School Transport Bill

House of Commons, 16 December 2004.

Stephen Twigg (Labour, Enfield, Southgate)

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

I shall be brief, to allow other Members to participate in the debate. The Bill will give a small number of local authorities additional flexibilities to tackle issues surrounding what is commonly known as the school run. Twice as many children are driven to school now in comparison with 20 years ago—about 40 per cent. of primary pupils and 20 per cent. of secondary pupils. Most of those journeys cover a distance of less than two miles. In reality, the school run means falling numbers of children walking or cycling to school, with serious health implications in terms of the lack of daily exercise and the growing proportion of children who are overweight. It also means congestion in our communities and increased levels of pollution around our schools.

Of course, much can be done, and is being done, that does not require legislation. The right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young) has reminded the House of the part that he played, as Secretary of State for Transport in the 1990s, in the introduction of safe routes to school. It is now more than a year since the Government published the travelling to school action plan, setting out a series of measures to encourage more walking, cycling and bus use. The Bill is an important part of that wider picture.

We have had useful debates on the Bill in Committee and today on Report. I have listened carefully and made changes, especially to the prospectus that goes with the Bill, to reflect different views and concerns. Today, I moved a number of amendments. In response to points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney), I tabled an amendment to place the prospectus on the face of the Bill. Having accepted in principle changes proposed by the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire to allow local education authorities to revoke school travel schemes unilaterally, I tabled further amendments to allow that to happen. We have made complementary changes to the prospectus, requiring LEAs to undertake local consultation before terminating schemes, and to give parents adequate notice of changes.

We have had constructive debate on a broad range of issues: safety, consultation, the important issue of pupils with special educational needs, the position of pupils attending denominational schools, and pupils expressing a preference for Welsh-medium schools in Wales.

The Bill, if read the Third time, will go to the other place, and I believe that there will be the opportunity in the other place for some further improvement to the legislation. Throughout our debates, there has been a recognition that the issues faced vary from area to area and that the solutions will be different in rural, semi-urban and urban areas. LEAs need flexibility to respond to local need. We are encouraged by the interest shown by LEAs of all parties throughout the country.

This is a short deregulatory Bill, with cross-party support in local government. It will introduce the flexibility for scheme authorities to address urgent cross- cutting issues of health, the environment and safety. It is voluntary in nature, in both its piloting phase and the longer term.

I should like to end with a quote that I think adequately summarises why the Bill is necessary:

"There is widespread agreement that the current requirement to provide free transport for children living a particular distance from school, and the sharp divide between free and full cost provision, no longer can be justified in terms of equity, efficiency or need. Instead, we recommend that local authorities should be given the freedom to develop their own transport policies."

That quote is not from the prospectus that accompanies the Bill, but from "Children on the Move—Accessing Excellence", published on a cross-party basis by the Local Government Association.

I commend the Bill to the House.

Mark Hoban (Conservative, Fareham)

I shall endeavour to match the Minister's brevity to allow other hon. Members to take part in the debate.

At the heart of the Bill is the Government's decision to move away from the principle of free education, which has been at the heart of education since the Education Act 1944. Charging children for the right to go to school is a retrograde step, which many of the most vulnerable people in our communities—those on low and moderate incomes and those in rural areas—will feel is harsh and view as a third-term tax increase.

The process of discussing the Bill in Committee and in the Chamber has still left several significant gaps in the legislation that, I hope, people in the other place will tackle. I believe that statutory safeguards are needed for children with special educational needs, so that they are not unduly penalised by virtue of their condition. We need a more robust policy on meeting the needs of rural communities and families on low incomes. Statutory protection is needed on the duty to consult, so that people can be certain that their views will be heard on this matter.

One of the issues that we have not had a chance to discuss today is of fundamental importance to the Bill: what will happen on the expiry of the pilot schemes? No further primary legislation will be required to roll out those schemes across the country, even though on a voluntary basis. Throughout the country, scheme authorities can take it upon themselves to extend beyond 20 the number of pilot schemes in England, so that we could reach the point where virtually every child who lives more than two or three miles away from their nearest school must pay for school transport.

