Women’s Safety: Walking, Wheeling, Cycling and Running

Tuesday 27th January 2026 Westminster Hall

[Christine Jardine in the Chair]

14:30

[Jess Asato (Lowestoft) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered women’s safety while walking, wheeling, cycling and running.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. Violence against women and girls happens in every corner of life: in our homes, in our workplaces, on the internet and in public. Whether we are commuting or exercising, women and girls across the country risk harm just being out and about. The threat of harm hangs over women’s decisions and moulds them. Those cycling home from work may weigh up whether to take the direct route home or the safer route—the one that is lit and busier, but not too busy.

In preparing for this debate, I was contacted by a woman who led a female running group in Hampshire for more than 11 years. She said:

“During that time, there was not a single week when women in my group, or I personally, did not experience some form of unwanted attention while running…This ranged from so-called ‘micro’ incidents, like sarcastic clapping, comments about our bodies, unsolicited advice shouted from passing vehicles, through to more serious incidents, including being filmed while warming up, having objects thrown at us, and one time being physically assaulted…Unfortunately, these experiences were not isolated or rare—they were routine.”

Women’s fear and experiences of harassment are often minimised—I saw that in the responses to my announcement of this very debate on social media—but when women have to do an unspoken risk assessment of their route every time they want to walk to the shops or take a run, it is a chronic weight around the neck of society. It is a fear that men do not have to live with day in, day out. As one of my Lowestoft constituents put it:

“Would a man, when running in the dusk or dark, every time they saw a member of the opposite sex heading towards them feel a slight fear and feel a sense of relief when they have passed that individual?...Would a man tell their partner or friend in advance of their route and the time they would be back? Would a man cautiously look behind them every few metres to see if they were being followed?”

The threat of harassment and assault is enough to force women to lead smaller, less free lives, withdrawing to the safety of being behind the front door.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing the debate, the timeliness of which should be obvious to us all. She alluded to notifying people of this debate via social media. Does she agree that, particularly among younger males, part of the problem is the internet and the manifestations of unhealthy lifestyles online? We need to tackle that so that young males understand and appreciate that they should aspire to proper relationships between males and females.

[Jess Asato]

I thoroughly agree. Women are often filmed while running, and girls are put off exercise by the way that men create this material, which can go viral. We have seen recently that men have been using smart glasses to film women in public spaces going about their everyday lives. Those women have then been harassed, with everything that goes with that, simply for being in a public space.

[Maya Ellis (Ribble Valley) (Lab)]

To build on the point made by the hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell), Girlguiding has found that two thirds of girls say they are put off exercising and going out because they fear some of the things we are describing. Given that we are debating potentially removing social media from young people, does my hon. Friend the Member for Lowestoft (Jess Asato) agree that it is even more important to ensure that other activities that we want young people to take part in are equally available to girls and that they do not feel scared? Otherwise, they will face even more inequality and stigma.

[Jess Asato]

I absolutely agree. I firmly support the idea of a social media ban for under-16s, partly because of the huge impact it has on girls and their body image, which obviously affects the way they think about taking part in sporting activities, often in public. We also know that many of those girls are catcalled and whistled at as they come home from school, not just by boys their own age, but often by grown men. That has a chilling effect on their decision to engage in sport and other activities.

Last year, I was glad to invite Dr Caroline Miles, who researches the abuse of women runners, to meet the Safeguarding Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips), to discuss the issue in front of us today. Alongside her colleague Professor Rose Broad, their research found that 82% of the women they surveyed had safety concerns while running, and 68% had experienced abuse while out running, but only 5% had reported it to the police. Of those who experienced abuse, 91% received it verbally, 29% were followed and 10% were sexually flashed—that is illegal. Indeed, very recently, a man exposed himself to a woman on the seafront in Lowestoft when she was out on her daily walking route, which has had a profound impact on her sense of outdoor safety.

The university researchers also looked at the 81 offences recorded by Greater Manchester police and Merseyside police in 2021 and 2022, and they found that more than 40% were sexual offences. They identified three areas where they think the Government could go further: improved space design, police training and challenging societal attitudes.

I am glad to see that the Government’s violence against women and girls strategy, launched just before Christmas, says:

“Well-lit streets, accessible transport, and thoughtful urban design can deter violence and reduce opportunities for harm”.

We now need to see national design guidance reflect the concern about violence against women and girls. The strategy states that tackling VAWG

“must be embedded in the training of every officer as a fundamental requirement.”

Yesterday’s policing White Paper sets out that the College of Policing, with the new national centre for VAWG and public protection, is currently developing a

“programme for frontline officers that focuses on the core skills needed to respond across crime types like domestic abuse, sexual violence, stalking and harassment.”

I hope that includes harassment outdoors. The training should learn from the best practice that already exists across a number of forces, such as the Jog On campaign, as part of which undercover female officers posed as joggers to catch perpetrators. It is vital that we encourage women who are harassed while out running, cycling or walking to report it, and that we ensure that, in reporting it, they feel that they will be taken seriously.

[Anneliese Dodds (Oxford East) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is making an incredibly powerful case. On the issue of reporting, I raised a written question with the Department for Transport last summer on what it is doing to improve reporting mechanisms for women cyclists who had been harassed or intimidated. At that stage, there was a suggestion that it might be covered by the VAWG strategy. There is an admirable focus on women’s safety on public transport, but does she agree that we need to do more to make sure that reporting mechanisms are amenable to women and girls who suffer abuse and intimidation?

[Jess Asato]

I absolutely agree, and it is one of the reasons why I took those University of Manchester researchers to meet the Safeguarding Minister. I hope that, given the VAWG strategy is a living, breathing document across a 10-year period, we can make sure this is in future versions of the strategy. It is incredibly important.

The long-term programme of awareness, training and behaviour change at the heart of the strategy aims to drive a societal response that empowers victims and deters perpetrators. In the medium and long term, that will drive the change we wish to see.

[Alice Macdonald (Norwich North) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank my hon. Friend for her excellent speech on this important subject. As well as reporting, I am sure she agrees that it is important to gather intel from women about where they do and do not feel safe. Will she, as a fellow East Anglia MP, welcome Norwich Cycling Campaign’s women’s safety audit? It has just been launched to hear from local women about their experiences, whether it be of harassment or of safe cycling routes. I encourage my constituents to take part. Does my hon. Friend recognise the value of such community-led initiatives?

[Jess Asato]

As a fellow East Anglia MP, I praise Norwich Cycling Campaign for its women’s safety audit. I am sure it is a model that many local areas should follow.

In the medium and long term, of course, we want to see real change. A poll conducted by the Cycle to Work Alliance in 2024 found that safety concerns deter 45% of potential cyclists from commuting by bike. Although this is obviously broader than harassment, there is certainly a gendered element to it given that women are three times more likely than men to fear cycling to work.

[Mr Lee Dillon (Newbury) (LD)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this debate. Will she join me in congratulating Newbury Road Club, Newbury Velo and West Berkshire Spokes, which organised a glow ride in October last year as part of Cycling UK’s “My ride. Our right” campaign? If we had segregated cycle lanes, it would help to improve all cyclists’ safety on the roads, including women.

[Jess Asato]

I would obviously love to congratulate Newbury Road Club and the other organisations that are highlighting Cycling UK’s “My ride. Our right” campaign, and that have been very active in this discussion about women’s cycling safety. I will come on to segregated cycle lanes.

