Examination of Witnesses (Questions 560
- 566)
WEDNESDAY 19 MAY 2004
MR STEPHEN
TWIGG AND
MR DAVID
JAMIESON
Q560 Valerie Davey: This is to the
Education Department: From the reply we have had from the Department,
I understand that some of the city technology colleges received
money specifically for transport.
Mr Twigg: Yes.
Q561 Valerie Davey: Could you ensure,
please, that the evaluation of that reaches this Committee.
Mr Twigg: Yes. You asked Peter
Housden about this. When I read the transcript, I sought to get
an answer. No research has been conducted into this but I will
see what sort of evaluation either has been or could be conducted
and come back to the Committee with it.
Valerie Davey: Thank you very much.
Q562 Mr Chaytor: If by the deadline
for submissions of pilot schemes you do not receive 20, what will
you do?
Mr Twigg: I think, to be honest,
it would depend on whether we had received three or 19. If we
were close to it, then we would want to go ahead; if we had very
few, then I think we would have to reconsider. As I say, we have
27, I think, authorities which have expressed an interest so far,
which I find encouraging, so I think we are unlikely to be in
a position where the total is in single figures.
Q563 Mr Chaytor: If 20 of those 27
came in, and 10 you thought were inadequate . . . ?
Mr Twigg: If 10 were adequate
and 10 were inadequate, I think we would want to go ahead with
the 10.
Q564 Mr Chaytor: You are not going
to delay.
Mr Twigg: I think the only circumstance
in which I could envisage delaying would be if it were a very
small number of adequate pilots coming forward. And we do have
the facility to have additional pilots launched in the following
year.
Q565 Chairman: Let us wind up by
asking you this question: This is a pre-legislative inquiry. It
is new for us, new for you. Have we all been wasting our time
here? Are you actually going to take any notice at all of the
Select Committee's transport recommendations and evaluation of
this piece of legislation? Are you going to take any notice of
what we produce? Is it going to make any difference at all?
Mr Twigg: I believe it certainly
will. Simply from being here today, responding to questions and
listening to comments from members of the Committee, I think there
are a number of contributions from today's Committee that will
inform what we do on evaluation, for example. I think a number
of the things that people have said are areas that certainly I
personally had not fully thought through. I am sure officials
will have done, but I will take those issues back from the Committee
today. We will obviously await this Committee's report, and, taken
together with the Transport Committee's report, we will respond
fully to it. I think it is important that we are having this process.
I think the work you are doing is of great help. I also think
some of the witnesses you have had at the Committee inform the
work we will do, both on the Bill and more generally, on the whole
area of addressing school transport. I certainly do not think
it is a waste of anyone's time.
Mr Jamieson: I would totally concur
with that. I greatly value the work of all select committees.
As I say, I had been a member of one for five years and I know
the value of the work the select committees do. I have never had
the opportunity of this type of pre-legislative scrutiny, I am
sad to say, and I think this is actually a very good way of getting
better legislation. We have taken very careful note of what the
Transport Select Committee has said in the evidence I gave to
them and Charles Clarke gave to them and we will be responding
to that shortly. I think they have come up with some ideas that
certainly we need to take note of and make sure they are woven
into the pilot schemes that we are about to embark upon.
Q566 Chairman: Would you take back
to your departments a message from this Committee, that, having
put a lot of time and energy into this pre-legislative inquiry
which we care about from our side, we would be very disappointed
if this Bill was scrapped merely because one party said it was
not going to vote for it on second reading. Because it seems to
us that the whole point of this pre-legislative inquiry is for
you to improve the Bill before second reading, so that the Bill
that comes through second reading can be very different in quality
and texture from the Bill you originally produced at the time
of the Queen's Speech. Would you give that message to your friend
from Norwich?
Mr Twigg: I am very grateful for
that and I will take that message back.
Mr Jamieson: I also undertake
to make sure my department understands what you have said, Chairman.
Chairman: Thank you very much for your
attendance. We have got a lot of value out of it.
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