Cycling: Lincolnshire

Andrew Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 12th October 2016 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Andrew Jones)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson, I think for the first time in this Chamber. I congratulate my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Stephen Phillips) on securing the debate. Cycling has sometimes been most closely associated in the media with more populated urban areas such as Greater London. That is a mistake. My area has fallen very much in love with cycling over the past few years, for all the positive reasons that he has articulated. If other parts of the country are like my area, cycling is booming, which is great news.

I would like to reinforce and support the arguments that my hon. and learned Friend made for cycling. It brings benefits in tourism and brings customers to businesses, not just in Lincolnshire but all over the country. Cycling is a great way to tackle the nation’s inactivity levels and improve economic growth. Above all, it is a sustainable and enjoyable way to travel and reduce travel costs.

The Government have an ambition to put cycling at the heart of our nation. We want to become a cycling nation. Our objective is to double cycling rates. Our vision is of streets and public places that support cycling and a road network where infrastructure for cycling is always considered when local and national routes are maintained, upgraded or built.

I am sure Lincolnshire is a wonderful county for cycling, partly because, as someone who is nearby but not too nearby, my perception is that it is relatively flat. For those of us who perhaps are not the fittest—people like me—that is quite a help.

[Stephen Phillips]

Will the Minister give way on that point?

[Andrew Jones]

Of course, though hopefully not on my fitness.

[Stephen Phillips]

I am sorry, but I cannot let that go. I live in a village called Thorpe on the Hill, and it is called that for a reason. I also have something called “the cliff” that runs down the middle of my village. I would not want people to think that we do not have big skies and big, open areas in which they can cycle in Lincolnshire, but if they are also interested in a bit of exercise I can certainly point them to some hills, including Harmston hill, which I have to say completely kills me.

[Andrew Jones]

I suspect my hon. and learned Friend’s fitness levels are way ahead of mine. He makes a valuable point. He has mentioned in both his opening remarks and his intervention the Lincolnshire landscape, and particularly the big skies that one experiences. I have certainly noticed that on all my visits to Lincolnshire.

Last year, the Government awarded half a million pounds for sustainable travel in Lincolnshire through the sustainable travel transition year fund. We also made similar awards to North Lincolnshire Council and North East Lincolnshire Council. Improvements such as the Canwick Road scheme were made possible by a contribution of more £1.5 million in funding from the DFT, which was put towards the £5 million overall cost of the project. Such developments ease congestion as well as providing improved facilities for pedestrians and cyclists.

In addition, Access Lincoln, Lincolnshire County Council’s framework for sustainable travel, will build on the success of Access LN6 by continuing to encourage people to walk, cycle, use public transport and car-share, as well as supporting key infrastructure projects in the city of Lincoln. Through our cycle rail grant, the Government have provided £360,000 for an innovative new cycle hub at Lincoln station. The hub will provide more than 200 new secure cycle parking spaces, making it easier and more convenient for people to cycle to the station. My hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman) said he wishes to see that extended into his area. I can only agree with him on the merits of such schemes, and I wish him every success. I know he is already discussing that with the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard). Where we have seen schemes developed, they have been successful, and I would like to see that success extended across the country.

With funding from the Department contributing to the success, Lincolnshire has made improvements to its infrastructure and made people’s experience of cycling more enjoyable. However, despite those good examples there is much more we will have to do if we are going to make this a cycling nation.

On 27 March we published the first draft cycling and walking investment strategy for public consultation. We had a fantastic response to it, with about 3,600 responses received, and more than 400 individuals attended engagement workshops around the country, highlighting the terrific appetite for cycling and walking. The draft strategy sets out our plans for creating a cycling and walking nation, with an ambition up to 2040 for making cycling and walking the natural choice for short journeys or as part of a longer journey. It includes a target to double cycling and a number of objectives to increase cycling and walking and reduce the rates of cyclists killed or seriously injured, and it explains the financial resources available in the spending period to support the delivery of the objectives.

