Holidays in School Term Time 

Debate between Dave Robertson and James McMurdock

Monday 25th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[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.