9. Will the Deputy Minister provide an update on any work being done to address the inconsistency across local authorities in the mileage thresholds being used in the provision of free school transport, following the publication of the Learner Travel Measure review in March 2022? OQ58584

Yes. A more detailed review of the Learner Travel (Wales) Measure 2008 will take place shortly.

Thank you for that response, Minister.

I receive frequent correspondence from constituents about the daily hindrances they face due to the mileage thresholds. It cannot be that in 2022 there are still these fundamental barriers being placed on some of the most disadvantaged communities in Wales—barriers well within Welsh Government's and local authorities' powers to remove. Back in March, I drew specific attention to Caerau, a community that sits just north of Maesteg in the Llynfi valley. As we head into the winter months, children in Caerau will be forced to walk 45 minutes to an hour to and from school in all weathers. They will be forced to walk along routes that are not safe, and many children with asthma will be forced to walk along roads that are heavily congested. Local authorities have discretionary powers here, and in circumstances such as these could reduce the mileage threshold to include deprived areas like Caerau, but they haven't, so will the Government step in?

Well, thank you for the question. As you know, there's a legal requirement under the learner travel Measure to provide transport based on a threshold of three miles, and I appreciate the point made by Luke Fletcher that that is sometimes too far for many children. I myself walked with children from Ysgol y Gwendraeth from Tumble to their school before the lockdown, a three-mile journey. They kindly asked me to carry their music bags, and, by the time I got to the school, my back was pretty tired, I must say. So, I'm sympathetic to the argument.

You rightly point out that there are discretionary powers for local authorities to alter that, and Rhondda Cynon Taf County Borough Council, for example, provide transport over a two-mile threshold. Though it's possible to do it, there clearly needs to be funding to do it. School transport accounts for something like a £100 million annual bill; it's one of the biggest items of spending by local authorities next to social services, and the funding simply hasn't been there. And given the cuts we're facing, it's going to get even more difficult to sustain the services they already provide. I think that's something we need to soberly consider: the reality of spending cuts of the order of 15 per cent mean that the basic services we've come to take for granted may not be sustainable. 

We have set out a review, as Luke Fletcher mentioned, into the learner travel Measure. We've done the first part of that, and we're now in the second part of that, and we'll be consulting with stakeholders to look at the detail of the very complex arrangements that may need to change and will need legislation.

I'm also quite keen to bind this into the broader bus system. So, instead of putting just £100 million into school transport and then a separate amount of money into bus services that may not, therefore, exist, we need to bring that together. I had a very exciting conversation with the new administration in Monmouthshire last week who are looking to see if they can look across the services and bring those together. It's not straightforward; there are things that need to be worked through, but I think it's a far more strategic approach. So, as I mentioned to Hefin David earlier, as we look at the density of the bus networks we're going to need, we need to include school transport as well as broader public transport in one look.

The other thing I'd say is we want also to make active travel more of an option for more young people. Three miles, for example, is a journey that most people could cycle in around 20 minutes or so, if there are suitable and safe facilities, and what we want through the Active Travel (Wales) Act 2013 is for local authorities to put those facilities in place, so not to focus on leisure routes, but to focus on how do we get people from where they live to where they go to school. So, for a number of pupils, that could be a viable option—not for everybody, but for more than currently. 

I did meet recently, with Sarah Murphy, with the cabinet member from Bridgend, Councillor Jon-Paul Blundell, and Councillor John Spanswick to consider this item and the pressures in particular Bridgend are under, and the work that's going on to try to see what can be done. But I do fear that all the good work we're putting in place and all the aspirations we have could be washed away by the austerity that's about to hit us.

I thank the Deputy Minister and the Minister.