HC Deb 06 February 2001 vol 362 cc900-8

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Dowd.]

10.11 pm
Caroline Flint (Don Valley)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for granting me the opportunity to present this short but, I think, important debate.

Time and time again over the past three to four years since I have been a Member, I have sat through and contributed to many transport debates. The school run and its contribution to congestion on our roads has often been raised by hon. Members on both sides of the House. I have sometimes found it annoying that parents continually are blamed for using a car when I think that there are real reasons for them choosing to do so. So far, we have not come up with an expanded proposal to change their minds.

I think that there are three reasons why parents choose to take their children to and from school by car. First, there is the issue of safety, whether that is road safety or the risks that parents feel their children may face from other adults. Most parents will not let their children go unescorted to school.

Secondly, the reality is that more mums work. In doing so, they have to drop off their children at school and get to work on time. With the opening hours of school, that is not always possible to do either by walking or by using other forms of public transport. That being so, they choose to use the car.

We expect people to travel further to their place of work than was expected of them many years ago. That is all the more true in some communities such as mine of Don Valley, where many people used to have work literally on their doorstep in the local coalmine. Today, as part of our regeneration, we are having to challenge people to move further to work, and to provide transport in order for them to do so.

Thirdly, we have seen the deregulation of bus services, which is the legacy of the previous Tory Government's 18 years of office. That has left many parents unable to rely on public transport. When time is at a premium, I do not blame any parent for using the car to save time. For many of them, there is no other practical choice. I want to show how the experience of a journey as day to day and mundane as that of being taken to and from school, for many children and older pupils at Don Valley, can be reformed to contribute to improving the larger picture that the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions, my hon Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr. Hill), must always consider. That is a picture of too many cars crowding into too many bottlenecks at peak hours, and too many public transport services as yet unable to resolve the congestion problem, which is made worse by the school run.

I have spoken to transport providers, local authorities, schools and parents, and the message is clear. The deregulation of bus services by past Conservative Governments is continuing to have a disastrous effect and impact on the provision of rational local bus services that meet people's needs and, especially, the needs of children and young people.

My concern this evening is primarily school transport. However, in offering new options on the way forward, I hope that I can help the Government to reduce congestion. Up to 20 per cent. of morning rush-hour traffic is that of parents doing the school run. I want to help our children by reducing road accidents and creating the safe travel to and from school that the Government seek. I want also to help our schools by reducing late arrivals and support working parents, for whom time on a weekday morning is at a premium. I also hope that I can help the Government to support our local transport authorities and councils by contributing to the sensible planning of complementary services, quality education and quality public transport to and from school.

My hon. Friend the Minister will know that, under the Education Act 1944, local authorities have a legal obligation to provide school transport, based on a reasonable walking distance to and from school of two miles for children under eight and three miles for older children. The three-mile walking distance dates back to section 74 of the Elementary Education Act 1870, under which a reasonable excuse for school non-attendance was that there was no elementary school within three miles of home.

I am afraid that things appear to have moved on very little in 130 years, as we are still applying those two and three-mile rules. I contend that those rules are out of date, and I ask any parent in the House to walk their five, six or seven-year-old child up to two miles to school every day. In this day and age, it is just not practicable to expect parents to walk their under-eight children up to two miles to school and their over-eight children up to three miles. For many parents, therefore, the use of the car is an understandable necessity.

As a constituency Member of Parliament, I believe strongly that good policy derives from understanding the life style and goals of ordinary people. We politicians are at our best and most useful when we can help the many, not simply the few, to meet those day-to-day challenges. A parent from Warmsworth, who was paying £100 a term to send her children to their catchment school by public transports commented: It would be cheaper to take my children to school in a car, but as a responsible family we try to use public transport as much as possible and agree with Mr Prescott's ideas of cutting congestion during the school run. When I raised my constituent's case with my hon. Friend the Minister, he observed in September 1999 that only a quarter of secondary school pupils travelled to school by bus. Only 4 per cent. of primary school pupils travelled to school by bus—the same figure as in 1975.

A parent from Sprotbrough, whose children have a free bus pass because of the distance at which they live from school, was concerned because what the children thought was a school bus was full, and they were left at the bus stop because the operator had registered the bus as a commercial service; the bus had picked up additional fare-paying school children on its circular route. A grandfather wrote to me concerning his grandchildren, who attended a local primary school just under two and a half miles from their village of Blaxton. On occasion, those children were left stranded at the bus stop after school because the public service bus was full on arrival at the stop. Young primary school children were left for 35 minutes on a cold, dark evening while their grandfather, without a car, waited at home, distressed at their failure to arrive home on time, but powerless to respond.

