Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee

Meeting date: Wednesday, April 19, 2017

Official Report 584KB pdf

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Seat Belts on School Transport (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Item 4 is evidence on the Seat Belts on School Transport (Scotland) Bill. I welcome Cian Gullen, convener of the Transport, Environment and Rural Affairs Committee of the Scottish Youth Parliament; Joanna Murphy, chair of the National Parent Forum of Scotland; and Eileen Prior, executive director of the Scottish Parent Teacher Council. Members have a series of questions to ask the witnesses.

This is a broad-brush question. We have received feedback on the bill from the SPTC and the Scottish Youth Parliament already, but, in broad terms, will the bill bring any benefit to safety in school transport?

The principle is absolutely right that when parents send their children off to school and entrust them to the local authority, the local authority is in loco parentis. I cannot take my children anywhere in the car without strapping them in, and it is completely unreasonable to suggest that local authorities should be in any other position. Our children should be strapped in when they are on school transport. In fact, we said in our submission that, given that in many areas service buses take young people to school, there is an argument for extending the provisions to those buses. However, children certainly should have seat belts in school transport and we should take co-ordinated measures to encourage them to wear them. The Scottish Youth Parliament’s evidence on that is interesting, but we know that there are ways to influence behaviour and encourage young people to make safe choices, and we should do everything we can to do that. The fact that young people might rail against the adults who are trying to impose the wearing of seat belts on them is no reason not to make sure that there are seat belts and to do everything we can to make young people use them.

I hope that the bill will bring some benefit. A lot of plans are already in place in school transport. Although I agree with Eileen Prior, I feel that we are in a position now to start communicating with young people and their parents about what is already in place and what will come into force through any changes, so that those things are not seen as an imposition that young people will rail against and that they understand why they are being asked to put on a seat belt in the back of a bus or car.

Does Cian Gullen want to add to that? Do not worry about pushing the buttons on your console; the gentleman on your left will make sure that the light comes on at the critical moment.

Joanna Murphy talked about young people railing against adults who tell them to put their seat belts on. It is about making sure that people are working with young people, rather than just doing something to them. It is about partnership. Perhaps a task force made up of young people, parents and teachers could work at the national level, feeding down to local authorities, so that there would be a national minimum standard of safety for young people and an understanding throughout Scotland that young people need to wear seat belts. Rather than saying, “We’re telling you to wear your seat belt”, it is a case of saying, “We want you to wear your seat belt; will you tell us why you are not doing so?”

According to the review of responses, nearly 69 per cent of people were in favour of wearing seat belts, so the issue is how we convince the others to do so.

I have a specific question for Eileen Prior. I got a hint from what you said that you might be in favour of quite stringent enforcement measures. The most stringent measure that I can think of—I emphasise that you did not suggest this—would be to deny transport to people who will not wear a seat belt. I imagine that that is an option, although it is not necessarily one that you would pursue.

I have a more general question for the other witnesses. Does the issue increase awareness of the need for personal safety in school transport? There might be other, more exciting ways of putting oneself at risk, in environments where the consequences might not be so severe.

I would not say that I am in favour of stringent rules. I entirely agree that this is something that we should do with young people, not to them. Schools, local authorities, parents and young people need to work together on the issue, so that seat belt wearing becomes the norm. Thirty years ago, smoking was the norm; it no longer is. In the same way, seat belt wearing should become the norm. That will not happen quickly, but we can work together to change behaviour. We have to use a wee bit of a carrot and a wee bit of a stick to achieve that.

Does Joanna Murphy or Cian Gullen want to comment?

Not really. I agree with what Eileen Prior said.

You do not have to comment, but if you want to add something, feel free to do so.

I was struck by Ms Gullen’s point about the need to work with and persuade people. Do we really need a bill? Surely we could work with local authorities, most of which are already doing what we want them to do. Do we need a bill at all?

Yes. There is always a need for legislation where there is any dubiety. A lot of different local authorities and companies are involved in school transport, and where there is ambiguity that can be seen as a way out, legislation is needed.

For a parent—and for the young person, of course—the most important thing is that a young person who goes on a bus to school is safe in the event of an accident. We cannot mess about with that. If the approach is not working without legislation, there needs to be legislation to make it work better.

Should we simply make it a requirement for local authorities to specify in their contracts for school transport that seat belts should be fitted? Why would we need legislation?

