Term Time Holidays

A High Court ruling, which backs a parent who refused to pay a fine for taking his child on holiday in term, will cause “huge confusion”, MP has s

16:25 17 May 2016

A High Court ruling, which backs a parent who refused to pay a fine for taking his child on holiday in term, will cause “huge confusion”, an MP has said.

 

Jon Platt, who took his daughter on holiday in term-time, won his case after the High Court concluded he had no case to answer to because his daughter attended school regularly overall. However, education select committee chairman Neil Carmichael said that Friday’s ruling will leave parents “wondering what to do”.  

He said: "I certainly think we need a period of reflection on this matter because this ruling causes a huge amount of confusion.

 

"Instead of confusion we need clarity - clarity for parents and clarity for the schools, because people will be wondering what to do next given the scale of the change."

 

Under tough government regulations, pupils are granted up to 10-day leave of absence during term time only in “special circumstances.”

 

However, Mr Carmichael said that the problem lies as what counts as “special circumstances.”

"You'd have to be very careful about defining what you think is a special circumstance," he said.

"The government will have to think very carefully about this because what we don't want is the special circumstance happens to be 'There's a cheap holiday and we'd like to go'."

 

The government has said it will now consider making alterations to the law.