School places are not allocated on the basis of transport costs, route risk assessments or the safety and accessibility of transport routes. The statutory school admissions code sets out how school places should be allocated and exists to ensure that school places are allocated in a fair and transparent way.

Parents express a preference as to the school they would like their child to attend. Schools must publish the criteria they will use to allocate places if they are over-subscribed, so that parents have as much idea as possible of their chance of securing a place at each school they are considering applying for. A school that has places available must admit all children who apply. If a school receives more applications than it has places available, it must allocate the available places in accordance with its admissions criteria. If a parent cannot be offered a place for their child at any of the schools for which they have applied, the local authority should offer a place at an alternative school. Parents refused a place at a school for which they have applied can appeal to an independent appeal panel.

Home-to-school travel is an integral part of the school system and seeks to ensure that no child of compulsory school age is prevented from accessing education by a lack of transport, but it plays no part in the allocation of school places. Local authorities are required to arrange free home-to-school travel for children of compulsory school age who attend their nearest school if they live more than the statutory walking distance from it (2 miles for children under 8 and 3 miles for children aged 8 and over), or live within the walking distance but would not be able to walk there because of their special educational needs, disability or mobility problem, or because the nature of the route means it would be unsafe for them to do so.

Where a child’s nearest school is full and unable to offer them a place, the nearest school with a place available becomes their nearest school for home-to-school travel purposes. The school to which a child is eligible for free travel may be in a different local authority area to the one in which they live.

The department’s home-to-school travel policy aims to make sure no child is prevented from accessing education by a lack of transport. My hon. Friend, the Minister for School Standards is keen to understand how well home-to-school transport supports all children to access educational opportunity and she is working with departmental officials on this. The department is aware of the challenges currently faced by local authorities in arranging home-to-school travel for all eligible children, and knows that the cost of doing so has increased in recent years. We are grateful for their considerable efforts in ensuring eligible children can continue to get to school.

Local authorities are required to arrange free home-to-school travel for all eligible children, but it is for them to decide what travel arrangements to make, for example, providing a bus pass, a school bus or a taxi.

The department publishes statutory guidance to assist local authorities in meeting their home-to-school travel duties, which is attached and is also accessible at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/home-to-school-travel-and-transport-guidance. Departmental officials also host bi-monthly online meetings, to which all local authority school travel officers are invited to share good practice and seek advice from one another and the department.

Most of the increase in the cost of home-to-school travel can be attributed to transport for children with special educational needs. This is largely due to an increase in the number of children with education, health and care plans, and the number of those children who travel long distances to a school that can meet their needs. The department is committed to improving inclusivity and expertise in mainstream schools so fewer children need to travel long distances to schools that meet their needs. This will reduce home-to-school travel costs for local authorities over time.

Most central government funding for home-to-school travel is provided through the local government finance settlement, which is administered by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. The government recognises the challenges local authorities are facing. At the Autumn Budget 2024, we announced £1.3 billion of new grant funding in the 2025/26 financial year for local government to deliver core services. Together with local income from council tax and business rates, this will provide a real-terms increase in core spending power of around 3.2%.

All Train Operators are required to regularly report on customer experience as part of their contracts, including the availability and condition of assets such as Help Points, and it is disappointing if station help points are not working.

We want to make sure passengers get the information they need when they need it, and we welcome the report and support the Office of Rail and Road’s challenge for the industry to improve.

We will continue to monitor and discuss performance with train operators, including through the targets we set for customer experience.

I will certainly undertake to look at that in the way that the noble Baroness suggests. In October, the Department for Business and Trade launched the Buy Safe, Be Safe campaign to raise awareness of the dangers of buying faulty and unsafe e-bikes, e-scooters and components such as batteries for the very reasons she suggests. These fires, some of which are catastrophic and have caused fatal injuries, are completely unacceptable, and the people selling these things ought to be brought to order.

The Department is working closely with all partners in industry including the Rail Delivery Group and the British Transport Police to ensure that the rail network is a safe environment for the travelling public. Whilst we are always interested in new innovations to the market we have no current plans to assess the effectiveness of this product.

The Department is aware of the concerns raised by some groups, particularly visually impaired people, over the use of floating bus stops and is working with Active Travel England on ways to address these concerns.

The Department is currently looking at wide range of options in developing next steps. This is a complex issue and risks and benefits for pedestrians and cyclists need to be considered carefully.

The Disabled Persons’ Transport Advisory Committee provides advice on disability transport issues in their role as a statutory advisory body, including advice on buses and local transport. In addition, the Department engages regularly, and consults with, a wide range of stakeholders, including groups representing the needs of disabled people.

The Department is aware of the concerns raised by some groups, particularly visually impaired people, over the use of floating bus stops and is working with Active Travel England on ways to address these concerns.

