Home-to-School Transport

Debate between Jen Craft and Josh Babarinde

Thursday 4th June 2026 Westminster Hall

[Josh Babarinde (Eastbourne) (LD)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Tom Gordon) on securing the debate. Members will be pleased to know that my speech will be under six minutes, so we will have brought that time back.

I want to speak about home-to-school transport for children with special educational needs and disabilities and in particular about Lewis—that is not his real name, but he is a real Eastbourne boy with special educational needs. What happened to Lewis should never happen to any child. Lewis was physically restrained, relentlessly and brutally, by his passenger assistant on his home-to-school transport. His mum only found out when he came home that evening visibly distressed and bruised. She had not been told. That is because, shockingly, there is no statutory requirement to report incidents of physical restraint on home-to-school transport. We only know the specifics of what happened from looking at it, because it was captured on CCTV in the vehicle, and it was only captured because Eastbourne borough council—coincidentally, when I was a councillor—pushed for mandatory CCTV in cabs that facilitate home-to-school transport.

I raised Lewis’s case at Education questions last April and secured a meeting with the Minister’s predecessor, the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell), who acknowledged that there is a clear gap in regulation. When I raised the issue again at Prime Minister’s questions in November the Prime Minister looked into the eyes of Lewis’s mum, who was in the Public Gallery, and said that the principle of safety and tailored support for every child would be “central” to his SEND reforms. I am asking, and Lewis and his mum are asking, why the issue was not addressed in those reforms. Why was that gap in regulation not filled?

The Challenging Behaviour Foundation, which does lots of amazing work and research in this area, has set out exactly what is needed. It has rightly said that we need national training standards for all staff on home-to-school transport—something that does not exist now but could have helped Lewis. We also need a statutory duty to record and report to parents any use of restraint on home-to-school transport. That duty exists in school settings, but the situation is patchy for home-to-school transport. The Challenging Behaviour Foundation has rightly said that stronger safeguarding guidance, linked to “Working Together to Safeguard Children”, is required.

Those are not complex or costly asks. They are nowhere near as complex or costly on a human level as the trauma that Lewis has experienced and the anguish that his family have been through.

[Jen Craft]

The hon. Member is making an excellent point. I hope he will forgive me for adding another ask to his list. In assistance and drivers for home-to-school transport for disabled children—particularly those who have autism or neurodiversity—consistency is key. Does he agree that best practice guidance, setting out things such as consistency and the three points that he has made, would be very welcome?

[Josh Babarinde]

I completely agree. My little brother is autistic so, as a family, we see up close how important consistency is and how disrupting the consistency of a particular service can be hugely disruptive to the flow of his life. The same goes for many others with special educational needs and disabilities, so I would absolutely add that ask. I hope that the Minister can address it in her winding-up speech.

Those four points are the minimum that Lewis and every SEND child travelling to school deserves. I hope that the Minister will meet me and Lewis’s mum to discuss this issue further—things fell through the cracks with the change of Minister at the last reshuffle—so that we can finally get closer to delivering on the promise that the Prime Minister made.