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Hywel Williams (Caernarfon) (PC): My party welcomes the aim of reducing car use and promoting walking and cycling, for obvious environmental and health reasons. We want to see a better organised and integrated system of school transport, and we welcome the role that the National Assembly for Wales will play in implementing the Bill, if it passes. We hope that the Assembly will take full advantage of any opportunities that might be presented to it in that regard. The Conservative Front-Bench spokesman noted earlier that the Assembly has already remarked on the peculiarity of the Government's position, in that they appear to want to promote the use of public transport by charging for it. In the Assembly's view, and in mine, that is a strange contention.

Despite my first words of welcome, we are worried about the Bill on several counts. First, we are worried about the impact that charging will have on low-income families, of which there are many in my constituency and the rest of Wales. I find it strange that the Government are introducing a system of charging that will inevitably impact on some low-income families because, to be positive, the Government have taken some welcome steps to help such families over the past seven years. For example, they have introduced the minimum wage, working families tax credit and a number of other measures that have had a useful effect, especially in rural Wales. Now, however, they are taking a step in the other direction. I am worried about the difficulties that low-income families will face in scraping together a lump sum, if that is what is required when the
 
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charging is implemented, especially when their weekly income is very low.

A lot has been said about bus transport today, but I do not think that anyone has mentioned the use of rail by school students. I want to make a special plea for the Cambrian coast line, which terminates in my constituency. It is a wonderful line, with wonderful views and friendly staff. It carries about 700 school students a day, and the continuation of the line depends on its continued use by such students. Any disincentive to use the line for school transport would have an effect on the community in general.

I am also concerned about a measure that could be seen as an extension of means-testing, whichever way it is implemented. It has already been noted that school meals entitlement is hardly the sharpest of instruments to use in deciding who should be exempt from any charges. I hope that the National Assembly for Wales will have the opportunity to use other, more effective, criteria, and I look forward to that happening.

The potential effects of the Bill on families with children who are disabled have already been mentioned. In Wales, many disabled children use mainstream educational provision. They do not travel long distances to special schools but go instead to mainstream schools. In rural areas, however, that mainstream provision can still involve journeys of much more than 4 or 5 miles. I worry about possible disincentive effects of the Bill in that regard.

Mr. Roger Williams (Brecon and Radnorshire) (LD): Like the hon. Gentleman, I represent a rural area in Wales, as well as some urban areas. My local authority spends more per head on school transport than any other in Wales and perhaps even in England and Wales. Surely, with the financial pressure on education authorities, they are being tempted to charge more and more for school transport so that they can provide the level of education that people living in those areas require.

Hywel Williams: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that point. I am not sure whether there will be a direct relationship between charging and the provision of education; we shall see. However, it is significant that the lowest incomes in Wales are to be found in Powys, where his constituency is, which is also where there is the highest car use and a high level of bus transport for schools.

I intervened earlier on the Secretary of State in respect of the Welsh language, and I want to make a couple of points about Welsh language education in Wales. There is a certain provision of Welsh language education, much of which is in urban areas in Wales, in the south-east valleys and the north-east. Many school students travel long distances to access Welsh-medium schools, typically by bus rather than by car. Those who access Welsh-medium secondary education have been shown to be working-class children from valley communities who aspire to being bi-lingual in a way that their parents are not.

I understand that the National Assembly might be able to protect that transport provision, and I asked the Secretary of State about that. He referred me to the provision for denominational schools. I had a quick
 
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look at the explanatory notes, paragraph 27 of which states that

"this does not mean that there is any positive obligation to subsidise a particular form of education in order to respect a parent's religious or philosophical convictions. Consequently, this Article does not of itself create any obligation to make arrangements for school transport or for free school transport to assist or enable parents to send their children to schools of their choice."

Perhaps the Minister will address that point in his wind-up, and reassure parents in Wales that they will be able to access Welsh-medium secondary education as they choose.

My last point is in respect of the urban issue, which a number of hon. Members have addressed. As I said, the National Assembly has said that it is peculiar to charge in order to promote the use of public transport. The Secretary of State gave the game away in his opening remarks, as I think the record will show, when he said that the Government's aim was to reduce congestion in our towns and cities—full stop. There was not a word about rural areas. However laudable the intention to reduce congestion in towns and cities, that should not be at the cost of provision in rural areas. Perhaps you will forgive me, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for misusing a quip made by Senator Kerry during the current election campaign: it is a little as though, after the attack on Pearl Harbour, the USA had invaded Mexico. I can see the impulse of that joke—why should rural transport suffer because of urban congestion?

As I said, there are rural areas in Wales where poverty is clearly implicated in low standards of living for children. On its establishment, the National Assembly for Wales devised an index of multiple deprivation, which is one of the best things that it has ever done. Because that index has a measure for rurality embedded in it, rural communities, for the first time, start appearing high on the list of deprived communities. For example, in terms of housing, the community of Aberdaron in my constituency, which previously did not appear in measurements of housing poverty, suddenly came first out of 750 wards in Wales because the measuring system is much more sensitive. As I said earlier, Powys is high on the list of deprived areas. Wages are lower, services are further away and, unsurprisingly, the level of car ownership is the highest in Wales. The most cars are owned where incomes are lowest. The earlier index took car ownership as a measure of prosperity, but in this context it could almost be described as a tax. That is the nature of rural poverty in Powys, Gwynedd and various other parts of Wales.

