Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what meetings (a) Ministers and (b) officials have had with local authorities to assess the impact of the shortage of PSV drivers on school (i) transport and (ii) budgets in England in the last year.

The Department for Transport has engaged with multiple Local Authorities on this issue, primarily through engagement with the Association of Directors of Environment, Economy, Planning and Transport (ADEPT) and, the Urban Transport Group (UTG).

Our colleagues in DfE are also speaking regularly to their contacts in local authority school transport teams about this issue.