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Sir George Young (North-West Hampshire) (Con): It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew), who always makes constructive and thoughtful speeches, and has brought a rural and an urban perspective to bear on the matter.

I welcome the opportunity to clamber aboard our Second Reading debate and make a fairly short journey. Having served as Secretary of State for Transport, I am sympathetic to some of the strategic objectives mentioned by the present Secretary of State in his introduction to the Bill. A far-sighted transport strategy aims to iron out peaks and troughs to achieve better use of our road network. The school run has a dramatic impact on transport and is a conspicuous peak—particularly in the morning, although less so in the afternoon—so it makes sense to iron it out. There are good transport reasons as well as good educational reasons for looking at the problem.

The Secretary of State seemed to imply that nothing at all had been done in this field before 1997, but I recall working closely with my right hon. Friend the Member for South-West Norfolk (Mrs. Shephard) on an initiative called "Safer routes to school". We worked with local educational authorities, transport companies and Sustrans to achieve some of the objectives behind the present Bill. We tried to work with the grain and understand why parents were cautious about allowing their children to walk, cycle or, in some cases, go to school by bus. We tried to persuade people to change, rather than hector them, and we used grants to underpin parts of the initiative. I remember visiting a school in Birmingham where bicycle sheds had been funded by a grant from central Government to promote cycling to school.

I also looked at the planning system. A popular school in Hampshire wanted to expand because parents
 
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wanted to send their children there, but the planning authorities were concerned about the traffic implications. Before consent was granted, there was a dialogue with the school, parents and teachers to see whether a transport plan would reduce the percentage of journeys made by car and thus prevent expansion from aggravating congestion in the neighbourhood. Lateral thinking is useful in minimising the problems caused by journeys to school.

Mr. Kidney : I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that the good thinking that took place before 1997 has continued. Locally, for example, Weston road high school partnership for safe routes to school regularly sends me minutes of its meetings and achievements, and residents are very enthusiastic about that initiative. Nationally, the Government last week announced £10 million for safe routes for schools and the joining up of cycleways. All that good work still continues.

Sir George Young: I am delighted by the hon. Gentleman's consensual approach, and I am glad that some of the pioneering initiatives introduced by the Conservative Government have been built on. One's memory is never perfect, but I do not recall anyone in my Department saying, "Minister, you can't do this, because the law does not allow you to do so". That, however, is the implication behind the Bill.

I am very much in favour of the flexible and voluntary approach that underpins the Bill. I only wish that the same approach would infect other Government Departments in their relationships with local government. Local authorities, for example, have been told that they must have Cabinet government, and the planning system has been told how many houses it must provide. That dirigiste approach by some Departments sits uneasily with the more consensual and voluntary approach adopted by the team who have introduced the Bill. I am in favour of the pump-priming underpinning the Bill, which provides an incentive for people to participate in the pilots.

I am a keen cyclist and, indeed, I bicycled to the House this morning. I hope that the pilot authorities that promote cycling will make sure that cycle training is undertaken at schools and that children who bicycle to school are encouraged to wear a helmet.

There is one particular aspect that I thought the Secretary of State glossed over in his speech; the tension between parental choice of school and the transport imperative to make better use of the bus. The Select Committee on Education and Skills highlighted the evidence that he gave to the Select Committee on Transport, which was that the main aim of the Bill was to encourage people to attend their local neighbourhood school. The Committee felt that that interpretation sat somewhat uneasily with the Government's other policies on diversity of schools and parental preference, which would lengthen journeys. I am not quite sure how the Bill takes the trick of getting more people to take the school bus while promoting a much more complex network of journeys from home to school if parental choice is achieved. Perhaps the Minister can address that point.

Much of the debate has been about the principle of charging. If I were asked to die in the last ditch to defend the principle that children of all families, however well-
 
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off, should continue to go to school free, I am not sure that I would voluntarily so expire. None the less, a number of points have been raised in the debate that the Government need to answer. There are inevitably some bureaucratic problems associated with charging that simply do not exist if journeys are free. My hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Collins) raised a legitimate concern about the not-so-well-off who might get caught. There is also the perverse incentive mentioned from the Liberal Democrat Benches, whereby introducing charging for a journey that is currently free might get somebody off the bus and into the car. Other points were made about how the introduction of charging may penalise those who live in rural areas.

