Home-to-School Transport

Rishi Sunak Excerpts

Thursday 4th June 2026 Westminster Hall

[Tom Gordon]

I thank the hon. Member for his contribution. As ever, he puts his point eloquently and passionately. I agree that, no matter where a SEND child is living in this United Kingdom, they deserve a lot better than they are getting at the moment.

I want to press the Minister on a number of specific points. The single most impactful achievable change that this Government could make is also the simplest. The statutory guidance on home-to-school transport should be updated so that the minimum provision becomes the nearest or catchment school, rather than solely the nearest suitable school. That one change would restore the alignment between admissions and transport that rural families depend on. It would give councils a clear framework and remove the incentive to reinterpret eligibility ever more narrowly. It would protect the community-school relationships that anchor rural life, and it would not even require primary legislation. I urge the Minister to give that serious consideration.

Secondly, I urge the Minister to impress on her colleagues at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government the need to reinstate the rural services delivery grant. The rural premium matters enormously for local authorities such as North Yorkshire, where distances are not a policy choice, but a geographical fact. Cutting that grant has had real consequences for the decisions that local authorities have to make, and those consequences are being borne by families in villages across the dales, across my constituency of Harrogate and Knaresborough, and in North Yorkshire more widely.

[Rishi Sunak (Richmond and Northallerton) (Con)]

On that point, my first ministerial job was as Local Government Minister, and I think that the hon. Member makes an excellent point about the importance of the rural services delivery grant to councils such as North Yorkshire, which incur extra costs in delivering services in rural areas. Does he agree that that is an important aspect of local government finance that needs to be considered when MHCLG is looking at allocations, and that it is particularly important to our rural county of North Yorkshire?

[Tom Gordon]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that point. It is one of the things on which we absolutely agree. I would like to see all parties and especially the governing party put that problem right. As I said, cutting the grant has had real consequences for the decisions that councils make.

Thirdly, we need to see expansion of the statutory minimum more broadly. The current system, which involves a 2-mile walking distance for primary, 3 miles for secondary and a duty that ends at age 16, was designed for a different era and different pattern of schooling. Where school systems have been reorganised, specialist provision has been concentrated and rural bus networks have been allowed to decline, the statutory floor is no longer fit for purpose.

Fourthly, will the Minister confirm that the Government will make data collection on home-to-school transport mandatory, as the PAC recommended? We cannot improve what we do not measure. Voluntary, inconsistent data collection across more than 100 local authorities is not a sufficient basis on which to run a £2.6 billion spending commitment. The Department needs a proper baseline if it is ever to hold local authorities to account and drive genuine improvement.

Home-to-school transport is not a niche issue. It sits at the intersection of SEND, rural sustainability, school attendance, the cost of living and the long-term viability of rural communities. In rural England, school buses are not a luxury, but essential infrastructure. Families across rural communities such as those in North Yorkshire are not asking for special treatment. They are asking for a system that works, keeps their children safe, keeps them in school and does not price them out of the education to which they are legally entitled. There should not be a rural tax on education. That is not too much to ask, and I hope the Minister agrees.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)]

As I have said to those on the Front Bench, I am unable to stay until the end of the debate, for which I apologise to you, Mr Twigg, and to colleagues. I commend the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Tom Gordon) for securing the debate.

I am delighted that we have such an influential member of the Labour party here on the Front Bench—the Minister for School Standards, the hon. Member for Queen’s Park and Maida Vale (Georgia Gould)—because we cannot have this debate without mentioning the context of what this Labour Government are doing to rural areas. We have had the family farm tax, intolerable rate increases on pubs and hospitality businesses, and the Employment Rights Act 2025 hammering the ability of businesses, particularly those in rural areas, to take on young people. We have had the business inheritance tax issue, which causes huge problems for the continued success of many family businesses in rural areas, including in North Yorkshire. We are seeing policies of micro- managing moorland from Whitehall, rather than allowing long-term landowners to care for it as they have for generations. In North Yorkshire, we have a particular issue with the Labour mayor, who is looking to impose an overnight tourism tax, which will cause businesses more problems. He is also taking a greater portion than the Government wanted to give him for roads in York rather than across North Yorkshire.

