Cycling

Chris Ruane Excerpts

Monday 2nd September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Ian Austin]

My hon. Friend is completely right. He did a lot of work on this matter when he was the leader of Coventry city council, before he became a Member of Parliament.

I do not want to criticise the Minister for cycling. He is a good man, he fights hard for cycling and he is a keen cyclist himself. However, the Government’s response to our inquiry was disappointing to say the least. The Government have promised that

“cycling will be at the heart of future road development”

and their response stated:

“The Government is committed to turning Britain into a cycling nation to rival our European neighbours.”

If the Minister answers one question in this debate, I want him to tell us how those two promises can be taken seriously when the Netherlands spends £25 per head on cycling while the UK spends just £2 per head, and when the highways budget in the UK is £15 billion, but the funds announced for cycling are just £159 million, with no dedicated funding stream that allows local authorities to plan for more than two years.

Our report makes a series of recommendations to boost cycling from less than 2% of journeys in 2011 to 25% by 2050. I ask the Minister why his Department’s response did not commit the Government to that target. We also want a national cycling champion to lead a drive for 10% of all journeys in Britain to be made by bike by 2025. As I said, the Minister fights hard for cycling and has done a good job of putting it on the agenda to the extent that it is. Although I do not want to criticise him personally, I point to the fact that he is a junior Minister from the junior party in the coalition, so it will always be difficult for him. We need someone with Cabinet-level clout to get different Departments working together.

[Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)]

Promote him to the Cabinet! [Laughter.]

[Ian Austin]

Okay. I also want to ask the Minister why the Government have not agreed to the appointment of a cycling champion.

Unfortunately, my right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East (Mr Smith) cannot be here because two members of his family have health issues. He wanted to call for a more comprehensive cycling strategy. He welcomes the £835,000 grant to improve the cycling safety of the Plain in Oxford, but wanted to point out that that is a tiny fraction of the money that is needed to bring Oxford’s cycle network up to an entirely safe standard.

We think that more of the transport budget should be spent on supporting cycling, with an initial rate of at least £10 per person per year. That would increase as the level of cycling went up. I welcome the recent announcement by the shadow Secretary of State for Transport that she would use a proportion of road spending to build long-term cycling infrastructure. Most of the spending that was mentioned in the Government’s response had already been announced. Why will the Minister’s Department not shift resources in that way?

London has spent five times as much on cycling per person as the rest of the UK in the past 10 years. The benefits of that are clear from the huge growth in cycling in the capital.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)]

In 2006, four members of the Rhyl cycling club in my constituency were killed in the worst ever cycling accident in British history. They were Tom Harland, aged 14, Maurice Broadbent, aged 61, Dave Horrocks, aged 55, and Wayne Wilkes, aged 42. Two years before that accident young Tom Harland visited the House of Commons and I took him round. His father, John Harland, is a personal friend of mine. The club and families involved were faced with the decision of whether to crumple—both personally and as a club—or whether to thrive. They chose to thrive and I would like to outline some of the successes for cycling in my constituency since 2006, which I think could be replicated around the country.

John Harland got together a group of people, including a chap called Gren Kershaw, who was the ex-head of our local health board, and they had an idea, a vision, for cycling in my constituency, based around Marsh Tracks. In the intervening years, Marsh Tracks has opened, and includes a five-star BMX track with an Olympic starting gate and a £1.2 million floodlit off-road cycleway. It is now being extended with a mountain bike track over a 3 km area. Those are fantastic cycling facilities. The local authority has developed miles and miles of off-road cycleways connecting the towns of Rhyl, Prestatyn, Rhuddlan, St Asaph, Dyserth and Bodelwyddan, and connecting Rhyl college, the local hospital and St Asaph business park—all those key sites are connected off road to the cycleways.

[Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Chris Ruane]

Yes, because I want the extra minute.

[Catherine McKinnell]

I thank my hon. Friend for his generosity. He is making a powerful speech. Many constituents have asked me to come to this debate to make representations on their behalf, and in particular on behalf of their children. As cyclists, my constituents worry not only for themselves and their safety, but for that of their children, and many of them have asked me to press the Minister on making cycle urban infrastructure development compulsory as part of the legislation on cycling and urban planning. Does my hon. Friend agree?

[Chris Ruane]

I think I have lost that minute—[Laughter.] My hon. Friend owes me 15 seconds but I agree with her and will come to the education side of that point in a moment.

We were also successful in getting £4.5 million for a purpose-built cycling bridge over Foryd harbour in my constituency. That will be part of the Sustrans national coastal cycling network around the UK. On 26 September I will meet Network Rail to see whether we can get a disused railway to connect the coastal path to the country paths further inland. They are currently cut across by a railway bridge, and we want to use an adjacent railway bridge to connect the coastal path to the country, so that the coast will be connected to the castles and cathedrals in my constituency.

