School Attendance (Duties of Local Authorities and Proprietors of Schools) Bill

Nigel Evans Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 2nd February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) on introducing this Bill. Good levels of attendance at school are crucial to children’s education. It should go without saying that missing classes can cause serious consequences in later life, so it is imperative that we do all we can to get children who are regularly absent back in school. As my right hon. Friend mentioned, the Bill is a simple but crucial piece of legislation that will combat the real concern about children being away from school by placing a general duty on local authorities to promote regular attendance. It should also help to ensure that schools play their part by requiring them to have a dedicated attendance policy.

I am very pleased that the Government are already committed to confronting absence, with the Education Secretary having said:

“Tackling attendance is my number one priority.”

In 2022, the Department published detailed guidance for schools, academies, independent schools and local authorities to improve school attendance. The Bill aims to make some of those recommendations statutory, and while the move to that statutory footing is generally welcome, I know that some local authorities are a little concerned about the cost implications of moving from an advisory footing to a statutory one. If the Minister could say anything in his remarks about support for those local authorities, I am sure it would be very welcome.

It should be recognised that ensuring attendance is a team effort. I was very pleased that in 2022, the Department for Education launched a consultation seeking views on measures to improve the consistency of support to families in England on school attendance. The consultation had respondents from that very wide joint team effort —school staff, academy trusts, parents, local authorities and other relevant organisations—and those responses were largely in favour of implementing the changes that the Bill aims to introduce, with 71% agreeing with the proposal that schools should be required to have an attendance policy.

I welcome the Government’s recent announcement that over the next three years, up to £15 million will be invested to expand the attendance mentor pilot programme, which provides direct incentives to support more than 10,000 persistent and severely absent pupils. That comes alongside the announcement that there will be 18 new attendance hubs, which will see nearly 2,000 schools benefit from advice on cutting down absences. That is a list of the good things that the Department is doing to tackle this problem, and the Bill would only add to that.

Although the additional funding and the expansion of the hubs is welcome, the support that is currently available to families and pupils can vary significantly depending on the school the child attends and which local authority area they live in, so I am pleased that the Bill intends to end such variability. By requiring local authorities to provide all schools with a named point of contact to provide support with queries and advice, it will reassure schools that they are not on their own, and by mandating local authorities to use their services to remove common causes of absence in their area, it will, I hope, help to combat any socioeconomic factors that may be leading to lower attendance.

Like most right hon. and hon. Members—including, dare I say it, you, Mr Deputy Speaker—I frequently visit schools in my constituency, and I am consistently impressed by the dedication and commitment of the teachers and all the other staff. I am especially proud to have in my constituency a university technical college, which provides education that goes well beyond traditional academic subjects and focuses on developing skills that will be directly relevant in the workplace. That underlines the range of superb educational provision that exists in Aylesbury.

I wish to highlight the brilliant Ofsted report received this week by Aylesbury High School, which was judged to be outstanding in each and every category. That is a tremendous achievement and I hope that the Minister and, indeed, the entire House will join me in congratulating the headteacher and everybody at Aylesbury High School on it.

During my visits to schools, I sadly hear too often about the challenges of ensuring attendance. Of course, the individual school—whether it is a high school, a UTC, a primary school or whatever type of educational setting—needs to implement policies to tackle that attendance challenge, so I am pleased that the Bill will require all schools to implement robust day-to-day processes for recording, monitoring and following up absences. Those data will help the school and the local authority to assess the best ways to tackle short and long-term absences.

It is, though, important that we do not overburden our schools. This is particularly the case for some of the smaller schools, which tend to be those for children of a younger age. I saw this at first hand during a visit to a primary school in my constituency towards the end of last year. Despite it having absolutely excellent facilities, superb teaching staff and happy children, one challenge was prominent in the minds of the staff, and that was attendance.

Despite the school’s considerable efforts at engagement with parents, there were some who simply refused to bring their children to school. Such was the desperation of staff that sometimes they felt they had no choice but to drive in their own cars, at their own expense, and pick up pupils themselves. That cannot be right, but they did it because they were nervous, and even scared, of the implications if they did not—if they could be construed not to have done absolutely everything possible to ensure attendance.

The staff were particularly concerned that it might result in the school’s being downgraded by Ofsted. I do not think that is what the Government or anybody else intend when they say they want to secure really good attendance. We must make sure that this legislation does not increase the likelihood of that added burden and pressure on school staff, who already have plenty to keep them occupied that is rather more legitimate in achieving the best possible education for the children in their schools.

Overall, I think the Bill has the potential to go a very long way in tackling pupils’ absence from school. It will further assist the Government’s long-term commitment to improving education and help to ensure that children get the most that they possibly can out of school. Let me repeat my congratulations to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford on getting her Bill to this stage. I look forward to seeing it reach its next stages, both in this place and in the other place.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I call the shadow Minister.

--- Later in debate ---

[Vicky Ford]

With the leave of the House, let me start by thanking everybody who has spoken today, especially those from the Back Benches—my right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne) and my hon. Friends the Members for Aylesbury (Rob Butler) and for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Jo Gideon). They all care passionately for children and young people, and those who are educating them in their constituencies. They raised a number of very important points.

I would like to address the issue of mental health support teams. The various mental health charities that wrote to me, such as the Centre for Mental Health and the Centre of Children and Young People’s Mental Health Coalition, do excellent work. They recommended the introduction of a mental health absence code. I listened closely to the Minister on this issue. It may not be as simple as one would like. In their letter to me, they welcomed the laudable—that is their word—progress made in rolling out mental health support teams to many thousands of schools. I know we would like more. They do a super job, and the difference that that initiative has made is amazing.

There is an important point about not putting extra burdens on schools and local authorities, and I thank the Minister for that. I thank, again, all the staff in the Department for Education and others who have helped with this Bill. I thank His Majesty’s Opposition for saying that they will support the Bill. However, we must not talk down our children. Our children are doing exceptional things and have had very difficult times. Our children are the best readers in the western world. They have leap-frogged past so many other countries in what they achieve in reading and writing. It has been exceptional what has been achieved in the 14 years that has been a child’s journey from reception to year 13. We must be so proud of them.

It is this Government who put in place those early reading improvements through the use of phonics, which gave children that basis, and who introduced those early years extra hours and are rolling that out even further. If His Majesty’s Opposition truly cared about attendance in school, they would have supported the Bill during their Opposition day, but they did not. This Bill was the No. 1 recommendation of the Education Committee and others. The Bill means that schools and local authorities will have to follow best practice; too many do not, and this Bill will make sure that they do. I would like to say a huge “Thank you.” Let us get this Bill through.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time; to stand committed to a Public Bill Committee (Standing Order No. 63).

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Congratulations.