There is another potential tension that I am not sure has been addressed. During the Labour party conference, a new vision was launched for our schools whereby they would operate not just from 9 o'clock to 3 o'clock, but from 8 o'clock to 6 o'clock, in order to accommodate those whose parents both work. I am not quite sure how that vision of the school sits with the imperative to get more children to go to school by bus. If school starts at 8 o'clock rather than 9 o'clock, will two buses make two journeys, or will the bus assist only the child who starts at 9 o'clock, rather than the one who starts at 8 o'clock? There are some tensions to which the Government have not responded about how the objectives of the Bill can be reconciled with some of their other objectives.

I should like to make a final point about road safety and seat belts in particular. The Government's view is that it is ultimately for schools and local education authorities to ensure that vehicles are appropriate for the type of journey planned, including seeing whether they are fitted with seat belts. Some of my constituents in Shipton Bellinger are deeply concerned that the bus that takes their children to school has no seat belts. If those parents drive their children to school, they can ensure that they wear seat belts. If they send them on the bus, they cannot do so, because the bus has none.

I wonder whether the Government will have a dialogue with the authorities that take part in the pilots, and whether they will be encouraged to use newer and safer buses. I note that the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Skills, the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr. Twigg), is nodding vigorously. Some of the buses are straight from Cliff Richard's "Summer Holiday" in the 1960s, and I hope that the pilot schemes will promote new buses that pollute less and are safer.

I understand the objectives behind the Bill and I hope that they will be achieved. I think that there are some unanswered questions. I am not volunteering to serve on the Standing Committee, but I hope that the questions that I have posed will be raised by colleagues when that Committee sits.

3.39 pm

Mr. David Kidney (Stafford) (Lab): I was just thinking about the reference to Cliff Richard, and I thought that the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young) has, like Cliff Richard, been around for a long time, still looks very young and is still listened to with great seriousness by lots of people. This is consensual politics.
 
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The difference between the volume of weekday traffic in Stafford when the schools are in session and the volume when the schools are on holiday is noticeable. Huge congestion occurs on school days, especially in the mornings, yet hardly any occurs in the school holidays. The difference during school holidays is so noticeable that it has become a common topic of conversation among my constituents, who comment on the benefits such as shorter journey times to work and more punctual buses. People are also more relaxed at those times because the traffic is less difficult. Although some hon. Members have not mentioned it, I guess that that is the typical experience all around the country.

Last year's Department for Transport national travel survey said that at 8.50 am on school days, about one in five vehicles on the road is taking children to school, which shows the school run's huge contribution to congestion. Constituents often say that the answer is to reduce the reliance on the school run. Anybody can see the benefits to the country of reducing the reliance on the school run: journeys would finish on time more frequently; congestion and standing traffic would decrease, which would also reduce emissions of greenhouse gases; and children would be safer when travelling by road. If some children were to change from the school run to walking or cycling, it would also benefit children's health. There should be a consensus on helping 100 per cent. of youngsters to get to school safely and affordably—Opposition Members have concentrated on the one tenth of pupils who currently benefit from free school buses.

I shall describe the change over six decades since the Education Act 1944 and explain why the law is out of date. I shall rely on my several years' experience as a Member of Parliament working with the community in a part of Stafford called Doxey, which happens to be 2.9 miles away from the nearest school—I found that out from many years of correspondence with Staffordshire LEA. That distance means that youngsters are denied access to a school bus to take them to school for free, although youngsters who live in the villages just down the road, which are 3.1 miles away from the nearest school, are delivered to school by a free bus.

It would be inappropriate to discuss the difficulties that those youngsters face in getting to school, which include the routes that they take when they walk, the dangers that they face when they cycle and the irregular and not necessarily straightforward public buses. I have corresponded with the LEA for several years about those difficulties, and it is a matter of justice and equity that such people should have access to a scheme for transport to school.