Children attending a school outside their catchment area face a problem, as they are at the mercy of deregulated bus services which, as we know, may be varied or cancelled with 42 day's notice. Last July, my constituents in Rossington, whose children attend the Hayfield school in Finningley, had a bus service going from Tickhill via Rossington and Bawtry to Finningley. In September, however, the bus route by-passed the less affluent area of Rossington altogether, leaving those children isolated and potentially excluded from attending their chosen school. Children in the villages of Edlington and Sprotbrough have encountered similar problems in travelling to the Danum school in Doncaster.

Those children benefit from the exercise of parental choice. My hon. Friend is a transport Minister, but he will be aware of the anomaly that, on the one hand, parents have some opportunity to choose schools beyond their catchment area, which local authorities accept, while on the other, local authorities have no responsibility for assisting with those children's travel to school, so that they fall victim to the whim of deregulated commercial bus services which may, or may not, meet their needs. I could cite many more cases and, no doubt, those stories are replicated throughout the country.

I shall clarify my proposals. First, a dedicated school bus service should be available to every child, whatever the distance at which they live from school. I should like the two and three-mile rules to be scrapped. However, I am not demanding that all children, however close to a school, should have a free bus service. It would be far better to make a low-cost flat fare available to every child, regardless of the distance at which they live from school, but I honestly believe that children living 200 or 300 yd from school will not be queueing up to pay bus fares.

Low-income families could qualify for free bus passes on the same basis as they qualify for free school meals, with no extra bureaucracy. All children could be offered season tickets, with parents being offered discounts for purchasing a season ticket in advance. If children from low-income families automatically received season tickets, there would be no stigma and, possibly, school attendance may improve.

Evidence from South Yorkshire shows a fall of nearly 10 per cent. in peak-time car journeys during the school holidays. Nearly one in 10 cars are on the road exclusively to take children to school, while a further 10 per cent. of cars do the school run prior to the rush to work. How many car miles would be saved if a reliable, dedicated school bus service was available?

My second proposal is that local authorities or transport authorities should be obliged to work with schools to provide a transport plan for all the pupils. Thirdly, the transport funding of local authorities must be reconfigured to place emphasis on funding the provision of school transport.

In South Yorkshire, concessionary fares for 4.5 per cent. of all schoolchildren account for more than 20 per cent. of expenditure on school transport. In Doncaster, provision for children with special needs account for well over half of the funds for school transport held by the local authority. I respect those children's needs, but by extension, I also believe that all children, parents and society will gain from a comprehensive and inclusive school transport strategy.

Although the UK is certainly not the USA, I see some attraction in the no-frills yellow bus, which my children see on "The Simpsons" cartoon programme every day, which offers a door-to-door service. The idea of a dedicated yellow bus service has attracted considerable interest, including from my own transport authority, the South Yorkshire passenger transport executive.

My hon. Friend knows of the widespread enthusiasm for school travel plans from the many bids that he received from local authorities to fund the preparation of local travel plans. I understand that 263 bids were received for work or school travel plans, and that a majority of them related to school travel. I also understand that my hon. Friend is funding 111 posts to prepare those local plans.

Is that the precursor of a radical expansion of school transport? Will we see a quantum leap in the number of children arriving at school by means other than by car, or will we simply see a large number of safe walking routes established at minimum cost which, to be honest, appear to miss the point? For many of those children, the answer is a bus.

The Government—the most radical Labour Government that the country has ever seen—have laid the foundations for a first-class transport network in the national transport plan. For that, I compliment my hon. Friend and his ministerial colleagues on all their work.

South Yorkshire is a centre of transport excellence, which will be enhanced when Doncaster has its own airport, located within minutes of the east coast main line and a short bus ride from Doncaster's new interchange. However, plans for school transport look undeveloped, and safe walking routes are only a small part of the solution.

We may never solve every problem, and different communities may need different solutions, but time and again we seem to overlook the central role that the school bus could play in contributing to sustainable transport. Knowing my hon. Friend's shared commitment to safe travel, traffic reduction and the efficient use of the road network, I urge him to ensure that when he and the Government are re-elected for a second term, we create an efficient, locally delivered school bus transport strategy.