Does Eileen Prior have a view on whether legislation is needed or whether the issue could be dealt with as part of the contracting process? What would you rather see?

I had not thought of that. Let me tell you about the responses that we had. We use social media a lot to communicate with parents. When we talked about the bill, it was interesting that quite a number of parents said, “I thought that that was in place already.” Parents have the impression that there are already seat belts on school buses.

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I am not a policy person and do not know the ins and outs of all the legislation but, however we do it—whether there is a simple requirement in the contract or we have legislation—we have to be certain that seat belts are in place, both for our young people and our families. I am afraid that you are the folk who will have to tell us the best way to do that. I completely get Joanna Murphy’s point that often, sadly, if there is no legislation, the game in every walk of life is to find a way round the rules. It may well be that legislation is required.

I may have got this wrong, but I think what the committee is gently trying to probe is this. If a law is passed to require seat belts on buses, that will not require children to wear them. We are trying to understand whether the requirement for seat belts should be achieved through the contract, or whether—I do not want to put words into your mouth—you think that that does not go far enough and that we should seek to make it a legal requirement that people have to wear a seat belt on a bus.

Legislation could be more useful than putting a requirement into a contract, particularly if young people, parents and teachers had to be consulted on how to implement a requirement to wear seat belts. The bill does not require young people to wear seat belts, but I understand that you can legally require local authorities to consult young people on better ways to implement such a requirement. If a seat belt is provided, a person aged 14 or above is responsible for wearing it. We should make young people aware that that is already in place and that, legally, they must wear a seat belt if one is provided. Perhaps we could consider including in the bill that schools should ensure that young people are aware of that responsibility.

I will answer Mike Rumbles’s point. The point of the legislation is to make local authorities put the requirement in their contracts—it is not either/or; it is the two together. My colleagues will come in on who should wear seat belts.

Service buses have been mentioned—they are the normal buses that we all use every day and which do not have seat belts. Is there any point in dealing with the buses that the schools use in contracts if we do not have seat belts on service buses?

A lot of young people in rural areas, such as the area where I live, get to school on extended service bus routes—the bus goes its normal route with a dog-leg to school. A lot of young people from outwith towns travel to school on service buses. There is an argument that a company that provides that service should provide seat belts, so that we are not saying that some kids are safe but others on service buses are dispensable.

As a nation, we need to think about how safe bus passengers are. I do not know how often members travel on buses, but there are times when I wish that there were seat belts on them.

I think that there is a certain amount of empathy with that point.

Thankfully, there are few injuries to kids on buses on the way to school. Given that fact, is a requirement for seat belts the best way forward to improve safety? Should we consider doing something else—and if so, what?

When I brought up the subject with members of the National Parent Forum of Scotland, they started to talk about a code of conduct for young people and parents. The bus service has been withheld from young people who persistently misbehave—they are put off the bus. I do not think that that is the best way to go, but it happens.

As we are all in agreement, we need to work with young people themselves, the bus companies, parents, schools and communities so that young people understand the whole safety aspect and why we are proposing these measures. We are not trying to restrain their civil liberties in any way; we just want them to be safe on their journey, as people are when they have their seat belts on in a car.

I will follow up on that. Should we do something more to cover when young people get off the bus, cross the road and so on? This is your chance to tell the committee that we should be considering more than what is in the bill, if that is what you think.

You will know about the cases of young people who have been knocked down as they crossed the road to get home after getting off the bus or whatever. Speed is the big issue, of course. I live in a rural area, and folk use some rural roads as a race track. If there is a straight, the foot goes down. There is an education process—it is carrot and stick.

There is only so much that you can do as a committee and that the Government can do. As regards legislation, if I put children in a car, I need to strap them in. Legally, it is my responsibility to ensure that my passengers are strapped in. I do not think that it is unreasonable to expect bus companies and drivers to ensure that young people are at least able to strap themselves in, and that is what we encourage young folk to do.

Joanna Murphy has referred to this. Sitting in your seat with your seat belt on is the safest option, but sitting in your seat without a seat belt on is certainly a far better option than running up and down the aisle, for example, if the bus has an accident. There is an issue about behaving on the bus, over and above the question whether there are seat belts. You have reflected on that, and we need to think about that issue, too.

