Lord Storey (LD)

Truth be known, I struggle with the whole issue of attendance orders. Of course we want as many of our children as possible to be regular attenders at school or an education setting. When they are not at school, they are not learning—apparently. However, there are all sorts of reasons—I have two relevant amendments, I think in this group, which highlight particular groups of children—for this. The issue of bullying in schools has been raised. That can have a huge effect on children, making them literally petrified to go to school. It becomes a vicious circle then, with the local authority taking action and issuing attendance orders. There are also children with special educational needs. I had a pupil who had an absolute phobia of school attendance—I almost could not believe it. His mother, a hospital nurse, had to drag him to school every day. The whole thing was a constant battle. We have to think very carefully about this. There are certain groups of people for whom waving the stick of an attendance order is not the right approach. We have to look at other ways of increasing school attendance, and we have to be mindful of the situation they are in. I always believed that parents who took their children on holiday during school time were wrong to do so. However, I reflected that the quality time they may have with their parents—often, perhaps more importantly, their dad—was hugely beneficial for them as a family, and that they learned so much as well. I hope we think this through very carefully before we enact it on Report.