Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has made a recent assessment of the potential merits of providing free transport to and from school for all children.

The Government understands that many people are worried about the impact of rising prices, with many households struggling to make their incomes stretch to cover the basics. The Government cannot insulate people from rising costs completely, but it is offering support to help people with costs such as childcare, bills and transport. The Government’s dedicated website provides more information about support with the cost of living. The information is available here: https://helpforhouseholds.campaign.gov.uk/.

The Department’s school transport policy aims to ensure that no child of compulsory school age is unable to access education because of a lack of transport. Local Authorities must arrange free travel to school for children aged 5 to 16 who attend their nearest school and cannot walk there due to the distance, route safety, or as a result of special educational needs, disability or mobility problems. There are additional rights to free travel for low income families aimed at helping them to exercise school choice. There are no plans to extend free home to school travel to all children.

Local Authorities spent more than £1.6 billion on home to school travel in the 2021/22 financial year. The majority of central Government funding for home to school travel is made available to Local Authorities through the Local Government Finance Settlement (LGFS), which is administered by the Department for Levelling up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC). The Department for Education provides grant funding to Local Authorities as a contribution towards the cost of extended rights travel. This is just under £45.8 million in the 2023/24 financial year.

The Department has published statutory guidance on the ‘Cost of School Uniform’ to ensure that the cost of school uniform is reasonable and secures best value for money for all parents. The guidance is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cost-of-school-uniforms. It is for the governing board of a school to decide whether there should be a school uniform policy and, if so, what that should be.

The guidance requires schools to ensure that their uniform is affordable and sets a number of requirements to help ensure that. These requirements include assessing the cost implications of their uniform policy and engaging with parents and pupils on cost issues.