The Bill would benefit from a clause that brings it to an end at the pilot stage, so that further legislation can be introduced to learn the lessons of the pilots schemes, to ensure that statutory protection for those vulnerable groups is put in place where necessary, if that is not in the Bill by the time that its consideration is finished in the other place. We need to ensure that the life of the pilot schemes comes to an end in an orderly way, so that we can put in place proper legislation that protects the interests of children with special educational needs, low income families, those who to go denominational schools and those who wish to go to schools where Welsh is the principal language of teaching. Those protections are needed, but the Bill does not offer them as currently drafted. If the Bill continues without that definite end point, many of the most vulnerable people in our communities will be put at risk.

We voted against the Bill on Second Reading, and I urge my hon. Friends to vote against it on Third Reading because of its deficiencies and the fact that it moves away from a principle, which has been in legislation for 60 years, that children should be able to go to school for free if they live more than two or three miles away from that school.

David Kidney (Labour, Stafford)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Minister for the improvements that he made to the prospectus and today's amendment to tie the prospectus to the Bill. I wish the Government well in the other place when improving arrangements to protect the poorest families from having to pay for school transport.

With the existing money that local authorities and the Government spend on school transport and the money from the charging, we could do much more than is already achieved in many more parts of the country and for many more pupils. We could do more to increase walking, cycling, bus use and car sharing. Although I would not normally recommend that people read regulatory impact assessments, anyone who wishes to know how that could be achieved should read the assessment on the Bill, because it sets out two working examples that show how it would be easier to provide transport to pupils attending denominational schools with the guarantee of reasonable charges, rather than the exorbitant ones to which I referred on Report.

We would have greater opportunities to introduce sweeper buses, which are important for pupils who attend rural schools, yet cannot participate in after-school activities at present because they must get on the school bus to go home when it leaves. Sweeper buses would introduce extra flexibility for out-of-school activities at the end of the day.

We could sell more spare capacity. I am especially ambitious for pupils who live just within the current statutory walking distance to be able to access school bus transport at a reasonable and affordable cost. We would also have more money for cycle training and the loan of cycles, and schools would be more willing to discuss staggered start times so that they could make the best use of school transport. On Second Reading, I said that we in Staffordshire are expanding our fleet of yellow school buses all the time, because they are popular and aid such flexibility.

I have talked so far about measures that would improve the safety of pupils going to school, their health, if more took to walking and cycling, and the health of the environment, if we were to cut down on the use of cars to get children to school. However, I would now like to discuss congestion, because that is important to people irrespective of whether they have children who go to school. Everyone who has participated in our debates on the Bill has said at one point that there is a huge difference in the traffic on our roads between the school holidays and the times when schools are in session. I want ambitious schemes to ensure that the traffic on our roads moves as freely during school times as it currently does during the school holidays. We should set our sights on such ambitious aims.

I have outlined a good set of aims. If they were achieved, they would be extremely popular. It is not surprising that Opposition parties oppose the Bill, because they know how popular it will be in the future.

John Pugh (Liberal Democrat, Southport)

I thank the Minister and all hon. Members for the rational, sensible and coherent way in which they have addressed all the arguments presented in the debate. May I return the favour by turning to the essence of the debate without any trimmings or exaggeration?

We have been around the houses on the Bill, but Liberal Democrats are still scratching our heads over one big puzzle: why do we need a School Transport Bill? Much of what is described in the Bill can already be achieved. Local education authorities have had school travel strategies since 2003, and the Bill will give them no new powers and no further incentives. They already have officers in place to look after such schemes, and co-operation with parent-teacher associations already exists.

Why have we got the Bill at all, especially given that special schools are already anxious about their transport arrangements? Children at such schools are not always statemented, so they do not always automatically qualify for free transport. There are already worries about denominational school transport, and rural communities are anxious about losing rights, post offices, hospitals and schools.

There is a key question: why are the Government introducing this small, simple Bill? The possible explanations are fairly straightforward. One explanation is that it comes down to cost: both the current cost and the anticipated increased cost that will flow from a greater diversity of provision including academies, special schools and extended schools—a similar consequence would arise from turnaround schools.

