Political opinion with Rachel Taylor MP: Reform UK promised magical cost-savings in Warwickshire: now they’re trying to make vulnerable children pay

I was therefore really troubled recently when Reform UK’s 19-year-old council leader, George Finch, wrote to the Education Secretary asking for permission to cut funding for home-to-school transport in Warwickshire. His proposal? To force children as young as eight to walk up to five miles to school, and younger children up to four miles.

The reaction from parents in my constituency was one of deep concern. In rural Warwickshire, many children simply cannot walk to school, even if they wanted to. Public transport is patchy, unreliable, and expensive. Parents often work shifts and cannot escort their children. Many families do not have a second car — or any car at all.

I have heard from families across North Warwickshire and Bedworth who rely on school buses because they live in rural communities where walking is not merely inconvenient, it is unsafe. No parent I represent believes that a five-mile trek along unlit country roads, often without pavements, is reasonable for an eight-year-old. And they are right.

On BBC radio, worried parents put their concerns directly to Councillor Finch: “How do you justify eight-year-olds walking a 10-mile round trip?” “How are poorer parents meant to afford wet-weather clothing?” “Is this just cost-cutting at the expense of vulnerable families?”

His response was an interview full of evasion. Instead of answering the questions, Councillor Finch talked about his own childhood, claimed he might not want to use the powers he was requesting, or tried to distract everyone by talking about transport for children with special educational (SEND) needs — even though his letter to the Education Secretary specifically targeted non-SEND children.

But there is no disguising what he was attempting to do, because it is there in black and white in his letter. Reform in Warwickshire are trying to cut funding for school transport, which could see school buses axed in the villages I represent and children as young as four forced to walk miles to school in the cold and dark.

And we all know why. Just over six months ago, Reform UK won control of Warwickshire County Council on the back of a promise to dramatically cut costs and lower taxes for local families. It was an appealing message, but since then it has become clear that they had no plan for achieving those savings. In short, they were winging it.

Now the bill is landing, and rather than admit their numbers never added up, they are reaching for desperate measures — measures that push the cost of their false promises onto working families and their children.

None of this ignores the very real financial pressures the council faces. But withdrawing support from thousands of ordinary families is not reform. It is retreat. And it abandons the basic responsibility local government has to ensure children can get to school safely.

I have written to Councillor Finch setting out my concerns and voicing my full support for the Education Secretary’s decision to reject his request. She was absolutely right to call these proposals Victorian. Expecting young children to trudge miles through cold and darkness belongs in a Dickens novel, not modern Warwickshire.

In my letter, I asked Cllr Finch whether he had considered what it means for a parent to walk a five-year-old more than four miles in freezing weather, or how removing transport would affect families already struggling to make ends meet.

And this episode raises an unavoidable question: if this was Reform’s first idea, what will they cut next as they scramble to cover the gap left by the unrealistic promises they made to voters?

I will not stand by while working families in North Warwickshire and Bedworth are told their children must walk miles to school because Reform failed to deliver the fantasy savings they promised. My constituents deserve honesty, competence, and compassion — not policies that drag us back to an era when children walked for hours to reach a classroom.

Councillor Finch should withdraw his request in full and commit to ensuring that no child in Warwickshire will lose their school bus or support for school transport. Warwickshire’s children deserve nothing less.