Holidays in School Term Time 

Dave Robertson Excerpts

Monday 25th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[Dave Robertson (Lichfield) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petition 658365 relating to holidays during school term time.

It is a pleasure to address you, Sir Edward, in what is an important debate and my first attempt at presenting a debate on behalf of the Petitions Committee. I am chuffed to do so, because this subject is really positive. I am sure that everyone in this Chamber has fond childhood memories of family time away from home. When I look back, I have clear memories of spending a lot of time in north Wales with my family. I was fortunate that both my parents were teachers so, as soon as the school holidays came around, we were all available. I thank my parents very thoroughly for that.

Later in life, I followed mam and dad into the family trade by becoming a teacher, where I saw at first hand the impact that absence can have on attainment and progress at school. Often through no fault of the child or the parents, kids were unable to be in school and they fell behind, which made life difficult for them. I am sure all Members in this Chamber would want to avoid a situation in which any kid is unnecessarily held back for any reason, particularly attendance.

This issue is complex, and I have experience of both sides of it, as I am sure many Members have; I am sure that very soon we will hear a similar speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Dr Gardner), who is also a former teacher.

There is a reason that this petition has received so much support from so many people from right across the breadth of the United Kingdom: who can say anything to a parent who wants to spend more time with their kids? It is so fundamental and so positive, and I think everybody would support that, which is why this petition was started and why it has been so clearly supported.

The debate is about those really positive things, but it boils down to an issue of affordability. Anybody who has looked into this will know of the significant increases in the price of holidays, whether domestic or foreign, whether travelling by air or by train. The price of holidays flies through the roof during school break periods, and that has a real impact on parents. They want to spend time with their kids away from home to build memories but, for far too many people, doing so in the 13 weeks of the school holidays has become unaffordable because of the escalating cost.

I spoke to the petitioners last Thursday, and they made it clear that they completely understand the importance of kids being in school. One of the first things they said to me was that they enjoy the fact that their kids come home from school, tell them what they did that day and are so full of life and the learning of the day. But the petitioners also understand the holistic benefits of kids spending time away from a formalised learning environment for some self-directed time and a change of scenery, even if that is just some different walls.

However, one of the things the petitioner raised is that, unfortunately, a lot of families who want to build those memories are unable to do so during the school holidays because of affordability. They therefore have to take the kids out of school during term time, because they believe it important to enable their kids to enjoy their childhoods. However, parents can be fined for that, which leads to their feeling criminalised and as though they have done something wrong, although I am sure that everybody would agree that taking kids on a break to help them to build childhood memories is really positive.

[Vikki Slade (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)]

It is not just about the joy of the holiday; the problem is that there is no compassion in the system. I was contacted today by a resident who took their child out of school for two weeks because their grandfather is dying in India, and they have just been fined. They know that their child needs education, and they are passionate about it, but they face the risk that, because the grandfather is dying but has not died, they may get some sort of parenting order if they take their child out again for the funeral—he should go, as part of the extended family. That is ridiculous, so we need to recognise that this is about not just money but compassion.

[Dave Robertson]

It is hard to follow that intervention, because how could anybody disagree with that? Spending time with a dying family member at the end of their life is so important not just for those who pass away but for those who remain, because those memories live with us forever. I am sure those parents were between a rock and a hard place, but made the only decision that any of us would have made, despite the difficulties that they now face. It is clear from stories such as that and others that I have heard over the past few weeks that there is a real problem.

The petition mentions the equalities impact, and says:

“This can be a particular issue for…children that have additional needs”.

Parents raising children with additional needs may already face significant extra costs, whether because they have to buy things for the home, or software and other things to support their kids in school, or because they are simply fighting through a special educational needs and disabilities system that does not work and they face additional costs from having to raise things through tribunals.

In preparing for this debate, I was supported by our excellent Petitions Committee staff to meet members of the National Autistic Society, who said that they valued the opportunity to contribute to it. They said that, because of the issues in the SEND system, they spend a lot of time talking to people about the importance of kids being in school and helping parents to get their kids into school as often as possible. That is sometimes not easy, but a person should face no detriment if they spend some time with their kids, go away or, as the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Vikki Slade) said, take some time for compassionate reasons.