One way of reducing the overall cost is to allow charging. That already happens, but the Government will reduce statutory entitlements and remove existing free places. The puzzle for the Government is how to sell that to their Back Benchers. The basic ideal of free school transport may date back to 1944, but it is a noble one. Under the principle of free access to education, no child should suffer financially through attending school. The presumption in 1944 was that little legs could not walk further than two miles and that big legs could not easily cope with three or more miles. I would suggest that biological facts have not changed since then. Children are no weaker, and the principle of free access is still very much in place. The Government must therefore use sophistical arguments, which their Back Benchers appear to have fallen for, to remove the "legislative straitjacket" that the previous Secretary of State talked about.

David Drew (Labour/Co-operative, Stroud)

I cannot tell whether I have been duped, because I spend all my time on the Government Benches. I agree with what the hon. Gentleman said about freedom of choice, but the current provision tends to discriminate against children from lower-income backgrounds, who are less likely to enjoy access arrangements for school transport. That is why we need the pilots.

John Pugh (Liberal Democrat, Southport)

I could not have hoped for a better lead into my next point. There are two sides to the Government's new argument for social equity. First, they argue that some people who receive free travel can afford to pay for it, and have the resources to get to school under their own steam. Secondly, they argue that some people who do not qualify for free travel cannot get to school cost-free and deserve funding. The first argument can easily be dealt with, as it is essentially an argument for means-testing of the better-off. People who can afford to pay for access, it is suggested, should do so under the new Labour social equity principle. If one extended the argument about free access to school one could also argue that people could afford to pay for school books or games lessons. There is no wish, however, to apply that argument consistently across the piece. To be pragmatic, however, individuals who receive free travel yet have the resources to pay for it are more likely to use a second car when they are denied that entitlement, thus undermining one of the Bill's environmental objectives.

The second sophistical argument that Labour Members have fallen for suggests that people who live less than two miles from school can only benefit if entitlements are removed from other people. I accept that walking two miles in 1944 was different from today's hazardous experience. However, is the solution necessarily to deprive others of their entitlement? Is not the more plausible and socially responsible solution to make routes to school safe and improve public transport in general? That is a more joined-up approach to the problem raised by the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew).

Neither of the two sophistical arguments stand up, so there must be a hidden agenda. To risk so much grief with so little apparent justification, the Government must either have a cost-cutting agenda or a wish to shift costs from Treasury books. The Bill is not a piloting Bill but a blueprint for the future. Local authorities will pay out less, take in more and, at the end of the day, receive less from the Exchequer. Hon. Members heard it here first—that is precisely what will happen. In the process, pupils of special schools, denominational schools and rural schools will lose out. That is the harsh reality that Labour Members will vote for. They will have only one thing to offer their constituents when they explain why free access for education is no longer part of the new Labour agenda. The prospectus is the only comfort blanket that they will have. People may not read it in great depth and it may not last for very long, but the removal of free educational access is a principle that Labour will regret abandoning.

Huw Edwards (Labour, Monmouth)

It was a pleasure to be a member of the Standing Committee and to contribute to the debates.

I shall be honest with my hon. Friends. When I saw a headline in October last year that said that the Government proposed to end free school transport, I was annoyed. However, I have been assured that the Bill is about pilot areas only. Contrary to the remarks of the hon. Member for Southport (Dr. Pugh), the Bill is not a blueprint, but an opportunity to look for more flexible arrangements.

Like other hon. Members who represent rural constituencies, I have some concerns. Free school transport is vital to my constituency. Government guidelines and briefing documents have assured us that only 10 per cent. of pupils in England take advantage of free school transport; the figure is 20 per cent. in Wales. In my constituency, the figure is significantly greater. I have quoted the example of Monmouth comprehensive school, where about 50 per cent. of pupils arrive at school on free school transport, not only from Monmouthshire, but from Herefordshire and Gloucestershire. Free school transport is vital and I would not support any measure that threatened it. The Bill does not threaten free school transport, because that would depend on Monmouthshire becoming a pilot area and the current arrangements being changed.

David Taylor (Labour/Co-operative, North West Leicestershire)

Does my hon. Friend agree that the suggestion from the hon. Member for Southport (Dr. Pugh) that better-off children who are denied access to free school transport will tend to use private transport does not stand up to examination, because the marginal cost is likely to be less than the charge for school transport?

