Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much her Department spends annually on taxi travel for children to and from schools.

Education is a devolved matter, and the response outlines the information for England only.

Local authorities are responsible for arranging home to school travel for eligible children. They deliver their duty through a mix of in-house services, passes for free travel on public transport and contracts with private transport operators. Such contracts are a matter for the council and the operator, but the department encourages councils to have robust arrangements in place.

The department has not routinely collected data on how much local authorities spend on different modes of transport. It is working to improve this picture and launched a voluntary data collection on home to school travel arrangements in February 2025.