HC Deb 08 August 1980 vol 990 cc985-1000 10.15 am
Mr. Michael McNair-Wilson (Newbury)

I am delighted to have this chance in an Adjournment debate to raise the subject of safety on school buses.

In discussing the subject, I have to tell the House that there is, alas, a considerable shortage of precise information about the accidents that occur on school buses in any one year. Before starting to prepare my speech, I tabled a question to my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science on 21st July asking him whether he could give me figures of how many children carried on school buses in 1977, 1978 and 1979 were killed and how many were injured. In the reply, I was told by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State: I am unable to provide the information requested since the number of children killed or injured as the result of accidents to school buses is not collected centrally."—[Official Report, 21 July 1980; Vol. 989, c. 45.] That is a very disappointing answer. It is a matter of fact that about 400,000 of our children use school buses daily during term time. It is also a matter of fact that a fair number of those children—fortunately, a very small number—are injured, some, alas, fatally, as happened to the son of two of my constituents, Mr. and Mrs. Hawkins, of Lambourn, whose son John fell from a school bus and was fatally injured.

With the lack of information, it is difficult to know whether I am talking about a large or a small number of children. But if the Department of Education and Science does not possess centrally collected statistics, the Department of Transport at least has figures for children who have fallen from coaches, and it is reasonable to assume that some, if not all, of those relate to children who have fallen from school buses.

The latest figures of the Department of Transport are for 1978. In that year, it is said that one child was killed and 361 were injured, 32 seriously. Information that I have received privately suggests that there are four fatal accidents a year as a result of injuries sustained in some way when travelling on school buses. Of four Home Counties that I have approached, three—Berkshire, Bedfordshire and Surrey—each reported a fatal accident in the past four years. I was told by Hertfordshire that a child had been knocked down but not seriously injured. The Inner London Education Authority also reported a death.

It might be reasonable to extrapolate from four Home Counties to the figure that I have suggested of four fatal injuries a year, but I repeat that without centrally collected statistics my figures must necessarily be tenuous, and I think that the time has come for local education authorities to supply to the Department of Education and Science their figures for injuries and fatalities during the year among those travelling on their buses. I repeat that I believe the number of accidents to be very small, but they exist. So long as they exist, there is room for improvement.

Looking at the subject of school buses and safety, one sees that there are a number of common factors. Perhaps the single most conspicuous factor is that although we call vehicles school buses, pupils travel in a coach which, when not carrying them, carries farepaying passengers on all kinds of outings.

What is more, those coaches come in a variety of sizes and shapes. Many of them are quite old, and none of them are specially adapted to carry schoolchildren, nor are they required to be. Only a small number of coach operators mark that fact by putting up a sign saying that they are carrying children and that the coach is at that moment a school bus. Such a sign might at least make some motorists aware of who was travelling in the bus in front of them. It is on record that no education authority in the country uses a custombuilt school bus, though it is true that ILEA has a specially built bus for carrying handicapped children. I do not think that there is a custombuilt school bus on the roads. Such researches as I and my assistants have been able to make suggest that there are few manufacturers in Western Europe who provide a specific design for a school bus. The only one that we could unearth was a French company called Heuliez. That company offers what it describes as a Scolair Bus X57.

It is an interesting vehicle. The designers have clearly used all their ingenuity to produce a bus which embodies as many safety features as one might reasonably require. However, I recognise, and I do not seek to press the point, that it would be unreasonable to expect local education authorities to provide such vehicles, particularly at this time of economic stringency. Therefore, for the foreseeable future school buses will be coaches hired from private companies.

If that is the case, I think that it is reasonable to suggest that coaches, when they become school buses, should conform to certain safety standards. In my investigations into this matter, it was apparent that there is a particular point in the bus that might be described as the most dangerous place in the vehicle. That is the area around the exit and the doors.

