Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how many cases local authorities have brought against parents whose child has been deemed not to be in receipt of a suitable full-time education through home-schooling in each of the last five years.

The information requested is not held centrally and cannot be derived from current data sources. The department also does not currently collect data on numbers of home educated children.

Parents are not required to register if they are home educating their children. Therefore, there is not a robust basis on which the department can reliably collect statistics on home education.

Local authorities are under a duty to take action if it appears to them that the home education provided to a child is unsuitable. The department issued revised and strengthened guidance to local authorities in April 2019, setting out how they can exercise their powers in this regard.