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6.26 pm
The Minister for School Standards (Mr. David Miliband): It is always a pleasure to be offered the chance to make six or seven friends with a quick bit of spending, but I fear I would make a large number of enemies if I followed the advice of the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend, East (Sir Teddy Taylor).
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (Mr. Hurst) on securing this debate and on his long-standing interest in the topic. I believe that he secured a debate in July 2000 on related issues, and throughout his time in Parliament he has made Ministers and the House aware of the links between transport and education, and the importance of transport to successful education. He therefore deserves the thanks of the House for his work.
The Government recognise the problems and frustrations experienced by many parents regarding school transport, whether provided privately, such as travel by car, or by a local authority. The latest figures show that over the past 20 years car use has doubled, and that one in five cars on the road at 8.45 am or 8.50 am are taking children to school. Many of those cars are taking children to primary schools, some of which are denominational, and many make journeys of between one and three miles. The House will know that the public purse spends more than £0.5bn a year on school transport, about half of which goes towards special needs provision, leaving about £0.25 billion for other school transport.
For the benefit of the House, I shall deal with the legal position, then turn to issues affecting Essex in particular. The contribution of the hon. Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) will tempt me into areas of local government finance, and I look forward to illuminating the House on some of the finer points of the matter. However, it is important to make it clear that transport is always necessary for a pupil of compulsory school age who attends the nearest suitable school if it is beyond statutory walking distance. Local education authorities do not have a duty to provide free transport for pupils whose parents have chosen to send them to another school, even if it is beyond statutory walking distance. Those cases are entirely at the discretion of individual local authorities.
I shall set out the legal position for the House. The Education Act 1996 sets out LEA responsibilities to provide free transport to school for pupils of compulsory school age. Section 509(1) requires LEAs to make arrangements for the provision of transport that they consider necessary for pupils to attend school. That transport must be free. Section 509(3) enables authorities to pay all or part of a pupil's travelling expenses where transport is not "necessary", and I shall say more about arrangements for discretionary transport later. The purpose of the legislation is to make
sure that every child can attend school, and section 444 of the 1996 Act states that no parent can be prosecuted for their child failing to attend school if the LEA fails to provide suitable transport for children who live beyond the statutory walking distance.As my hon. Friend said, LEAs must provide free transport to denominational schools where pupils live beyond the statutory walking distances and where a denominational school is designated as the nearest school. Where pupils live closer to a non-denominational school, LEAs may provide free transport to a denominational school of a parent's choice if they consider that it is "necessary", or they may exercise discretion and provide free or subsidised transport.
Current DFES guidance to LEAs on denominational transport is that the Secretary of State hopes that LEAs will continue to think it right not to disturb well established arrangements of the kind that I described, some of which have been associated with local agreements or understandings about the siting of denominational schools. The Secretary of State continues to attach importance to the opportunity that many parents have to choose a school or college in accordance with their religious convictions. It is important to say, however, that there is no statutory duty requiring LEAs to provide free transport to denominational schools.
I remind hon. Members that statutory school transport is not the only source of assistance for young people with travel costs. Local authorities have powers to establish concessionary fare schemes for young people in their area under the Transport Act 1985. About 40 per cent. of shire counties have such schemes, many of which assist pupils making the home-to-school journey. In the metropolitan areas, all six passenger transport authorities provide flat fares or half fares on local buses. Tempted as I am to delve into the role of passenger transport authorities in transport policies, I hope that my hon. Friend will forgive me if I do not go too far down that route. In the capital, Transport for London, not the local authorities, operates a season ticket discount scheme for young people at roughly half fare. That is a commercial scheme without Government subsidy. Under-11s will be entitled to free bus and tram travel from January 2004.
My hon. Friend did not ask about post-16 transport, either in general or in relation to denominational schools, but I am happy to write to him if he is interested in that particular issue.
