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

Rob Butler Excerpts

Wednesday 1st May 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Vicky Ford]

I thank my hon. and learned Friend for making such an excellent point. This might be the last time I get to thank him for all the work he has done for children during his time in this place, which will be worse off without voices like his championing children. We must make sure that we continue to have champions for children in this place. He makes a really good point about severe and persistent absences, but actually, really small absences can make a difference. The Boswells School, which I visited with the Minister, had looked at the difference between children who had attended between 95% and 100% of the time and children who had attended between 90% and 95% of the time. Those two cohorts were identical in all respects—special educational needs and disabilities, free school meals, and so on. Of the children who had attended 95% to 100% of the time, 82% got the five good GCSEs needed to progress. Of the children who had attended just a bit less—90% to 95% of the time—only 68% got those five good GCSEs plus maths and English. That really whacks their chances of going on to college, so I have written an open letter to all schools in my constituency, setting that out to parents so that they are aware that just that tiny drop in attendance can really affect their child’s life chances.

To conclude, the School Attendance (Duties of Local Authorities and Proprietors of Schools) Bill has the potential to go a long way in tackling the causes of absence from school and removing the barriers to school attendance that some children face. I hope that it will set an example that many other countries follow, and I hope that our nation’s children can rely on all right hon. and hon. Members to support the Bill today.

[Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford on bringing forward this legislation. I was very pleased to speak in support of it on Second Reading, because quite simply, children cannot learn at school if they are not in school in the first place. I do not intend to detain the Committee long, but I would like to raise two points where I would welcome comments from the Minister and where it therefore might have been unfair to intervene on my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford.

First, placing a statutory duty on local authorities for this register, as the legislation would do, may result in their incurring some additional costs. As Members from across the House will know, local authority budgets are particularly squeezed now, so we need to be extremely careful about adding further burdens. I would welcome anything that my right hon. Friend the Minister can tell us about how he will ensure that authorities such as mine, Buckinghamshire Council, will be appropriately supported to be compliant with the proposed legislation.

Secondly, I heard what my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford said about parents, but I am concerned about the pressure being felt by some smaller schools to achieve high attendance in the face of what can be extremely unco-operative and challenging parents. In my constituency, I recently visited a primary school where the senior leadership felt they had no choice but physically to go and collect children from their homes and bring them to school, because the parents were simply refusing to do so. The teachers, the head and the governors were really quite distressed about the impact that that was having on the lives of the teachers doing it, but they were doing it because they were so worried about Ofsted perhaps marking them down if they could not achieve that attendance. I have raised the matter personally with Ofsted. It was very sympathetic to the points that I was raising and it is going to talk to the school directly.

However, the point remains that although the register in this legislation will allow us to record who is absent, we need parents to fulfil their responsibilities, so I should be grateful if the Minister would update the Committee on what steps his Department is taking to encourage that degree of parental responsibility, which is essential. It is not the duty of teachers, or of Government, to supplant parents in instilling the right discipline and the right approach to school in their children.

Overall, I am very happy to support the Bill promoted by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford. Having brought a Bill through the House myself, I know what hard work it is for an individual Member—not least in making sure that people come to Committee—so I warmly congratulate her on that and I look forward to seeing the Bill clear all of the further legislative process.

[Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. I, too, congratulate the right hon. Member for Chelmsford on bringing forward this private Member’s Bill on such an important subject and on making sure that it got to Committee today. The poor attendance rates that we are seeing in schools are at a crisis point. It is something that we all agree must be addressed urgently —I would say by local authorities, schools, families and Government working together on the issue.

Clause 1 introduces a general duty on local authorities, clarifying their role in promoting regular attendance and reducing the number of absences. It is absolutely right that local authorities do all they can to promote attendance at school. I pay tribute to those already going the extra mile, whether in Newham or Northumberland. Clause 2 lays out some particulars that schools must follow in their attendance policies and provides guidance on how this should be issued and communicated to parents. These are welcome measures, and I hope they will have a positive impact on the current situation in our schools. I know we all agree that we cannot ensure that every child gets the best start in life if they are missing so much time in the classroom.