School Penalty Fines and Authorised Absence

Gavin Newlands Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2016 Westminster Hall

[Mr Turner]

No. Mr Platt used the term “good” to describe his child attending school all-year round except for a fortnight, which is not the same as one day a fortnight, and there was no evidence from any quarter to question that description.

Isle of Wight Council wanted a different interpretation of the law and so it took Mr Platt’s case to the High Court. The High Court found that it was not acceptable for the authority

“to criminalise every unauthorised holiday by the simple device of alleging…that there has been no regular attendance in a period limited to the absence on holiday.”

The judgment said that regular attendance must be measured over a longer period of time, and Mr Platt’s daughter’s attendance record was satisfactory in that respect.

The High Court’s judgment did not find favour with either Isle of Wight Council or the Department for Education. The Department has now provided the council with funding and legal support to take the case to the Supreme Court. Mr Platt is being given no such help; he is fighting this battle using private resources and not public money. The state is throwing the book at him for daring to stand up to the authorities and being found right—not once, but twice. So this is a real David and Goliath situation.

I am a former teacher and both my parents were teachers, too, so I understand the importance and value of education. I have experienced at first hand the difficulties of teaching a class where not all the children are in the classroom full-time. However, I have also seen the immense value of family holidays, in educational and other terms.

I have listened to the Government’s argument about the relationship between attendance and attainment. It exists, but it is not a simple picture. As the latest research from the Department itself says:

“There are a range of pupil, school, parental and societal characteristics that are likely to affect attainment in varying degrees.”

It is the interplay of factors that cannot be judged in Whitehall. Schools can collaborate with parents to ensure that a child’s education will be enriched by a family holiday and of course the child can be set work to be completed while they are away.

However, if the headteacher cannot justify that the holiday is being taken in “exceptional circumstances”, then parents can be criminalised under legislation introduced by statutory instrument in 2013. For many years, parents have been legally responsible for their child’s regular attendance at school, and headteachers are accountable for the performance of their school and their pupils. So it should be headteachers, working with parents, who decide whether or not to allow a family holiday, or any other kind of absence, after taking into account all the individual circumstances.

Before being elected to this House, I ran the Grant Maintained Schools Foundation and I am proud that this Government have taken forward the principle that we worked so hard to promote—greater autonomy and decision making in schools. So I find it incomprehensible why, on this particular issue, the Government insist that they know better than headteachers what is best for individual children.

There is a misconception that prior to 2013 parents had a right to take their children out of school for up to 10 days for a holiday. That was never the case. Headteachers were able to agree to a child being absent on a family holiday in “special circumstances”. It has been said, including by my right hon. Friend the Minister for Schools himself during a debate last October, that the 2013 amendments “clarified” the situation, but I disagree. A change from “special circumstances” to “exceptional circumstances” is a material difference, and it has given rise to markedly different approaches from local education authorities.

We now have a postcode lottery that determines whether a parent is prosecuted. For example, I understand that in the west country Cornwall has issued four “school fines” in the last three years, but Devon, which is just next door, has issued 1,386 such fines in the last year alone. The variation is great even among just primary schools on my island. In one school, the parents of 176 pupils received fines over three years, while another school did not issue any fines at all. That cannot have been the Government’s intention—or, if it was, they are not explaining it well.

[Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the rules that are applied in many local authorities at the moment discriminate against those who simply cannot afford a family holiday during the school holidays? Does he also agree that quality of life, particularly in childhood, is just as important as, and can enhance, the quality of education?

[Mr Turner]

I agree with both those points and I hope that I make them myself.

It has been said that before 2013 some headteachers felt pressurised into authorising family holidays. I have been a Member of this House for 15 years and I have never had a headteacher say that to me, but it does sound as though it happens occasionally. I believe, however, that the introduction of the holiday fines by statutory instrument in 2013 was like using a cannon to try to kill a fly. The fines are inappropriate and unworkable, and have widespread damaging consequences.

--- Later in debate ---

[Marion Fellows]

I definitely agree with the hon. Lady. I find it strange that in the system in England, which is so different from the one in Scotland, authority is devolved away from local authorities and down to schools.

It is important that we listen to the almost 200,000 people who signed the petition, because this is a real-life issue for them and their families. Of course educational attainment is important, and of course there are links to attendance—as a former lecturer in a further education college, I can vouch for that—but when headteachers authorise absences for good reasons and teachers know about those reasons, they can provide homework and catch-up sessions, so students can generally catch up. I very much take on board what the hon. Member for Isle of Wight said: a two-week absence should be seen as a 14-day absence across the whole school year. If a student is attending regularly, a one or two-week holiday might not make much different to their attainment.

It is not acceptable to criminalise parents for taking holidays. Parents know what is best for their children, and in that regard I suppose I should declare an interest having, a long while ago, taken my children out of school for a family holiday. I could not have gone away later because I was pregnant with my third child and wanted him to be born in Scotland, not in Scarborough, which was where we were headed.

It is absolutely essential that we, including the Minister, take on board the fact that there is a real difficulty across the UK, not just in England, as parents do their level best to provide for their children in what are, for many, cash-strapped times. We have heard examples of how much additional money is needed to go on holiday in term time. A spokesman for the National Parent Forum of Scotland has said:

“We all know how important family time is, particularly when money is short. But we’d encourage parents to avoid taking their children out of school during term time, as it does impact on their learning.

It would be helpful if holiday companies did not increase their prices so much during school holidays.”

Perhaps the Government should look at that issue.

[Gavin Newlands]

On that point, we heard earlier about the difference in the price of holidays in and out of term time—a 60% increase, I think. When my family looked at holidays this year we found that the exact same holiday, going from the same airport, with the same room, departing three and a half hours later, was £2,400 more expensive. The prices were £3,700 and £6,100. That is a 62% increase in the space of three hours, let alone three weeks or three months. My hon. Friend is absolutely correct in what she is saying about the holiday companies.