In these dark winter months, safety concerns can often be at their greatest. Research by Sport England’s “This Girl Can” campaign found that 72% of women worry about their personal safety when it is dark and change their behaviour as a result. That has knock-on impacts. As one of my constituents wrote to me,

“if women feel unsafe or intimidated in these spaces, we lose more than just an exercise route—we lose a vital lifeline for our health.”

Indeed, to protect themselves, women are forced into more expensive, less healthy options to get around, such as driving, and the many benefits of active travel, including long-term public health savings, are lost. A study by Finnish researchers found that active travel reduces absences from work, and Transport for London found that people who walk to their high streets spend 40% more in local shops. That is also replicated for those who cycle to our local high streets.

Cycling requires the physical environment to reflect the needs of women and girls to be safe. Cycling UK found that 45% of women say that direct, traffic-free paths to town centres would encourage them to cycle more, and 39% say that physically separated cycle lanes would make the biggest difference. Polling from Cycling UK in 2018 also found that 50% of respondents in London saw a lack of separate cycle lanes as a barrier to cycling. Thanks to large-scale investment in a network of cycling and walking infrastructure in our capital, the same survey in 2025 saw that concern halved. That model ought to be replicated throughout the country.

I therefore look forward to the Government’s cycling and walking investment strategy later this year, and I hope to see that investment in infrastructure explicitly reflect the real barriers that women and girls face, particularly given that the gender gap in cycling has widened since 2018. Nine in 10 female cyclists have experienced abuse while on the road, and 63% said it occurred at least once a month. As a result of these experiences, over 20% of those women said they had given up cycling temporarily or permanently. I hope to see a target and a plan in the strategy to reduce the gender gap in active travel.

There is a wealth of organisations in this space, and I am sure the Minister and her Department will be encouraged to continue to consult meaningfully with these organisations in preparing and implementing the strategy. Like all of us, I want to see my girls, my children, grow up with the freedom to enjoy the outdoors, live healthy lives and travel safely wherever they want.

Our constituents rightly demand that freedom, and we must answer their call. We must be able to live in a society where women do not need to walk down the street clasping their keys in their hands or pretending to be on the phone to someone to protect themselves. Girlguiding’s latest girls’ attitudes survey found that 68% of girls aged 11 to 21 have changed their everyday behaviour in the last year to avoid sexual harassment. Of that 68%, 12% say they have changed where they exercise and 11% say they have changed the type of exercise they do. I will not stop fighting for a society in which that 68% becomes 0%.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Christine Jardine (in the Chair)]

I remind Members that they should bob if they wish to be called in the debate. At the moment, I advise that there should be an informal time limit of five minutes.

14:44

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Jardine.

I am a cyclist. I love cycling; I have always cycled, ever since I cycled to school as a six-year-old. I have cycled throughout my life, including as a university student, and I still cycle today. I see cycling as a means of transport. For me, it is not a sporting activity; it is very much my choice of transport.

However, recently in Bath I was about to cross a road, turning to the right, and I stopped, and the driver next to me pulled down his window and commented on my skirt. Me? I mean—I am a 65-year-old woman, and he was commenting on my skirt. I was so shocked that I wanted to get away, and then I nearly went into a car—I made that mistake because I was so shocked. Cycling is not a very safe mode of transport anyway, but being harassed makes it even less safe.

Women want to cycle, yet today only one in four cycling trips are made by women. That is not because women do not want to cycle. Almost 60% of women limit how much they cycle because of safety concerns. As we have heard today, one in five women have stopped cycling altogether after feeling intimidated by drivers, just as I felt intimidated by that driver in Bath. This is clearly more than just a personal issue; it is a public policy issue.

We must build the infrastructure that makes women feel safe, visible and supported on the road. Too often, women are forced to choose between two unsafe options: dark, isolated roads, or busy roads without protection. If we had built well-lit, segregated and visible routes, especially for evening and night-time travel, far more women would feel sufficiently safe and confident to cycle.

Cycling UK’s “My ride. Our right.” campaign calls for women’s safety to be embedded in all transport and safety strategies, including the upcoming cycling and walking investment strategy, and I echo that call today. The new cycling and walking strategy must include measurable targets that improve women’s safety, including clear goals to increase the proportion of cycling trips made by women. The draft strategy already recognises that investment in well-lit, safe and high-quality walking and cycling routes increases people’s feelings of personal safety. Of course, that includes the personal safety of men and boys, and of all children, but it is particularly important for women.

Such improvements support the Government’s work to tackle violence against women and girls. Cycling UK urges the Government and Active Travel England to update design guidance LTN 1/20, strengthening standards for lighting and night-time safety, and introducing gender-responsive safety audits for all new active travel schemes. I very much hope to see those measures in the final cycling and walking investment strategy.

Right now, the UK lags behind many of our European neighbours, and I would say that includes the number of children who are allowed to cycle at an early age to school. There are a lot of things that we can do to encourage young people at school to take up cycling; I myself became a lifelong cyclist because I started early. However, in Britain fewer than one in five people walk, wheel or cycle on an average day, compared with more than one in four people across Europe. Now is the time to change that.

14:48

[Kirith Entwistle (Bolton North East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Lowestoft (Jess Asato) for securing this important and timely debate.

Put simply, women are not safe running, walking, cycling or even just existing. We are not safe in our own homes; we are not safe in pubs, bars, restaurants, at school or at work; and crucially, for the purposes of this debate, we are not even safe at the gym.

Girls are at risk, too. How many of us here today have stories that start with our wearing school uniform? When I was at school, men in cars slowed down beside me, men in white vans asked me where I was going, and grown men followed me and asked to wear my glasses; I am not wearing them today.

As the daughter of a prison officer, I was educated early, not in confidence but in caution. My dad would say, “Don’t take your phone out when you are walking home. Don’t listen to music on a walk home. Stay alert. Cross the road if a man’s behind you. Walk with your keys between your fingers.” All of that does not just disappear when we grow up.

Only last week, when I was going for a run in Bolton, I shared my location with my family over WhatsApp, just in case. “Just in case”—those words tell us everything. I wear a running vest with a phone pocket. I clip my SOS fob to my clothes. I plan my route as if I was carrying out a risk assessment, and that is the point. Men do not make contingency plans to exercise, but we absolutely have to.

When it comes to exercise, women are constrained by the hours that we can safely be outdoors. Even in daylight, safer does not mean safe, and after dark many women feel pushed indoors. Here is the bitter irony: a lot of us can only exercise when it is dark, because we are primary caregivers. We do the school runs, and we care for our elderly or disabled relatives, or our children with additional needs. Society relies and depends on that care, and then acts surprised when women’s lives are more restricted and when we are forced to pay for safety. For many women, a gym membership is the price of feeling secure enough to exercise at all. Women-only spaces in gyms are growing, and that is progress, but where is the acknowledgment that many women are paying simply to do what others can do for free—exercise without fear?

Let us be clear: this is not a confidence gap; it is a safety gap that is rooted in our environment and systems. In winter, nearly three quarters of women change their outdoor exercise routines for safety, and over four in five say they feel unsafe in parks at night. I know that most of us avoid parks altogether.

[Gordon McKee (Glasgow South) (Lab)]

In the southside of Glasgow, we are lucky to have some wonderful parks and green spaces, but I often hear from women in my constituency who do not feel safe going through them. The Light the Way campaign, led by Radio Clyde, is campaigning for better lighting in parks, including in Queen’s Park in the southside. Will my hon. Friend join me in paying tribute to that campaign, and in encouraging councils to make park lighting a priority so that women can feel safe in their own spaces?

