Examination of Witnesses (Questions 392
- 399)
THURSDAY 13 MAY 2004
MR MIKE
HIRST, MR
STEVE BROACH,
MR DAVID
CONGDON, MS
JILL HARRISON
AND MR
DAVID BUTLER
Chairman: David, you come and sit in
the centre because you are the star of this session. I would like
you guys to stay where you are but move your stuff to one side.
There may be questions here where we will want you to chip in
but only on condition that David is the main respondent. It seems
a pity that you have come all this way so if something comes up
that you would like to come in on we will pull you in. Can I welcome
David Butler. He is the Chief Executive of the National Confederation
of Parent Teacher Associations and he has a heavy responsibility
today because he is speaking for every parent in the land and
that—
Q392 Mr Pollard: He has not consulted
me, Chairman!
Mr Butler: I have to say I think
that is unfair Chairman. We normally say in most of our public
relation statements that we have a certain membership and that
corresponds, we believe, to some six million parents. I think
there are more than six million parents so it would be unfair
to say we speak for them all.
Q393 Chairman: It is still a heavy
responsibility. I want to start the questioning by asking you
do you think it was necessary to have this School Transport Bill?
Mr Butler: That is a very difficult
question to start with, Chairman, thank you! Having read the Bill
and reread it and read the document that came out I was asking
myself the same question because so far as I could see, and please
accept I am not a lawyer and therefore the intricacies may be
lost on me, this was something that was being brought forward
to allow for innovative practices and experimentation throughout
the country and yet we have already seen a vast number of experiments
and trials throughout the country and the only one thing which
appears to be new in this Bill is the opportunity to charge in
some selective manner, so the question is if that is the only
way that one could experiment with that facility then, yes, the
Bill is necessary but it would have been nice if other experimentation
allowing that point could have been brought forward without a
process which strikes me as one which will take a long time. We
will not see the opportunity for trials of this nature until something
like 2005-06 and we are not going to see answers until 2010-11.
Q394 Chairman: It does seem a very
long time to wait. If it is so urgent and important the transformation
seems to be going to take a long time.
Mr Butler: Especially as there
are already are a number of innovative practices being used now.
We have got an example with us today.
Q395 Chairman: Okay, we have got
a Bill; how would you modify it to make it better? What are your
parents saying?
Mr Butler: I will start by addressing
the point that I think has already been made this morning specifically
within the environment of special educational needs and I would
say really that parental interest is to get their children to
school in the most effective manner but one which bears in
mind their locality and their particular circumstances. We have
heard a lot this morning about the particular circumstances of
special educational needs but I am also thinking; are you the
parent of a number of children, do you therefore have your children
at different schools, and therefore have you got a multiple task
rather than a single task and do you have particular situations
in your locality which have to be taken into account? At the end
of all of this we have to believe that parents do want to get
their children to school effectively but also safely and there
are some issues in the safety dimension which have to be addressed
as well.
Q396 Chairman: That is a relatively
rosy picture. There are a lot of selfish parents out there, are
there not, who do not give time to their children, they want to
get their child there fast, get rid of the responsibility fast?
Some of them see the drive to school as part of a fashion parade.
They get in their gas guzzling 4x4s, they speed up to the school,
they park on the yellow no parking sign. We have some of the most
obnoxious people in the world as parents, do we not? They are
totally selfish. They never ask if the next door neighbour's kid
would like to go in the gas guzzling 4x4. Why do the parents you
represent all want to go on the road taking their kids to school
in these vehicles when there may be perfectly nice little electric
vehicles? Excuse the parody but there are a lot of selfish parents
out there who do not seem to care less about their children's
health. What percentage is going to end up obese now?
Mr Butler: A very substantial
one.
Q397 Chairman: So there is a selfish
parent out there, is there not.
Mr Butler: Can I challenge your
assumption because the picture that you paint rather suggests
that all parents are like that.
Q398 Chairman: No, your picture was
a rosy picture; I am balancing it.
Mr Butler: I am sorry but I think
you are coming from it as suggesting the picture is the complete
reverse and all parents are selfish and have a singular aspect
in mind. I do not think that is true either. We do have a width
of our society and, yes, there are indeed parents who perhaps
take one child to school in this enormous gas-guzzling machine
that you describe. There are others, yes, who do park these vehicles
indiscriminately all over yellow lines right outside the school
and both things, frankly, I wish did not happen. Equally, you
have parents who do walk their children to school. I quite regularly
on my journey to the office, which is not on foot, it is in a
car, pass parents who are taking their children to a local primary
school and they are walking with their children. I also pass others
where the children are walking independently to the bus stop and
they are taking a bus to school so I am sorry but your suggestion
that they are all selfish is an inaccurate one. It is accurate
to say that there are some who do not consider all of the dimensions.
Q399 Chairman: Does your organisation
do anything to educate parents as to their responsibilities?
Mr Butler: We have taken an interest
in the issue of school transport ever since there was one of the
first pieces of joined-up government action by bringing the issues
of health, transport and education together and we have contributed
to try to promote some of the good ideas that have come out of
that. We take an interest in things such as walking buses, such
as yellow bus schemes, but we have also addressed ourselves to
the issue of parental concerns for safety. As a member of the
School Travel Advisory Group, we have found from research that
there were three things that were likely to inhibit a parent from
encouraging their child to be more independent about their journey
to school. One was the concern for road traffic accidents, one
was the concern for bullying, and one was the concern for abduction.
Whilst the last of those three is statistically the smallest,
there are far too many examples, and regrettably recently, of
the consequences that can arise so it is a natural concern for
parents. We got together with the Suzy Lamplugh Trust and developed
materials which we make freely available to our members who would
like them in a package called SafeWise and this actually addresses
how you as a parent can work with your child to encourage their
safe independence. We are not suggesting that when your child
is five it leaves its home on its own and makes its own way to
school but there is an opportunity for parents to go with their
children and to teach them on route about things. I was struck
this morning on the way walking down to the railway station to
see a mother with two young children—they were probably
at nursery school, they were certainly under five—and what
an educational experience for them because here was a mother explaining
to them the particular type of tree that they were passing.
Chairman: Excellent, that is very encouraging.
We too in this Committee believe in better environmental
paths in getting to work and indeed some of us have been involved
in getting a little green electric car available to members which
all this Committee will be trying out very soon, made in Leeds
as well. David?
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