Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many (a) fines for school attendance orders were issued by courts in England, and of that number how many were unpaid and (b) prison sentences there were for non-payment of school attendance orders, and of those numbers how many were for Gypsy and Traveller children in the last year for which figures are available.

There were 122 fines imposed in the Magistrates’ Courts for failure to comply with the requirements of a school attendance order during the financial year 2016-17, and 129 in the latest 12 month period for which data is available (July 2016 – June 2017). It is not possible to identify how many of these relate to Gypsy and Traveller children as HMCTS do not record this information.

Information on the number of unpaid fines and the number of prison sentences for non-payment of school attendance orders could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.