Holiday Pricing

Natascha Engel Excerpts

Monday 24th February 2014 Westminster Hall

[Natascha Engel (North East Derbyshire) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Turner, for calling me to speak in this important debate. I also thank my colleague on the Backbench Business Committee, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming), for securing it. When the e-petition came to us, we recognised its importance, not only because it reached 100,000 signatures, but because of the number of constituents who talked to us about the issue. His comprehensive speech—I hope I do not repeat any of it—highlighted how this is about individual cases. A big national policy that is supposed to apply to every single case will simply not work. I want to use a couple of examples from my own constituency to highlight how a more sensible policy would look at each individual case—each individual child and each individual parent—and give schools far greater discretion to allow people out of school and for how long.

We all agree that education is crucial and that the more time a child misses from its education, the worse it is for that child. Nobody is arguing for taking children out of school indiscriminately just because it is a little cheaper to go on holiday. We are talking about the people who are least able to afford to go on holiday, who have already got the greatest pressures on them.

A constituent of mine, Tim Farmer from Dronfield, has written to me. He and his partner share child care. One of them starts work at 6 am and the other finishes work at 11 am. They cannot afford to take their children on holiday during term time, and not spending time together means that the family is put under pressure. Heaped on top of that, they work absolutely punishing hours and never get the chance to spend time together as a family. That puts additional pressures on family life, and we are seeing, especially at a time of austerity, more and more families breaking up. We must look at the costs of not doing anything about it.

I have a distressing case in which the school’s response illustrates how a national policy does not really work in individual cases. The case involves a man who is separated from his wife. His seven-year-old daughter goes to a school in the constituency; he lives 120 miles away and visits on alternate weekends. The girl has just been diagnosed with a brain tumour, and they do not know what will happen to the child. He has asked the school whether he can take the girl on holiday for a week. The school has cited Government legislation to say there will be no unauthorised absences. It sounds quite threatening, but the school has no option, because of the rules. The school wrote:

“As from 1st September 2013 any holidays during term time will not be authorised, unless there are exceptional circumstances, for which there are set strict criteria. This is Government policy and parents who take their children on holiday without permission will incur unauthorised absences for their child. These remain on the child’s record and will be monitored for further action by the Education Welfare Service. Parents could be issued with a fixed penalty notice and/or court action.”

That is quite threatening language, but it is national policy. If a child with a brain tumour does not fall under the category of a special case, I do not know what does.

Tim Farmer’s children have got 99% to 100% attendance at school. He wants the best for them, but he also says that going on holiday with the family provides a cultural experience, a broadening of horizon and a stability for the children that helps them. Education is much wider than what people get at school.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey]

Has a teacher or head teacher approached the hon. Lady on this topic, and, in this particular case, has she had a chance to speak to the teacher at the school, because head teachers do have discretion?

[Natascha Engel]

Absolutely, and the case is ongoing. I was citing it as an example of using a massive hammer to crack a nut. Everything is with good intentions. We all want the best education for our children. We all know that the less time a child spends at school, the worse its outcomes will be, and there are lots of different reasons for that. There are children from chaotic families and children who truant, but we are talking about looking at an individual child and the family’s circumstances and seeing whether it would be possible, not to have a week a year taken out of school time, but to have a week occasionally to make sure that that family can spend some quality time together. I am so glad that we are having this debate, and I am looking forward to hearing about other individual cases from constituencies, because they will highlight the fact that we do need to revisit the matter.

Obviously, we cannot force holiday companies not to raise their prices during school holiday times, but we do need to have a far more sensible and pragmatic approach. We need to give schools greater discretion to allow families to have holidays together.

[Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)]

I agree with many of the points the hon. Lady is making, but I have a concern about putting the onus on to head teachers without very good guidelines. Head teachers would find it difficult with parent against parent, and there would be inconsistencies across areas and across the country, so I think we need to dig into the criteria and guidelines that are issued.

[Natascha Engel]

That is an excellent point. I know the hon. Lady has a background in education, and she is absolutely right. All I am asking for is that we allow greater discretion. At the moment, there is not enough discretion, and that is why the issues are being raised with us as constituency MPs.

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

I think I agree with my hon. Friend, but does she agree with me that the problem is that there are at least three variables? There are those—including teachers—who, by virtue of their employment, would never have the opportunities that others are seeking. There are those—she gave some good examples—whose own employment makes it difficult for them to find space. And of no less importance is the requirement for schools to provide the entire curriculum to all the children, and co-ordinating that would be a problem. The idea of more discretion is good, but it needs to be underpinned by some basic principles about how all the different groups can be catered for.

[Mr Howarth]

Sorry.

[Natascha Engel]

I absolutely agree. Our problem at the moment is that we have one national policy that is supposed to apply to everybody, and it is not working in the case of teachers, police officers, and the armed forces. There are lots of individual professions that will have problems. However, the head teachers that I have met know the parents and their children. We do not want a situation in which it becomes too easy to take children out of school—there would be abuses of that—but in the case of families with the lowest incomes and the greatest pressures on family life, where a lot of the families are breaking up, that is far worse for a child than simply missing a couple of days of its education because it has gone on holiday. We need to look at that a lot more carefully. I agree with the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole that we need to look at the guidelines more carefully. We must not impose so harshly on schools and use such a threatening tone with parents. For people on a low income, the inability to ever go on holiday would be a great shame.