Lord Wei (Con)

My Lords, I rise in support of Amendment 499, tabled by my noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond, which would require the Secretary of State to issue a statutory attendance code of practice. I believe this is a modest proposal, yet one that could transform how attendance is enforced and supported across England. First, I thank my noble friend Lord Lucas for stepping in for me last week, when I was unable to be here due to a family wedding. My own attendance record that day did not pass without comment. In fact, when the Whips discovered that the wedding was taking place on the Tuesday, business seemed to be swiftly and suspiciously rescheduled from Monday to Tuesday. In any case, I was unable to attend, but I am grateful none the less both to colleagues and to the staff of the House for their patience with me. My amendments have been submitted in large numbers, and some were received with humour, others less so, but they all make in their different ways the same point. At their heart lies concern about the overreach of this Bill and the heavy burden it will place on families and already overstretched local authority staff and systems. Talking about attendance, practice across the country is wildly inconsistent, at present. One parent reported that, in their local authority, they have a 75% chance of being issued with a notice to satisfy, and a 35% chance of receiving a school attendance order. That authority issued 270 notices in a single year to just 320 home-educated children. In other areas, parents face nothing like this. This does not seem like safeguarding to me; it is a postcode lottery, and it is indefensible. The current approach, regrettably, often defaults to enforcement and sanctions, rather than genuinely seeking to understand and address the underlying reason for unattendance. Over the summer, it was reported that Hampshire County Council had netted £1.6 million in revenue by fining families over the past three years. Government data shows that almost half a million penalty notices were issued last year, an increase of 22% from the previous year. This can exacerbate distress, erode trust between families and schools and, ultimately, fail to secure a child’s right to education.