I have a happy story to tell: a long time ago, an enterprising LEA—Staffordshire LEA—decided to take a stake in the school bus market. In 1998, it bought its first seven US-style yellow buses and started to run them for itself. Incidentally, it was mightily annoyed when, several years later in 2001, a Government news release boasted that the first yellow bus scheme in the country had been set up in Calderdale. By 2001, the buses had been running, apparently unnoticed, for three years in Staffordshire. I do not know whether
 
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Staffordshire LEA set up the first scheme in the country, but it is proud of its enterprising decision.

Another eight buses were added in 2000, and a further 15 were added in January this year. Because Staffordshire LEA has a stake in the market, it has a certain control over the delivery of the service for its pupils, whereas in the past it would have been at the mercy of the private sector on prices and conditions. In an emergency or when problems arise, the ability of the local authority's directly controlled buses to step in provides more flexibility.

The modern buses—the last 15—have not only the highest safety standards but are increasingly friendly for disabled pupils. The modern buses have wheelchair lifts and dedicated places for wheelchairs with proper attachments so that pupils can travel safely in their wheelchairs. We should boast about those good safety features on yellow buses.

When I read the Library research paper—which, again, is of a high standard—for the Bill, I was reminded of a point that the local authority made. There is a specific law in the United States, where the buses are widely used and more than 50 per cent. of pupils go to school by yellow bus. It provides that, when the school buses are stopped for pupils to alight, all the traffic must stop. The Bill affords a good opportunity to introduce a similar law in this country, ready for the yellow buses that will perhaps be more prevalent if the measure becomes law, and local authorities take up pilots and buy them.

I shall briefly explain the benefit to local authorities of yellow buses. I have mentioned the stake in the market in the context of competition and security of supply. That is helpful in benchmarking not only prices but quality. There are benefits to students and parents in the form of safety and security. The buses have a modern safety specification and dedicated and trained bus drivers, whom the pupils get to know. The good relationship between them means that bad behaviour on buses is much reduced.

All the pupils have their own seats in which they are safe. They and the driver have a sense of ownership of the vehicle that solves some of the conflict and antisocial behaviour problems about which we hear from time to time. Yellow buses provide the reassurance of fewer casualties than on journeys by car. Why not extend those benefits to more of the nine tenths of the school population who do not benefit from the current Act, which was passed in 1944?

Local education authorities have considered acting under their discretionary powers. I have a cautionary tale from Staffordshire, which explains why, although Opposition parties carp, no one can do anything about it unless the Bill is passed. In 2002, the local authority decided to extend the benefits of free school transport to more pupils. It wanted to undertake pilots in one rural and one urban area of the county, notionally reducing travel distances for walking to 1 mile for primary schools and 2 miles for secondary schools. It asked the Government for some cash to help run the two pilots. The Government refused on the ground that it was too costly; the local education authority said that it would not proceed without Government money and nothing
 
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happened. For all the Opposition's fine words about the schemes, no one will devise a different scheme that will benefit pupils such as those at Doxey.

There will be no change to the 1944 settlement, even though most people criticise it, unless we allow the Bill to proceed; unless, when the Bill is law, local authorities devise a variety of new ways of providing safe and healthy transport instead of the car, which takes so many pupils to school; and unless we learn from the pilot schemes which one works best.

It is important to stress that no local education authority will be made to take part. In the prospectus, if not the Bill—perhaps we need to examine that in Committee—residents must be consulted before a scheme can go ahead. The key result of the scheme must be a modal shift from car use. That might involve a shift to bus use, but it could also involve walking, cycling or even, in some cases, the use of fewer cars as a result of a car-sharing scheme.

I would love to be able to go back to the community in Doxey next year and say that there is now a prospect of extending a school bus service to the schoolchildren who live there, but first I need to vote for the Bill. Then, if it becomes law, I shall need to persuade the local education authority in my area to consider bidding to take part in one of the pilots. I shall enthusiastically support the Bill. It is a permissive Bill that will provide evidence over the next few years on whether there is a better settlement for the 21st century than the one provided for by an Act passed in 1944.

3.50 pm

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