Parents of unruly children banned from school could be forced to stay home to keep them off the streets under moves suggested by Prime Minister Tony Blair.

And teenagers could be given "community service" punishments for behaving badly in school, he said.

The suggestions came in a letter to the chairman of the government's new school discipline task-force. Mr Blair suggests both pupils and their parents must see suspension from school as "a serious punishment".

The Prime Minister is determined to make sure parents play their part in stamping out their children's bad behaviour and asked the task-force chairman to investigate how parents can be made to take responsibility for their children's actions.

And Education Secretary Ruth Kelly has defended the PM’s ideas, saying on Breakfast-time TV: "Everyone knows parents are responsible for their children's behaviour out of school. What we've now got to do is restore the link between parents and their children's behaviour in school."

"And one way we might do that, for example, is thinking about how parents can become more responsible for looking after their children once those children are excluded and suspended for a few days."

Ms Kelly said most listeners and viewers understood that, where a child is suspended from school, "… they don't regard it as some sort of unofficial holiday where they can go down to the shopping centre and create havoc."