Yorkshire (Tour de France)

Andrew Percy Excerpts

Tuesday 18th December 2012 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Mr Gray. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith) for securing the debate and for the work that he and others have done on the bid. I pay tribute, too, to Welcome to Yorkshire, which I believe is the only tourism body in the UK that receives no Government funding. It does a fantastic job for our county and region, promoting them both within the UK and internationally. We have heard in the past few minutes how successfully it has done that.

I want to echo my colleagues’ call for the Government to get behind this race now, because potentially it will have a dramatic impact on the local economy. We certainly need that now. I look forward to welcoming the race, wherever it goes in Yorkshire. However, it would be wrong of me not to extol the virtues of the beautiful East Riding of Yorkshire—and, indeed, north Lincolnshire, as I have, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) said, a foot in both camps. I live, however, in the East Riding of Yorkshire—not that I favour either, of course. We would love a stage of the race to come to the East Riding of Yorkshire, and, indeed, within a few minutes of the announcement, I was e-mailed by people asking whether we could get the race to our area. Councillors John Barrett and Caroline Fox, who represent the Snaith, Airmyn, Rawcliffe and Marshland ward, in my constituency, put to me a detailed plan of how the route could come from Selby via the A19, the A645 or the A1041 down into Snaith.

[Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that if the riders went in that direction they would miss the opportunity to come to the Pudsey constituency? Despite the danger of turning the event into the Tour de Yorkshire, I must point out that they would miss the opportunity of seeing the home of real Yorkshire fish and chips, which was of course Harry Ramsden’s based in Guiseley—now run excellently by Wetherby Whaler.

[Andrew Percy]

I think, as we say in Parliament, my hon. Friend has made his point.

As I was saying, I received a detailed proposal about how, coming from Selby, the race could come through Snaith into Goole. We had a fantastic day when the Olympic torch came to Goole. As my hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon mentioned, the crowds in Yorkshire were twice the size of those in the rest of the country. On the morning that we welcomed the torch to Goole, I could not believe how many people had come to support the event. The race could come down and across into the beauties of the rest of the East Riding and over the wolds. My hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), who cannot be here today because he is chairing the Select Committee on Education, supports that idea. The route could then go across the Humber bridge, which is free to cycles—and £1.50 for cars. It used to be £3, but the Government provided the cash to halve that, following a strong campaign by me and my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes. Then it could go across and round Scunthorpe, and back into south Yorkshire—although my hon. Friend did a wonderful job of trying to steal the entire race for Lincolnshire.

Those are a couple of proposals, but as other hon. Members have said, wherever the route goes in our region, the race will be well supported and a huge success. If it does not come to my constituency or our area, we will get behind it just the same. When we put the press releases out for the petition, several residents contacted me to say they would sign up and get behind the cause. We are all on the same page in our region on the matter. It is a fantastic region and everyone has said how beautiful it is; I do not need to repeat that. I thought that we were going to have a gradient argument earlier, about which area had the biggest. Sadly, I cannot win on gradients, representing as I do the former marshland of Brigg and Goole, but we have a mix of wide open spaces, the coastline, rolling hills and the steep hills of the Pennines. We have got all we need to make the event successful.

I congratulate everyone behind the bid on their work. It is staggering in many ways that it was done by volunteers, and I hope we get Government support. Having made a bid and a pitch for my own patch to be part of the event, I hope that, if not the Tour de France—perhaps it should be the Tour to t’France if it is coming to Yorkshire—future events that we would hope to attract to our region could come to the Brigg and Goole constituency.

I look forward to hearing how the Minister will get behind the event and get full Government support, with perhaps even a bit of cash as well. Being Yorkshire folk, we are a bit tight with our own money, so we would like some from the Government. The event will be fantastic for our region—I think we all agree that its impact on our economy will be pretty big—and I again pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon for securing the debate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Clive Efford]

I am grateful for those comments, which are reassuring. I assumed that that would be the case, and that we would all want to make the most of this tremendous sporting event, which comes on the back of not only an incredible year for British sport—I could spend the next half hour listing the successes in British sport in this golden year of 2012—with the Olympics and Paralympics, but outstanding success for cycling. Over the past decade, cycling has shown the way for other sports, as regards not only how to succeed at the elite end, thereby inspiring participation at all levels, but how to create a base of participation at grass-roots level.

