Dakers and Khalsa slam Labour MPs for Education Stealth Tax on hard working families

12.00.00am GMT Mon 20th Dec 2004

The Liberal Democrats can reveal that last week's School Transport Bill will introduce a massive £24.4 million stealth tax on working families with school age children in London. Alan Keen MP for Feltham & Heston voted against a Liberal Democrat motion to scrap these charges, whilst Ann Keen MP for Brentford & Isleworth sat on the fence and did not vote.

The Bill will, for the first time, introduce measures to charge children for using school buses on trips over 3 miles. This will apply to all children currently not eligible for free school meals and could cost parents over £212 million nationally.

Labour's plans will encourage private car use during the already congested school run. Regionally the potential bill faced by hard working families is:

London £24.4m

South East £42m

South West £26m

Yorks and Humber £19.2m

North West £24.3m

West Midlands £23.2m

East Midlands £20.3m

East of England £25m

North East £9.3m

Commenting on the figures Andrew Dakers, Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Brentford & Isleworth, said:

"The Labour Government continues to undermine the principle of free education. This Bill makes access to good schools a lottery based on the size of parents' purses rather than the child's educational needs. It is a disgrace that Alan Keen voted against the Liberal Democrats motion to scrap these charges and Ann Keen did not vote at all. We will continue to campaign for school transport to be free."

Among other effects, this is very likely to increase the use of cars for the school-run - with the potential for more than 200 million extra car miles being added to the already congested school run. This would result in more 7550 more tonnes of Carbon Dioxide emissions each year.

Satnam Kaur, Liberal Democrat Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Feltham & Heston, said:

"The extra cars on our roads will add thousands of extra tonnes of Carbon Dioxide to our atmosphere and add even more congestion. These proposals fly in the face of everything the Government says it is trying to achieve on the environment. Coming just weeks after our Environmental Challenge to Alan and Ann Keen, which they have failed to respond to, it comes as no surprise."