I beg to move,
That this House has considered the e-petition relating to holiday companies charging extra in school holidays.
I would like to start by referring to an e-mail I received a few minutes ago from a parent who hopes to take his three children to Turin next February half term, in 2015. According to his e-mail, the British Airways website gives a price of £54 for a single person on Tuesday 10 and Wednesday 11 February 2015. On the Thursday, the price goes up to £112, and on the Friday it is £344. That is for a one-way flight for a single person. My correspondent asks how on earth parents can ever afford to pay such prices. That is what this debate is about, in essence. The fact is that many parents across the country are having great difficulty in being able to afford to go on holiday with their children.
The e-petition that we are debating was initiated some time ago by Donna Thresher, although Paul Cookson has been campaigning to get signatures for it since he found that Center Parcs doubled its prices at half term. Donna has said:
“Firstly we the undersigned are grateful that our voice is to be heard. The news of the debate is welcomed by all of us as we feel this is a positive step towards an outcome that we deem extremely important to the well being of family life. For those of us that work hard, pay our bills and taxes, a family holiday is the only time off we get to spend QUALITY time with our families. The government are struggling to understand why we have ‘Benefits Britain’ and one of the reasons is simple, broken families. Parents need time off, they need to enjoy their children and have time together as a unit. With holidays being priced out to such a degree that makes them unobtainable and means families are not getting this important time together.”
The e-petition was tabled before the changes to the regulations came into force on 1 September 2013. I thank the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee, the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel), for allocating time for this debate. The comments I am about to read were written after the new regulations, which are very relevant, came into force. Donna said:
“The original petition still stands in its own right but we do feel that the change in legislation has impacted the costs even further.
However, there are things to be considered—the petition was raised almost a year ago and the legislation with regard to the change in the discretionary rights of head teachers to allow pupils time of in term time had NOT at the time been made public.”
Donna’s thoughts since the change in legislation are that
“Holiday prices have increased even further. Schools will no longer know when children are being removed for a holiday as parents may decide to not say, this could constitute a safeguarding issue and end up with social service involved! The 10 days discretionary was working, why did it have to be changed? Fines are sought by the school and yet they don’t receive the money; it goes to the council and not back into the schools themselves. Therefore this seems to me to be another stealth tax.”