John Hawkins, who lost his life, was standing with a number of other boys on the steps near the doors of the school bus that was taking him home. As the bus neared its destination, one of the other boys—I do not know which one—opened the manually operated doors. All the other boys surged forward, pushing John down the steps to his death. He fell, and the bus ran over him. Clearly, if that bus had not had manually operated doors John Hawkins could not have fallen to his death.

Manually operated doors on school buses are a regrettable means of exit. Not only is the kind of case to which I have referred a real possibility—indeed, a practicality, as in the case of John Hawkins—but there are cases of impetuous children who open the doors and, before it stops, run off the bus. One of the deaths to which I referred concerned such a child, who ran into moving traffic beside the bus and was killed.

There is the case of the bus which, with its door open just as it reaches its destination, has to make an emergency stop. The children gathered around the exit are thrown through the doorway. Those are three examples of the dangers of manually operated doors when children are allowed to gather round the bus exit.

Driver-operated doors would go a long way to obviating the problem. However, I have to add that even driver-operated doors are not entirely foolproof. It is true that driver-operated doors through which the driver can see—that would mean full-length perspex doors—and where there is a driving mirror to enable him to see who is near the bus before it moves away, would very nearly guarantee total safety.

However, I can recall the case of a child who could not be seen through the driver-operated doors but whose coat had been caught in the door as it closed. The bus moved off and the child was dragged under the vehicle and killed. Therefore, it is not enough even to say that driver-operated doors would entirely remove the risk unless the kind of alterations that I have suggested, including full-length see-through doors and a driving mirror, were introduced.

I must tell my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary that before preparing this speech I went to the school from which John Hawkins set out on his last journey. I went to look at the buses as they waited for the children and went through many of them. Some of them had manually operated doors and some had driver-operated doors. I spoke to the drivers, who struck me as being responsible people concerned with the safety of the children. By the same token, most of the buses seemed to me to be highly efficient vehicles and well designed for the carriage of passengers, and, presumably, schoolchildren.

Curiously enough, the most dangerous of those buses was one with driver-operated doors. When I asked the driver of that vehicle if he would close the doors for me, he was unable to do so because the mechanism was broken. When the bus left the school fully loaded with children, the doors were wide open. I could not help asking how it was possible that a bus whose doors were known to be inefficient, if not incapable of being closed, could have been sent to pick up children, with the attendant danger to them.

I come now to the extremely patchy quality of the mechanical supervision exercised by local education authorities over the contractors who supply the coaches. Whether the local authorities should provide supervision, whether they should lay down an absolute routine or whether the driver himself should be made to sign a document to say that the vehicle that he has taken for the carriage of children is 100 per cent. mechanically sound would be a matter for the Department of Education and Science or for local education authorities, but the situation as it is now, where some education authorities stipulate rules and regulations and others do not, is unsatisfactory.

I have referred to the most dangerous place in the bus, where children are most at hazard. Since the death of John Hawkins, a local education authority in Berkshire has given a great deal of thought to improving safety. As I have suggested, properly functioning driver-operated doors ensure some safety but at present it is not possible to insist that every contractor who provides a school bus provides a vehicle with driver-operated doors.

Until that time comes, Berkshire and its head teachers have agreed that the best way to ensure safety is to place a prefect on the school bus in a seat close to the doors. The task of that prefect would be to stop any child from standing at the top of the steps leading to the doors. But, as one driver told me, safety would depend upon the prefect. If a responsible, conscientious prefect were prepared to sit in that seat, there would be no danger. On one of the school buses that I went to look at, I called down the bus "Who is the prefect?" and the pupil who answered was sitting on the last seat at the back of the bus. That bus was about to travel with no prefect to restrain any child who chose to stand in the doorway. Thus, the danger that I have outlined was very real.

It is not enough to hope that the young person who may have been appointed a prefect will always be sufficiently conscientious to sit in the place where he should sit, so it is not enough to pin our hopes that these accidents can be ruled out simply on the belief that telling a prefect that he should sit by the door and stop children standing there will mean that that will happen.