10.22 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (Mr. Keith Hill)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) for raising the matter of school bus services. I thank her for her courtesy in giving me notice of some of the main issues that she intended to discuss in the debate. I hope to offer her an encouraging response.

It goes without saying that we all want to be sure that children travel to school in safety and, wherever possible, by sustainable modes of transport. As my hon. Friend rightly observed, 18 per cent. of cars on the road in urban areas at the peak of the morning rush—that is, at 10 minutes to 9—are taking children to school.

The proportion of journeys to school by car has almost doubled since the mid-1980s, to 30 per cent., with 38 per cent. of primary pupils and more than 20 per cent. of secondary pupils travelling to school by car. Bus use has remained relatively stable, at around 20 per cent. Walking and cycling have declined, although 53 per cent. of primary pupils and 42 per cent. of secondary pupils still walk to school.

We know that children sitting in cars in congested, slow-moving traffic can be exposed to pollution levels three times higher than those outside the car, yet there is a range of alternatives to the car for the—usually short—journey to school. There is a widespread perception that healthy, sustainable travel to school largely involves walking and cycling, rather than bus use. The vast majority of children who live within a mile of school do walk, but because the average journey length has increased to 1.5 miles for five to 10-year-olds and 3.3 miles for 11 to 16-year-olds, fewer trips are now within walking distance. The bus should therefore be a positive choice for more parents and their children.

Caroline Flint

Does my hon. Friend agree that there is a lack of adequate discussion and consultation on the production of transport plans to meet the needs produced by school reorganisation? Such reorganisation can occur in the form of school closures, which happen because of falling numbers, or as a result of the conversion of the structure of primary, middle and secondary schools to a two-tier system.

Mr. Hill

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. The production of such plans is one of the tasks that we expect the 111 travel plan co-ordinators for schools and firms, whom she mentioned, to address as school mergers develop. The Government have just introduced those co-ordinators, at a cost of £9 million.

Buses take up far less road space than the cars that are needed to carry an equivalent number of passengers. More bus travel during the peak school run would cut congestion on the roads and thus help to reduce vehicle emissions. With a few hopeful exceptions, bus travel has steadily declined during much of the past half century and is only now starting to show signs of recovery. Bus travel to school allows children to socialise with their peers, to gain greater independence and self-confidence and to learn important skills such as an understanding of timetables.

Bus travel is safer than car travel, and by ensuring that children use buses, we might even encourage them to become lifelong public transport users, with all the benefits that that would bring. Greater bus travel to school would benefit both schoolchildren and the environment, but getting pupils out of cars and on to buses requires partnership. Local authorities need to work in partnership with operators, parents and other stakeholders to achieve that aim.

The Government have put buses at the heart of our integrated transport plans. We have set ourselves the target of increasing bus passenger journeys by 10 per cent. by 2010. Local authorities have just received a good revenue support grant settlement, and there has been substantial growth in Government funding for the third year running. There will be a national average increase of 4.4 per cent. in general grant money next year. The settlement took into account the increase in bus contract prices that is being experienced in a number of areas.

We are also providing growing support for rural bus services, including continuation and expansion of the rural bus subsidy grant scheme; its contribution will increase to £140 million over the next three years. In addition, £60 million will be provided for the rural bus challenge and we are introducing a new urban bus challenge to improve transport links for deprived urban areas, which will provide £40 million over the next three years. We are also implementing a range of policies to improve bus services generally.

All those measures are encouraging bus operators and local authorities to work together to drive up quality, frequency and reliability, and to extend bus coverage. We have now put in place arrangements that give a proper role to local authorities and ensure a clear system of local transport planning. At the same time, we recognise the need to harness the commercial expertise and innovation of the private sector.

I perfectly understand my hon. Friend's concerns. She would like a national school bus strategy to be established. I understand that to mean that she wants an increase in free home-to-school transport and in other local bus services that serve schools. We are working towards implementing the recommendations made to Ministers by the school travel advisory group, which is known as STAG, on the use and availability of buses for the journey to school. STAG wants walking, cycling and bus use to return by 2010 to the levels of the mid-1980s. That would mean that 80 per cent. of primary school children and 90 per cent. of secondary school children travelled by such means.

We are aware that many people feel that the current statutory walking distances—two miles for pupils aged up to seven, and three miles for those aged eight and above—that govern qualification for free home-to-school transport are unreasonable, and that legislation does not support parental preference on school choice. Indeed, my hon. Friend made that point forcefully. We know that, of the children who live between one and three miles from school, more than 60 per cent. of those aged five to 10 and about 30 per cent. of those aged 11 to 16 currently travel by car. Recent research has shown that a significant number of those children might be expected to travel by bus if the statutory walking distances were reduced. Reduced congestion benefits could then be expected, especially in urban areas.