[Kirith Entwistle]

My hon. Friend makes the important point, which I will come on to, that well-lit spaces would make a world of difference for so many women and girls.

The safety gap that I mentioned earlier is also written into our transport patterns. In Greater Manchester, women make less than a third of all cycling trips. When women are asked why that is, they talk about traffic danger, harassment and intimidation. One Bolton resident told me that routes can feel pleasant by day but unusable after dark, and that one incident can be enough to stop women from cycling altogether.

Women’s participation in outdoor exercise is already lower than men’s, but the safety gap widens again for women from ethnic minority backgrounds, who face higher levels of harassment on the streets. Black, Asian and minority ethnic women are nearly 20% less likely than white women to exercise outdoors regularly, and half as likely to cycle to work. If we bear in mind both the ethnicity and gender pay gaps, we are also less likely to be able to afford a gym membership.

In Bolton, I am proud of the grassroots work that is making a difference, including Horwich Ride Social’s women-only rides, Krimmz girls youth club’s glow rides and the United We Run campaign, which gives thousands of Bolton women access to the Her Spirit fitness app. These initiatives, while brilliant, are also a warning sign. Women should not need safety in numbers. It is time that we address women’s safety properly, as we should have done for decades. That starts by building routes that we can actually use—the well-lit, connected routes that were mentioned earlier—and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Lowestoft said, treating harassment as public safety, making it easier to report and making it clear that it will be taken seriously.

Finally, we must put women’s safety into transport planning from day one, and ensure that progress is measured so that we can check whether the gender gap in cycling and walking is closing.

14:53

[Anna Sabine (Frome and East Somerset) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Jardine. I thank the hon. Member for Lowestoft (Jess Asato) for securing this important debate.

I am passionate about women’s safety, especially in semi-rural areas such as Frome and East Somerset. This is not an abstract policy discussion. As has been discussed, it is about the constant calculations that women make every day: “Do I take the longer, better-lit route? Do I run before dawn, or wait until daylight? Do I walk home, or pay for a taxi that I cannot really afford?” These decisions are so ingrained that many women barely register them any more. But this should not be accepted—it is not normal. No one should have to limit their freedom of movement because they feel unsafe.

Last year, I met a constituent called Holly who had been the victim of repeated incidents of flashing when she was out walking in her village in Somerset. As a result of talking to Holly, I launched a survey in my constituency to hear directly from women about safety in rural areas. With nights getting darker, I wanted to understand how safe women feel when getting to work, socialising or simply going about their daily lives. The responses were sobering. Women spoke about being followed on dark country lanes with no street lighting, waiting for buses on isolated roads with no shelter or CCTV, giving up running and cycling altogether because it simply did not feel safe, and above all, the constant vigilance required just to get home.

Rural areas face particular challenges. Public transport is limited and street lighting is sparse or non-existent. Communities are spread out and mobile signal is often unreliable. The scale of the problem is clear: UN Women UK found that 71% of women have experienced sexual harassment in public spaces, yet most never report it because they believe nothing will be done. The Government are right to call violence against women and girls a national emergency. I know that members of the Government are committed to this issue, but there is currently a glaring gap between Government Departments on planning policy.

Just days before publishing the new strategy on violence against women and girls, the Government also published a revised national planning policy framework, with no reference to women, girls or gendered safety. That omission matters. The places we build determine whether women feel safe walking home, waiting for a bus or going for a run. Planning policy is one of the most powerful tools we have to prevent harm before it occurs. A place cannot credibly be described as “healthy” if half the population feel unable to use it safely after dark.

We know what works: good lighting, clear sightlines, active streets, safe transport routes, and design that considers how women experience public space. Without explicit national policy, women’s safety becomes a postcode lottery. I put it to the Minister that if we truly believe in a whole-society approach to ending violence against women and girls, women’s safety must be designed into our streets, paths, transport networks and public spaces, not just bolted on as an afterthought.

Will the Minister talk to colleagues in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and the Home Office about the importance of this joined-up thinking? Women are not asking for the impossible; they are asking for the freedom to move through their communities safely. Let us commit to making that a reality.

14:56

[Amanda Martin (Portsmouth North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Lowestoft (Jess Asato) for considering such an important topic.

I am an avid runner, having taken part in the Great South Run and a 4.5 km MyWay to raise awareness of male suicide. I am pleased that I will also be running with On the Tools 7K and hope to be one of the women MPs running the London marathon this year. It is a brilliant form of exercise for mental health and wellbeing because it gets people outside and clears the mind, but clearing the mind is difficult when worried about safety.

Women and girls should feel safe when exercising in public, yet for so many that is not the reality. When I leave the house, I say jokingly to my kids, “If I’m not back in 45 minutes, send the police.” But that is not a joke. Studies have found that 70% of women have experienced an intimidating incident when running. A rise in social media and online abuse and videoing is making that worse.

Constituents have contacted me out of concern for the safety of women and young girls who run and jog in Portsmouth. They talked of their 15-year-old daughter, who loves going on runs. Despite doing what she felt were all the right things, such as going out only in daylight hours, she had been catcalled and verbally harassed on multiple occasions. The parents were not only distressed for their daughter but worried about her reaction. She was taken aback at first but then insisted on shaking it off, believing that reporting it would just be a waste of police time. Like her parents, I feel that she should not have to put up with that.

She is not alone. Others have reported aggressive behaviour, bunching around them as they are running, stepping out in front of them, throwing things and saying, “Why don’t you just smile at me, you grumpy cow?” We do not want our girls to experience that brazen misogynistic behaviour any longer. It is upsetting but not surprising that women and girls have to deal with such harassment, with the added mental load of worrying about their safety, from such a young age. If we socialise our young girls simply to brush off such abuse, we are harming society as a whole. As we know, low-level harassment of women can be a gateway to more serious crimes. We need to take this persistent and common harassment more seriously. We do not want women and girls to feel that they are unable to participate on the grounds of their gender.

Although I welcome the Government’s strategy to build a safe society for women and girls, using a whole-society approach, and the VAWG strategy’s prioritising of prevention by getting to root causes, such as the normalisation of women and girls’ feeling unsafe while walking, wheeling, cycling and running, it is vital to tackle this by working across Government Departments. We must join up the Home Office, the Department for Transport, MHCLG, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology and many others, so that our young women and girls feel safe when they are outside exercising.

14:59

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is again a real pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. I thank the hon. Member for Lowestoft (Jess Asato) for setting the scene so well and giving us a chance to speak on the matter.

The situation in Northern Ireland for women’s safety is incredibly worrying, and of course it is equally concerning for the rest of the United Kingdom, as the hon. Lady and others have said. The stats speak for themselves back home, and I want to be here to represent others and have that conversation.

The hon. Member for Lowestoft mentioned smart glasses. I confess that until last Wednesday, when I was watching TV, I did not even know there was such a thing. They can contain a concealed camera, almost requiring a close-up inspection. I am not sure what can be done in relation to that, but if there is a problem, as there clearly is—there were many examples in that TV programme—maybe the Minister can give us an indication of what can be done.

There has been an increasingly negative perception of safety in public places, especially among women. One we always associate as most notable is the tragic and heart-rending murder of Sarah Everard, who was walking home in London when she was kidnapped, raped and murdered by a policeman—of all things in this world. The horror that lady must have felt is inconceivable, when she expected protection but got the very opposite.

The Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency has revealed that in Northern Ireland significantly more men report feeling safe than women—68% of men compared with only 27% of women—which is a devastatingly low figure. Shared public spaces are also widely used for the likes of running, walking and cycling. A separate survey by Queen’s University Belfast found that only 43% felt safe walking alone on a public street or on public transport. Official crime statistics show that sexual offences in Northern Ireland have risen significantly over the past decade and remain a serious concern tied to women’s safety in public places.

I want—we all want—to live in a society where individuals, and women in particular, do not fear being out in public. There are some fantastic helplines, such as Strut Safe, where a volunteer stays on the phone with a caller and chats until they get home. That is something that can really help. It is sad and unfortunate that such services must exist, but we are grateful that they are there and are taking extra steps to protect the public while they are in public. Many universities have those kinds of services. I know the Minister does not have responsibility for education, but perhaps she can tell us whether she has had discussions with an Education Minister to ensure that girls are safe in school and young women are at universities.

Policing and community safety partnerships back home, and others, have noted an increasing number of women looking to obtain a personal alarm for their own safety. I know the Police Service of Northern Ireland do that, so if ladies want an alarm, they can get one. It makes a high-pitched noise that would sometimes distract the person involved, which can be helpful. They can carry it out in public with them should they feel unsafe. That demand reflects the argument that women are simply afraid and that more must be done to ensure that fear is not there.

I have noticed that in my constituency, and maybe it is the same in others, that with the sports club we have, whether karate, judo or boxing, many young girls and women are taking up those sports simply so they can protect themselves. Let us remember, and I will try to be very careful with my words, that when a man approaches with intentions that are wrong, we know where he is vulnerable—kick him hard in a certain place and his fervour will leave him right away. Young girls and women are getting their protection in the karate, judo and boxing clubs in Newtownards so they can protect themselves, which has to be good news for the clubs in my constituency.

There is clear evidence of too many women in Northern Ireland and further afield feeling unsafe walking, running or cycling in public spaces. We must invest in better infrastructure, lighting and policing, alongside better community awareness and safety initiatives. I look to the Minister, as I always do. I know her intention to help us all in our request to make public spaces across the nation feel safe, accessible and welcoming for all women, whether in a group or alone.

15:04

[Amanda Hack (North West Leicestershire) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. I thank the hon. Member for Lowestoft (Jess Asato) for giving us the opportunity to speak in such an important debate for our constituents, but many of us in the room will also be speaking from personal experience and for those people who are close to us.

Walking, wheeling, cycling and running are sold to us as sports that are easily accessible, particularly walking and running because there are no monthly fees and many will have the equipment accessible at home—pop your shoes on and off you go—but for women it is nowhere near as accessible as it should be. We hear the phrase, “Everyone has the same 24 hours” a lot, particularly on social media, trying to shame people for not going for a run, going to the gym or choosing to bike to work instead of taking the bus. I know many women who actively choose not to exercise at night because they feel unsafe; suddenly, those 24 hours are limited to when it is light outside. If someone works in an office or during the winter, the hours available to them to go for a run or a cycle can feel even more restricted.

[Kevin Bonavia (Stevenage) (Lab)]

In my constituency we have one of the best cycling networks in the UK. However, the lighting is absolutely shocking in some places, because over the years Hertfordshire county council has changed it to LED lighting. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need a whole-Government approach to this at all levels, and that we should encourage local councils to think about that when they are designing their lighting systems?

[Amanda Hack]

My hon. Friend makes an incredibly important point. Some 58% of women say that their cycle journeys are limited because of safety concerns and the infrastructure provided. As somebody who has run fairly regularly for a number of years, being hassled has sadly been a daytime as well as a night-time experience.

[Helen Maguire (Epsom and Ewell) (LD)]

As the hon. Member rightly alluded to, catcalling, being followed or being shouted at by passing cars is a frequent experience for many women who go out running. In my constituency, there are many poorly lit paths and parks, which limits where women feel safe to go out for a run. Does the hon. Lady agree that women should not have to choose between doing the exercise they love and their safety?

[Amanda Hack]

Absolutely. That is why this debate is so important. We should not be restricting access to exercise because we do not feel safe.

It is frustrating that I have been catcalled both running on my own and with buddies. What was saddest for me was during covid. My 10-year-old daughter had just got on to her big bike and was faster than me while I was running behind her, and we had comments from a car. Thankfully, she did not really understand what had been said, so I will not repeat it here, but I can guarantee that they knew exactly what I thought of their disgusting behaviour. It changed my approach to life, however, and we did not do that again. We both went cycling together instead.

This is what we have to do all the time. We are constantly compromising on what we can and cannot do, and when we can and cannot do it. Whether it was a poll on a Facebook group for Leicester and Leicestershire runners, or my running trainer trying to learn more about his female clients, the comments were inundated with women sharing their experiences. We have to start changing the way that we feel. It is no surprise that 20% of women never walk at night, and that 48% of women in the UK feel unsafe while out running according to SportsShoes. That is shameful, and we have to change it.

It has been really good to see the Government take such a strong stance on violence against women and girls, but this problem is embedded in our infrastructure. As a councillor, I saw part of a bus route being cut. I then demonstrated to the bus company what they wanted us to do: to walk along an unlit path on dangerous roads, to get from where the bus would stop to the place of business where people needed to go to work. These things are baked in, and we have to change them for everybody.

Footpaths and cycleways must be built with women’s safety in mind, not with cost-cutting measures putting in fewer lampposts and less lighting, or weaving cycle lanes well away from well-lit main roads because it is cheaper. Those compromises should not be taken. Too often, cost savings prohibit women. Safer streets for us to get to work and exercise on would have huge benefits. If someone cannot drive, and public transport where they live is not very reliable—as it is in North West Leicestershire—cycling can help open up more doors to work, education, and seeing family and friends.

Helping us to feel safe while running, walking and wheeling would mean that women are far more likely to exercise, helping to ease some of the strain on our NHS and other services by keeping women fit and active.

15:09

[Dr Scott Arthur (Edinburgh South West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under you, Ms Jardine. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Lowestoft (Jess Asato) for introducing the debate in such a compassionate way. As a wannabe runner—I cannot claim to be a runner—on behalf of myself and also my son and daughter, who are both keen runners, I want to thank all the people who have been talking about running.

In Edinburgh the gold standard for active travel routes were our canal path and converted railway tracks. Across the city, converted railway tracks offer routes away from busy roads and are used for thousands of journeys every year. In my constituency, a national cycle route runs alongside the Water of Leith—the route that used to be the Balerno branch line—and provides a space for active travellers to enjoy a quiet and beautiful route away from traffic. I use the route regularly and feel incredibly lucky to be able to enjoy it as I travel through my constituency. It is one of the things that defines my constituency.

I said the routes were the gold standard. That is because in 2021, the brutal death of Sarah Everard so far away from Edinburgh heightened an ongoing conversation about women’s safety in public spaces. In Edinburgh, the safety of our active travel routes came to the forefront. At this point I have to thank Councillor Mandy Watt, who showed amazing leadership and quite quickly allocated around £500,000 to light some of the routes through our parks. Routes along old railway lines and canal paths that offer enjoyable, smooth, green and quiet routes during the day change in the darkness. Even with lighting, without the passive surveillance found in busier public areas, I know that women often feel unable to use those routes, or feel unsafe when they do so. You, Ms Jardine, will know that from Roseburn path in your constituency.