Huw Edwards (Labour, Monmouth)

The hon. Member for Southport has made many good contributions, but that argument is speculative.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Minister on his appointment as Minister for School Standards.

In recent years, one of my main campaigns in this House has concerned overcrowding in the school transport system. I have mentioned the overcrowding on service buses rather than school contract buses, which the law protects against overcrowding. Because of the three-for-two rule, service buses currently allow excessive overcrowding. That is a particular problem in my area, especially in a community called Llandogo in the beautiful Wye valley. The prospectus states that no authority can enter into an arrangement that exploits the three-for-two concession, and I hope that my hon. Friend will confirm that this afternoon.

Stephen Twigg (Labour, Enfield, Southgate)

In case I do not have time to speak later on, I can give my hon. Friend that assurance right now.

Huw Edwards (Labour, Monmouth)

I have waited a long time for that assurance. I am mightily relieved, and I am sure that the young people of Llandogo are too. It was a pleasure to be a member of the Committee, in which hon. Members from both sides of the House made excellent contributions. With some reservation, I will support the Bill tonight, but I hope that the protection for those in rural communities, those on low incomes and those with SEN will continue.

George Young (Conservative, North West Hampshire)

As the only Opposition Back Bencher who served on the Standing Committee, perhaps I can share a few comments as the Bill approaches the terminus.

I endorse the comments made by the Minister and by my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Mr. Hoban). The Bill has been positive and consensual and the Front Benchers have made some high quality performances; I am delighted that one such contribution has been recognised this afternoon. As the Minister said, some of the initiatives in the Bill build on a policy base that predates this Administration.

It was unfortunate that the timetable motion did not allow us to discuss the Government amendments. On Report, we discussed only Opposition amendments that were not carried, so we did not reach the one group of amendments that changed the Bill. Perhaps the business managers will reflect on the allocation of time, because with two statements, we had half a day for Report. With another hour, we might have been able to get through all the groups of amendments.

That leads me to my second point. It would be churlish of me not to thank the Government for picking up the amendment that I moved in Committee, which then became Government amendment No. 5. I was slightly surprised to see my Back-Bench amendment trumped by the Secretary of State, who suddenly changed it into a Government amendment by adding his name to it. The Bill is more deregulatory now that the Government have accepted that amendment and complemented it with their own. Local authorities that are on the margin of deciding whether to become a pilot authority may decide to do so because they know that if it goes wrong they can disengage quite quickly instead of having to get the approval of the Secretary of State.

My third point concerns increased seat belt use, which I touched on in Committee. At the moment, a parent who drives his or her child to school knows that they will be secure in their seat because they have to wear a seat belt, but if they entrust their child to a coach it may not have seat belts. Given the increasing concern about safety, that consideration may influence the parent. Paragraph 25 of the prospectus says that the Government

"expect schemes to include measures that will improve safety, particularly in reducing overcrowding and increasing seatbelt use."

I very much hope that pilot authorities will enter into contracts with bus companies that have seat belts fitted to their coaches so that parents can be confident that they are the safest available.

That brings me to my final point. The journey to school is much more complicated than it was 30 or 40 years ago, when most of the children in an area would have gone to local schools that all began at, say, 9 o'clock. As we move more towards parental choice, there will be a wider spectrum of schools to which parents may send their children, and they may not be the local ones. Moreover, we are moving towards a regime of wraparound schools that open earlier and close later, so they do not all start at the same time of the morning. I hope that there will be sufficient flexibility in the school travel schemes mentioned in the prospectus to cope with the more variable geometries of school journeys than have traditionally applied.

A few days ago, I spoke to people from a company that provides buses for school journeys, and the one thing that they wanted was variable school opening times. They said that they could provide a much better deal if all the schools did not start at 9 o'clock; they could quote more competitive prices and make better use of their vehicles if school times were staggered. That needs to be put into the equation.

The Bill is part of a broader picture of addressing issues of traffic congestion, and to that extent I welcome it. It is slightly unfortunate that we were not able to hear a little more about the eligibility rules. The Minister explained why those were not available before the Bill leaves this House, and we will follow that with great interest.

