Extract from Westminster Hall debate on Register of Children not in School - Feb 20

Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con):...That problem has absolutely been exacerbated during and since covid. The Children’s Commissioner has done work on identifying more than 100,000 so-called ghost children who are at school less often than they are absent from school, and in some cases are not at school at all. That is a really worrying phenomenon. We have only just started to see the consequences of lockdown and the closure of our schools. That was such an error, which the Government were forced into. I have to say, there was triumphalism—I remember it well, receiving the press releases from the National Education Union  which forced its members not to turn up at school. I think something like 8,000 schools had to close simply because the NEU staff did not turn up. That was the beginning of a slippery slope, supported by the Labour Opposition, of keeping our schools closed....

To read the whole debate, OPEN HERE