During the winter when it is dark, often from around 3 pm to 9 am in Edinburgh, those routes become less accessible. This has a significant impact for those who rely on them to travel to work or for leisure. The last Edinburgh walking and cycling index showed a 7% difference in the perception of safety between men and women, with women feeling much less safe. In many cases this prevents women from integrating active travel into their daily lives—we have heard about that from other speakers. But it also pushes women who had previously walked or cycled to stop, and that is not good for them and not good for us or our economy. It is worth pointing out that all of us want to live in a town, city or village where more people walk, run or cycle. It is a tragedy that often these investments and changes can be so controversial, because it is something we all aspire to. It is about how we do it.

Too many women face harassment. One study in Edinburgh showed that around 20% of women cyclists stop after experiencing a single event of harassment. Unsafe routes decrease women’s ability to travel easily around the city, and no doubt reduce the mental and physical benefits that come with active travel. Ensuring safe routes in busier areas through the creation of separate, well-maintained cycle lanes on roads, for example, are one way to ensure that those who feel unsafe using our canals and former railway tracks are still able to actively travel during the winter months and at night. I want to thank the InfraSisters in Edinburgh who have run a fantastic campaign over many years—I am sure you are aware of their work, Ms Jardine.

As walking and cycling routes reach the city centre, it is vital that we have the correct architecture and infrastructure to ensure women’s safety in busier areas as they travel home or to work. In a public consultation in 2023, up to 80% of women who responded stated that they had experienced harassment, abuse or violence in public spaces in Edinburgh. Some people might think 80% is an exaggeration—I did when I first read that stat—but when we speak to women we find that it is absolutely not. I was ashamed to hear some of their experiences.

[Wera Hobhouse]

Is the hon. Member not absolutely shocked at how much this behaviour is normalised, and that we accept it as normal? When my male partner’s sons do not realise what happens, we continue to normalise it. Is it not time that we stopped?

[Dr Arthur]

Absolutely. As a cyclist in Edinburgh, I have been verbally abused by drivers. On my social media pages, I am also often criticised for encouraging more people to walk and cycle. However, that is very different from abuse based on someone’s gender, which really goes to the heart of who they are, rather than simply what they are doing. I thank the hon. Lady for making that point.

The feeling of safety among women in Edinburgh varied seasonally, and according to lighting and the presence of passive surveillance from other citizens. Variation was also found between different groups, with disabled women and BAME women more likely to experience some form of harassment. That is in Scotland’s capital city; it is absolutely shameful.

There are seemingly small things that we can implement to improve the situation. Providing multiple points for road crossings, improving street lighting and increasing on-street passive surveillance can make a difference, and we now integrate those things into our urban design in Edinburgh.

The safety of women on public transport deserves a debate of its own, but ensuring that women can safely access public transport, either by walking and cycling, should also be actively considered. We must look at the routes between communities and key public transport hubs, ensuring that they are safe and, above all, well lit—bus stops, in particular. All those small changes can improve the safety of women as they walk around our city centres and outlying neighbourhoods.

I will quickly give two examples. Lighting was recently installed in Hailes Quarry Park in my constituency, which has made such a change to local travel. Colinton tunnel, which I am sure you are familiar with, Ms Jardine, and which is 120 metres long, also had lighting added. I thought nothing of it—it just used to be a dark tunnel —but many women came forward to say that having lighting in place had transformed the way they walked along that route. It was cheap, easy and transformational.

15:16

[Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Lowestoft (Jess Asato) not only on securing the debate but on her fantastic opening speech, which really set the scene.

Violence against women and girls, including sexual harassment and assault, affects millions of women across the UK. It affects what we say, what we wear and what we do. It affects how we live our everyday lives and—as we have heard from many hon. Members in the debate—whether and where we walk, cycle and run. In what I think was a national survey, 20% of women said they would never go walking at night. Local research undertaken by the West Yorkshire combined authority and the University of Leeds produced similarly stark findings. In a survey of users of Myrtle Park in Bingley, in my constituency, they found that 48% of respondents would not feel safe at night.

According to the Office for National Statistics, over 15% of women and girls in Britain feel “very or fairly” unsafe in parks during the day. It is a scandal that women feel unsafe while walking, wheeling, cycling or running. As we have heard, it is also harmful to our health and wellbeing. Increasing active travel by 50% in England would result in 1.8 million fewer GP visits and 4 million fewer sick days, so it is vital that we provide safe opportunities for women and girls to participate in active travel.

The Mayor of West Yorkshire, Tracy Brabin, has led the way on this issue, by not only publishing her safety of women and girls strategy but going on to commission and produce specific guidance called “Safer Parks”. The guidance sets out in detail how to address the inequity of access to parks, promoting the need for them to be designed in a way that makes women and girls feel more secure. I have been briefed on the research, and interestingly the most obvious things—such as lighting the path through the park—do not always result in people feeling safer, because they are in the spotlight and fear that attackers are hiding in the shadows. It is really important that we do the research and get the design guidance right. We must also address the different barriers that exist for different groups, and generally increase the number of people using the parks—that is something that makes us feel safer. The guidance was trialled in Bradford last year, and will hopefully inform planning of how we improve safety in parks for women and girls across West Yorkshire and beyond.

Like the West Yorkshire combined authority, Bradford council is treating the issue with the seriousness it deserves. I recently met the council to discuss the safety concerns of women who visit Myrtle Park. I will continue to engage with the council, the Friends of Myrtle Park—a fantastic community group—and the local councillor, Susan Fricker, who has been a really strong advocate on this issue.

I have also been pleased with some of the initiatives by West Yorkshire police. The Jog On campaign is dedicated to tackling the harassment faced by female runners and joggers. It seeks to raise awareness of inappropriate behaviour, provide education—including through active bystander training—and take enforcement action against individuals who persist in targeting runners with unwanted behaviours such as catcalling, horn-pipping or sexualised comments. At my request, Jog On recently attended the parkruns in both Myrtle Park and Roberts Park in Saltaire, in my constituency, encouraging and advising women who enjoy parkrun, but who may want to go out and run at other times of the day and week.

Women and girls must feel confident to get out and about on their bikes. They must also feel safe in our parks and green spaces and along our canals and greenways —I am campaigning for the Wharfedale Greenway in my constituency, and I will highlight that it must be designed with the safety of women and girls in mind, following the excellent points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Dr Arthur) about Edinburgh. I hope the Minister will encourage the sharing of these positive initiatives from West Yorkshire and Bradford and, with colleagues, ensure that local authorities have the funding and guidance they need in order to secure the safety of women and girls in all our public spaces.

15:21

[Josh Fenton-Glynn (Calder Valley) (Lab)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on running. It is a pleasure to speak in the debate, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Lowestoft (Jess Asato) for securing it and for her constant work on this issue.

Running should be available to everyone as a form of exercise, stress relief and mental regulation, but it simply is not; it is available only to people who feel safe to do it, and the reality is that too many women do not. Put plainly, 70% of women say they have experienced an intimidating incident while running. Two out of three women have faced harassment. Those are not isolated experiences; they show a pattern that forces women to adapt their behaviour. Women change their routes, avoid running in the dark or stop altogether. That is not freedom; it is women adjusting their lives because of the behaviour of men.

I am a member of a running club, and there are many running clubs in my constituency, which make women feel safer because there is safety in numbers. I pay tribute to those clubs—particularly the all-female ones, such as the St Pol Striders—for creating these spaces, but they should not be relied on, and women should not have to do things differently.

Men who make women feel unsafe have to face consequences, because serious offenders begin with acts of harassment. If we want to prevent worse crimes, we cannot ignore the early ones. We need to make reporting easier and the follow-up stronger. We need systems that take women seriously when they come forward. I represent a constituency with large rural areas, so simple solutions such as better lighting or planning just cannot be relied on. Fundamentally, it comes down to how seriously these complaints are taken.

