Under plans implemented by the then Education Secretary Michael Gove in 2013, parents will be liable for a fine of £60 per child for term-time absences if taking their family holidays outside the set school holidays.

Holiday companies, as many people will have already experienced, routinely raise prices during school holidays, and people are often unable to get time off work due to high demand.

Evidently these fines can be doubled if it is not paid within four weeks, which will ultimately be at the discretion of headteachers, but in some areas the councils will do so automatically, and parents who defy the rules will end up with criminal records.

On March 24, a debate was held at the National Union of Teachers conference, where general secretary Christine Blower commented that “imposing fines interferes in the relationship between schools, parents and pupils”.

I wonder if the Conservative candidate who spoke to the children at Hertswood Academy recently cared to mention this. No doubt it ‘slipped his mind’.

Jim Dry

Morpeth Avenue, Borehamwood