Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what data her Department holds on the number of children who rely on public transport to get to school in (a) England and (b) the North East.

The Department for Education does not hold data on the number of children who use public transport for their home to school journeys. While we do oversee the school transport policy and legislative framework which determines the duties of local authorities and we support this through the Local Government Finance Settlement, we do not prescribe the type of arrangements or modes of transport that can be used locally.

The Department for Transport does however, undertake an annual National Travel Survey which includes data on the modes of school travel. The 2015 survey, including regional level data, is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/national-travel-survey-2015