Clause 1 - School travel schemes
School Transport Bill
3:15 pm
Mr Stephen Twigg (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Schools), Department for Education and Skills; Enfield, Southgate, Labour)
I welcome the opportunity to explore this issue. The hon. Member for Fareham once again demonstrates a point that has come up at other stages both today and on Second Reading. The enabling character of the Bill is such that it has different relevance to different communities. My constituency is similar to the hon. Gentleman's in that I doubt that there are many children in it who are covered by the provisions of the current legislation in respect of statutory walking distances. However, there are different needs in different parts of the country.
The current system is that LEAs must ensure that free transport is provided where pupils of compulsory school age live beyond the statutory walking distances of 2 miles for those under 8 and 3 miles for older children. The first thing to do is to accept fully the hon. Gentleman's point that those distances, which relate to legislation that dates back 60 years, do not reflect the distances that many children and their parents are willing to walk in the modern age, for all sorts of usually understandable reasons.
The hon. Gentleman quoted some research; the national travel survey shows that 83 per cent. of pupils will walk a mile or less to school, but only 45 per cent. will walk between 1 and 2 miles, and just 16 per cent. will walk between 2 and 3 miles. Many children living between 1 and 3 miles from school travel in all sorts of other ways, including by car, taxi or bus. Many of those options can be hugely expensive for the families.
I accept that this is a probing amendment, but I just put on record that, were the amendment to be passed, there would be a substantial cost to local authorities. However, this probing amendment is useful, because it reminds us that we need to meet the needs of all pupils. We have rightly been reminded, generally by those critical of the Bill, of the needs of those who travel a very long way, usually in rural areas, to their nearest suitable school and some of the issues that that brings up. The hon. Member for Hexham (Mr. Atkinson) mentioned that this morning, and a number of hon. Members from all parties did so on Second Reading.
However, there is also a set of issues about the needs of pupils who live between 1 and 3 miles away from school, and I welcome the opportunity for that to be explored. On Second Reading, I recall that my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney) made an interesting contribution about his constituency and those who fall just outside the 3-mile parameter. The advantage of the flexibility of the Bill is that it will enable consideration to be given to children in that
1 to 3-mile category, and it will potentially give them access to subsidised or concessionary transport schemes that might not be available to them at the moment.
We know that there are many children, particularly at secondary schools, who walk or cycle more than a mile, and in some cases substantially more. That reminds us that a lot depends on the school, the local authority, and the willingness to countenance the issues. An example that has been quoted elsewhere is that of Kesgrave high school near Ipswich in Suffolk, where 60 per cent. of pupils regularly cycle several miles to school along a sophisticated network of cycle paths. The Department for Transport has just announced a £10 million extension of the national cycle network to schools, which would improve the cycling infrastructure and make it possible for more children to cycle safely to school.
We did not believe that anyone had put forward a suitable and workable alternative to the 2 and 3-mile provisions of 1944. In putting forward his proposal, the hon. Member for Fareham gives me the opportunity to reinforce that point and to say that a potential benefit of the Bill is that we can enable access to forms of transport that might not currently be available, in particular for those children who live just within those statutory walking distances. I welcome the opportunity to say that. In light of that, I ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw his amendment.