HC Deb 28 January 1976 vol 904 cc438-40

4.2 p.m.

Dr. Edmund Marshall (Goole)

I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the Education Act 1944 in respect of the definition of "parent" for a married person of compulsory school age. It was in September 1972 that the school leaving age was raised to 16 years. Since then it has been a legal requirement that all schoolchildren remained at school for up to two terms following their 16th birthdays.

Let me say at once that I fully supported and continue fully to support the raising of the school leaving age to 16 and that nothing relating to the Bill that I now seek to introduce should be interpreted in any way as an attempt to relax that very important and valuable measure to extend educational opportunity for all children.

However, the raising of the school leaving age to 16 has produced one anomaly which my Bill is intended to remedy. It arises because the lower age limit in England and Wales for a person to be lawfully married is also 16 years. The result is that, since 1972, it has been possible for married persons to be of compulsory school age. For instance, a person whose 16th birthday is on 1st September and who is married on that day or very shortly afterwards is legally required to continue attending school until the following Easter. In those circumstances, there must be a very great temptation for married schoolchildren to cease to attend school, especially if they have moved home to a new area and also if they are girls with household duties.

I do not in the slightest condone such truancy, but I can appreciate how it can easily occur. If a 16-year old married schoolchild is absent from school in this way, the law at present requires a prosecution to be brought under Section 36 of the Education Act 1944 by the local education authority against the parent of the schoolchild. Section 114 of the same Act interprets the meaning of "parent" as including a legal guardian as well as a natural parent but not including a husband or wife.

In a case which arose in my constituency in 1974, a girl aged 16 years had married a young man who was over the age of 18 and had gone to live with him some 15 miles away from her previous home, her previous home having been with her widowed mother. The local education authority was obliged by the current state of the law to take the widow to court. But in no way was it able to take action against the girl's husband.

I submit that the law is out of touch with reality in such circumstances, and the main purpose of my Bill is to transfer the legal responsibility for securing school attendance in the case where a married schoolchild has a spouse who is over 18 years of age from the parent to that spouse.

It is true that there would remain an anomalous situation in cases where both partners to a marriage were less than 18 years of age with one or both of them being of compulsory school age. In circumstances such as that, I cannot at this stage see any alternative to the present assignment of the legal responsibility for securing school attendance to the parent of the child concerned.

There may be other implications of the Bill relating to the assessment of parental financial income with respect to the provision of free school meals, free milk or clothing for married schoolchildren. If a schoolchild is married with a spouse who is over the age of 18, again it appears to me that it would be realistic to treat the spouse as having taken the place of the parent with regard to any assessment of financial income. I am still considering the legal aspects of that implication of the Bill, but in principle I should welcome the transfer to a spouse over the age of 18 years of all these aspects of the parent's role in relation to a schoolchild's education.

To sum up, it seems to me that the present law concerning the definition of "parent" in respect of a married person of compulsory school age is contrary to common sense, and I seek the leave of the House to attempt to rectify the position.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill ordered to be brought in by Dr. Edmund Marshall, Mr. Martin Flannery, Mr. Bruce George, Mr. Peter Hardy, Mr. John Horam, Mr. James Lamond, Mr. Evan Luard, Mr. Jim Marshall, Mr. Arnold Shaw, Mr. James Tinn, Mr. Michael Ward and Mr. Alec Woodall.