I am reminded of two very similar incidents about five years apart of men exposing themselves to female walkers, which happened while I was a councillor. In one, the police did not take the act very seriously at all—I suspect that the policeman spent more time complaining to me about people posting about the crime on social media than he did following it up—and in the other they did. Things have changed in West Yorkshire, not out of the ether, but because of leadership. Alison Lowe, our deputy mayor for policing, has really changed how things are looked at, and that has made a huge difference.

Fundamental to good outcomes is an institutional recognition of the problem. We need our police to lead from the front, take victims seriously and be proactive in their information and support. Running should be for everyone; it should not depend on gender, postcode or the time of day. If we want more people to enjoy the benefits of running, we must make sure women feel safe enough to take part. That means consequences for harassment, proper lighting, easier reporting and support for the communities that bring people together.

[Christine Jardine (in the Chair)]

Before I call the final Back-Bench speaker, I should say that I would like to call the first Front-Bench spokesperson at 28 minutes past 3.

15:24

[John Slinger (Rugby) (Lab)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Lowestoft (Jess Asato) for her assiduous campaigning and for bringing this important issue to the Chamber.

This is a problem suffered by women but caused by men—not all men, of course—and men must be the main part of the solution. Women’s spaces are being constricted. Women are forced to take exercise in more public places and to avoid footpaths and canal towpaths, and parents of daughters will have had those conversations with them. However, when they move into those more public places, which are better lit and supposedly safer, they face intimidation, catcalling and the like. That is a total outrage, as my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Anna Dixon) said. If it were happening to men, I can assure Members that it would be dealt with very rapidly.

Women are adapting their behaviour, but it is men’s behaviour and attitudes that need adapting, confronting, changing and—yes—on occasion prosecuting. Many men and boys do not even know they are doing anything wrong, but they are intimidating women, and shrinking their status and freedom as citizens. We therefore need a multifaceted approach, and that of course is what the Government are taking through their VAWG strategy, encompassing education, public education, police and criminal justice system work, and more.

This is clearly not something that can be prosecuted out of existence, but part of the challenge is to defeat the defeatism, and more can and is being done. If we mention catcalling, people instinctively say, “That can’t be dealt with; How could you prosecute it?” However, as we heard in relation to the Jog On campaign, it is possible for police to take action.

I want to touch briefly on the work of Warwickshire police in Rugby. They have a safer neighbourhood team that carries out VAWG walks; an enhanced policing initiative on Friday and Saturday nights that promotes Ask for Angela; and Project Vigilant, in which officers are trained to detect predatory behaviour. They have also set up a working group that looks at surveys from the parkrun and walking groups to get data so that they can work out whether they would like to carry out an operation similar to the Jog On operation carried out by Surrey police. They also do a lot of education in schools.

We need to ensure that there are no no-go areas for women and girls in our society, and to commit to work more to tackle the misogynistic, predatory behaviour of some men and boys. They need to be the people who feel worried and intimidated when they go into public spaces—or any other spaces—with the attitudes we have talked about and perpetuate them.

[Christine Jardine (in the Chair)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

15:28

[Marie Goldman (Chelmsford) (LD)]

It is a genuine pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Lowestoft (Jess Asato) for securing this important debate. As hon. Members have set out, the abuse and violence experienced by women and girls in public spaces is horrifyingly prevalent and should be called out for what it is: a national emergency.

I want to pay tribute to hon. Members from across the House for some of the things they have said this afternoon, and particularly to the hon. Member for Lowestoft, who started the debate in such a wonderful way and really set the tone. She highlighted things that we all know, as women, but that, shockingly, still need highlighting. She spoke about women having to choose either the most direct or the safest route home, and about the unspoken risk assessment we all do—those words rang true to me.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) spoke about her personal experience of harassment while cycling, and about the importance of encouraging children to start cycling early. The hon. Member for Bolton North East (Kirith Entwistle) spoke about the things we do “just in case”, and that really resonated with me. My hon. Friend the Member for Frome and East Somerset (Anna Sabine) talked about her constituent, Holly, and her call for women’s safety to be designed in—that is really important, and I hope the Minister listens to that call. The hon. Member for North West Leicestershire (Amanda Hack) said that women are “constantly compromising” in what they do, and that also rang very true to me. I also highlight the hon. Members of the other gender who spoke up so passionately and convincingly when they said that men’s behaviour needs to change and that they would champion that. I thank them very much for speaking out about it.

A UN Women UK study found that 71% of women of all ages have experienced sexual harassment in public spaces in the UK, as my hon. Friend the Member for Frome and East Somerset said. That figure increases to a shocking 86% for women aged 18 to 24. Part 2 of the Angiolini inquiry confirmed, in black and white, what women already knew—that it is common for us to feel unsafe walking or running in our own streets, and that as women we often actively change our daily routines to avoid very real threats, as highlighted by Members across the House.

It also found that sexually motivated crimes against women in public are not prioritised to the same extent as other serious offences. Women have felt that to be true for far too long. A University of Manchester study found that more than two thirds of women runners experience some form of abuse while running, most commonly verbal, with just 5% of them reporting such incidents to the police. That is plainly unacceptable in Britain today.

Liberal Democrats have urged the Government to implement all 13 of the inquiry’s recommendations without delay. The sense of insecurity among women worsens during the winter months as the lack of safe routes on dark evenings greatly restricts women travelling for work or leisure.

[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)]

Richmond Park in my constituency is a very popular spot for runners and cyclists, but as my hon. Friend points out, it is so much darker during the winter months. Our dedicated police force, the Royal Parks constabulary, has recently been completely scrapped, leaving the park unpatrolled and even less safe. This means women are choosing not to run in the park at all, which reduces their options for safe running and cycling routes in the winter months. Does she agree that investing in neighbourhood policing, including the policing we used to have in the royal parks, is critical to women feeling safer?

[Marie Goldman]

My hon. Friend’s intervention is very timely. My Chelmsford constituency is in Essex, and Essex police has just announced that it feels it will have to scrap numbers from the force, which is very concerning indeed. She also highlights the importance of women feeling safe, particularly in parks. In Chelmsford, streetlights were left dark and unrepaired by Essex county council for years, leaving many women feeling unable to take the most direct and quickest route, which was through the park, from the station to their home, at the end of the day.

As a county councillor, I campaigned hard for the lights to be fixed. I am pleased that they were eventually fixed, but that was with the help of Liberal Democrat-run Chelmsford city council. It is hardly surprising that inadequate street lighting and a lack of safe paths to facilitate active travel are widely reported to be significant barriers to women walking in their communities.

A report by the Institute for Public Policy Research in the last two years found that chronic underfunding of active travel across England is undermining efforts to get people walking, wheeling and cycling, instead of driving, with just 2% of the total transport budget spent on infrastructure to support active travel. It sometimes seems that we are putting our money in the wrong places.

It is disappointing to note, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bath did, that the UK lags behind its European counterparts, with fewer than one in five people walking, wheeling or cycling on an average day, compared with more than one in four across Europe. The report highlights that this failure has locked in more congestion and contributed to worsening air quality, making it harder to reduce emissions while also limiting growth. Members might wonder why I mention that, but we also know that higher levels of pollution intersect with racial and wealth inequalities, with the most racially diverse and the poorest parts of our towns and cities suffering the most.

