Calls for government to cap summer holiday prices after dad Jon Platt loses £12,000 landmark Supreme Court case after taking his daughter, 7, on a term-time holiday to Disney World
TRAVEL firms must stop hiking up prices for breaks during school holidays after a court ruled against a father who refused to pay a fine for going away during term-time, critics have argued.
Calls have gone out for the government to intervene and force a cap on the price of a summer break - which can be several hundreds of pounds more during months when children are on school holidays.
Tory MP Steve Double said: "I believe it should be up to parents to decide when to take their children on holiday in conjunction with the school.
"This policy is unfair to those who work in the tourist industry and therefore unable to take a holiday during the peak season, as well as many hard working families who are unable to afford the very high costs during the school holidays."
His thoughts were echoed by politicians from both Labour and the Lib Dems, who slammed the ruling as one that would hit "hardworking families"
John Pugh, Lib Dem education spokesman, said: "Travel companies are holding law-abiding parents to ransom.
"They should be forced to cap the cost of trips in school holidays so they are not so completely out of step with holidays a week earlier or later.
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"Travel companies should not be able to profiteer off the back of hardworking parents."
The politicians were speaking as a dad lost a landmark legal battle after he refused to pay a £60 fine for taking his seven-year-old daughter to Disney World in term-time faces.
Jon Platt, 46, said the Supreme Court verdict siding with education chiefs will "criminalise millions of parents" who want to take breaks outside the school holidays.
The two-year legal battle is said to have cost Businessman Mr Platt around £12,000, raised from savings, crowdfunding and legal aid.
He said he was "not at all surprised" he lost, adding: "I can tell you I have absolutely no intention of pleading guilty to this offence when it goes back to the magistrates court."
He said outside the London court: "The issue is no longer if it ever was about term-time holidays, it is about the State taking the rights of parents away when it comes to making decisions about their children.
"To parents all over England I say this: the legal battle is now over. There is no right of appeal beyond this place.
"It will be a generation or more before this court revisits this decision if ever it does.
"You can no longer make a decision to take your child out of school even for one morning without the permission of the state."
Later he said on This Morning: "I thought the magistrates got it right first time round, I thought the High Court got it right.
"I think the Supreme Court is wrong, but I respect their decision.
"Now it goes back to the magistrates. I don't expect to be found guilty, but if they find me guilty of course I'll pay the fine."
He added the two years of emotional strain on his family were "not worth it" saying he never chose to fight a "campaign" and education chiefs "for some reason wanted to make an example of me" after he refused to pay the original £60 fine.
And he said he would move his daughter to private school unless her headteacher could guarantee he would not be fined again in future.
Ruling against him, Lady Hale, deputy president of the UK's highest court, said: "Unauthorised absences have a disruptive effect; not only on the individual child but also on the work of other pupils.
"If one pupil can be taken out whenever it suits the parent, so can others."
She added if some parents break the rules it is "a slap in the face to those obedient parents who do keep to the rules, whatevere the cost or inconvenience to themselves."
The case was billed as deciding once and for all if parents across the country can take their kids out of class without headteachers' permission.
Isle of Wight Council brought the challenge in a high-profile case involving businessman Mr Platt, who took his seven-year-old daughter on a seven-day family trip to Disney World in Florida in April 2015.
He says he did not choose the date to save money but had a problem because his other kids go to a different school with different holidays.
The council prosecuted Mr Platt after he refused to pay a £60 penalty.
But local magistrates found there was no case to answer and threw the case out, so the local authority appealed to the High Court in London.
Two senior judges upheld the magistrates' decision and declared that Mr Platt was not acting unlawfully because his daughter had a good overall attendance record of over 92 per cent.
They said the magistrates were entitled to take into account the "wider picture" of the child's attendance record outside of the dates she was absent on the holiday.
The decision caused a surge in term-time bookings all over England as councils were left unsure if they should apply strict rules introduced in a truancy crackdown in 2013.
It means school heads can only give permission for absences in "exceptional circumstances", and parents who flout the rules face fines or even jail.
Families complain that trips in official holiday periods are up to four times more expensive, and local councils have reported that the number of breaks in term time is increasing.
The Department for Education has told parents that their children missing just a few days in the classroom can damage GCSE results.
In an action being closely watched by schools and parents all over the country, the Isle of Wight authority has asked the Supreme Court justices to overturn the High Court decision, saying it raises important issues over what constitutes ''regular attendance'' at school.
