Charles Clarke has called for a political consensus to end school run congestion.

The education secretary told MPs on Wednesday that if all the political parties agreed, he would lobby Commons leader Peter Hain for a draft bill to be brought in before the general election to create pilot schemes aimed at getting more children to use buses.

"The more there is consensus, the quicker we will move," he told members of the transport select committee.

Local authorities would be invited to bid to be among the 20 regional schemes and would be encouraged to be as innovative as possible.

The government could not act at national level to solve the problem as it was affected by a range of local problems.

"There is a danger in saying there is a blanket solution. Each school has different patterns of travel," Clarke said.

Clarke also said he wanted to see local authorities to co-ordinate better the way they spend the £2 billion they get for transport from central government.

He highlighted that concessionary fares alone cost £480 million a year and by combining services, savings could be made.

"Our argument is that by bringing these together then we might be able to make savings as a whole," he said.

Committee chairman Gwyneth Dunwoody demanded action on transport provision for special needs children which often amounted to an expensive taxi service.

"How flexible are you prepared to be to allow a local health trust to provide some sort service?" she asked.

Clarke was positive, as he wanted to see progress on the issue.

"I am very concerned about this. There is a massive use of transport which I am not persuaded is that efficient," he said.

He told the committee that Ofsted school inspectors could be used to monitor the efforts by schools to cut car use.

Clarke predicted that if the schemes succeeded, a spin-off would be that schools would organise more trips to places like museums.

But there would be no targets set by central government.

"We're on a target-slashing rather than target increasing mission at the moment," he said.

"My own measure of success would be a stabilisation and reduction of people travelling to a particular school."

Clarke also accepted that cutting red tape in tendering for school bus contracts was a key issue as many firms had withdrawn from providing services.

"I agree that if we are able to get a real push into this area it would be more likely to get more people to enter the market," he said.

Ultimately, Clarke admitted getting parents to choose good local schools would be offer the most important solution.

"The biggest of all of them is to encourage pupils to go to their local school," Clarke said.