In the Active People survey published two weeks ago, the figures for cycling stood out because of the success in steadily increasing weekly participation over a sustained period. Nearly 2 million people a week participate in regular cycling activity, which is a phenomenal achievement for cycling. Quite rightly, cycling has been recognised for that achievement in Sport England’s allocation of money, which was announced this week: there is to be a substantial increase to £32 million. That allocation recognises that cycling can deliver. Cycling has not only been successful in the past; the process of allocating money through Sport England is about what cycling intends to do in the future. The allocation is very much about all sports’ plans, and cycling clearly has something to contribute in the future, as regards increasing participation.

We have heard from hon. Members about the bid for the Tour to go to Yorkshire, and part of that bid was the proposal that cycling banks be set up across the community. I have been involved with a group that has got together entirely on its own initiative. In my constituency, people are enthusiastic about cycling, and the group will set up a cycling bank so that young people—indeed, people of any age—who do not have access to a bike can go cycling. More importantly, they are providing bikes adapted for people with disabilities, so that they, too, can enjoy the sport—sometimes with the assistance of other members of the club, cycling for them—on bikes that are specially adapted to take wheelchairs. Cycling is a growing area of sport, physical activity and community participation, and I am sure that the cycling banks played a significant part in the success of the Yorkshire bid.

[Andrew Percy]

The hon. Gentleman reminds me of something I forgot to say in my speech. He is right that the number of young people getting involved in cycling is growing massively. A couple of days ago, I hosted a meeting with 11-year-olds Rory Kershaw and Ben Lapish, who have come up with a proposal for expanding the trans-Pennine cycleway to our area. That demonstrates that many young people are passionate about cycling as a result of our recent victories.

[Clive Efford]

I am glad that I gave the hon. Gentleman that opportunity to finish his speech, and I am sure that the young men are grateful for his comment. I say that in the spirit of today’s debate.

I will not go through the list of colleagues who have spoken, because I am sure the Minister will want to mention every contribution. There were many questions for him to answer. The bid was entirely independent of UK Sport and British Cycling, and with that in mind, I sincerely hope that all parties involved can come together to discuss how we can get the best for the UK out of the significant, fantastic sporting event that is coming our way. UK Sport has an enormous amount of experience in organising and running major international sporting events, and its contribution will be significant. I am sure that UK Sport is willing to put behind it any differences there may have been over which preferred bid should have been supported, and to discuss the event with the organisers to ensure that it goes forwards. I know that is the same for British Cycling. As many of our top British cyclists supported the Yorkshire bid, I am sure there will be a swift coming together. Regardless of whether there was any significant difference of opinion, everyone will now be moving in the same direction and seeking to ensure that the event is an enormous success.

I cannot resist referring to the intervention of the hon. Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew), who extolled the virtues of fish and chips from his constituency; I assume that they will now be known as fish and French fries. I am sorry, but the temptation was just too great.

I sincerely wish every success for the event. Every one of us will work together to make it an enormous success, and not just for Yorkshire. The event is a well deserved success for Yorkshire, and it is an enormous shop window, as were the Olympics and Paralympics, to show off the UK. With London 2012, we successfully encouraged more visitors to come to the UK and more people to consider the UK as a place to do business. A survey published today by the British Council suggests that that is one of the major successes of 2012. A major international sporting event on the scale of the Tour de France, starting in Yorkshire and travelling south towards London, will be another enormous sporting event for this country, and hopefully it will be the start of an event that brings even more sporting success for this country. I am sure that all of us, working together, will achieve that success and bring benefits to the UK that will be sustainable in the long term.