Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of the reasons cited by parents for absences that subsequently resulted in Fixed Penalty Notices.

In the 2024/2025 academic year, 93% of penalty notices were issued for unauthorised family holidays. This is an increase of 4% compared to the previous year.

A further 0.3% were issued for lateness and the remaining 7% for other unauthorised circumstances.

This distribution is in line with the government‘s requirement that penalty notices should only be issued for unauthorised absences and only where support has been ineffective, not engaged with or would be inappropriate. Penalty notices must be considered on an individual basis and schools must not have blanket rules. All schools have the discretion to grant leave of absence in exceptional circumstances, allowing the leave to be authorised and not fined.