My constituency contains six secondary schools, in Bryn Refail, Caernarfon, Penygroes, Pwllheli, Porthmadog and Botwnnog. All those schools require students to travel not just 3 miles, 2 miles or 2.85 miles, but up to 15 miles. I worry about children whose families are not above the threshold for the purposes of school meals, but are not well off by any means, although they may be running two cars.

I look to the Government to reassure us that they will take account of such issues, and I look to our colleagues in the Welsh Assembly to do the same.

4.1 pm

Jim Knight (South Dorset) (Lab): It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Caernarfon (Hywel Williams), who made some interesting and thoughtful
 
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points about what I consider to be a straightforward and admirable Bill. It is also admirably short, which would please me were I to end up on the Standing Committee. I am glad to note that it aims to improve health, the environment and safety, and that—as has been pointed out—it is in an enabling Bill: it devolves decision-making powers to local authorities, rather than our imposing a one-size-fits-all solution from Westminster. It also builds on action that the Government have already taken. In April they committed £7 million to local education authorities to pay for school travel advisers, and, as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney), only this week they provided £10 million for the extension of the national cycle network to schools.

At the heart of the Bill is a problem that all Members should acknowledge, and to which we should all offer constructive solutions. I am sad that the two main Opposition parties have failed to offer any such solutions. At present, free school transport is for the few—10 per cent.—and not for the many. Considerable expense is involved: in Dorset the cost of providing school transport is £8.3 million, from a total LEA budget of £24 million. That is not just poor value for money; it does nothing to address the problem of school run congestion.

An excellent research paper supplied by the Library states:

"Over the past 20 years the number of children being driven to school has almost doubled. Now almost 40 per cent. of primary school children and more than 20 per cent. of secondary school children are being driven to school each day, and most of the journeys are less than 2 miles. At 8.50 in the morning during term time, about one in five cars on urban roads is taking children to school."

We must do something about that.

Many speakers have referred to an urban solution creating a rural problem. Let me tell them about a constituent of mine who lives in Worth Matravers, in circumstances similar to those described by my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford. It is a beautiful rural village, which I recommend to all Members. There is a marvellous pub called the Square and Compass. The village is about 2.9 miles from Swanage. The constituent who came to see me was on the minimum wage, working in Swanage and receiving work-related benefit, but did not qualify for free school meals. His two children had to face a walk, with him or his partner, down a very narrow unlit country road in order to get to school. As any Member naturally would, I pursued his case with the local education authority to see whether flexibility could be shown, and whether the criteria might be extended to allow his children to get free school transport. However, it simply was not possible. I certainly welcome the possibility of helping the many people who live within the 3-mile limit but at such a distance from school that it is not possible safely to walk there. We should all support the extension of affordable, decent school transport to such individuals. We certainly need a solution to the problem, and this Bill offers LEAs the flexibility to devise their own.

I want to refer mainly to the Purbeck area of my constituency, of which Worth Matravers is a part. It is largely rural and currently has a three-tier schooling
 
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system, consisting of a first school, a middle school and the main Purbeck school, at Wareham, for post-14 education, although there are some who choose to use the grammar schools in Poole. As a result, a mix of children end up being bussed hither and yonder, especially from Swanage, which is larger than Wareham. All children over the age of 13 or 14 spend about an hour a day on buses to and from Wareham.

Unfortunately, both Dorset and Purbeck are run by Conservative administrations, whose attitude towards buses and public transport in general is such that they cut services after 6.30 pm, creating many problems for those who want to get home after taking part in after-school activities in Wareham. The new X53 service, which serves the world heritage site coastline that we are all so proud of, does not go to Old Harry Rocks, at the start of that site, or to Swanage. The only imaginative scheme to have emerged is a community transport scheme in Swanage. I instigated it, and a Labour councillor—a fairly rare commodity in Swanage—called Cherry Bartlett developed it. I hope that the imagination that Cherry and those working with her have shown will spread to the Tories in county hall, and that they will want to take up one of these pilots.

The lack of transport is a profound problem for the whole population in that area, but for schoolchildren in particular, and the falling rolls that our schools have to deal with will only exacerbate it. I have discussed before in this Chamber the problems associated with the provision of affordable housing, and with second home ownership in particular. Many families can no longer afford to live in the Purbeck area; as a result, school rolls are falling. The LEA is therefore consulting on moving from a three-tier to a two-tier system. Whatever happens as a result of that consultation, we will have fewer schools in the Purbeck area. If the LEA goes to a two-tier system, more of the smaller rural schools will probably close. There is a desperate need for an imaginative solution to the school transport problem in my area—a problem that underscores my enthusiasm for Dorset using its corporate imagination in applying for a pilot.

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