Travel to School: Rural Areas

Baroness Maddock Excerpts

Wednesday 26th February 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

That is a novel and interesting idea and I should think the children would welcome that. But as I said earlier, we have special funding to try to keep open some of these rural schools. In doing my research for this, one thing that I was encouraged by was the fact that 48% of primary schoolchildren in Britain walk to school, and I think that is excellent.

[Baroness Maddock (LD)]

My Lords, I wonder whether my noble friend, when looking at the review she talked about, could look at what has happened in north Northumberland. When the Liberal Democrats took over the council, they instigated free transport for those aged over 16. We have a very low level of take-up of further and higher education in this part of the country and I hope she will look at this because it increased the numbers of students who took up further education. I hope that, like me, she is rather concerned that now the council is being run by Labour, it is proposing to do away with this.

[Baroness Northover]

I will indeed take that example back. As I said at the beginning, it is extremely important to keep young people in education and training. Having just come back from India, I am well aware that we are part of a global situation, and we have to ensure that our children are as best educated and skilled as possible.