§ Mr. McQuarrieasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he has any plans to seek to make parents responsible for their children's behaviour at school such as a system of fines; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. Allan StewartI believe that the regulations governing exclusion from school are adequate to ensure490W the early involvement of parents when problems arise over their children's behaviour at school. Moreover, there is provision in existing legislation for the prosecution of a parent whose child fails to attend school regularly without reasonable excuse, notwithstanding that the child may have been required to discontinue his attendance at school for disciplinary reasons. I do not consider that it would be possible to make it an offence for a parent to fail to ensure that his child complies with school rules, since to define the offence adequately one would have to impose an undesirable uniformity on the disciplinary policies of individual schools.