The context is that Labour is hitting rural areas incredibly hard. I know the Minister is a fair person—she is on a very short journey to greater and more senior things in this Government. Though I disagree with them, the Government need to be a success. I urge her: please start thinking about rural areas across policies. We heard about the work that my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond and Northallerton (Rishi Sunak)—the former Prime Minister, Chancellor and Minister for Local Government—did to protect rural areas with the rural services grant. That has been taken away, as has the fairer funding formula. North Yorkshire council is running a £42.5 million recurring deficit. That is the context out of which many of the things raised in this debate are coming.

North Yorkshire council has been forced to move to a policy of nearest local school, rather than the much more generous policy that it had before. We are one of the most rural parts—if not, the most rural part—of England, but in order to be fair to other taxpayers and the services it looks after, this was the only position it could take. On a lightly political point, the Lib-Dem-led Westmorland and Furness council is having to look at this, as is Oxfordshire county council—everybody is facing these challenges.

I will not talk about SEND travel today, but a big issue in my inbox—as in that of the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough—is from parents who accept that things have to change, but who have seen anomalies impacting their kids and their ability to get their kids to school. For example, in Skipton and Ripon, there are selective and comprehensive schools either on the same road or very near one another. If kids are at the wrong end of town, they can be selected for one of those schools, particularly the selective schools, but are then unable to get free school transport because of the designated nearest school policy. In Settle and Upper Wharfedale, and other schools in the heart of the dales, feeder schools are needed to keep their numbers up. They have historical links with primary schools in Bentham, Ingleton and other parts of my constituency, but those kids are now being sent outwith North Yorkshire, into Lancashire and other counties.

[Rishi Sunak]

My right hon. Friend, who is my dear friend and constituency neighbour, is making an excellent speech. He talks about families in the dales. I am sure that he agrees that families in the upper dales and Swaledale have been acutely impacted by this policy. He knows the geography well; families are also now being directed to schools in Kirkby Stephen or Barnard Castle, and getting there requires passage on minor, single- track roads through high moorland—roads that are often unpassable and unsafe in the winter months.

The situation has obviously caused concern for the families involved. They are being very well represented by Councillor Yvonne Peacock. I join her in urging the council—it has to make difficult decisions, and my right hon. Friend was right to point out the climate in which it is operating—as it looks to refine and review this policy using the discretionary powers that Government guidance allows it, to think about the particular geography of Swaledale, the impact of weather on these roads and whether it is right for these children to be going to those schools. Often, they are having their education disrupted or travelling on unsafe routes.

[Sir Julian Smith]

I completely agree with my right hon. Friend. We have talked about Settle college, which is threatened by kids going outwith the constituency and is worried about its numbers, but in the upper dales, too—we heard about the Thomases and others in Oughtershaw—children have to go over the top into Richmondshire or to Settle college, which is much further away than Upper Wharfedale school. The impact is that historical links between communities and villages, and between primaries and secondaries, are being broken, and these schools are vulnerable to tiny changes in rolls from year to year. I urge the Minister to reflect on the fact that many of us have fought to keep some of these schools open, and this policy really is having a negative effect. There are issues with the siblings policy, whereby the school attended by a sibling is no longer taken into account. I hope that this and other examples will be considered as North Yorkshire completes its review and considers its post-implementation procedures.

We heard the proposal from the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough to look again at the definition of a local school and at the rural services grant. I think we need an emergency brake to ensure that Settle, Upper Wharfedale and other vulnerable schools are protected, and that one policy—in North Yorkshire or other counties—does not undermine schools. Parents also want to understand the opportunities for voluntary contributions. That interacts with commercial bus services; what are the options there? Above all, there is a need to look at the appeals process. Is the Department for Transport allowed to look at cases? In the case of Oughtershaw, it is just impossible to get over to the recommended school in winter; the Department had not really done an assessment of that.