I thank the Minister for the generosity of spirit with which he has treated this debate. The way that we are praising one another sounds like a bit of a love-in, but I know that he is dedicated to ensuring that every parent is given choice, where possible, and that every child has a decent education, which is what we all want. Part of that, clearly, is the ability to choose.
I am also grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey) for illustrating some of the anomalies that exist in his own constituency, including the absurdity of the eight-mile range. I wonder whether anyone has
measured it; one school may be an inch further away than another one. However, the fact is that parents are being penalised simply for choosing one school over another. I went to a selective school myself and I believe in a mix, so I am delighted to hear that his selective schools are doing very well.
As I said right at the outset, I am so lucky that all the schools in my patch are excellent. However, we do not want to get into the position, although I know that it is increasingly happening, whereby parents move to ensure that their youngsters can get into certain schools. We want all schools to be good, so that nobody has to move.
I am also grateful to the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) for illustrating the problems that face an increasing number of parents in Glasgow. There always seems to be a sense of blame-shifting, whereby somebody else is responsible and it is not really our fault, and people say, “We would prefer not to do it, but we have to. Our hands are tied.” However, the real victims in all this are the parents and their children, who increasingly have to put their hands in their pockets.
I am also extremely grateful to the shadow Minister for some of his comments. I would encourage youngsters to walk where they can, but sometimes in rural areas the road system is bad and the distances great, in particular if the school is not a primary—most villages tend to have a primary school, although in some cases they do not. For secondary education, the situation is clearly more difficult.
I was delighted to hear that the new Chair of the Education Committee has now put the subject on his shopping list of inquiries. Perhaps we will make some progress. The Minister talked about his belief that the Government’s philosophy is discretion. At the same
time, he wants that discretion to be used to ensure that parents get choice, and therefore local authorities pay for school transport. If, however, in particular in the inquiry, it is demonstrated that local authorities are increasingly not giving any discretion whatever, but seeing the transport as an opportunity to dip into parents’ pockets—not supporting parents in their parental choice—I hope that that will be exposed and the Minister will look again.
We give discretion to local authorities up to a point on council tax, but we encourage them to freeze and certainly not to go above a certain rate, otherwise things are punitive for them. Perhaps we could look at that for local authorities if they are ignoring wholesale the discretion that they have and if they are imposing those transport costs on parents with—in Lancashire’s case, as I said—a 5% real-terms increase year on year, which can be financially painful for some parents. That is particularly the case for those parents just over the limit, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby pointed out, for tax credits or free school meals, or if they have more than one child.
Clearly, the book is not closed on the subject. I hope that the Minister will keep a beady eye—I trust that he will—on the situation. I will ensure that Lancashire county council gets a report of today’s proceedings in Westminster Hall, so that it can see what the Government’s intention is and what they want the county councils to do. If the councils do not follow that intention, we will revisit the subject in the coming months.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the cost of school transport.
4.7 pm
Sitting adjourned.