The draft strategy also set out the actions to be taken to achieve our objectives under three broad themes: better safety, better streets and better mobility. I emphasise the key point that we cannot achieve those objectives alone. Our ambition will be delivered only if we work with local government, businesses, charities and the public. We want to support local delivery partners to do what they do best: identify and deliver individual, tailored cycling and walking interventions that are right for their areas. I think that was a key point made by my hon. and learned Friend about the progress made in Lincolnshire and that is exactly how we see progress being made across the country.

The Government have a role to play. We will take a lead on issues that require a national approach such as setting the framework and sharing knowledge and good practice. We will publish the final cycling and walking investment strategy once all considerations have been taken into account.

We have to look at funding as a part of this issue, because obviously that is important to help to facilitate change. We have made good progress. In 2010, for every person in England, just £2 was spent supporting cycling. That has gone up to £6 per person each year across England, and it is more than £10 per person in London and our eight cycling ambition cities, which include Birmingham.

[Stephen Phillips]

The Minister champions the fact that London is getting £10 a head and the rest of the country is getting £6 a head. I have to say that, not just in relation to cycling but in relation to everything, those of us who make our lives in rural Britain feel that we are constantly short-changed, because the money goes into the urban centres and not into our communities. I want his agreement that it is just not fair that the good folk of Lincolnshire will get £6 a head in this Parliament whereas the no doubt equally good folk of London, Birmingham and all these other places will get £10. It is not on, and it has to stop.

[Andrew Jones]

It is a question not of reducing funding in other areas but of improving the funding position right across the country. I share my hon. and learned Friend’s argument about how transport has been weighted towards the south-east—I represent a constituency further north than his own. The idea that transport issues exist only in the south of England is obviously nonsense that has to be corrected. That of course is one of the objectives of the Government’s spending programme, whether in High Speed 2, the road investment strategy or the control period 5 delivery plan—all such things are about injecting capacity. We have to address the significant regional imbalance.

That is not to say that I do not recognise that London has specific challenges because of its scale. It clearly has, but it is not unique in having transport challenges and those of rural areas are frequently overlooked. My hon. and learned Friend makes a valuable point and I agree with his underlying argument.

I think we have seen good progress with the cycling ambition cities, but I do not want progress to be only in small parts of our country. The spending review in 2015 included £580 million for a new access fund for sustainable transport, with £80 million of revenue funding and £500 million of capital as part of the local growth fund. That will build on the legacy of the local sustainable transport fund and its success in supporting sustainable travel to work as well as supporting the cycling and walking investment strategy. Following a competitive bidding process, we hope to be able to announce the winners of the current access fund applications later this year, by Christmas.

More than £200 million has been allocated to the cycling ambition cities, which are making progress with the delivery of cycling networks, including Dutch-style segregated cycle lanes in Cambridge, new strategic routes in Greater Manchester and a cycle superhighway in the north-east. That group meet regularly to share their experiences and learning, and I want to capture some of those and make all of that information available so that we can help to share good practice. Part of our role in Government is to pull together what good practice looks like, and encourage those with local responsibility. That is already happening in, for example, the shared space initiative; it is all about supporting local authorities in their work.

My hon. and learned Friend emphasised safety, which is obviously critical. There are still far too many people losing their lives or being seriously injured on the roads. As the Minister for road safety I am acutely aware that every life lost is a family shattered. We will do all that we can to improve the safety performance of our roads. To put things in context, ours are among the safest roads in the world. Last year was the second best year for road safety in our history, in terms of lives lost. Obviously, we want to build on that and go further, and that certainly includes cycling. I remember learning awareness and the law of the road, and how to use a bike, when I was quite small, at primary school. Bikeability is the Government’s national training programme, designed to give people the skills and confidence to cycle safely and competently on today’s modern roads. It has delivered approximately 1.9 million training places across the country since it began in 2007. We have secured a financial settlement for the next few years. My hon. and learned Friend asked for a commitment that it will continue and I am able to give him that. The funding has been secured; we have £50 million in the spending review and we expect to train a further 1 million children over the next four years.