I have a question—I appreciate that I might have missed the point in previous evidence. Do parents in general just assume that there are seat belts on buses? When I have told folk that the bill is going through the Parliament, many of them have said, “Do we not have seat belts on school buses?” I know that that is anecdotal, and perhaps those people do not have kids at school or of school age. However, I was struck by the number of people who just assume that there are seat belts on school transport. Have the witnesses come across that?

Absolutely. That was the feedback that we got: people were taken aback that that was not the situation as it stands.

I notice that you were all nodding at that. That is a yes: everyone thinks that there are seat belts already on school buses.

I will pick up on a point that Eileen Prior made. One of the things that has cropped up quite a lot in the discussion relates to who is responsible for ensuring that children wear seat belts. I say “children” in the loose sense, because that could mean younger children, those under 16 and those over 16. I ask Eileen Prior to confirm that she thinks that the drivers should be responsible for ensuring that seat belts are worn. Drivers would be representing the bus company that had the contract with the authority. Another school of thought is that it would be up to someone at the school at either the beginning or the end of the journey. Other people think that it should be up to the children themselves or their parents.

It is perhaps a controversial or contentious issue, but are there any further views on who should be responsible, and therefore legally liable, if something happened in cases where seat belts were not worn?

It is indeed a contentious issue, and I can completely see where the different perspectives come from. Young people’s behaviour is influenced by all those parties. My sense is that younger children will respond to an adult telling them what to do, and they will generally respond favourably and will do what they are required to do. The challenge comes in the teenage years, as young people are expressing themselves and getting a sense of self. With that group in particular, you get into the territory of peer influence and of modifying behaviour through consultation, discussion and setting a good example. I am trying to get out of answering your question, because it is really hard.

I suspect that you will get a second bite at answering it in a minute, because John Finnie has a question along the same lines. It might be appropriate to bring him in now.

Good morning, panel, and thank you for your input. This is a lawmaking forum, and we are keen to make good law. I seek your views on whether you feel that, were the bill to become law, it would be compromised if children chose not to use seat belts.

That is a really difficult question.

I suppose that that comes back to enforcement. Everything will be compromised if people choose not to do that. It also comes back to discussions in schools, at whatever level. I remember that, when I was a girl, we had the green cross code, all the adverts on the telly, the squirrel thing and all the rest of it, which helped us to learn. I had already walked about and crossed roads with my parents, and they helped me to learn the dangers, although that was back when there was much less traffic. It comes back to education for young people so that they understand and realise why we wear seat belts in cars.

Sometimes, it is just about expressing some of the consequences, particularly as young people get older. Obviously, we would not want to show wee ones videos of things that have happened but, when they get older, if they choose not to do something, sometimes they have to see part of the consequences. Perhaps that could involve talking to people who have been in accidents, or perhaps the Scottish Government could put out information for young people through parent councils and the pupil voice in schools. Those might be ways of targeting and combating the peer pressure that kids experience about everything nowadays. Particularly when they are older—secondary school age—it is about trying to work with young people so that they fully understand. Knowing what it is like to be in an accident is outside the scope of most people’s knowledge—thankfully, very few of us are in accidents. However, if someone is in one, they do not want to say later, “I wish I had worn my seat belt that day.”

Does John Finnie want to come back in?

Yes—I will maybe just supplement my earlier question, although I think that Eileen Prior was going to come in.

I was going to move on to the issue of promotion. Were the bill to proceed, would you see a role for the Scottish Government, specifically, and for pupils and parents in promoting it? I appreciate that you do not speak for all pupils and parents, but would you engage with the Scottish Government in creating promotional material? How should the promotion be progressed were the bill to proceed?

We would absolutely engage.

To return to your previous point, whatever legislation we are talking about, if people choose to ignore it, it could be compromised. There would need to be a carrot and a stick. The stick would be the legislation, but a lot of work could be done to address behaviours. That is done in other realms, such as road safety, drug or alcohol use and knife crime. There are lots of examples of really good work going on to address behaviours. We have to use that work as an example and ask what we can do on the issue of seat belt wearing. Funnily enough, teenagers will automatically put on a seat belt when they get into a car—well, the ones I know will, anyway. They do not even think about not wearing their seat belt. That is in their head—they already know that that is what you do. I do not think that it would be a massive leap to get them to do that when they are on a school bus.

