Legislate to ban FPNs and prosecutions related to school attendance
138,457 people signed this petition to the UK Parliament after it opened on 24 March 2026; it closed on 24 September 2026. The Government responded on 21 April 2026.
The petition
The petition's creator is not named in the Petitions site's published record. Quoted in full from the UK Parliament petitions site.
Legislate to ban FPNs and prosecutions related to school attendance
We believe school fines & prosecutions do not help to improve school attendance. They are a blunt, ineffective tool & they do not tackle the root cause of attendance difficulties. I'm proposing the law is changed to ban FPNs & prosecutions. This will encourage collaboration rather than punishment.
FPNs were at a record high in the last full academic year (2024-25) which we believe evidences that they are ineffective and punish families and have become a stealth tax. 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. This includes absences for illness, SEND & family emergencies. The attendance drive is driving a wedge between school and home.
The Government's response
The Government published its response on 21 April 2026; the petitions site lists the Department for Education as responsible. Its summary:
Government has no plans to ban fixed penalty notices or prosecutions for non-attendance. Both influence parental behaviour, where support has been exhausted, not engaged with or is inappropriate.
The opening 360 words of the 623-word response:
The Government has no plans to ban fixed penalty notices (FPNs) or prosecutions for non-attendance. Both measures are important in influencing parental behaviour in cases where support has been exhausted, not engaged with or is not appropriate, such as in the case of term-time holidays.
Attendance data for unauthorised absence in the 2024-25 academic year showed our approach is having a positive impact, as the proportion of absence due to unauthorised holiday fell from 0.53% in 2023/24 to 0.48% in 2024/25 and the overall rate of absence fell by 0.37 percentage points.
93% of penalty notices issued in 2024-25 were for unauthorised term-time holidays, which shows that FPNs are being used primarily in circumstances where support is not appropriate, as intended by the national framework introduced in August 2024.
The Department’s Working Together to Improve School Attendance guidance is clear that legal intervention tools such as FPNs and prosecutions, should be used only as a last resort. Schools are expected to pursue a ‘support first’ approach to tackle underlying causes of non-attendance. The guidance emphasises the importance of schools and local authorities working together with children and their parents to address barriers to attendance and to build strong, trusting relationships. Legal interventions such as fixed penalty notices and prosecutions should be considered only where this support has not been effective or is not appropriate.
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. 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.
Read the full response on the petitions site.
Where the signatures came from
Signatures came from 650 constituencies. Measured against each constituency's electorate at the 2024 general election, the most came from Hartlepool, with 9.3 signatures per 1,000 electors (667 in all).
138,326 of the signatures were from the UK and 131 from elsewhere, by the location signers gave.
| Constituency | Signatures | Electorate, July 2024 | Per 1,000 electors |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hartlepool | 667 | 71,437 | 9.3 |
| Barnsley South | 651 | 75,853 | 8.6 |
| Normanton and Hemsworth | 651 | 75,645 | 8.6 |
| Barnsley North | 561 | 78,274 | 7.2 |
| Pontefract, Castleford and Knottingley | 504 | 74,618 | 6.8 |
| St Austell and Newquay | 514 | 76,076 | 6.8 |
| Portsmouth North | 469 | 70,446 | 6.7 |
| Cannock Chase | 503 | 76,974 | 6.5 |
| Doncaster North | 440 | 69,759 | 6.3 |
| Dudley | 437 | 70,151 | 6.2 |
| Region | Signatures |
|---|---|
| South East | 21,590 |
| North West | 19,519 |
| East of England | 16,276 |
| Yorkshire and The Humber | 15,981 |
| South West | 15,378 |
| West Midlands | 14,335 |
| East Midlands | 12,820 |
| North East | 8,348 |
| London | 7,622 |
| Wales | 4,163 |
| Scotland | 994 |
| Northern Ireland | 299 |
Source and receipt
- https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/761127.jsonUK Parliament Petitions API · read 2026-10-15 · SHA-256
ffef208a4e660776… - The petition on petition.parliament.uk
The petition's words are its creator's and the response is the Government's; this site quotes both and gives no view on either. Signature counts can still change while a petition is open. To report an error, send a correction request.