A number of parents in the constituency choose to educate their children outside of school, and dedicate hours of their time to home education.
These parents are committed to ensuring the highest standards of education. They make sacrifices, forgo income, put careers on hold and battle bureaucracy in order to give their children extra care and attention.
I was therefore concerned by the publication of a Government commissioned Report (the Badman Report) which proposed to tackle the issue of the ‘safeguarding' of such home educated children in a ‘clunky', intrusive, bureaucratic and highly insensitive way. As part of pursuing this issue I went to see a home educating family at their home.
In addition to raising the issue directly with the Secretary of State I was one of 128 MPs who on 8 December formally presented petitions to the House of Commons on behalf of home educators in their constituencies.