On promotion, if you get young people involved—for example, if the videos that you make have young people talking rather than an adult or a teacher—the older ones will respond better. The issue is that a lot of the behaviour on buses, such as not wearing seat belts or maybe messing around, probably involves older pupils, from fourth year to sixth year. They have maybe got a bit too confident on the bus and they see it as not being their responsibility to wear a seat belt, if there is one. If there are no seat belts, they do not see something to keep them in their seat, which is why they get up and walk around.

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This is about ensuring that the older young people know that they need to set an example for the younger ones. When the younger ones no longer see the older young people messing about, they will learn the correct behaviour of sitting on the bus with their seat belt on. That is where working with schools comes in. It might involve establishing a group of older young people who travel on the school bus and asking them to check that everyone is wearing their seat belt, in the sense not of telling them what to do, but of simply saying, “Look—you need to wear your seat belt for these reasons.” It is not a punishment—it is about encouraging, rather than punishing, young people. Any punishment would just turn things completely the other way; as young people get older, a punishment makes them feel more resentful rather than wanting to work in partnership.

Does John Finnie want to come back on that?

No, I have concluded my questions.

Does Joanna Murphy feel that the other witnesses have covered the points?

Certainly.

Okay. Rhoda Grant can ask the next question.

We have touched on how we could enforce the wearing of seat belts. Eileen Prior said that parents must ensure that children wear seat belts in cars, so surely bus drivers could do the same on buses. I wonder whether that is workable or whether somebody else would be needed on the bus, given that the bus driver would have more than three or four people to monitor. I can imagine the situation, and I would sooner have bus drivers concentrating on driving than on monitoring what is going on behind them on the bus. Does the bill need to be strengthened by ensuring that there is a person on the bus to keep an eye on things?

I completely understand what you are saying: the driver’s attention needs to be on the road. We know that distractions—car phones or children fighting in the back of the car—do not do much for people’s driving abilities. The same applies to bus drivers. If there is a pattern of behaviour among young folk such that they are not wearing seat belts, there must be some sort of intervention. However, I do not know how that would work or who would do that job—it might be a member of school staff, for example. In many rural areas, school staff travel on the same buses as the young people but do not have a specific role during travel time. I would be interested in exploring what such a solution would look like and who could take on that responsibility.

That brings us back to the need to ensure, rather than enforcing the wearing of seat belts, that young people understand why they should wear seat belts. We have talked about parents and young people in schools. This is partly about the involvement of bus staff—the people who run the bus, the drivers or whoever. That is another important group among the various people who are involved.

It would be interesting to find out—as, I am sure, the committee already has—what those people think, not in the sense that they might say, “We don’t want to do it and we wash our hands of it”, but to find out what they think would be the best option. As has been said, a parent could stand at the bus stop and safely strap the young person in—although I would hesitate to do that with teenage children; the last thing that any of them would want would be to have their parents anywhere near them. However, parents could be there to strap children in safely and then get off the bus, but the young person could have their seat belt off before the parent had even turned the corner. We have to get back to the reasons why young people would want to keep their seat belts on. Perhaps schools need to think of schemes that reward young people for keeping seat belts on, rather than schemes that punish them for taking them off. We need to be imaginative and perhaps move in a different direction.

On a scheme that would reward young people, my school dealt with littering around the school grounds in that way. A pupil who was seen putting their litter in the bin was given the chance to win a prize in a raffle—they were given a ticket, and they could win vouchers for shops in town. We could have something like that, although maybe not on such a large scale, that acknowledges young people wearing their seat belts. Pupils in younger age groups are often quite competitive about getting praise and so on; pupils in secondary 1 and S2 often like to be told that they are doing really well with something, whereas with older pupils it is maybe more about giving them a sense of responsibility about wearing a seat belt, and making it something that they do more for themselves rather than to stop the bus driver getting on at them.

As it stands, the legislation only makes it clear that seat belts should be fitted on buses—it says nothing about wearing them, because that is a reserved matter. We spoke to Scottish Government officials and asked about people being in loco parentis, and about where responsibility would lie if there was an accident in which children who were not wearing seat belts—which is not required by the legislation—got hurt. The response was that that would need to be tested in the courts. Do we need to strengthen the bill or are you happy that the bill is strong enough on that matter?

The question of where responsibility lies is very difficult. I am mindful of what has been said about parents thinking that because there are seat belts on the buses the school might be considered to be in loco parentis.

