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Education and Skills Bill

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way to me a second time. The mistake that he makes, which is made by most Conservative Members—and by most newspapers, it is true—is to conflate unauthorised absence with truancy. The two are not the same. If we were to ask any head teacher in the country whether unauthorised absence is truancy, they would say no. Much of the unauthorised absence is due, for example, to parents wanting to take their children on holiday during term-time and head teachers refusing to authorise that. I do not equate that precisely with truancy. I do not condone it—I think parents should ensure that their children attend school—but I do not think it is the same as truancy.