Bus Services: North-east England

Mary Kelly Foy Excerpts

Wednesday 24th November 2021 Westminster Hall

[Mary Kelly Foy (City of Durham) (Lab)]

I am grateful to my former MP, my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist), for securing the debate. Bus travel is particularly relevant to my constituents in the city of Durham, which has a small city centre surrounded by many rural former pit villages that rely heavily on an underfunded and insufficient local transport network. In villages such as Pittington or Waterhouses, services are essentially non-existent at times.

In particular, home-to-school transport has become a real issue for families, with schools struggling to subsidise costs due to funding cuts and rising costs. For some children in my constituency, school bus travel now costs an outrageous £90 a month. At St Leonard’s, for example, nearly a third of pupils can no longer afford the school bus and have had to seek alternatives, forcing many parents to rely on service buses, which are often unreliable, irregular, inaccessible or unaffordable. My office has received multiple reports of buses driving past stops because they are full, and of services that simply do not show up. One girl was quoted almost £900 per year for a school bus place, even though the stop was a three-mile round trip walk across dangerous roads and unlit wooded paths. Now she is forced to use a service bus, with frequent, unplanned cancellations that often leave her late for school or waiting in the dark for long periods. That has made her very anxious, and her parents have given her a rape alarm for the dark nights.

Headteachers have reported safeguarding concerns, such as bullying and inappropriate comments from adults that have led to police involvement. These problems impact on learning, with some people priced out of key educational opportunities. A headteacher in my constituency told me that talented students are having to miss extracurricular activities because they cannot rely on service buses to get home. The Government simply cannot say they are levelling up our region while children are struggling to get to and from school.

Unfortunately, the issues I have highlighted have a knock-on effect on the wider community. Increased demand around school-run hours is resulting in crowded buses and disruption to commuters, while many parents are now driving their children to school, causing more disruption to local residents and increased air pollution around schools such as Durham Johnston School and St Leonard’s. In more rural areas, there is no public bus and no car, but only an expensive school bus that eats into household incomes during this cost of living crisis.

I am immensely grateful to the headteachers and parents who work tirelessly for a workable solution. However, when it comes to local and central Government, it is like banging my head against a brick wall, with both refusing to take responsibility. When I raised the issue with representatives of Durham County Council, they told me that they agree with the principle of more support for school transport but they cannot do anything to help. I then took it to the previous Schools Minister, who told me that he sympathised but that he, too, could not help me.

I am now working with schools and bus operators to find a solution, but it is only right that we get some support from this Government, who talk so much about levelling up places such as Durham. Can the Minister outline the steps that the Department is taking, alongside colleagues across Government, to ensure that every child and young person in my constituency has an affordable and reliable route to school?