EDUCATION ACT 1944 (AMENDMENT) (Hansard, 27 October 1976)

§ Mr. Hal Miller (Bromsgrove and Redditch)

I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend sections 39 and 55 of the Education Act 1944; and for connected purposes. The sections involved concern the statutory walking distance and the obligations on local authorities to provide free transport for children living further than those distances from their schools. I realise that it is late in the Session to introduce a Bill affecting policy to such a degree and that there is little chance of its reaching the statute book before Prorogation. I should also stress that this is not an official initiative; it comes from a private Member and many colleagues—to whom I pay tribute—drawn from a wide geographical and political spectrum.

The object of this initiative is to serve notice on the Department that something has to be done about this matter; that there exists, to quote a letter from my county council, the determination we all share about the need to try to break the present impasse nationally on school transport. That impasse has persisted since my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition set up an inquiry in 1972, which reported in 1973. No Secretary of State since that time has managed to grapple with this very real problem. To put it in its context, this seems, judging from my postbag, to be the single most important subject to my constituents.

I realise that there are difficulties, which is why the matter has lain without resolution for so long. There are difficulties about denominational schools, about safety as opposed to distance, and about administration. I want to try to show how they may be resolved.

My Bill would not go so far as the recommendations of the Hodges Committee, which would have removed the statutory distance altogether. As a first step, I propose to reduce the statutory distances by one mile in each case. One reason for the retention of the distance is the fear among local authorities of the difficulties that would ensue in prosecuting cases of truancy if there were no 488 statutory distance at all. In other words, it is a peg on which to hang actions in that area.

We must also think of cost. Under my amendment to Section 55, I would provide power to make the regulations, which would include the levying of a flat-rate charge for everybody using school transport provided over the statutory distance.

To give some illustration of what that involves, I am informed that in my county it would result in a charge, per pupil per term, of about £7, which we may roughly express over a 12-week term as about 60p a week. That compares with the fare of £12.80 per child per week on the Midland Red for a distance of just under three miles in my constituency.

The anomalies are no longer tolerable to parents. In one case, the two doors of a semi-detached house are on different sides of the dividing line. In another case, the bus stop up the street is outside the limit but the houses are within it. In yet another case, a dispute has arisen on the question whether the surveyor's wheel—which has travelled over the course from the front door not to the school door but to the nearest approach to the school—was lifted by the surveyor while crossing at traffic lights, and whether he sneaked across the road rather than using the pedestrian crossings. I accept that my reduction of the mileage will not do away with such anomalies, but it will substantially reduce them.

There are also considerable anomalies in the treatment afforded by different authorities to considerations of safety and hazard. We need to work towards a uniform scheme covering the whole country. In some cases in my constituency, parents have banded together because they have found it cheaper to employ a taxi to take their children to school, at the cost of £1.10 a week. However, the bus company came under pressure from the drivers and brought an injunction against the taxi operator for running an unlicensed public service. So real controversies and confusions often arise among the population.

I am seeking to bring in a Bill whose main provisions would reduce the statutory distances by one mile and introduce a flat-rate charge for all making use of 489 that service. The regulating powers would also include powers for a remission scheme, perhaps on the lines of that given for school meals. There would also be a commencement date in order to allow local authorities to gear up for the necessary machinery. In that spirit of trying to move this log jam, I commend this modest proposal to the House.