There is even evidence that equal exposure to air pollution does not mean equal health outcomes for women and men. For example, some studies have shown that women experience more harmful effects from air pollution than men. More research is needed, but at the very least that demonstrates the necessity of inclusion when considering the importance of prioritising active travel.

The same goes for road safety more generally, and the Liberal Democrats have for some time been calling for an updated road safety strategy, so we welcomed its recent publication by the Government. My Liberal Democrat colleagues and I also welcome the publication of the pavement parking consultation outcome, albeit five years on. Although it might seem strange on the surface, women are likely to be disproportionately affected by the inaccessibility caused by pavement parking.

Women are more likely than men to be disabled and have mobility or visual impairment issues. We are more likely to be accompanying children and wheeling prams, and we are more likely to be carers, as was pointed out earlier. I was therefore pleased, in the autumn, to table an amendment to the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill that would have enabled local authorities to enforce pavement parking laws more easily. Pavement parking is not just a minor inconvenience; it puts people in harm’s way, impacts their sense of dignity and limits their access to public space. It is easy for the casual observer to dismiss some of those small changes as trivial, but they make a genuine difference in improving women’s sense of safety and inclusion.

In Chelmsford, Make Space for Girls has been doing great work to build inclusive infrastructure, which is so important for creating environments where women feel safe. The project enables girls and gender non-conforming children to design their own play spaces, and it is just as much about creating safe, comfortable physical environments as proving to these children that they can enact change in their own communities and hold power to shape their own futures. That is important, because although street lighting and safer paths play an essential role, those issues are ultimately symptomatic of the broader problem that faces our country. That is why initiatives such as Chelmsford city council’s women’s safety charter, through which local premises commit to a range of training to ensure that staff consider and prioritise women’s safety as standard, are also necessary.

Finally, the fact remains that women who are victims of violence are incredibly likely to be known to the men who attack them. We must therefore focus our efforts on tackling the societal attitudes that lead people to look away from, excuse and sometimes justify violence against women and girls. We have a responsibility to change that. It cannot be that, in a decade’s time, women are still fearful of walking our streets because of who may be lurking in the dark. We owe it to future generations of women to act. My Liberal Democrat colleagues and, I believe, Members from across the House will continue to press the Government to do so.

15:36

[Greg Smith (Mid Buckinghamshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Jardine. I congratulate the hon. Member for Lowestoft (Jess Asato) not just on securing this important debate, but on the powerful way in which she opened it. It can be described only as a sobering debate that requires the Government’s full attention, and that must come not just from the Department for Transport but, as others said, from other Departments, too.

I thank the hon. Members for Bath (Wera Hobhouse), for Bolton North East (Kirith Entwistle) and for North West Leicestershire (Amanda Hack) for sharing their personal experiences. It is completely unacceptable that anyone should have to face what they described on the streets of this country.

I equally agree with the hon. Member for Calder Valley (Josh Fenton-Glynn) that so-called low-level offences should be stamped down on incredibly forcibly. He is right—I have long argued along similar lines—that it is essential because so-called low-level crimes lead to more serious and potentially fatal crimes in the future. It is therefore absolutely essential that they are clamped down upon incredibly hard.

The method by which anyone, and particularly women, chooses to travel should not be dictated by how safe they feel. Everyone should feel safe walking, running, cycling, wheeling, driving or riding a horse—we had a good debate about horse riding last week, and it should have been added to the title of this debate, because it is incredibly important in rural communities such as mine.

It is clear that the challenges of securing women’s safety are an obstacle to an array of activities that women might want to do, but feel unable to do so. It is incredibly concerning that, according to Cycling UK, 23% of women cite harassment or intimidation as a reason not to cycle. The data on running is even starker. Research published in 2023 found that almost three quarters of women in the United Kingdom change their outdoor activity routines during winter, with many doing so because they feel unsafe.

Separately, survey data from SportsShoes.com, which is not a website I was particularly familiar with until I began my research for this debate, found that 48% of women had felt unsafe while running, compared with 36% of men. Similarly, 70% of women had experienced an intimidating incident while running, including 22% saying that they had been followed and 21% reporting that they had been beeped at by someone in a car. Such behaviour on the streets of this country is deeply unacceptable.

Even though it is challenging to point to a single source, data from a variety of organisations highlight that a considerable number of women experience behaviour that is not acceptable—indeed, it is clearly despicable—in our society. The idea that someone who is merely trying to run or cycle should be followed or harassed is clearly wrong and must be stopped.

Therefore, to address both the safety of women while cycling, wheeling, walking or running, and concerns about harassment, we must make sure that we embed enforcement as the underlying principle of safety strategies. That must involve having sufficient numbers of police officers located in the areas where women feel most unsafe. That is a challenge, given that we are currently seeing a reduction in the number of police officers on our streets. The hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) gave a particularly stark example. The thought that a park such as Richmond Park, which is so suited for walking, running, cycling and all sorts of activities, is no longer to be policed should horrify all of us in this House, no matter what political party we belong to.

Improving the safety of women should also involve following up on incidents properly. For example, a small minority of drivers demonstrate truly unsafe behaviour and put women at risk. We have strong rules about what constitutes dangerous driving, and those rules must be enforced where people have broken the law. However, the rules for dangerous driving must apply equally to those who behave in an unacceptable way by verbally abusing people, beeping their horn or whatever it might be.

To do that, we need effective funding for our police forces, which is why my party has specifically said that we would provide £800 million to deploy 10,000 new police officers in hotspot areas where crime is most likely to occur. I appreciate that hotspot policing might be less impactful for groups such as cyclists, who travel much greater distances than other people, but in urban environments or in places such as Richmond Park, which we have already heard about, there are often particular locations and areas that dissuade people from running and walking. The more we can do to target those locations—where crime, particularly crime against women, is more likely—the more we can instil trust and a sense that such activities are safe.

Therefore, can the Minister say what cross-Government work has been conducted by her Department to prioritise the safety of women and girls when they are engaged in active travel and to feed into the Government’s strategy on preventing violence against women and girls? Also, can she make a commitment that her Department will engage with local police forces to ensure that they are monitoring areas where women feel most unsafe?

Also, I understand that the consultation for the third cycling and walking investment strategy says that

“Investment in well-lit, safe, high-quality walking, wheeling and cycling routes increases feelings of personal safety, as well as improving road safety”.

I think we can all agree with the sentiment and the principle that we want particular areas to have improved lighting, in order to improve safety. As with many aspects of road safety, targeted measures that focus on the most dangerous areas will rightly have support from Members across this House.

I am aware that issues such as improved lighting form part of the much broader calls for clear targets on what organisations such as Cycling UK describe as high-quality cycling infrastructure, which are made alongside calls for appropriate levels of spending. That is all important. And from our time together on the Transport Committee in the last Parliament, I know the Minister is a long-standing supporter of active travel in general and of cycling in particular.

There is always a difficult balance to be drawn between making our roads safe for cyclists and making them too difficult for other modes of transport to use, or even prohibiting other modes of transport. Nevertheless, I hope the Government can find the appropriate balance by making cycling safer for women without making it more difficult for those same women to use their cars for other journeys.

One request from Cycling UK and a range of other road safety organisations is to improve understanding of the 2022 changes to the highway code. These organisations have been clear about welcoming the changes as an important step in improving the safety of pedestrians, cyclists and other road users, but the knowledge gap remains in the public’s awareness of these changes.

