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Mr. Clarke: We have said that we will provide a small amount of pump-priming money to get these schemes off the ground, but I do not pretend that it is an additional significant subsidy for school transport, because it is not.
The figures are immense and it is worth setting them out, so that Members understand the situation. In 2002–03, Somerset—the hon. Gentleman's local
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education authority—spent just over £7 million a year on school transport. My own authority, Norfolk, spent nearly £17 million, and Cumbria spent nearly £10 million. We believe that there is a real question to be asked as to whether such money is being best spent, and on what is needed, in a given area. We argue that it is reasonable for us to give LEAs such as Somerset—I use that as an example simply because it was the hon. Gentleman who raised this question—the flexibility to argue that they could spend such money in a better way to serve the needs of their community, rather than every penny being spent in the straitjacketed way that I indicated.
I should give some idea of the scale of spending, because many Members will not appreciate it. Let us consider total spending on public transport in 2001–02 for the country as a whole. LEA support for dedicated school bus services totalled some £630 million. Support for socially necessary local bus services, including the various support schemes, totalled £260 million, which is significantly less. Support for the London bus network totalled some £180 million, and spending on concessionary fares came to nearly £500 million. The bus service operators' grant came to £300 million, social services transport totalled just over £210 million, and non-emergency health transport came to some £160 million. Total public transport spending for 2001–02 came, therefore, to about £2.2 billion, of which nearly a third went on LEA support for dedicated school bus transport. This is an enormous amount of money, and it is right, in the light of wider consultation, for the Government to say, "Could we spend this money better? Could we enable LEAs to attack these problems more creatively, in order to deal with the real issues in every particular?"
Mr. David Kidney (Stafford) (Lab): I want to follow up the point about the cost to local authorities. Staffordshire's figure for this year is more than £13.5 million. In the context of a total education budget of £450 million, that might not seem a huge proportion—until one realises that £400 million of that budget goes directly to schools. The amount that the local authority holds centrally is therefore a huge proportion: much more than a quarter of its entire budget for the whole education service.
Mr. Clarke: My hon. Friend makes the point extremely coherently, as I would expect a former Treasury Select Committee colleague to do. His command of the detail is clear and he makes the case very powerfully. Should we just take the view, as many local authorities have had to do, that here is a wad of spending, and one cannot do much to move matters forward? Or we should we say instead that we are going to try to use that money for socially beneficial purposes, in the way that my hon. Friend implies, by attacking environmental and health issues?
Mr. Tim Collins (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (Con):
I want to press the Secretary of State on a matter on which, I suspect, all Members will agree: the need to protect children with special educational needs. He has gone through the figures and created the impression that a lot of money is being spent, and he has implied that in his view it could be spent better. He will know that the
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House of Commons Library has reported that 65 per cent. of all money currently spent on subsidising free school transport is used to support children with special educational needs. Is he prepared to guarantee, by amendment to the Bill, that no parent of such a child who currently has access to free school transport will lose that access? Is he further prepared to guarantee that in future, as now, two thirds of all spending on free school transport will benefit such children?
Mr. Clarke: I think that I can help with the first guarantee but not the second. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that where such transport is required because of a statement concerning a child with special educational needs, it will be protected. If a clarifying amendment in Committee would help in that regard, I am happy to look at this issue in some detail. He correctly quotes a figure of some 65 per cent. for the country as a whole in respect of children with special educational needs, although it does vary from authority to authority. I cannot give a commitment that a certain fixed percentage will always be spent on transporting such children. In this as in other areas, it is necessary to look at what is the best way to use this resource, and my Department recently published further proposals for local authorities on the best way of doing that. However, the hon. Gentleman is right to point out that this is indeed an issue. It is a question of whether the best way to spend this money is on minicabs whizzing around the country, as currently happens, or whether more coherent use could be made of that resource.
On the hon. Gentleman's argument concerning fundamental rights—the rights of the parent who has a child with a statement—I can give him the assurance that he seeks. If we can provide greater clarity on that issue in Committee, I am perfectly happy to go down that route.
Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody (Crewe and Nantwich) (Lab): My right hon. Friend will know that my Committee is delighted that this Bill has been introduced. Does he accept that his point about special educational needs is particularly important because many counties are unable to provide the level of care, in transport terms, that they would like, and they do not have sufficient flexibility to introduce improvements?
Mr. Clarke: My hon. Friend is entirely correct. We explored that issue during the evidence session with the Transport Committee, and it is exactly why we need to establish the flexibility that will enable the particular and real needs of such children to be properly addressed. I appreciated the support of her Committee; she is not renowned for always supporting the Government, and securing her support on this occasion I regard as a tremendous achievement.
Helen Jones (Warrington, North) (Lab):
I listened very carefully to what my right hon. Friend said about children with special educational needs. Will he ensure that when this issue is dealt with in Committee, the debate, while dealing with the needs of such children, does not focus simply on children with statements?
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Otherwise, parents might be encouraged to seek statements purely to access transport. In fact, we are trying to move away from such a situation.
Mr. Clarke: My hon. Friend is entirely correct. I chose to use such language in answer to the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Collins) precisely because it is the statement that gives the legal right to which he referred. But in considering a proposal from any pilot authority, it would be right to look at provision for all children with special educational needs, whether statemented or not. Her general point is entirely in line with the direction of Government policy on special education across the piece.
I am sorry to return to this point and I may be overstating the case, but I do feel that the way in which this resource is currently being spent constitutes a real issue. We need to generate more flexibility for local education authorities to see what can be done generally—including, more particularly, for children with special educational needs, whether statemented or not.
Mr. David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op): We are talking about special educational needs, but does my right hon. Friend also understand that there is a real problem with school transport in respect of what happens post-16? I realise that we are dealing with an LEA presumption here, but regarding wider social needs post-16 and special needs, where there is still a bit of a black hole that we are unable to clarify, will my right hon. Friend ensure that the learning and skills councils engage with the LEAs that are undertaking this particular set of projects?
Mr. Clarke: I can give my hon. Friend that assurance. Indeed, I shall refer in a few moments to 16-to-19 provision. We come back to the central point once again. Do we want the straitjacket of the way things are, according to which decisions have to be taken, or do we want to say that if Gloucestershire, for example, were to produce a particular proposition for dealing with Stroud, we could look at the circumstances more flexibly and see what could be done?
Hywel Williams (Caernarfon) (PC): Will the Secretary of State tell the House how he envisages protecting Welsh-medium education, where provision is very patchy and children often travel 20 or 30 miles to access secondary schools?
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