UK authorities responds to very large demand to BAN ‘stealth tax’ fines for taking youngsters out of faculty
The petition was created at the end of March and has received over 35,000 signatures — it needs 100,000 to be debated in Parliament
Students carrying their bags and books(Image: Ben Birchall/PA Wire)
The UK government has addressed a petition demanding a ban on parents being fined for removing their children from school.
Tens of thousands of people supported the petition, launched on the Parliament website at the end of March, which is titled ‘Legislate to ban FPNs and prosecutions related to school attendance’. FPNs (Fixed Penalty Notices) are issued in the UK for minor offences, including road traffic violations and environmental crimes such as littering or dog fouling.
Penalties handed to parents for taking their children out of school reached a record high in the last full academic year (2024-25), according to the petition. Natalie Elliott, who launched the petition, believes this demonstrates that FPNs are “ineffective and punish families”. She argues they have become a stealth tax.
The petition states: “We feel that the attendance legislation is being abused. It was introduced to tackle persistent absenteeism when parents refused to engage with support.
“We are seeing schools marking absences which should already be marked as authorised as unauthorised,” Ms Elliott continued. “This includes absences for illness, SEND and family emergencies. The attendance drive is driving a wedge between school and home.”
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In the month since the petition was launched, it attracted more than 35,000 signatures. It required 100,000 signatures for the issue to be debated in the House of Commons. Natalie demanded a change in legislation to outlaw FPNs and prosecutions, arguing it would foster “collaboration rather than punishment”.
Last week, a Department for Education (DfE) spokesperson responded to the petition, stating that the Government has no intention of banning fixed penalty notices or prosecutions for non-attendance, reports the Manchester Evening News.
They wrote: “Both influence parental behaviour, where support has been exhausted, not engaged with or is inappropriate.”
The spokesperson maintained that 93% of penalty notices handed out in 2024-25 were for “unauthorised term-time holidays”, demonstrating that FPNs are predominantly being deployed in situations where support is not deemed suitable.
The statement continued: “Parents have a legal duty under the Education Act 1996 to ensure that their child of compulsory school age (5-16) receives a full‐time education, either by attending school or otherwise. Where a child is registered at a school, parents must ensure they attend regularly, and parents can be penalised if their child is absent from school without authorisation.
“The Government recognises that there are circumstances in which a pupil is unable to attend school for a legally recognised reason. The Education Act 1996 sets out the situations in which an absent pupil will not be taken to have failed to attend school regularly, including illness or other unavoidable circumstances, religious observance, where the school has given prior permission for absence, or where the local authority has not fulfilled any duty it has to help the child attend.”
They went on to say: “Where pupils are not attending school due to unmet needs, the Department’s guidance sets out clear expectations on how schools, local authorities and wider services work together with parents to provide the right support to improve attendance.
“For these reasons, the government does not believe that banning fixed penalty notices and prosecutions will be in the best interests of addressing school non-attendance and upholding a child’s right to a full-time education. The current system expects schools, trusts and local authorities to work with parents to provide support first and where this fails or is not appropriate, to consider the full range of legal interventions. It is for individual schools and local authorities to decide whether to use them in an individual case after considering the individual circumstances of a family.”
