Cuts to transport subsidy changing Catholic schools

Cuts to subsidised faith-school transport revealed by The Tablet last week mean poorer Catholics are no longer able to afford to send their children to church schools, according to parents and MPs.

All of England’s county councils now require most parents to pay all or part of the cost of transport provision to schools that are not nearest to their homes.

Caroline Hyde, chairwoman of the Bishop Wheeler Catholic Academy Trust, which runs six schools in Bradford and Leeds, where subsidised transport is currently being phased out, said that forcing parents to pay transport costs in their entirety risked squeezing out poorer children. 

“For the first time ever, going to a Catholic school will be an issue of economics,” she warned. “Catholic schools have been bastions of social mixture: you didn’t go there because your parents were middle-class. It will be low-income, hard-working families that will be most hit by this.”

Some families in the trust’s catchment area – which extends as far as north Yorkshire – could have to pay up to £1,000 a year in transport costs for their children.

Another Catholic parent in Crawley, West Sussex, where the county council cut free transport six years ago, said she suspected fewer Catholics were going to Catholic schools as a result.

“I know other parents found it a squeeze too, and seriously considered whether they could afford for their children to stay at the school,” said Judy Carbone, who at one point was paying £100 a month transporting her three children to school. “Ultimately I think it’s the children and the parishes that lose out – the children miss out on the fabulous opportunities [at the schools] but the parishes lose out on the vitality that Catholic schools – with the right teachers and chaplains – can instil in the pupils.”

Mark Hoban, the Conservative MP for Fareham, agreed that the cuts could change the nature of Catholic schools and reported that some families in his parish in Southampton could no longer afford to send their children to them.

“We can’t expect the clock to be turned back and for local authorities to pay. That’s unrealistic. As a Church, we need to think about what our response is to this – we want to encourage Catholic parents to use Catholic schools, and we should be looking at ways to support them to make that choice,” he said.

The Labour MP Jim Dobbin said the cuts were an attack on the existence of faith schools.

“The cuts to subsidised transport will be devastating to many Catholic families,” he said.