All in all, as I said at the start of my remarks, this needs a whole-Government approach. The safety of women cannot be put on the back-burner or into a footnote; it must take centre stage across multiple Government Departments. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s commitments this afternoon on how she will be leading that in the Department for Transport and across the whole of Government.

15:45

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Lilian Greenwood)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship this afternoon, Ms Jardine. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Lowestoft (Jess Asato) for raising this important issue and congratulate her on her appointment as violence against women and girls adviser to the Department of Health and Social Care. I look forward to working with her to help to drive forward the Government’s mission to halve violence against women and girls within a decade.

I imagine that every woman here today will have recognised the issues under discussion. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton North East (Kirith Entwistle), the hon. Member for Frome and East Somerset (Anna Sabine), my hon. Friends the Members for Portsmouth North (Amanda Martin) and for North West Leicestershire (Amanda Hack), the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse), my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Anna Dixon) and the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Marie Goldman) all described vividly what those issues mean for women in our daily lives. The fear of male violence is so normalised that it is easy to forget that it is anything but normal. I am pleased that many men, including my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Dr Arthur), the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), my hon. Friends the Members for Rugby (John Slinger) and for Calder Valley (Josh Fenton-Glynn), and indeed the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith), are also committed to ensuring that the situation changes.

As we have heard, women remain under-represented in cycling due to persistent safety concerns: 58% of women feel that their cycle journeys are limited by such concerns, and more than a third say that roads do not feel safe. Harassment, intimidation and poorly lit routes all contribute to a sense that cycling, particularly in the evening, is simply not a safe or viable option. Research conducted by Dr Caroline Miles and Professor Rose Broad at the University of Manchester found that, over a two-year period from 2021 to 2022, 68% of women survey respondents said they had experienced abuse while out running, but only 5% of those women had reported the abuse to the police.

[Paul Waugh (Rochdale) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend the Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for Lowestoft (Jess Asato) have both referred to the excellent research by the University of Manchester. One of the most shocking findings of that research, which I discussed with the researchers last year, was that 19% of women runners had been followed and 7% had been flashed at. Does the Minister agree that, while women are often taking measures to mitigate the threat, whether through smartphones, special safety apps, or even changing their routes, the real answer ultimately lies in more visible policing, more CCTV, better lighting—crucial for local communities—and in tackling at source, as the violence against women and girls strategy does, the misogyny in our schools and workplaces?

[Lilian Greenwood]

My hon. Friend makes a number of very important points. The scale of violence against women and girls in our country is intolerable, and that is why this Government are treating it as a national emergency, but the most important change is a change in the behaviour of men, frankly.

The Government published our strategy to build a safer society for women and girls last month, and have set out a range of actions to prevent violence and abuse, pursue perpetrators and support victims. Giving women the confidence to report incidents is essential. The strategy includes an ambitious aim to halve violence against women and girls in a decade, which will require us to take a transformative approach to the way that we work across Government and with other partners. I can assure the shadow Minister that Ministers regularly come together from all Departments to discuss the action that we need to take.

Turning to active travel, in December we announced that we are allocating £626 million over the next four years for local authorities to deliver walking, wheeling and cycling schemes—enough for 500 miles of new walking and cycling routes. That is in addition to almost £300 million of funding that we announced in February 2025.

In November, we launched a consultation to develop the third cycling and walking investment strategy, which recognised the need to address the barriers to active travel, including for women and girls and proposed two new objectives to support the long-term vision for active travel: ensuring both that people are safe to travel actively and that people feel it is an easy choice. The consultation closed on 15 December; we are looking carefully at all the comments received and the final strategy will be published this spring.

Since its establishment in 2022, Active Travel England—ATE—has worked with local authorities to help them to make walking, wheeling and cycling a safe and attractive choice for everyday trips. That has included overseeing £435 million of investment to deliver more than 400 miles of routes and hundreds of safer crossings and junctions.

ATE has commenced a project focused on the need to design streets better for women and girls and to support local authorities in the delivery of that. The organisation is working with Living Streets and with Footways to pilot an approach to developing walking network plans. Through that project, women have highlighted issues with walking, including—these will be very familiar to hon. Members—poor lighting, isolated routes and limited visibility, which strongly shaped their willingness to walk and influenced route prioritisation. Those findings will inform an important part of the evidence base for planning walking networks that work for everyone. I welcome the examples of good practice highlighted by a number of hon. Members, including Members from West Yorkshire.

This year, through ATE, we have provided £2.5 million to Cycling UK to deliver the Big Bike Revival, which is now in its 10th year and has reached more than half a million people. The Big Bike Revival programme helps people across England to get back on their bikes and experience the many benefits of cycling. Since it began in 2015, more than half of participants have said they now feel safer cycling and 49% of participants have been women. Women who have taken part in the programme have described being made to feel comfortable, having their confidence and self-esteem boosted, and feeling empowered.

Last October, Cycling UK organised “My ride. Our Right”, and approximately 60 women-led glow rides took place across the country to increase the visibility of women’s cycling and demand better infrastructure. In my constituency, the cycling groups Women in Tandem and Pedals organised rides and are doing great work to give more women the confidence to ride a bike especially, or including, after dark. As Women in Tandem says, cycling should “feel liberating, not intimidating”—hear, hear!

We know that good street design can contribute to helping women to feel safe when walking, cycling and running, and enables safe access to public transport. We are currently working with MHCLG to update the manual for streets, which was first published in 2007. That will include advice on aspects of street design that can help to improve personal safety and perceptions of safety: how safe is it, and how safe does it feel?

[Anna Sabine]

I thank the Minister for giving way. It may be that she is coming on to this issue but, while everything she is saying on active travel is fantastic and I recognise the point about the manual for streets, does she recognise that if the overarching framework, the national planning policy framework, does not pay regard to women’s and girls’ safety, it is much harder to enact those subsets such as active travel?

[Lilian Greenwood]

I thank the hon. Member for her contribution. As I said, we are working with our colleagues in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to ensure we have a coherent approach.

I welcome the support of the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Chelmsford, for our proposals to tackle pavement parking. Of course, the issue is not just safety on the street, as my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West highlighted, but having the opportunity to walk, wheel, cycle and run in our green spaces and parks, on canal towpaths and on greenways. Natural England’s “Green Infrastructure Planning and Design Guide” offers detailed guidance on creating accessible green spaces and, for teenage girls specifically, emphasises the need to design spaces that are not only safe and inclusive but also comfortable and welcoming. Sport England is also running campaigns challenging prejudice to make clear that sport is for everyone. That has included the “This Girl Can” and “Let’s Lift the Curfew” campaigns; the latter included 320 local events in October to amplify women’s voices and overcome barriers that prevent women from being active outdoors.

I again thank my hon. Friend the Member for Lowestoft for raising this important issue. It has been wonderful to see the level of contribution and the interest that has been shown in the debate. I look forward to continuing to work with her, with other hon. Members here this afternoon, and with my colleagues across Government to take further action on this important issue and ensure that for our daughters the opportunity to go out and walk, run and cycle is different from how it perhaps has been for our generation. We can, must and will do better.

15:55

[Jess Asato]

I thank all Members who contributed and the Minister for her remarks and ongoing work on this issue, which forms a key part of the Government’s ambition to halve violence against women and girls. We all very much look forward to working with her to improve women’s safety in this area. I finish with this quote from the Belonging Forum:

“When women feel unable to move freely in public spaces, this limits opportunities for connection, reinforces isolation and undermines a sense of belonging.”

We must work to tackle that.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered women’s safety while walking, wheeling, cycling and running.

15:55

Sitting suspended.