The Department is currently looking at wide range of options in developing next steps. This is a complex issue and risks and benefits for pedestrians and cyclists need to be considered carefully.

The Disabled Persons’ Transport Advisory Committee provides advice on disability transport issues in their role as a statutory advisory body, including advice on buses and local transport. In addition, the Department engages regularly, and consults with, a wide range of stakeholders, including groups representing the needs of disabled people.

The National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (NISTA) will combine the functions of the National Infrastructure Commission and Infrastructure and Projects Authority. NISTA will bring oversight of strategy and delivery into one organisation, driving more effective delivery of infrastructure across the country.

As announced by the government in October, NISTA will be operational by Spring 2025. NISTA’s governance will be confirmed in due course.

An evaluation is underway to assess the impact of the trial, this is expected to be completed next year and we intend to publish this in due course. Further data is required to validate findings over a longer time period and account for seasonality. The results of this trial will be carefully considered before taking any further decisions. The two-year length allows time for this process.

My Lords, the current level of train cancellations is dreadful for passengers, and driver, guard and train manager availability has been driving much of this. The railway we inherited has unacceptable levels of staff shortages. We have commissioned detailed work to understand train crew numbers and availability. The previous Government had no useful knowledge of staff levels, recruitment, training, overtime and planning efficiency across individual operators. That work and the Government’s commitment to wider rail reform will drive better staff numbers and more efficient utilisation of those resources and reduce cancellations in the future.

My Lords, I am very happy if somebody else answers. The noble Baroness will have seen—I know she knows—that the Government’s programme of public ownership will progressively bring train operations currently in the private sector back into the public sector. At the point of transfer, the transfer of undertakings regulations of course require the pay and conditions of staff to be maintained. As we progress with Great British Railways, the consultation which will lead to the wider railway Bill will determine future employment policy, working with staff and the trade unions.

The issues with Northern have a long history. One of the disputes that we inherited there is so old that its conditions are prior to the change in law about the expiry of mandates for strike action—I think it dates from 2017. It is taking a lot of sorting out; the Government are committed to do that. The noble Baroness is right:

the conditions of service, which require work on only six days a week and rest days on the seventh, are no longer appropriate for a modern railway. We will have to change that, but we will do that in discussion and consultation with the staff.

There are no plans to require London North Eastern Railway to run direct services between Sunderland and London Kings Cross beyond December 2024. Sunderland will continue to have direct London services provided by Open Access operators. Additionally, improvements to the Metro network will improve connectivity in the North East.

The Children and Young People Cancer Taskforce was paused in June 2024 so that ministers could assess the work of the taskforce so far, and determine how it fitted into the Government’s priorities for the Department.

However, the work carried out to date on the taskforce was incredibly valuable and remains important to the Department's work. We are committed to progressing work in this area and we will set out more details on next steps for the taskforce in due course.

The number of Government Car Service Vehicles which were Electric and Hybrid on 11th November in the following years was:

1. 2023: 36 battery electric and 53 hybrid.

2. 2024: 36 battery electric and 64 hybrid.

The department publishes statistics on road casualties based on collisions reported by the police using the STATS19 system. STATS19 groups together buses and coaches as a single vehicle type. Bus operations in London are the responsibility of the Mayor of London and Transport for London (TfL). TfL publish information about bus incidents on its network, alongside reports on specific bus related safety issues.

Data on the number of bus occupant casualties in London boroughs and other local authorities is published annually as part of the department’s casualty statistics, though direct comparisons are not made between different areas.

Casualty rates are not published at this level due to the unavailability of local authority level traffic data for modes other than cars.

The government will introduce a Buses Bill later this Parliamentary session. This will put the power over local bus services back in the hands of local leaders right across England to choose the model that works best in their area, whether that be franchising, strengthened Enhanced Partnership with private operators or local authority ownership. We believe local leaders are best placed to make decisions about bus services in their area.

As announced in the King’s Speech, the Government will be laying legislation to introduce a revenue certainty mechanism that will support SAF production in the UK. We expect the legislation for a revenue certainty mechanism to be in place by the end of 2026.

We also announced in the Budget that we will extend the Advanced Fuels Fund for a year to support the development of SAF plants in the UK.

The National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (NISTA) will combine the functions of the National Infrastructure Commission and Infrastructure and Projects Authority. NISTA will bring oversight of strategy and delivery into one organisation, driving more effective delivery of infrastructure across the country.

As announced by the government in October, NISTA will be operational by Spring 2025. NISTA’s governance will be confirmed in due course.

The announcement in the Budget extends funding for the three city regions piloting the Innovation Accelerator programme for an additional year. Longer-term decisions regarding the future of the programme, including any extension to new areas, will be considered as part of the next phase of the Spending Review.