It would not be fair for me not to say that some education authorities, including Berkshire, provide escorts on buses when they are carrying handicapped children, or children under 12, but Berkshire at least relies on the prefect monitoring concept for those at comprehensive schools. In a letter to me, the director of education for Berkshire agreed that the education authority lacked any legal power to appoint coach prefects or to delegate responsibilities to them. He went on: However, in the general interest of promoting safety, I have advised head teachers that they should consider nominating a senior pupil on each coach who could report to them any breaches of school discipline. However well intentioned that sentence may be, he therefore accepts that the LEA and the contractor have no legal powers to appoint coach prefects. That is another point that I would commend to my hon. Friend.

If it is not enough to rely on the mechanical excellence of the vehicle and on prefect monitoring, is it not conceivable that some restraint could be placed across the gangway by the steps leading down to the door? I have been told that to put a metal drop rod across the gangway would be against public service vehicle regulations, but the American community schools in this country have got round that problem by placing a leather strap across the gangway. Apparently, that satisfies the regulations. If it can be done on those buses, I wonder why we are not insisting that it is done on school buses operating for LEAs.

Of course, a child could duck under the strap, but such a restraint produces the psychological effect of a physical barrier. Something so simple, which could be put in place by the driver, would have a considerable effect on any child rushing up the bus past the prefect, to take his place at the top of the stairs. If the American community schools can produce such a restraint, I suggest that we should look at the possibility of asking LEAs to do the same.

I have referred to the buses and, in passing, to the drivers to whom I spoke. I want to say something more about drivers of school buses. Those I met in my constituency were all extremely responsible people, who were clearly as concerned about the safety of the children travelling in their buses as anyone could be. But it is a fact that not one school bus driver in this country is required to have any special training to do the job.

In a reply to a further question of mine on 21 July, when I asked about driver training, my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport replied: There is no special training required for public service vehicle drivers responsible for school buses. All drivers of large passenger vehicles, including public services vehicles, are at present required to be over 21, but the Transport Act 1980 will reduce this to 18 in certain circumstances: there is no upper age limit. Applicants for PSV driver licences are normally required to pass a stringent practical and oral test in order to demonstrate their ability to handle vehicles of the size and type in question before being granted such licences. Applicants must also meet character and health criteria. No distinction is made between different types of service. Drivers of school buses belonging to local education authorities are not required to hold PSV licences. The reduction in minimum age will not apply to them. It is for local education authorities to determine whether any special test or training is required."—[Official Report, 21 July 1980; Vol. 989, c. 106–7.] One may argue that that system has served us reasonably well over past decades, but that answer is in sharp contrast to the attitude taken in North America. I have been given some material produced by a researcher into safety on school buses, Mr. G. D. Massey, in which he makes some interesting comments about the North American attitude: In North America, the school bus driver is considered the key figure in both the operating safety and the discipline of the passenger load. The driver is almost invariably specially selected for attitude and aptitude and given special training in operation of the vehicle. There may well be opportunities for in-service training and career development. He goes on: That no European operator has given special attention to either driver selection or specialist training is difficult to explain. Even if no training is given the use of simple aids to improve the pupil-driver relationship such as notes of guidance for drivers and hints on discipline would be inexpensive and effective. I agree with those comments. The driver has an enormous responsibility. I am concerned to think that someone as young as 18, who might just have passed his driving test, could be given the responsibility of driving a vehicle with 10, 20 or 30 children on board.

I have referred to bus safety, driver training and the variety of approaches followed by LEAs in their attitude to the regulation of school buses. I have given some of the statistics that I have been able to gather, both centrally from the Ministry of Transport and, more specifically, from four Home Counties. None of those counties issues written instructions about safety, although Berkshire says that it is preparing a new document. I have yet to see it.

I hope I have shown that the current situation is far from satisfactory. The time has now come for the Department of Education and Science to be actively involved in this matter.

