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Dr. John Pugh (Southport) (LD): On the surface, the Bill is modest, consisting of seven clauses and five pages. It creates an illusion at first sight of not doing much, but it is potentially dangerous—just how dangerous it is depends on the shape of future regulations, which are something of a moveable feast.
The problem, with which we all identify, is the increased volume of school-to-home transport. Hon. Members are acutely aware of the school run in both urban and rural constituencies. There is the additional problem, which the Government must confront, of the increased cost of public transport, both regular scheduled services and contract services that are provided directly to schools. As has been said, many large families find it easier to bundle the children into a car, which is certainly more financially worth while, than to put them on the bus. The increased cost to LEAs of providing transport drives some of them to curtail discretionary support for things such as denominational school transport, and there have been many celebrated cases in connection with that.
Following the Government's agenda, there is the increased probability of challenge to LEAs and increased demands on them for transport. Surely the specialist school programme creates the opportunity for parents with a child of special ability to argue plausibly that the nearest school is not the appropriate school—a point that the Select Committee made. Of course, there is the increased problem, which we have all identified and discussed, of childhood obesity and the fact that children are not as active on their way to school as they once were.
Those are the problems. We all share them, know what they are and seek to address them. The Government's solution is to authorise school travel schemes and to permit pilots. Doing both together is a neat move because if the pilots fail on a score of criteria there is nothing to stop the Government encouraging roll out across the country, although I stand to be corrected on that. There are only two essential features that any scheme must have. It must not charge protected pupils and it must have Ministry approval. The scheme does not have to be a good scheme. It does not have to meet quantifiable targets or measurable environmental successes, to increase public transport use or to reduce congestion; it merely requires ministerial approval.
Bizarrely, almost all of what the Government envisage and hope for in the Bill is already well within the capacity of most local authorities. Most of what has been talked about and what the Minister vaunted is being done in different places by active local authorities, save the capacity to opt out of existing arrangements that followed earlier legislation and to charge for what once was free. That is what the Government call flexibility.
With that new flexibility for local authorities comes—this is perhaps just as bad—indirect encouragement of local authorities to roll back from discretionary commitments to faith schools and disabled pupils just as we are becoming a more multi-faith society and more
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disability conscious. What will the new charging regime guarantee? There is no guarantee that it will increase travel by public transport, reduce car use or increase the capacity of parents to exercise choice, but there is a guarantee that some local authorities will have more money. They will have a monetary advantage compared with other LEAs. I think that that will be followed up by a move towards the child pays system, which will disadvantage a range of individuals, such as children who reside far from their school, children from large families and children in rural England.
The reality—I think we all suspect this and feel it in our bones—is that charging will eventuality become the norm. The Bill is simply the thin end of the wedge.
Mr. Beith: Does my hon. Friend accept that to encourage people not to use their cars in urban areas, any charge for new school transport for people close to a school would have to be very low? The only resources that the local authority could plunder to keep that charge low, apart from the charge itself, would be higher charges or much lower costs for getting rural children to school. The Minister gave no indication of how local authorities such as Northumberland and Cumbria, with large geographical areas, could achieve that objective at substantially lower costs. The only answer must be that children will be charged a lot more.
Dr. Pugh: There is no evidence that charges will be low or, for that matter, will stay low. There are administrative costs associated with implementation of the charges.
Fundamentally, the Bill removes entitlement. The Minister has a nice word for that. He calls it a legislative straitjacket. It removes an entitlement and introduces the possibility of a charge. It means asking families to resolve the problem that they do not directly create.
Like most problematic measures that the Government think of—the congestion charge is another example—they by and large sell it to local authorities as local autonomy. I have to say that it is not real autonomy when the Government have tinkered so much with other aspects of education that directly impinge on transport, such as the structure of schools, admission and curricula arrangements and attendance times. We can argue anyway whether there should be autonomy and diversity among LEAs in delivering basic entitlements. After all, health trusts are not allowed to vary prescription charges, and nobody would argue for that.
That, in a nutshell, is my analysis of the Bill. It would be bad enough if it were just my analysis, but it is not. The Secondary Heads Association says that it is very concerned about any charging in rural areas, and states that the measure will do nothing to improve attendance. The National Association of Head Teachers says that it "potentially undermines parental choice", and it
"will not be surprised if parents vote with their feet and transfer to cars."
On a pedantic note, I am not sure how one votes with one's feet and transfers to a car. The NAHT says that the Bill totally undermines other Government strategies. In a damning verdict, the general secretary of the Secondary Heads Association says:
"It knocks one prop from under free state education."
Those comments are hardly surprising when there are about 150,000 primary school children who live more than 3 miles from school, and 83 per cent. of them will be debarred from free transport if charging is universally employed by local authorities. More than 500,000 secondary school children live more than 3 miles from school, and 85 per cent. of them will be excluded from free transport if all local authorities charge. I accept that that is a worst-case scenario, but as I pointed out, we may well get to that.
What would that do? If one assumes an average of 1.7 children per family, the switch to car use could result in 337 children going by car who might previously have gone on a free bus. Putting it another way, that is 75.5 million extra trips on the road. If one has a definite environmental tinge to one's thinking, one could think of it as 7,550 extra tonnes of CO 2 emissions. Those are the possible effects of the Bill, so it is no wonder that the Transport Committee claimed that the Government
"fails to consider school transport as part of a wider transport system".
I have given the views of head teachers. There are also the views of the voluntary bodies: Barnardo's and the National Children's Bureau are concerned about the effects on disabled and SEN pupils. They are also concerned—we all share this one—about how the pilots will be monitored and evaluated. We see the presumption in what the Secretary of State said earlier that almost any pilot will be agreeable as long as it is within the basic parameters. Voluntary bodies express the worry, which we have heard before, about larger families. They welcome wholeheartedly the commitment of the Greater London authority and Transport for London to free travel for all children.
The National Autistic Society is worried about autistic children being
"increasingly vulnerable to less favourable treatment".
The only solution to its predicament would be a guarantee that transport needs will be written into SEN statements. However, that would run counter to the Government's strategy to move away from reliance on statements as a way of dealing with special needs and to concentrate instead on amicable negotiations between parent and school. The NAS demands that the basic entitlement on grounds of disability be written into the Bill.
I could go on; the Bill's opponents are many. Despite the understanding that apparently exists between the churches and the Government, the Catholic Church is concerned that the social mix of its schools will be adversely affected, laying them open to the accusation that they are not choosing from the full range of pupils. The Catholic Church worries, as I suppose it might, about the effect on, and the choices that will be made by, larger families, suggesting that most tend to use a car for school travel.
The Bill simply does not have enough friends; it has few takers. Why? The explanation is relatively simple: it provides no certainty about environmental gain; it provides no certainty about congestion reduction; it provides massive uncertainty about people's future entitlements; and it provides absolute certainty that there will be charges. The tragedy is that free school
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transport has the best take-up of any benefit, even better than free school meals. It is almost invariably taken advantage of when it is offered, and it automatically ensures less congestion, less pollution and a safe journey to school. Nothing in this Bill does that.
3.14 pm
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