The Northern Agenda

🚕 Why are hard-up councils spending £5m a week sending children to school in taxis? ⬆️ Matt Vickers MP on the unexpected resurgence of the Tories in his borough, record high migration levels, and the big Teesworks row

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Episode notes

Did you know that across the North, hard-up councils are spending a staggering £5m a week sending children to school in taxis?

The Northern Agenda has been crunching the numbers and it turns out that across the region nearly 33,000 pupils have taxis to school paid for by their local authorities, who have a legal duty to help children who cannot walk or use public transport to get there.

Why is the total so high and why are some councils paying so much more than others? Northern Agenda Editor Rob Parsons talks about the story with Una Summerson, head of policy and public affairs at Contact, a national charity for families with disabled children. 

And with the political machinations in Tory mayor Ben Houchen's Teesside patch now involving key Ministers like Michael Gove and even Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Rob's been speaking to one of the region's Conservative MPs to find out what he makes of it.

Matt Vickers is MP for Stockton South tells us about the unexpected resurgence of the Conservatives in his borough, what the Government's doing to bring down record high migration levels and of course that big Teesworks row that's been making all the headlines.

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Don't forget you can now watch the best interviews from The Northern Agenda podcast on YouTube - check out our playlist at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzE0rXt9oGq2nfc3VHw-Pzx1tttiLpP6z

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The Northern Agenda is a Laudable production for Reach. It is presented by Rob Parsons, and produced by Daniel J. McLaughlin.

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