I suggest that the Department should collect centrally statistics about accidents on and relating to school buses. That is the only way to get an accurate assessment of the size of the problem. Secondly, the Department should consider the production of a code of practice for circulation to all LEAs, laying down guidelines about safety on school buses. I recognise that the types of buses used vary enormously, but common safety factors could be introduced. Therefore, a code of practice would be the right way to approach this problem. Such a code should cover the mechanical safety of the bus, the training of the driver, the rules to be obeyed by those using the school bus, and the principles to be followed by head teachers and others responsible for the children who use the buses.

I end my speech as I began. The number of accidents is small, but one boy in my constituency is dead because he fell off a school bus. If some of the measures that I have dealt with had been applied—if the manually operated doors could not have been reached by one of those boys standing around John Hawkins, or if there had been some form of restraint across the gangway—John Hawkins could well be alive this morning. I hope that I have been able to persuade my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary that it is time that the Department took a greater interest and further involvement in the matter.

10.40 am
The Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Neil Macfarlane)

My hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Mr. McNair-Wilson) has raised an important subject, which we all take seriously. I congratulate him on his diligent research. The debate will have made a significant contribution to bringing to light the deep anxieties that exist. I extend my sympathy and that of my right hon. and learned Friend to my hon. Friend and his constituents in the tragic loss of their child.

The safety of the children who are carried on school buses is as important as it is for children and adults who travel on public transport. Attendance at school is a legal requirement. When parents entrust their children to the care of the local education authority or its agents, they are entitled to expect that the children's safety will be ensured as far as is humanely possible. The country has a tradition of maintaining high standards of safety for the travelling public, and they are constantly being improved. Nevertheless, accidents can and do occur, and we must always be ready to ask ourselves whether anything more can or should be done towards their elimination. The points that my hon. Friend made will be considered urgently by my Department and the Department of Transport to see whether there is need for further investigation or analysis to further that elimination.

It is necessary to keep the matter in perspective, although my hon. Friend's references to the number of injuries and his diligent research among local authorities were of great interest. On the evidence available to my Department, fatal accidents involving children travelling on school buses are rare. We are not complacent, because the death or maiming of any child is a tragedy that shatters a family and deeply affects a community of any size. Everyone concerned with safety must seek to prevent such accidents. The question is whether there is anything more that the Government should do.

About ½ million children are believed to be carried free on school buses every day. About the same number are believed to be carried free on public transport under arrangements made by local education authorities. The number of children who travel on public transport at their own expense is not known by my Department. The vast majority of school buses so used are provided by commercial operators and are subject to normal controls that apply to vehicles used for hire and reward. Nevertheless, there will be variation in the calibre of operators and drivers and in the standards of the vehicles used. My hon. Friend referred to that. It is difficult to monitor or control.

The safety of children on their journey to and from school is the general responsibility of the parents and the operators of the vehicles concerned. There are practical implications for local education authorities and schools, and, by extension, for my right hon. and learned Friend. It is the responsibility of the local education authority, where it employs an independent contractor, to take reasonable steps to ensure that the work is undertaken competently. In the relatively few cases where the authority is itself the operator, it is directly responsible, as operator, for ensuring that the service is conducted safely.

I hope that it is some consolation to my hon. Friend to know that there is close collaboration between local authorities and the police. Each local education authority keeps in close touch with the authority's road safety officers. Her Majesty's inspectorate, in the course of its normal activities, is alive to the need to ensure safe working in and around schools.

The Department of Transport is responsible for matters relating to the safe operation of public service vehicles. Regulations exist that define certain circumstances when, for example, the driver of a vehicle must be provided with some means of knowing whether a person outside the vehicle has been trapped by the closure of a door. Various regulations exist, but they do not cover all circumstances. There are acknowledged shortcomings. I shall draw many of the points that my hon. Friend raised to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport.

The traffic commissioners also have an interest. In at least one case, they have drawn the attention of local education authorities and public service vehicle operators in their areas to the circumstances of a fatal accident involving a pupil travelling on a school bus.

