Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many pupils are home schooled; and how many were so schooled in (a) 2005 and (b) 2010.

Data for the numbers of children educated at home in England are not collected by the Department for Education. Some local authorities maintain voluntary registers of children educated at home but as they have no statutory basis, they cannot be regarded as an authoritative source of data.