THOUSANDS of parents in Kent could be forced to pay for their children to travel by bus to school after the Government announced plans to allow councils to scrap free school transport.

If adopted in Kent and Medway, the move could leave many parents who currently qualify for free transport having to find the money themselves.

The unexpected news came as the Government revealed its legislative programme in this week’s Queen’s speech.

The Government said it wanted local education authorities to consider ending all free transport and charge pupils according to their income, regardless of how far they travel.

It would be at the discretion of local authorities to decide if they wanted to end transport subsidies. Only the poorest families would be exempt but they would still be subject to some kind of means testing.

County education chiefs moved swiftly to condemn the idea. Cllr Paul Carter (Con), KCC's cabinet member for education, said: “A lot of parents will be rightly very concerned by this news.

"This would place a significant burden on some families, particularly those with more than one child who qualify for free transport. For a largely rural county like Kent, the implications are serious. The bus fares some parents may have to pay would not be insubstantial.”

However, Chatham and Aylesford Labour MP Jonathan Shaw said he would be surprised if either KCC or Medway Council opted to end free transport.

He said: “This is not some sort of imposition from central Government. It would be for councils to exercise discretion and given the nature of Kent and Medway, I do not think it would be appropriate and I do not foresee either implementing the policy.”

KCC currently spends about £12million a year supporting free transport for pupils in mainstream schools.

However, in total it spends over £20million because of transport to special schools and the costs are higher than some authorities because of the longer distances some pupils travel to Kent’s 33 grammar schools.

The Government’s School Transport Bill is primarily aimed at encouraging “safer and sustainable travel to school.”

Any money raised by charging parents would have to be re-invested by councils in improving bus services.

Under existing legislation, parents qualify for free transport if they live more than three miles away from their child’s school or two miles if the child is under eight.

The Department for Education said there was no threat to the principle of free education and the idea was to encourage councils to look at the transport needs of all pupils.