Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate he has made of the number of school days missed by girls as a result of period poverty.

We have sought to establish whether there has been any rigorous national assessment of the prevalence of period poverty or its impact on attendance, however none appears to be available.

We have produced additional analysis of our absence statistics to look for evidence of period poverty. Our analysis, published in March 2018, shows that while absence rates amongst girls do increase after a certain age, there is no evidence to suggest that this is related to pupils being disadvantaged. This suggests period poverty does not have a significant, nation-wide impact on attendance. We do want to find out more which is why we have placed questions on these issues in the department’s 2018 surveys for pupils and senior school leaders.

We have made it a priority to reduce overall pupil absence and there has been some notable success in this area, with overall yearly absence rates decreasing from 6.5% of possible sessions missed in 2006/07 to 4.7% in 2016/17.