School Attendance (Duties of Local Authorities and Proprietors of Schools) Bill

Commons bill Private Members' Bill (Presentation) 2024-25

A Private Members' Bill placed before the House without a speech. Usually a procedural way of registering a policy position. Most do not progress.

Sponsor

Vicky Ford

Introduced

11 December 2023

Last activity

20 May 2024

Parliament

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About this bill

A Bill to make provision requiring local authorities to exercise their functions with a view to improving and promoting regular attendance by registered pupils at schools in their area; and to make provision requiring school proprietors to have an attendance policy to promote regular attendance.

Parliamentary stages

Stages shown in blue link to the debate transcript. Not sure what these stages mean? How Parliament makes laws →

Commons

● First reading 11 Dec 2023

○ Second reading 2 Feb 2024

○ Committee stage 1 May 2024

○ Third reading 17 May 2024

Lords

○ First reading 20 May 2024

Final stages

Not yet reached

Some stage debates occurred before our Hansard archive begins (May 2025). Links marked ↗ go to Parliament's own Hansard for that date.

Parliamentary information from bills.parliament.uk ↗, licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0. Explanatory Notes extracts are verbatim from Parliament's published documents.

What this bill is about

From the Explanatory Notes (May 2024):

1 The Bill contains two main clauses: The first will introduce a new general duty on local authorities to exercise their functions with a view to promoting regular attendance and reducing absence in their areas. The second will require schools of all types to have and publicise a school attendance policy. Both clauses will require all schools and local authorities to have regard to guidance issued by the Secretary of State. 2 This would be achieved by inserting two sections into the Education Act 1996 under Chapter 2 of Part 6 on school attendance.

Read the full Explanatory Notes ↗