I hope that where local authorities enter into pilot schemes they will use safer coaches, bear in mind what I said about the variable geometry of the school journey and not enter into contracts that are so inflexible that the parental choice that Members on both sides of the House support cannot be enforced.

Bill Wiggin (Conservative, Leominster)

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I wonder if the Secretary of State for Defence has contacted your office to try to put the record straight on something that he said in his statement this afternoon. He said in reply to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer) that the reason why Scottish regiments—he gave the example of the Royal Highland Fusiliers—had been named in a different way from Welsh and English regiments was that that was something that they had asked for. It has become clear this afternoon that the Colonel of the Royal Welch Fusiliers did indeed ask for his regiment to be named in the same way as the Royal Highland Fusiliers. I hope that the Secretary of State for Defence will try to correct the record and let you know that that will be the case.

Michael Lord (Deputy Speaker, Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)

That is not a matter for the Chair at this point. The hon. Gentleman has now got it on the record, but this is timed business and we must press on.

Roger Casale (Labour, Wimbledon)

The School Transport Bill has itself been a vehicle for advancing the cause of children with special educational needs. I should like to express my appreciation to the Government and to the Minister for the significant changes that have been made in the interests of those children during the passage of the Bill in Committee and on Report. Those changes will be extremely welcome to the Special Educational Consortium and to my constituents, Mary Powell, Carrie Vibert and Pamela Wilson, who are themselves parents of children with special educational needs and raised these matters with me three or four years ago. It is therefore an important moment. Many of the changes enjoy cross-party support.

We should remind ourselves that we have several things on Third Reading that we did not have on Second Reading. We have a prospectus that explicitly states that local authorities must provide confirmation that drivers and escorts have to undergo Criminal Records Bureau checks before they can be employed by local authorities to provide that service to school. The prospectus encourages local authorities to insist on disability awareness training for drivers and escorts. Lack of such training has often placed children with special educational needs in especially vulnerable positions The prospectus emphasises consultation with all stakeholders, including groups such as the one that Mary Powell and her colleagues set up in Merton. After all, they are in the best position to assess the way in which the service needs to be tailored to meet their needs.

I am delighted that it was decided on Report to include specific reference to the prospectus in the Bill. The prospectus is valuable only if it can be monitored and steps can be taken to force local authorities to implement the proposals if things start to go wrong. The Bill now provides for greater accountability through a more direct line. I believe that my constituents and those who work in special educational needs will be encouraged by that.

We still have some way to go. I look forward to the day when many of the provisions are rolled out nationally, when special educational needs children are fully protected and when their parents do not suffer some of the nightmares that my constituents have had to face. They can be encouraged that their concerns have been heard. The Government deserve credit but hon. Members of other parties have supported the changes to the provisions on special educational needs.

Stephen Twigg (Labour, Enfield, Southgate)

With the leave of the House, I should like briefly to respond to the debate on Third Reading. I concur with colleagues from all parties that we have had a constructive process of scrutinising the Bill. Front Benchers of both Opposition parties have acknowledged that although they do not support the Bill in principle, improvements have been made through pre-legislative scrutiny and at various stages of its passage.

I pay tribute especially to the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young). I agree with him that the Government amendments that were passed today and inspired by his contribution in Committee mean that we have improved the Bill to make it "more deregulatory", in his words. As he said in Committee, the changes will give more local education authorities the confidence to make scheme proposals. I am confident that they will come from LEAs under the control of all three main political parties, thereby reflecting the strong cross-party support in local government for the Bill.

I thank all members of the Committee for their service. It was an active Committee and contributions were taken on board. That is reflected in changes that we have made to the prospectus as well as amendments that have been accepted today. My hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney) made the sensible suggestion of putting the prospectus on a statutory basis. The amendment that was accepted earlier enables us to do that.

As the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough said earlier, we all agree that we want to reduce the car run and encourage a broader set of alternatives, including walking, the school bus and cycling. There are all sorts of challenges to achieving that. The Bill tries to deal with those challenges seriously. I believe that the same serious consideration that has been given to the Bill in this House will be shown in the other place, too. I believe that it is a good Bill, which deserves the same cross-party support in this place as it has in local government, and I am delighted to commend it to the House for its Third Reading.