Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many parents have been fined as a result of the truancy of their children in each of the last two years.

Penalty notices are issued to parents by schools, local authorities or the police for failing to ensure that if their child is of compulsory school age, they regularly attend the state-funded school where they are registered or at the place where alternative provision is provided for them.

The statistical publication 'Parental Responsibility Measures in England: 2017 to 2018' includes the numbers of penalty notices issued in England in table 1. The release is available here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/parental-responsibility-measures-2017-to-2018.

The data shows the number of penalty notices issued to parents; if a parent has received more than one penalty notice then each penalty notice would be counted. The number of parents who have received a penalty notice is not available.

Collected information contains reasons for why penalty notices are issued and is broken down by 'unauthorised family holiday absence', 'arriving late' and 'absence due to other unauthorised circumstances'. Data is not collected specifically on the number issued due to truancy.