Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she plans to account for the costs of transporting SEND students to school in rural areas when making future funding allocations.

Central government funding for home-to-school travel is provided through the Local Government Finance Settlement administered by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. The Settlement uses relative needs formulae to assess each local authority’s relative need to spend on specific services. From the 2026/27 financial year, we have introduced a new specific relative needs formula for home-to-school travel which estimates each authority’s relative need to spend based on pupil numbers and home-to-school distances. This ensures funding reflects real journeys to school including those for rural local authorities.