It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr McCrea. You have only just joined us; I assure you that you have missed an excellent debate. I will attempt to do some sort of justice to it, in my own modest way, but you might chose to read Members’ words for yourself later.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming) on bringing the issue for debate and on the way in which he presented it. The strength of opinion that has been articulated in the debate, the size of the petition and the testimony we have heard from hon. Members clearly show how important the matter is and how right he was.
A couple of hon. Members have reflected on the fact that the Minister is from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and I am responding as a shadow BIS Minister. The initial petition looked very much at the business aspect of the matter, but the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley was right to say that the whole aspect of the debate has changed since the initial petition first went on to the e-petition system. That was reflected in the debate, which did not dwell much on the business aspect but focused much more on educational policy. That perhaps leaves me at a slight disadvantage.
The issue is of great concern for my constituents, many of whom have taken the opportunity to raise it with me at my weekly surgeries, by e-mail and at the school gate. I did a summer survey in which I raised questions about the changes, which demonstrated powerfully to me how strongly people feel about the matter. We all know how desperately difficult it is to get that balance between the fact that we want our children to be in school at all the right times and the huge increase in the cost of holidays during the school breaks. It was therefore no surprise to me that 150,000 people across the country took action by signing the online petition and demanding that MPs discuss the issue. That is why we have had so many valuable contributions from Members on both sides of the House. I will touch on those in a moment.
A situation has been created in which many families who have not previously faced the dilemma of how to afford an annual summer holiday now find themselves financially squeezed and wondering how to do so. All of us know how important holidays together can be for a family. We are an incredibly time-poor nation, and, often, many people are stretched. We struggle to have time with our families given the huge number of pressures on us, so family holidays are incredibly important. It is tremendously difficult for people when they feel that their opportunity to go on those holidays has been removed. We all recognise how important the issue is.
The hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley was right to say that this is another demonstration of how powerful e-petitions can be. It has shown how issues that we do not immediately see as significant can have their significance powerfully demonstrated to us by our constituents. The response of people to the e-petition demonstrated the importance of this issue.
The hon. Gentleman also raised the issue of staggering holidays, something to which many hon. Members referred. That is an important part of the whole equation. Colleagues in the Department for Education have been looking at that issue and exploring how greater flexibility can be given to schools. The point was made powerfully that we do not want a parent such as myself, with one child in secondary school and one in primary school, to find that their children’s schools have holidays at different times. Perhaps we can try to stretch out the holiday season on a more systematic basis, recognising that although we are not blessed with sunshine all year round in this country, as some areas are, we could none the less stagger holidays to take a bit of pressure off.
The hon. Gentleman also referred to the fact that this issue has been debated in this place since the mid-1960s. It is interesting to question why people feel so strongly about it now. The broader pinch that people are feeling at the moment and how the holiday market has changed in recent years, as well as the recent changes to Government education policy, are perhaps some reasons why what has been to an extent a hoary old chestnut for 40-odd years is now being raised powerfully.
The hon. Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt) suggested that discretion does exist—a point repeated a moment ago—and the hon. Member for Solihull (Lorely Burt) raised the important question of what constitutes exceptional circumstances. We heard examples of circumstances that have not been considered exceptional. My hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) spoke about a child with autism whose parents might have specific reasons for not wanting to be on holiday when resorts are most crowded, and asked whether such a case would be considered exceptional.
My hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) highlighted the case of someone whose child had a brain tumour; that was not considered by the head teacher to be an exceptional circumstance. The hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) highlighted the case of someone who was exceptionally busy during school holidays because of the kind of business they ran, but their circumstances were not considered exceptional.
It is clear that there has been a change of policy. The Government have communicated that quite deliberately, and it is their right to do so. However, exercising that right has had an impact because of how the policy has been implemented. One aspect of today’s debate that I have found interesting was that no contributions have been made by any hon. Members from Scotland—unless we count Corby as representative of that nation. That is not entirely surprising, because Scottish schools have holidays at a different time of year and Scottish people probably benefit quite nicely from the fact that they all go on holiday in July, when prices are cheaper than they are for us in England. That is an interesting observation.
I will now reflect on some of the other contributions to what I think has been an excellent debate. My hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire said
something that was repeated by many colleagues: across the House we all agree about the importance of children being in school, and recognise the disadvantage there is to children when they are out of school, for whatever reason, for any sustained period. None of us is saying that we think it is good for children to miss huge amounts of their schooling. We are all always conscious of our responsibility in this place to ensure that our children have the best opportunity to be successful at school. However, we also have to recognise that there is a cost of living crisis, with families feeling the pinch, and that we need to do what we can to support them in those circumstances. My hon. Friend powerfully highlighted the reality faced by time-poor, financially stretched families at this time, and the difficult circumstances that they face.
The hon. Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) spoke about the strength of feeling and support on this matter, and he was right to do so. He also raised the issue of whether there will be a greater amount of discretion for a child who is going to a funeral than for someone who wants a holiday without educational benefits; how the policy is being applied shows that there is a difference between such cases. He also touched on one of the devilishly difficult parts of the judgment call on the matter when he called for clear guidelines but more discretion. That is what we all want to an extent, but we should recognise the central contradiction in that.
The hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) spoke up for the tourism industry, as we would expect. He spoke about the escalation in cost for popular events, referring to the London Olympics and the fact that in attempting to maximise their opportunities some people potentially priced themselves out of business and ended up falling victim to what they thought would be good times, as they had been too ambitious about what they could charge. I do not know whether he has turned his attention to the frankly extortionate cost to hon. Members of bed and breakfast accommodation in Manchester at the time of the Labour party conference. I have recently tried to make a booking and discovered that Manchester in September is far more expensive that one would expect.