My hon. Friend referred to supervision on school buses, which is a difficult area. The safety of children on school buses is the subject of guidance in the Department of Education and Science booklet "Safety at School: General Advice", the second edition of which was published in February. Copies were sent to all local education authorities. The passage that deals with travel on school buses is part of a section called "The Journey to School" and draws attention to a number of potential hazards associated with travel on buses. It states: There are particular dangers to children when alighting from vehicles and crossing roads near schools, and when standing at bus stops or on pavements or roads while waiting to be picked up. Where this is felt to be a significant problem (perhaps because of the numbers of pupils or because of the local road and traffic conditions) schools normally give special attention to reducing the danger to pupils, either directly or in the course of more general road safety instruction. The passage concludes: Pupils using buses should be reminded of the hazards of misusing automatic entry doors, tampering with emergency doors and getting on or off moving buses. Although the Department does not know in detail what precautions are taken by individual local education authorities to ensure the safety of pupils using school buses, it knows from ad hoc inquiries that precautions are taken. For example, local education authority proposal forms for school transport tenders may specify conditions regarding vehicles, operator's insurance and liability. Although there is no requirement on local education authorities to report accidents to a central authority, traffic accidents, particularly fatal ones or those involving children travelling on school buses, are reported in the local press and represent a useful source of information. My hon. Friend made this point graphically.

In addition, I understand that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport plans to include in future published statistics information about the number of accidents to pupils on journeys to school, including journeys by bus. Everyone feels from an emotional point of view that, if only one life could be saved, any effort involved in increasing safety would be justified. However, as soon as we start to consider what would be involved—and in particular the restriction on individual freedom of action and the probability of success in preventing fatalities—it becomes much less clear that present evidence would justify our going further than we do at present.

However, supervision on buses causes many people disquiet. I have read the reports of the tragedy in my hon. Friend's constituency, including the summing up of the coroner, who rightly drew attention to the fact that supervision on the school bus should be co-ordinated by the head teacher. The provision of a prefect or senior pupil is of paramount importance. However, there are problems about the effective control that that individual has over the size of the bus and the individuals on it and the question of age. My hon. Friend was talking about secondary schools, but we also have to consider primary schools and the number of smaller children who are travelling.

If I do not reply to all the points that my hon. Friend raised in detail, I shall ensure that they are drawn to the attention of the appropriate authority.

Without doubt, local education authorities know more about problems and possible ways of dealing with them than does the Department. My hon. Friend's speech will have gone a long way to illustrating some of the points that local authorities must now acknowledge. In order to compile advice, it would be necessary to conduct a comprehensive survey to identify the problems and how authorities would deal with them. It would also be necessary to extract those points, if any, that seem to be not generally recognised. It would be difficult to make the advice that is already contained in my Department's booklet very much more specific in a way that would make a useful contribution to reducing the possibility of accidents. It would certainly be impossible to give advice that would cover all eventualities, and I am sure that my hon. Friend will acknowledge that.

Accidents are often the result of horse play or boisterous or thoughtless behaviour. I am sure that my hon. Friend understands that. That can occur even when an older pupil or adult is being carried on the bus to keep order. Furthermore, the nature of the vehicles varies enormously. The design of entry and exits was referred to by my hon. Friend, and I was interested in his comments about the area of danger on the bus and whether the controls should be driver or manually operated. I was also interested to hear of the design which the American community schools had discovered by using a leather strap to provide a form of barrier. That is something that I shall draw to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport.

In practice, a substantial amount must inevitably be left to the awareness and foresight of the schools for them to decide, in the light of the circumstances, what provision or instruction is needed. The existence of central guidance cannot guarantee that accidents will be avoided.

