Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [HL]

Baroness Harris of Richmond Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 8th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Harris of Richmond (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I share the remarks made by a number of noble Lords about my late noble friend Baroness Randerson. I was her Whip. Her loss to us is incalculable. She was an exceptional politician and a great friend to us all. She will be greatly missed.

Although the Bill does not specifically mention home-to-school transport, it does touch on a vital part of that provision: the transport needs of children with special educational needs—SEND. They, along with many other children in North Yorkshire, will be affected by the changes proposed by my local council over the next seven years.

At present, there are 10,000 children across North Yorkshire who are entitled to free home-to-school transport. The majority of these are what we call mainstream children, but 2,500 of them are the most vulnerable SEND children. That is a quarter of the total, and it uses more than half the whole school transport budget. Most of these 10,000 children live in villages and hamlets scattered round the vast rural area of North Yorkshire. Up until now, they have all been entitled to free home-to-school transport to enable them to attend any suitable school within their catchment area. The vast majority choose to support local schools within North Yorkshire’s boundaries, rather than travel to our neighbouring counties of West Yorkshire, East Riding, Cumbria or Durham.

In July last year, the Government published updated guidance on helping SEND pupils to travel safely. NYC decided, very quickly, to use this as an opportunity to revise its school transport policy in an attempt to save money. It modelled various scenarios, but the model that it chose had a fundamental flaw: it predicted savings of around £4.2 million over seven years, but that was based on 100% of children opting out of home-to-school transport entirely. Until then, NYC had paid transport costs for children, including SEND children, to attend any suitable school within its catchment area. That changed in July last year, when it decided that, for the majority, it would pay transport costs to their nearest school only. That is seemingly a small change, but one that ignores the geography of North Yorkshire and fails to factor in the disruption it would create for families.

The implications of this decision are simply massive. Families may be forced to send their children out of the county to be educated, causing disruption to North Yorkshire schools, which will lose pupils and funding. We are already losing too many of our small schools, and our larger schools could be forced to cut teacher numbers and reduce curriculum choice. In vast rural areas, such as the Yorkshire Dales, many children will be required to travel on remote, high roads, often not gritted in the winter. North Yorkshire prides itself on having good, often exceptional schools. If it decides to send its children out of county to be educated, it will soon find itself struggling to maintain this quality.

In addition, this policy change will result in siblings being forced to attend different schools over the seven-year implementation period. This will cause upset for those children and practical problems for their parents, who are already finding life difficult enough without the added worry of managing different school uniforms, different term times, et cetera. The disruption caused by this policy is giving real heartache and distress to thousands of parents. Rural communities are worried about what this means for young families, a concern shared by the chair of the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority, which is working hard to keep young people in the dales. Ten parish councils have written in objecting to the policy change, as have teachers, school governors, parents, councillors and two of our county’s MPs.

Yet the irony is that there are no savings here. Indeed, the council will have to find even more money. More vehicles would be necessary over the next seven years to cover the increased number of routes. Children who previously would have been going on the same bus now will have to attend different schools based on the nearest school to their home. Indeed, depending on where they live, half the children in the same village may go to one school and half to another. It just does not make sense. This decision has been made without consideration for the geography of North Yorkshire and without a thorough impact assessment of costs and impact on families. An urgent rethink is therefore required.

The previous Government presented guidance, leaving it to each individual council to decide how best to implement it based on local considerations. North Yorkshire Council has, so far, failed to do that to a level that works for rural communities. Will the Minister consider firming up the guidance so that all councils have a clear idea of what is expected of them and implement their policies accordingly?

All Governments, be it local or national, want to save money, but no one should be doing that on the back of children’s safety and education.