I recently met Adrian Walls, a cycleways officer from Denbighshire county council, who is developing a mountain bike route in my constituency. He has not finished yet—it will be probably be finished in about six weeks and will be a state-of the-art mountain bike route. However, I do not think that the fantastic facilities I have outlined in my speech are being used sufficiently. The task is getting pupils in our schools and colleges, and workers, to use those facilities—those multi-million pound investments—which I believe are under-utilised in my constituency. How do we make the most of them? I have met council officers and enthusiasts, who have come up with a vision for a centre of cycling excellence in my constituency, which will be tied in to the back-to-work agenda. It will include cycle maintenance, and importing, assembling and selling cycles. That fantastic facility on our doorstep will be used to train local people, including unemployed people from some of the poorest wards in Wales.

Hon. Members have spoken of tying the cycling agenda to the health agenda. Denbighshire has high obesity levels. How do we get general practitioners to write cycling prescriptions? That has been done in other areas, including in London—Brent and Tower Hamlets have done it. People who suffer from diabetes, arthritis and a range of illnesses would benefit tremendously from cycling. If cycling prescriptions are available in Brent and Tower Hamlets—

[Stephen Pound]

And Ealing.

[Chris Ruane]

And Ealing. If it has been done in those places, why can it not be done throughout the country? If we have fantastic and safe facilities in my constituency, why can we not use them? They are floodlit. We could use them for 16 hours a day.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is outlining the need for co-operation to achieve an outcome across policy areas, from health and local government to sport and recreation. That will be achieved only if there is a cross-Government message from the top. The message needs to be not only on cycling, but on sport, and on recreational and physical activities across the board.

[Chris Ruane]

All hon. Members would have been sent to swimming lessons when they attended school. Cycling lessons should be on a par with those.

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Chris Ruane]

I am afraid I will not.

People are much more likely to cycle than they are to go to their local baths. The profile of cycling therefore needs to be raised in education, which needs leadership from the top. Departments should talk to Departments, including the Department of Health, the Department for Education and the Department for Transport. We could train young people properly and to cycle safely. One idea we discussed in recent meetings was having a safe area where people can take toddlers as young as two or three years old to teach them how to cycle. In centres such as the one we are developing in Rhyl, we could teach 90-year-olds to regain the confidence to get back on their bikes. We should advocate cradle-to-grave cycling.

A lot has been done in my constituency and a lot more needs to be done. Cycling could transform tourism in many areas. My home town, Rhyl, is a seaside town. The Prime Minister said a few weeks ago that it was neglected—he has visited only once, for 10 minutes, in his whole life. We are having £200 million-worth of investment in my home town, including a £17 million new harbour with a £4.5 million dedicated cycle bridge. The potential of cycling tourism is massive.

[Andrew Bingham (High Peak) (Con)]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. My constituency has had Government money for our “Pedal Peak” project. We look forward to welcoming an influx of cyclists of all abilities who will come to enjoy the benefits of the Peak district.

[Chris Ruane]

The hon. Gentleman is right.

We want cyclists of all abilities and ages, including the people who learned to cycle when they were children but who have lost their confidence. Millions of people will not go back on a bicycle because they have lost that confidence. We have a chance of developing throughout the country facilities such as those in my constituency to give back that confidence.

I reflect on the terrible tragedy we experienced in 2006. It was a bad thing that happened, but good came of it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Thornton]

I admit that I do not know the answer. My brother came off a bicycle and was badly injured because he was not wearing a helmet. I am in two minds about the argument, but I understand both sides.

[Chris Ruane]

You’re a Liberal. What do you expect?

[Mike Thornton]

I am also a father and a brother, so what do you expect?

We are fortunate in the borough of Eastleigh to have more than 44 km—30-odd miles—of dedicated cycling routes. It is difficult to have such routes because of the criss-crossing motorways, railway lines and watercourses. My hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine), my constituency neighbour, has mentioned some of the problems. Part of the Sustrans cycle network 24 is routed directly behind my constituency office in Leigh road—hon. Members will remember that from a certain election. National cycle route 23, which was also mentioned by my hon. Friend, stretches from Reading to the Isle of Wight. National cycle route 2 runs along the coastline all the way to St Austell in Cornwall—my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Stephen Gilbert) has left the Chamber. We are immensely proud to have Dani King, one of our gold medal winners.

With all that, hon. Members might think that cycling in Eastleigh would be on the up. Unfortunately, the number of people cycling to work has continued to stick at around 2%. One would think it would be a lot better, especially when one considers how effective the borough’s environmental and green policies have been under the leadership of Councillor Bloom.