Even though we do not maintain a detailed check on accidents and local education authority precautions to avoid them, the information available to us from other sources does not suggest that there are serious shortcomings in what we or local authorities do. In suggesting this—and I do not want to be accused of being complacent—the major responsibility naturally and inevitably rests with the individual local education authority, and we would be concerned if there was reason to suppose that it was not discharging it satisfactorily.

Fatal accidents that have occurred in the past are undoubtedly tragic for all families concerned as well as for the communities, and it does not diminish that concern in any way if we take the view that their occurrence does not justify more detailed control over, or guidance to, local education authorities. Nothing suggests that the standards adopted by the local education authorities vary so much that action by the Department would serve a useful purpose. However, I want to make it clear to my hon. Friend that we would do well to draw a number of points that he raised to the attention of the local authority associations and to the other Departments involved.

This has been a useful debate on an important subject. I made it clear at the outset that we take it extremely seriously. I hope that the points that my hon. Friend has made will be acknowledged by the authorities themselves. I dare say that I have not totally satisfied my hon. Friend in what I have said, but I hope that the points that he has raised will be acknowledged. I have no doubt that he will approach my Department and the Department of Transport if he feels less than satisfied. It is perfectly right and proper that he should do so, and I can assure him that what has been said in the debate will be carefully read by those two Departments.

I turn to the points that my hon. Friend raised in detail. He referred to the fact that local authorities should provide figures centrally for recording by the Government. Having acknowledged that the figures should be co-ordinated centrally, I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport will now publish those figures. Along with my right hon. and learned Friend, I shall consider whether action is now required to bring this matter under central control. I note what my hon. Friend said about custom-built vehicles for the conveying of young people to and from school and the remarks that he made about specific design. I shall ensure that that point is brought to the attention of the Minister of Transport.

My hon. Friend also referred to the research work that he had carried out on the buses near to the school that John Hawkins attended. I was concerned about the possibility of inefficient operation and mechanical supervision. The competence of coach operators is of crucial importance. Again, I shall ensure that the Minister of Transport is made aware of that point.

I did not know that Berkshire had given some thought to the problems of road safety and that supervision on the buses is now to be a detailed co-ordination by head teachers. I am sure that that point will be acknowledged when we bring the debate to the attention of the local authority associations. I was interested in the aspect of legality relating to the letter from the director of education which my hon. Friend quoted. Perhaps my hon. Friend will be kind enough to supply me with a copy of that letter, because it is important.

I turn to the question of special training for young drivers. As I understand it, the recent Transport Act 1980 reduces the age from 21 to 18, but none the less drivers must undergo a rigorous test for aptitude and attitude. I have read the correspondence and exchanges between my hon. Friend and the Minister at the Department of Transport. I have no doubt that those points will be fully acknowledged. We regard this matter with a great deal of concern.

My hon. Friend referred to the figures in recent years. There have been 361 people injured, 32 seriously. There have also been four fatal accidents. The article in The Times was read with deep concern by officials at the Department of Transport and my own Department. Certainly, these points will be well analysed in the light of my hon. Friend's remarks.

As to the way forward, my hon. Friend has done a great deal to draw attention to these worrying trends. The next step forward for my Department is to consult the local authority associations on whether there is a need for further inquiry and guidance on the subject of safety on school transport. There are many important lessons for both Departments and the local education authorities to learn, but, no matter how much we try centrally to co-ordinate everything and no matter how rigorous the application of all the regulations and controls that exist, it comes down to the attitude of individual head teachers, the coach operators in providing efficient, well maintained and constantly checked vehicles and the young people themselves.

The points that my hon. Friend made indicate that he has gone into this matter rigorously, with thorough research, and he is to be congratulated on so doing. He has done a valuable service to my Department and the Department of Transport. I appreciate that I have not fully acknowledged many of the other points that he raised. That was because of lack of time and also because they are not always the direct responsibility of my Department. I shall certainly ensure that all his points are brought to the attention of my colleagues in the Cabinet. I hope that I can acknowledge some of the matters more fully by writing to him, and I am grateful that the subject has been brought to the attention of the House.