Peter Black a Democratiaid Rhyddfrydol Gorllewin De Cymru

Learner Travel measure - Guidance on Types of Vehicle and their Operation (Section 15)

Peter Black: Having listened to the arguments from Alun and others on the radio and elsewhere over the last couple of days, when I came to look at the amendment before us and consider what it tries to do with the guidance, I got the impression that everyone was talking about the wrong thing. I will explain what I mean by that. There are two levels on which transport to school is provided. There is the transport that is provided under local authority contracts, where the local authority has the power to stipulate various conditions for the type of bus to be used and whether those buses should have seat belts, closed circuit television, and so on-as long as they are prepared to pay for it, and that is the crux of this, is it not? Then there are service buses, which do not come under the remit of local authorities. Pupils will get onto these standard service buses to go to school, and pay their fare as they would for any other journey. Clearly, local authorities have no control over those buses, because they are provided by a private company on an independent basis. The power to legislate for those buses is not in the competence of this National Assembly for Wales but currently lies at Westminster.

The tragic death of Stuart Cunningham-Jones happened on a service bus in the Vale of Glamorgan. The driver lost control of the double-decker, which left the road, and as a result there was this tragic death, as well as injuries to other pupils. Nothing in this legislation will impact upon those service buses-other than the possible use of some of the behaviour guidance to enable schools to place escorts on buses that are well used by pupils. If that happens, it will be welcome.

However, we need powers at the Assembly to deal with these instances. I understand, from listening to the Minister on Radio Wales this morning that he has made a request for those powers. I also understand that those powers cannot be requested via a legislative competence Order, because they are outside the scope of the Government of Wales Act 2006. I support the acquisition of those powers for the Assembly, so that we can do something about this.

What we have in front of us today, from my reading of it-and I am not a lawyer, unlike the Minister and others-is an amendment to section 15, which deals with guidance for local authorities, governing bodies of maintained schools, and governing bodies of institutions in the further education sector. Every other day, some sort of guidance is issued to those bodies by the Welsh Assembly Government-it is routine and Ministers are well used to dealing with it. Often, the guidance is not statutory, because it is only recently that we have gained the legal powers to issue statutory guidance. In this instance, the Minister will be able to issue statutory guidance, and that is also welcome.

I hope that the Minister will use that power to reflect the recommendations of the report on school travel by the former Education, Lifelong Learning and Skills Committee, which I chaired. The report dealt with the safety of buses that local authorities are contracted to provide to get pupils to school, which is what this provision is all about. For that reason, I do not think that there is any problem with the legalistic side of this and whether it is pushing the boundaries of devolution as, quite clearly, it is not; it is dotting the i's and crossing the t's in terms of the kind of guidance that the Minister should be providing.

My view is that the Minister should be providing guidance to ensure that those buses are roadworthy. The Vehicle Operating and Servicing Agency does that anyway, but new guidance could ensure that those buses are not over a certain age, for example, and that they are single-deckers, that there is only one pupil to each seat, and that there are seat belts and proper monitoring and supervision of the pupils. All of that can be done through the contracts that the local authorities undertake with the bus companies, and either the local authorities can pay for that provision themselves or with money provided by the Assembly Government, or, more realistically, they could aim to have longer-term contracts, perhaps five or seven-year contracts, so that the bus companies can invest in those buses and use them for other purposes too. For that reason, it is perfectly realistic and right that we should provide guidance.

Although not stated in the amendment, the committee also highlighted another issue of health and safety, which is the matter of who is responsible in the areas where pupils board and disembark from the buses. The bus companies say, 'Well they're not on our bus, so we're not responsible', and the school will often say, 'Well they're not on our premises, so we're not responsible either'. I hope that the guidance can deal with that matter.

I hope that the Minister is happy to accept this amendment, as it is important that we stipulate that we are prepared to issue guidance on this issue. More importantly, I hope that he accepts it because it is within his powers to do so.