'The consequences of this ruling are shocking'
Here is part of Jon Platt's statement outside the Supreme Court:
"As you all just heard the Supreme Court has just reversed decades of judicial precedent.
"They didn't just say that the High Court judge who heard my case, Lord Jones, misinterpreted the law, they have concluded that the earlier High Court decision from 2006 and one from 1969 were also wrong in their interpretation of the law and they should no longer be followed.
"Be in no doubt, despite the judgment, I followed the law precisely as laid down and interpreted by High Court judges in two different cases from '69 and 2006.
"They told me that to attend regularly was to attend very frequently, so I decided not to pay a £60 penalty notice, because my daughter had otherwise perfect attendance at school.
"The decision of those High Court judges from 1969 and 2006 informed that decision but here I stand outside the Supreme Court, having been told I was wrong to rely on the decisions of those High Court judges to guide me on the law.
"With this judgment, those precedents have been swept away and the consequences can only be described as shocking.
"To attend regularly no longer means to attend frequently, it now means to attend on all the days and at all the times that the school requires it.
"Every unauthorised absence, including being a minute late to school, is now a criminal offence.
"If you share custody of your child - as I do - with a former partner, and they are late to school on a day you don't have them, you have committed a criminal offence under this judgment.
"If you decide to keep your child off school for a day because they've woken up in the morning, tomorrow morning they wake up they look tired and you decide to keep them off because you're their parent, you can no longer do that, because if the head teacher second guesses you and marks it as unauthorised, you've committed a criminal offence.
"The issue is no longer if it ever was about term-time holidays, it is about the State taking the rights of parents away when it comes to making decisions about their children.
"Many of you might have thought given in 2015 when I took my family on this now infamous term-time holiday, as I was at that time following the law as laid down by several High Court judges, that it would be grossly unfair to retrospectively criminalise me.
"That was very nearly not the case.
"What some of you in the press who've had the briefing this morning didn't know, was that the first draft of this judgment goes back to the magistrates' court with a direction to convict.
"They weren't even prepared to give me a trial.
"There has been no trial in this case, this case stopped at half-time because the magistrate said I had no case to answer.
"But the Supreme Court were prepared to send this back with a direction to convict, until my barristers pointed out that they couldn't do that.
"This case now has to go back to the Isle of Wight magistrates and start all over again.
"I can tell you I have absolutely no intention of pleading guilty to this offence when it goes back to the magistrates' court."
At an earlier hearing in January, the local authority, backed by the Education Secretary, argued that a child's unauthorised absence from school "for even a single day, or even half a day" can amount to a criminal offence.
James Eadie QC, for the Education Secretary, argued it would be "absurd" if parents could go on holiday with children when "the sun is out and foreign climes beckon" in a way that "undermined" Government policy on unauthorised absences.
But a QC for Mr Platt described that as a new and radical interpretation of the law which was absurd and would "criminalise parents on an unprecedented scale".
Speaking ahead of the judgment, Mr Platt said that if the Supreme Court ruled in favour of the argument put forward by education bosses, it "means that regularly attending school means attending every day, whenever the school demands it, 100 per cent attendance".
He said: "That will criminalise six to seven million parents. Being one minute late will be a criminal offence."
"It's absurd to criminalise parents for children being late to school."
Ministers and council bosses welcomed today's ruling.
The Department for Education said: "No child should not be taken out of school without good reason.
"As before, headteachers have the ability to decide when exceptional circumstances allow for a child to be absent but today’s ruling removes the uncertainty for schools and local authorities that was created by the previous judgment."
But Kevin Courtney, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said: "Parents generally do all they can to keep children in school and teachers want them to do that.
"However there will be occasions when families will have a planned holiday in term time - this can be for a many reasons such as family commitments or parents unable to take leave in the school holidays.
"Fining parents is entirely the wrong route to be going down.
"Many parents will be able to afford the fine and it will not be a deterrent."
Today figures revealed almost 20,000 parents were prosecuted for taking children out of school in 2015, a rise of 61 per cent on 2011.
Last year another couple had their £240 fine overturned after they said a trip to Spain was educational.
Another family refused to pay fines issued after they went to a wedding.
Some councils are said to have relaxed term-time holiday fines pending the outcome of the Supreme Court case.
— NEARLY 150,000 families were fined for taking kids out of school without permission in the last school year, figures show.
Penalties dished out by councils added up to at least £8.8million, according to The Independent.