WESTMINSTER DEBATE: School run debate deepens as councils turn to taxis with no adapted vehicles available and safeguarding gaps
- Perry Richardson
- 1 hour ago
- 3 min read
MPs have raised concerns over the growing reliance on taxis and private hire vehicles in home-to-school transport, warning that shortages, safeguarding gaps and rising costs are placing pressure on families, operators and local authorities.
The Westminster Hall debate on 4 June focused on home-to-school transport, with several MPs highlighting cases involving children with special educational needs and disabilities where councils depend on taxi and private hire provision to meet statutory duties.
Tom Gordon, Liberal Democrat MP for Harrogate and Knaresborough, said local authorities in England spent £2.6billion on home-to-school transport in 2024-25, a 70% real-terms rise since 2015-16. He said SEND transport alone now accounts for £2billion of that total.
The debate heard that rural areas face particular pressure because public transport is limited and specialist school placements are often far from home. Gordon said the system was failing families where “transport will not be a barrier to their education” was no longer being met in practice.
MPs used a Westminster Hall debate to raise concerns over taxi and private hire capacity, safeguarding and SEND transport provision as councils face rising home-to-school transport costs.
Taxi and private hire availability was directly raised by Kevin McKenna, Labour MP for Sittingbourne and Sheppey, who described the case of Mason, a 16-year-old with cerebral palsy who needs wheelchair-accessible transport. McKenna said Mason’s parents had contacted “all nine of the local cab companies in Sittingbourne” and “not one of them has an adapted vehicle”.
That shortage has clear implications for councils procuring SEND transport and for operators asked to provide accessible services at short notice. It also raises wider questions over whether local taxi and private hire fleets have enough wheelchair-accessible vehicles to meet education transport demand outside mainstream passenger work.
Jennifer Craft, Labour MP for Thurrock, said some home-to-school transport companies market themselves as specialists, but the service provided can fall short. She told MPs that specialist training may be minimal and “sometimes it might just be a taxi”, adding that parents can be worried about placing non-verbal children or those with communication difficulties in a car with an unfamiliar person.
The safeguarding issue was developed further by Josh Babarinde, Liberal Democrat MP for Eastbourne, who described a case involving a child he called Lewis. He said Lewis was “physically restrained, relentlessly and brutally, by his passenger assistant” on home-to-school transport, and that his mother only found out when he came home distressed and bruised.
Babarinde said there is “no statutory requirement to report incidents of physical restraint on home-to-school transport”. He added that the incident was captured because Eastbourne Borough Council had pushed for mandatory CCTV in cabs carrying home-to-school transport passengers.
Will Forster, Liberal Democrat MP for Woking, also raised safeguarding linked to taxi licensing. Referring to the murder of Sara Sharif, he said her father was a licensed taxi driver employed by Surrey County Council to support vulnerable children with home-to-school transport. Forster said the council did not share known safeguarding information with the taxi licensing team or the home-to-school transport team.
The debate also touched on wider market capacity. Forster cited reporting that workers in Surrey had been left unable to book taxis first thing in the morning because firms were busy taking pupils to school. That points to a broader operational issue for local taxi and private hire markets where school contracts can absorb vehicle supply during peak periods.
Georgia Gould, Minister of State for Education, said home-to-school transport is the mechanism through which many disadvantaged families, rural children and young people with SEND access education. She said improving local SEND provision was central to reducing long journeys and transport pressure.
Gould said the Government was investing £3.7billion into 60,000 new places, adding that shorter journeys would improve outcomes and save money. She also said there was “no intention to look at means testing” and that ministers were “not in the business of reducing disabled children’s rights to transport”.
For taxi and private hire drivers, the debate shows that home-to-school contracts remain a critical but increasingly scrutinised part of the market. Vehicle suitability, driver consistency, passenger assistant training, CCTV, data sharing and accessible fleet provision are all likely to remain live issues as councils seek to control spending without weakening safeguarding or access to education.