In terms of managing risk and so on, the contract is between the local authority and the bus company, so it seems that it is a local authority responsibility to ensure that buses are to a standard. In our written evidence, we talked about maintenance of school transport being an issue that comes up regularly. Local authorities have a responsibility to ensure that companies maintain their buses properly and provide seatbelts. It seems to me that it would be the case that, if there were an accident, the local authority would have responsibility—not that anyone will like that answer—because the bus company is contracted to the local authority.

Does anyone want to add to that? It is quite a tricky question. Joanna Murphy is raising her eyebrows—I am not sure whether that means that you want to add to what Eileen Prior has said.

It goes back to thinking outside the box a wee bit—thinking more imaginatively about why a person might not want to put on their seat belt. Everybody knows that if there is a seat belt available, wearing it is the safest option. We need to try to think differently. The local authority has a part to play—it cannot just say, “We contract the buses, so it is up to the bus companies.”

In some rural areas, kids are on the bus for quite a long time. There needs to be a way of engaging them and keeping them safe for an hour on the way to school and an hour on the way back—and making it not just because we say so. Other things make seat belt wearing a secondary issue. It is not great to put a seat belt on and then to have nothing to do for an hour but sit and look out of the window at the rain; having a carry-on is a much better option.

The answer in some cases may be that local authorities need to have somebody on the bus.

I will keep my question brief, in the interest of time. The bill specifically applies to commuting to and from home and school and does not apply to excursions, school trips and anything that happens during the school day. Should such journeys be included, or are you happy for them to be left out?

That matter is worrying the committee.

Such journeys should be included. I have experience of going out as a parent helper on coaches taking young people to events, and I cannot remember a time when there were not seat belts on coaches. I get the point: because those journeys take place during the day, there are school staff and parents on the bus in the ratio that is needed for safety. One of the things that a parent helper does is ensure that every person has their seat belt on, and if a pupil cannot put on their seat belt, we help them.

Would you like to add to that, Cian?

Those journeys should be included. It is the same age group of young people on those journeys as are getting on the bus to school. Seat belts need to be worn. Such journeys are often longer—for example, they might be travelling all the way to Edinburgh, rather than just going down the road to school. The approach should be more about making sure that all bases are covered: we would not want a little loophole that would allow schools to get a cheap bus in order to save money on the school trip. Such journeys need to be covered in order to make sure that young people are safe, that they know their rights, and that they know their responsibility to wear a seat belt. It might encourage young people to wear their seat belts if they were told by staff on school trips that they should be wearing them.

I agree. Again, it goes back to the principle that the school is in loco parentis: it has to look after my children.

Thank you. All three of the witnesses agree.

Mike Rumbles will ask one further question, then we will conclude the discussion.

We are told in the bill’s policy memorandum that there are about 110 buses without seat belts in Scotland. In fact, the vast majority of local authorities already require seat belts. Strathclyde partnership for transport has told us that its local authorities are already moving along with that. From your experience, or from feedback from people across the country, can you give us any insight into how local authorities in which seat belts on buses is already the norm have dealt with wearing of seat belts? How are the local authorities that already have that requirement dealing with the issue of safety, and has it improved safety?

Eileen—I am very happy to accept brief answers or, if you have no experience of that, just say so.

I am sorry, but I do not have direct experience of that.

Joanna?

No.

Cian?

When we were doing our report, I asked a couple of young people who took school buses whether there are seat belts on the coaches that they take to school. They said that often young people sit at the back of the bus and do not put on seat belts and mess around, which schools still need to address. If there were to be legislation under which local authorities were more legally liable for young people not wearing their seat belts, or for not encouraging them to wear them, they might be more willing to take steps to make sure that bus drivers and young people make sure that seat belts are being worn.

Thank you. Those are all the questions that we have. It has been a very interesting and informative session for us. On behalf of the committee, I thank the Scottish Youth Parliament for the research that it has done. There is also a list of primary schools that came to Parliament and contributed, through the education service. Various other people submitted responses that we have read in our committee papers.

I thank our three witnesses for taking the time to come in. It is always very interesting to hear the views of people who will be working with the legislation and who have seen the situation on the ground. I suspend the meeting briefly, to allow for a change of witnesses.

12:13 Meeting suspended.  

12:15 On resuming—