To that end, STAG recommended that better use be made of the substantial resources already devoted to statutory school transport, so that arrangements are better targeted on safe, healthy and environmentally friendly travel to school.

Let me remind the House of the real purpose and function of statutory school transport. It is not and never was designed to be an all-inclusive school transport service. It is a safety net to ensure that no children are denied the right to attend a suitable school because they live too far away, have special needs or face a dangerous journey.

Caroline Flint

Will my hon. Friend give way?

Mr. Hill

I would rather not. I have much to say and relatively little time. However, I appreciate the customary devotion and assiduity that my hon. Friend brings to such matters.

The amount budgeted for and spent on statutory school transport by local education authorities has been increasing above inflation in recent years. It is now a substantial sum—more than £440 million in 1998–99. However, some two thirds of the figure is spent on pupils with statements of special educational needs. That leaves approximately £150 million for the 7.5 million pupils of compulsory school age who do not have statements. It gives local authorities little scope for additional discretionary provision.

My colleagues in the Department for Education and Employment are, however, considering proposals for pilot schemes to enable local authorities to test the supply and take-up of additional school transport for children who are not currently entitled to free transport. In advance of that, my Department has invited tenders for a survey of attitudes to test the likely take-up of additional school transport services and the extent to which it would be influenced by a range of factors, including fares.

Statutory school transport is not the only source of assistance. Local authorities have the power, but no duty, to establish concessionary fare schemes in their areas under the Transport Act 1985. About 40 per cent. of shire counties have a scheme for young people, though few are countywide, and some do not provide fare reductions in the morning peak. By contrast, in the metropolitan areas, all six passenger transport authorities provide flat fares or half fares on local buses that are valid in the morning peak. Those schemes are supported by Government subsidy.

In the shire areas, it is common for discounted fares to be offered commercially by private sector bus operators, and the discount is usually half fare. In London, Transport for London, rather than local authorities, operates a discount scheme for young people at roughly half fare. It is regarded as a commercial scheme without Government subsidy, it covers the five to 18 age group and it is available in the morning peak. In the light of that, STAG also recommended that affordable bus travel to school be made available to all children in compulsory education. My Department plans to discuss that further with major bus operators.

The Department has also commissioned consultants to identify current best practice in increasing bus use for the journey to school. We consulted local authorities, schools and bus operators, and they identified many examples of local action to promote bus travel for the home-to-school journey. The consultants reported last year and we shall shortly publish a guide for local authorities, bus operators and parents groups that draws together the main lessons from the study. It will be full of real-life examples of the way in which schools, parents, bus operators, local businesses and the police have worked together successfully to increase travel to school by bus. We hope that the guide will stimulate other authorities, and especially operators, to consider the further measures that they can take.

We know that some local authorities and bus operators are currently developing innovative school bus schemes. One is in Surrey, where the recent local transport plan settlement conferred large sums of Government money on a pilot project that provides direct transportation from home to school for 40 primary schools in the county. Other schemes are based directly on the American school bus system. We are watching their development with interest. My hon. Friend is evidently doing so too.

The Department has been working with the bus operators FirstGroup to identify where American yellow bus vehicles might be modified to meet construction and use requirements, and where special authorisation might be required. I understand that FirstGroup has agreed to make all the required modifications to ensure that the vehicles comply with the conditions of initial fitness regulations. It will hold urgent discussions with the Department on the further modifications that are required to fulfil the accessibility regulations.

Any exemptions granted to FirstGroup vehicles will have to be fully justifiable, and other operators will need to be treated in a similar fashion. I have already received representations from other vehicle manufacturers, operators and groups representing disabled people. My ministerial colleagues and I have given an assurance that the Government remain totally committed to a fully accessible public transport system, and that will be borne in mind when deciding whether those vehicles are to be accepted on UK roads.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for introducing the debate. My colleagues in the Department for Education and Employment and I regard the issue of promoting travel to school by safer and more sustainable modes as very important. I hope that I have been able to demonstrate that we are currently very active in this area. I welcome the contribution of my hon. Friend this evening, just as I welcome all other constructive suggestions about further work to be done.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-five minutes to Eleven o'clock.