This week is the last week Parliament sits before Summer
Recess. I am certainly looking forward to a few weeks at home in Cornwall and
being able to spend time in the constituency. I plan to be out and about as
much as possible, visiting businesses, attending events and meeting local
people.
Before then though, it promises to be an interesting week.
As I write this we are awaiting the announcement of the new Prime Minister. As
I have said previously, I am backing Boris Johnson, but we will know what the
result of the vote is very soon. I will write more on the outcome of this next
week.
In common with Parliament breaking up for Recess, this week
also sees most of the schools in Cornwall also ending their summer terms and
going on a well-earned holiday.
The end of term and approaching summer holidays once again
highlighted to me the issue of the policy of fining parents for unauthorised
absences for holidays taken during term time.
This is a policy I have long campaigned against, since
before I was an MP.
The changes to school attendance rules have seen parents being
told they should not take their children out of school during term time and
risk being fined if they do. This has led to families not going on holiday
during the traditional ‘shoulder months’ of the tourist industry and being
effectively priced out of going on holiday during the summer months. This has also
affected the revenue of many tourist related businesses in Cornwall, as well as
stopping many Cornish parents who work in the tourist industry and other
sectors like some of our local public services, who cannot take holiday during
the peak season, from having a family holiday.
As well as continually raising this issue in Parliament and
calling for the Government to scrap this policy, I have also been keeping a
close eye locally on how Cornwall Council enforces it.
I was concerned earlier this month to see that, following
Freedom of Information requests made, that Cornwall issued 685 fines to date
for 2018/19 compared to 377 for the 2017/18 year. These are huge increases from
the figures for 2015/16, when 5 fines were issued, and 2016/17 when just 4 were
issued.
I am very concerned about these figures and the undoubted
impact they will have on hard-working parents, whose only option is often to
take their children away during term time due to the seasonal nature of working
in Cornwall.
It is disappointing, given the challenges of our often
seasonal and tourist-based economy in Cornwall, that these fines continue to
rise, and also it clearly shows that they are simply not working as a
deterrent.
There is also the issue about how these attendance targets
are impacting on the mental health of our children. Last week in Parliament on
a debate on children and mental health services, I raised how worried I am about
the impact of refusing authorised absence on pupils’ mental health.
Parents in Mid-Cornwall have told me they are struggling to
get the school to support them as a family when they needed to take pupils out
of school because of mental health issues. Pressure on families is being driven
by a heavy-handed approach from Ofsted in meeting attendance targets and
putting unrealistic expectations on our teachers who do an excellent job but
are being forced into unnecessary conflict with families because of this
policy.
I will continue to highlight this issue, which is one
relevant to Cornwall all year round, and campaign for change to take place in
the future.
