Home-to-School Transport: Children with SEND

Peter Swallow Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd December 2024 Westminster Hall

[Jen Craft]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. The long-term goal must be better inclusion for disabled children in mainstream education—I would have loved to send my child to the outstanding school up the road, but it did not really want us. This is not a choice that parents want to make, and inclusion is the ultimate, long-term solution. However, disabled children should not be penalised for the financial burdens under which councils find themselves.

The transport arrangements that are provided are often unsuitable, such as a bus pass for a vulnerable young person. Parents are asked to make financial contributions or are provided with travel allowances that barely cover the costs. It is hard to overstate the impact that the yearly lottery for school transport can have on disabled children. It disrupts their education, places stress and anxiety on them and their families, reduces their independence, and asks their parents to carry financial costs.

I heard from one mother whose 18-year-old daughter attends a school offering specialist provision. This year, just 24 hours before her daughter was due to start her college course, she was told she would be charged a contribution for her daughter’s transport to school. She spoke of the anxiety inflicted on her daughter through days of uncertainty. Despite that stressful experience, that mother considers herself among the lucky ones. Her vulnerable daughter can continue to get to school safely every day, when others who are asked to contribute to transport costs may not.

[Peter Swallow (Bracknell) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. Does she agree that in too many cases the SEND families most in need of support find they are not given it? For many families, it is therefore a question of whether they can afford to support their children. In this country, in 2024, we must end that barrier to opportunity.

[Jen Craft]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. It is unacceptable that disabled families are faced with choices about their children’s education that parents of children who are not disabled are not.

During the election campaign, I spoke to another woman, Julia, and had the pleasure of meeting her 18-year-old son Oscar, who has cerebral palsy, which affects his right side, and epilepsy. For 10 years, he had received free home-to-school transport, but now his parents have to make the case every year for why he should continue to receive that support to reach his sixth form. Thanks to the new costs, his mum has had to withdraw Oscar from one of his sessions at his weekend care provision, because she cannot afford both. Despite the new charges, there is still no guarantee that their application will be approved. She said that life is hard enough without this discrimination and pressure.

Another mother, in Thurrock, told me about her ongoing fight to secure transport for her daughter. Twice her daughter was refused passenger transport to the education setting she attended and twice the family successfully appealed. That mother said:

“As parents to children with SEND we have to fight for every single step, for their existence. Fighting for what is right, what our children are entitled to.”

This is the reality for thousands of families across the country. This disruption at such a vital point in education can be devastating, with serious impacts on a young person’s mental health and development. Let us be clear: this places a financial barrier to education in the way of disabled children and their families that other families simply do not have to face.