Debates in Parliament broadly fall into three categories.
Firstly there are those led by the Government setting legislation and changes to the law which are felt across the country. Secondly there are those led by the Opposition and other smaller parties, which tend to focus on their specific current campaign themes.
The third category and increasingly the most important one are debates on topics chosen and set by backbench MPs. These are secured by MPs who pitch their chosen topic of debate to the Backbench Business Committee, the closest we have to our very own Dragon’s Den. You need to demonstrate that the issue is topical and would create sufficient interest to secure enough speakers to justify the time allocated. The most effective ways to demonstrate this is to either pitch with a group of cross-party MPs or to put your name to a popular E-petition, with those that have attracted over 100,000 signatures offered up for MPs to carry forward in Parliament.
This week, one such successful debate secured was on the significantly higher cost of holidays for parents during the school holidays. This was supported by an E-petition of over 200,000 people.
I was fortunate enough to be able to speak in a packed debate, covering the two clear options to tackling peak price hikes.
Firstly, we could allow Schools greater discretion in allowing parents to take their children out of school during term time. I have been contacted by many parents who understandably support this, allowing them to take considerably cheaper holidays. However how do you make sure the children don’t miss out on vital school work, returning from holiday to then struggle to catch up? Also many schools have expressed concerns that they don’t wish to have to act as judge and jury as to whether it would be appropriate for each individual child to miss school.
Secondly, we could look to spread the peak periods. Currently most schools will have their summer holidays at roughly the same time, concentrating peak demand on a six week window. In countries like Germany, they have the start and ending dates differently in each region, spreading out demand, so not all children are off at the same time.
The Government liked this idea, though felt individual schools should simply choose to set their own term dates. A positive step, but could create the problem if you have children in both a local Primary and Secondary school with different terms dates.
So I will keep pushing the Government to take a lead and co-ordinate this flexibility by region. It will help parents, schools and the tourism industry where demand outstrips supply in the current six week window – a clear triple win.