I shall move on to the management of budgets, which involves critical decisions for LEAs. There are many calls on LEA budgets and school budgets. Funding for home-to-school transport forms part of an authority's LEA budget. We do not seek to influence the level of that budget, unlike the schools budget: it is for authorities to decide on the level of their LEA budget within the total resources available. In doing so, they will of course need to provide a level of service consistent with their statutory duties. There are often calls for improvements in home-to-school transport financed from the education budget—although it is worth repeating that expenditure is already at a high level and has risen fast in recent years. Over the past 10 years, annual increases have been between 6 per cent. and 11 per cent.—well ahead of inflation—and the cost of
transporting pupils with special needs has accounted for an increasing proportion of the total spend on home-to-school transport.In preparing for the debate, I was struck by the fact that some authorities have sought to contain costs and improve services through a range of measures such as integrating education and social care transport provision—for example, in Oxfordshire and Worcestershire—and introducing staggered school starting times, which my hon. Friend the Member for St. Albans (Mr. Pollard) mentioned, and which has been done in the Isle of Wight and in west Sussex. Elsewhere, LEAs have developed dedicated bus services to raise the standard of provision: that has increased uptake at minimal cost and helped to ameliorate pollution. Transport authorities, education authorities and schools are working together to put in place cost effective, high quality provision for schoolchildren—for example, the new services provided by bus operator Harrogate and District, in Harrogate, and by the Greater Manchester Passenger transport authority, in Wigan and Stockport.
I turn to the situation in Essex. I know that Essex LEA's proposals are of great concern to that county's residents, including county councillors and hon. Members who represent Essex constituencies. Most recently, on 16 October, the hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) asked the Secretary of State what representations he has received over proposals by the LEA to charge travel costs for pupils attending faith schools. The Department has received more than 50 letters from hon. Members, councillors, parents and schools. All opposed the proposals, and a number complained that the consultation process was flawed. The local education authority will obviously want to take that seriously. The matter needs to be considered in the appropriate way in due course.
Let me deal with funding. The pot of money is limited and that requires difficult decisions about priorities. The position in Essex is different from that which the hon. Member for West Chelmsford described. Since 1997–98, per capita spending on pupils aged three to 19 has increased by 24 per cent. in real terms. That is £670 per pupil. In 2003–04, Essex received an increase of 3.2 per cent. per pupil on top of a separate transfer, which compensated for teachers' pay and the transfer of nursery grant and infant class size grant. Apart from the education formula spending share, there is the important revenue support grant. In Essex, it increased by 3.8 per cent. on top of a transfer of £586 million to provide funding for teachers' pension contributions.
Mr. Burns: What about the rest of the country?
Mr. Miliband: I shall deal with that shortly.
A further increase of 3.2 per cent. reflected the end of some standards fund grants. Like other local education authorities, Essex has also received generous standards fund increases, from a mere £7 million in 1998 to £46.8 million in 2002–03. Capital funding has increased
from £13.8 million in 1998–99 to £64.4 million in 2003–04. For this year, the education formula spending total is £666 million, of which £20 million is spent on free home-to-school transport for approximately 21,000 pupils. Next year, the floor increase will be 5 per cent. per pupil—
Mr. Burns: What about this year?
Mr. Miliband: The hon. Gentleman says that he wants to talk about this year, but Essex county council's proposals are for next year. That is the focus of the current debate. The hon. Member for Rochford and Southend, East mentioned the meeting that I held with his constituents yesterday. I do not deny that some schools in some parts of the country have experienced genuine problems this year. The Secretary of State has dealt with them in successive statements in the House.
Last week, my right hon. Friend announced a floor of 5 per cent. per pupil for every LEA in the country. That is significant protection for LEAs. In addition, he announced a transitional grant of £9.8 million for next year—I was disappointed that the hon. Member for West Chelmsford did not mention that. It is intended to target problems in school budgets. The hon. Gentleman also made the extremely serious allegation that the Government were somehow fiddling the local government funding system. I reject that. He should know that there are three simple parts to funding education. First, there is an entitlement of £2,100 per pupil.
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