many prosecutions for school attendance offences in Cornwall in each of the last three academic years resulted in (a) a conviction, (b) a withdrawal, and (c) an unsuccessful outcome.
Answered by Paul Waugh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The Ministry of Justice publishes statistics on prosecutions, convictions and sentencing results at criminal courts in England for offences relating to school attendance.
The Outcomes by Offence data tool shows how many people have been prosecuted and convicted each year, and how many have had their cases withdrawn or received an unsuccessful outcome. The All Offences data tool shows how many cases have been prosecuted and convicted each year. To find school attendance offences, users should select Home Office offence codes 11203 and 11204. Monthly breakdowns can be used to calculate figures for each academic year.
The data does not provide figures specifically for Cornwall. However, users can extract monthly figures for the Devon and Cornwall Police Force Area. This area covers a wider geographical area than Cornwall and cannot be used to provide a Cornwall-only figure.
The Outcomes by Offence data tool and All Offences data tool are available at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/criminal-justice-statistics-quarterly-march-2026.
Asked by: Ben Maguire (Liberal Democrat - North Cornwall)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many prosecutions for school attendance offences in England in each of the last three academic years resulted in (a) a conviction, (b) a withdrawal, and (c) an unsuccessful outcome.
Answered by Paul Waugh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The Ministry of Justice publishes statistics on prosecutions, convictions and sentencing results at criminal courts in England for offences relating to school attendance.
The Outcomes by Offence data tool shows how many people have been prosecuted and convicted each year, and how many have had their cases withdrawn or received an unsuccessful outcome. The All Offences data tool shows how many cases have been prosecuted and convicted each year. To find school attendance offences, users should select Home Office offence codes 11203 and 11204. Monthly breakdowns can be used to calculate figures for each academic year.
The data does not provide figures specifically for Cornwall. However, users can extract monthly figures for the Devon and Cornwall Police Force Area. This area covers a wider geographical area than Cornwall and cannot be used to provide a Cornwall-only figure.
The Outcomes by Offence data tool and All Offences data tool are available at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/criminal-justice-statistics-quarterly-march-2026.
Asked by: Ben Maguire (Liberal Democrat - North Cornwall)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many prosecutions related to school attendance offences were brought in England in each year, over the last three academic years.
Answered by Paul Waugh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) publishes statistics on prosecutions, convictions and sentencing results at criminal courts in England for offences relating to school attendance. This data is available through the Outcomes by Offence data tool which shows how many people have been prosecuted each year and the All Offences data tool which shows how many cases have been prosecuted each year. To see data for school attendance offences select Home Office Offence codes 11203 and 11204, and to calculate the number per academic year select monthly breakdowns.
The Outcomes by Offence data tool and All Offences data tool can be found here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/criminal-justice-statistics-quarterly-march-2026.
The MoJ does not publish a breakdown of prosecutions, convictions and sentencing results for Cornwall. However, users can extract monthly figures for the Devon and Cornwall Police Force Area.
Asked by: Ben Maguire (Liberal Democrat - North Cornwall)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if her Department will release an estimation of the legal costs incurred in prosecuting school attendance offences in each of the last three academic years.
Answered by Paul Waugh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department does not hold data on the legal costs incurred in prosecuting school attendance offences.
Statutory guidance on attendance makes it clear that legal intervention, including prosecution, should be considered only where support has been exhausted, where it has not been engaged with, or in the cases of term-time holidays, where support is not appropriate.
The guidance also sets out clear expectations for how schools, local authorities and wider services should work together to support attendance for all children.
Asked by: Ben Maguire (Liberal Democrat - North Cornwall)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what mitigating guidance HMRC provides to its staff on informing businesses when a case cannot be allocated to a caseworker within the expected timescale.
Answered by James Murray - Financial Secretary to the Treasury and Paymaster General
HMRC normally contacts a business about a compliance check once a case has been allocated to a caseworker and the check is ready to commence. Accordingly, there is generally no requirement for specific guidance on informing customers that a case has not yet been allocated.
Asked by: Ben Maguire (Liberal Democrat - North Cornwall)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if his Department will release figures on the average processing times for VAT repayment claims from newly registered businesses.
Answered by James Murray - Financial Secretary to the Treasury and Paymaster General
Identifying which VAT registrations should be considered new, isolating them from those which are not, and reporting the associated average repayment processing times would require significant manual resource to extract and reconcile data from multiple systems, and so would exceed the disproportionate cost threshold.
Asked by: Ben Maguire (Liberal Democrat - North Cornwall)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has made an estimate of the potential revenue raised by introducing a voluntary discounted settlement scheme for Plan 2 student loan borrowers whose loans are not projected to be repaid in full.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
One of the fundamental principles of student loans is that repayments are income contingent and only due when the borrower is earning over the relevant repayment threshold. Outstanding debt, including interest accrued, is cancelled at the end of the loan term with no detriment to the borrower. These protections exceed what discounted settlement schemes typically offer to borrowers.
Borrowers already have the ability to make additional, voluntary repayments towards their student loan, with no penalty, if they wish to do so.