Importantly, my hon. and learned Friend highlighted the good work being done in Lincolnshire, especially in relation to routes to school. We want to encourage children to be able to ride to school; but before that can happen, addressing parents’ natural concerns is fundamental. That is not, of course, a single initiative. We want to encourage cycling right across the transport mix. Highways England, which is responsible for the nation’s strategic roads, launched its cycling strategy in January. It outlined plans to provide a safer, integrated, more accessible strategic road network for cyclists and other vulnerable road users. It will invest £100 million in 200 cycling schemes between now and 2021.

The issue is not only funding, although that is obviously important. My Department is committed to ensuring that good cycling infrastructure is in place across the country. London has been mentioned, and there has been good progress there; but it is not just a London issue. We want to share the lessons across the country so that everyone benefits from the experience. The cycle proofing working group, which does not have the catchiest title in Government, was set up in 2013, and consists of experts from across the sector, who share knowledge, conduct research, promote good practice, and advise on cycle proofing standards to help support those with responsibility for designing and building infrastructure on a local basis. The Department has recently published case studies designed to help local authorities with the design and delivery of cycling provision.

We fully support devolution and decentralisation. It has of course been a running theme throughout this Government: the idea that local areas best know their needs and problems, and their solutions, seems self-evident to almost all Conservatives, but it has not necessarily been a feature of Government policy over the years. We are providing more capital for local infrastructure than ever before, particularly through the local growth fund. If anyone thinks that that is bad news for walking and cycling, they should reconsider. Forward-thinking local enterprise partnerships such as Greater Lincolnshire know perfectly well the value and the economic benefits that cycling can bring. We know that, because they have allocated more than £270 million to cycling infrastructure projects over the next five years.

Some of the benefits of that investment are beginning to be seen in Lincolnshire. The Go Skegness scheme has been mentioned. That project has started on site, and will transform public transport and cycling accessibility in and around Skegness. There has been a 77% increase in the number of cyclists on the Station Road cycle way, which is a key route in North Hykeham; that is fantastic. My hon. and learned Friend mentioned the Hirebike casual rental scheme in Lincoln; bikes are available to rent across the city. It was launched only three years ago in 2013, and 100 bikes are now available to rent. My hon. and learned Friend mentioned the imminent expansion and the ways in which the Department seeks to support it. The extension includes electric bikes, an interesting part of the marketplace that has made much more progress in other European countries than in the UK. I think they are likely to be a feature of the marketplace in time ahead; it may be an encouragement to participation in cycling for softies such as me.

I am trying to convey an impression of the many different ways in which the Government are committed to cycling. It is not our role to dictate what local areas spend their money on; they know themselves better than Government could, and our role is to support them by undertaking research, providing information and advice, and encouraging and promoting their work. We have been getting the message out, and it is clearly working and getting through. In future we shall go further with devolution deals, which will, I think, include more consolidated local funding pots. We will go further in supporting local bodies to create high quality local plans for cycling and walking.

We are very ambitious about making good progress with cycling, for health, environmental and transport reasons. There are not many things in this world that are fun, good for the environment, and good for us too; but cycling is one of those things. Our cycling and walking investment strategy is the first phase of a longer term process of transformational change to make this truly a cycling nation. It has been great to hear about the progress made locally in Lincolnshire, in my hon. and learned Friend’s constituency and others. He asked specifically for an undertaking that the Government will continue to support cycling, and I give him that: yes, they will. They will continue to support it financially, through publicity and the sharing of good practice. We view cycling and walking as being at the heart of our transport mix. I hope that the progress made in Lincolnshire will extend across the country, because it is exactly what we need.