School Crossing Patrols (Dorset)

Richard Drax Excerpts

Wednesday 16th March 2011 Westminster Hall

[Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)]

Forgive my voice, Mr Weir. It is a bit croaky, so I will try to speak up. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) for securing this debate. It is an excellent topic that affects Dorset. My constituency is more rural than hers, and its nature, topography and make-up demand that lollipop men and women should stay. Many of my local schools are stuck in remote communities. We do not have motorways—we have one dual carriageway, and we hope to have a new relief road—and many schools are at the end of cul-de-sacs or rutted roads, often in ill repair, particularly in the winter months. Cars come flying down those roads at night when children are going home and in the morning when they are going to school, during the rush periods when people try to get between their rural homes and their places of work.

I suspect and fear that the move by the county council will have unintended consequences. As my hon. Friend said, tough spending cuts have, of necessity, been imposed on our county councils. To ease constraints, the Government have removed ring-fencing from local authority grants so that councils can set their own priorities. However, it was not expected that councils would downgrade the importance of road safety.

Tackling road child casualties is a stated priority for this Government and is the subject of recent new initiatives. As the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mike Penning), said in a recent interview with The Daily Telegraph,

“We would expect that road safety would remain a priority for local communities and that local spending would reflect that”,

yet in Dorset, in order to cut £200,000, a tiny portion of the county council’s huge budget, more than 60 lollipop wardens will go, a decision that was reaffirmed at a full council meeting on 17 February.

As my hon. Friend said, the Government suggest that that role should be taken over by schools, charities and parish councils, but I argue, as she did, that it is not a volunteer role. In the past year, one lollipop person in the United Kingdom was killed, two more were seriously injured and several more were hurt.

The School Crossing Patrol Order 1954 introduced the first lollipop warden to our streets, and the benefits were crystal clear. It was never thought necessary to make their employment compulsory. As a result, local authorities have the power to provide lollipop wardens, but no obligation to do so. I argue that any transport grant made to a council should be conditional on its keeping existing school crossing patrols. Indeed, like my hon. Friend, I believe that local authorities should have a statutory duty to provide this excellent service. Naturally, I understand that such legislation would fly in the face of our Government’s move towards localism, but some things are more important than ideology. Our children’s safety is clearly of paramount importance. In recent years, this country has managed to reduce road casualties. It would be nothing less than a tragedy if that reduction were reversed.