We also met Parentkind, which highlighted some really interesting data from Wales. It recently carried out a consultation about changes to the school year, and a majority of the parents it surveyed support a change so that the long holiday period in the summer is shortened a bit and some of those weeks are moved to other parts of the year. But although 56% of all parents support a more evenly spread school year, 59% of those on a lower income are in favour. That may not seem like a huge difference—it is only 3%—but those parents are contained in the other number, so it is probably closer to 6%, and various other points can be made about the data. The important point is that people from lower income backgrounds—people who are not as rich as their peers—feel more strongly that stretching out and moving around the school holidays would be positive. Part of that may be that it is easier to arrange childcare when they do not need to do six weeks back to back, and part of it may be due to things that are happening in Wales—processes, festivals and things that I am not aware of because it is a while since I have been there. The cost of holidays might be one of the driving factors that led to that slightly different opinion between the two income brackets.

[Neil Duncan-Jordan (Poole) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend think that there needs to be an impact assessment carried out by the Government on the way the current rules impact particularly on low-income families?

[Dave Robertson]

I thank my hon. Friend for his contribution. He is somewhat skipping ahead to the later parts of my speech, but I like him, so I will let him off. The Government need to do something about this, and as I will touch on later, there are a lot of proposed solutions. A lot of parents—obviously, the 250,000 who signed the petition in just three months, before the general election brought it to an end—think that there needs to be some type of solution. The petition proposes giving parents the opportunity to have up to 10 school days—two weeks—away from school with their children, but a variety of different things have been suggested. My hon. Friend has suggested another, and I am sure the Minister is listening.

As part of the preparation for this speech, I spoke to a range of organisations to take their views. Every single organisation that I spoke to recognised that there was an issue here, and that there was real value in kids being able to access a field of learning or a different experience from being at school in a formalised learning environment. I cannot say that any of them were absolutely jumping on and saying, “This is definitely a solution to that.” Actually, all the organisations I spoke to suggested slightly different solutions.

I spoke to the National Association of Head Teachers, which I thank for its helpful input. It suggested that returning some discretion to headteachers—as was certainly the case when I was in school and at the start of my teaching career—could be used to support parents, where appropriate. The headteacher would have the discretion to say no, should there be other issues with a child and their attendance. Parentkind kindly talked me through a significant amount of information on how the school year is organised, the potential for changing it, and whether that might be able to drive some changes.

The National Autistic Society recognised the issue, but emphasised how important it is to get kids into school. A lot of its work is on ensuring that kids are able to access education, but it recognised that there was maybe space for some work in the area. It suggested talking to market organisations and travel providers about whether we could change the affordability issue, which might then lead to a different situation for parents across the school holidays. The Centre for Young Lives was clear that the free market is not delivering for families. It is certainly not delivering for kids, and that is leading to some of the issues.

[James McMurdock (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Reform)]

The hon. Gentleman is making an interesting point about the free market. We have a clear supply and demand issue. We have a huge glut during the summer holidays, and then a drought. I will give an example—I will not reference the British holiday destination, but it would be a firm favourite with most people. A typical family of four to six could spend five days there for £500 or £600 one week, but in excess of £2000 for the exact same holiday the following week because it is outside of term time. Does he agree that because of the supply and demand issue, giving discretion or allowing more variety in how schools use their time might be options worth pursuing, rather than trying to constrain business?

[Dave Robertson]

The hon. Gentleman has almost taken me to the conclusion I was coming to anyway, so I thank him for the appropriate segue. As ever, there are more solutions than problems for Government, but finding the right one is difficult. In the work and engagement I have done on this, it has really come through that there is a problem. There are lots of ideas about what we could do, and although it is unlikely that there is one instantaneous solution, there is potential around discretion, working with the market, and changing school days—although a significant caveat is that teachers are often parents too, and if they do not teach in the same local authority area in which they live, then moving the holidays around might cause them significant additional issues. There are also issues with teachers being able to afford holidays with their families.

It is a real vipers’ nest, and I do not envy the Minister having to try to find his way through it. There are probably more solutions than we need on this issue, and finding the right one will be a real challenge for the Government. I am very eager to hear the Minister’s response because, as I am sure a lot of people would say, the system is not working at the minute. Hopefully, we can use the great power of the British state to look into this issue and find a better way forward for parents and pupils.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dave Robertson]

I realise that I may have omitted to say how much of a pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship at the start of the debate, Sir Edward. I am happy to correct the record in this instance.

Although we have had only a small number of speakers, the depth of research that has been done, and the depth of understanding of the issue across the Chamber by Members from the vast majority of parties has shown that this is being looked at by individual Members, the Government and all political parties. It has been a very good debate, in that we have heard a lot of different viewpoints, and it was good to hear the Minister’s response.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered e-petition 658365 relating to holidays during school term time.