Cycling

David Lammy Excerpts

Monday 2nd September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) and my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin) on all their work in the all-party group. I also congratulate my constituent Adam Coffman on all he has done to raise the issue of cycling in our national life. In these debates it is easy to get a sense that people are paying lip service to cycling, but the profound and cultural change we need in this country has not yet happened and now has to arrive. It is important that we recognise that the debate about cycling, certainly here in London, is being held against the backdrop of people having to wrestle with issues of not only quality of life, but the cost of living—petrol prices, transport costs, and rises in bus and tube fares. Transport costs beyond London mean that people want cycling to be a serious option.

For many of the reasons hon. Members have raised, and for some that I will touch on, cycling does not feel like a realistic option. I think that hon. Members want the Government to get behind the vision behind this report to make it one. We need long-term commitments and aims, not simply the short-term and headline-grabbing initiatives we have had in the past. The target of a 10% modal share for cycling by 2025 is good, but that will not happen by itself. Shockingly, just 6% of people in Britain cycle for more than 30 minutes once a week and only 2% use a bike to get to work.

Hon. Members will recall that, sadly, the Labour party lost the election in 2010. It has been said about Ministers, “You know you’re no longer a Minister when you get into the back of a car and it does not start.” I found myself in that situation, but at that point, when I was 30-whatever, I was not a driver. When I hit 40, I decided that I would learn to drive and I could be found driving up Barnet high road trying to do so. On my third attempt, I recently got my driving licence—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.] But I hate driving, and I have not really been back in a car since.

What I like doing is cycling. I, too, took my family to Holland this summer on a cycling holiday. I took a five-year-old and a seven-year-old, and we did about 80 km in 10 days. I do not think I could do that in this country. I certainly do not think I could do it easily in London, because I simply would not feel secure enough about the safety of a five-year-old and a seven-year-old on their bikes on the cycleways. Parents up and down the country want this report to be taken seriously, because they want to see their children cycling.

Nobody has touched on this next point, but I am concerned that the cycling proficiency training, which many hon. Members will recall from when they were younger, seems to be patchy across the country; it varies from school to school, and from local authority to local authority. We have raised this debate about helmets, but we also have to invest in proper cycling proficiency training if we want cycling to increase among young people.

[Mr Geoffrey Cox (Torridge and West Devon) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman accept from me that one superb way of commencing on the cycling pathway is to have an electric bicycle? I have one and they are a wonderful way of commencing cycling and getting people interested in it. They have not received much attention in this debate until now, but I urge him to plug the advantages and merits of electric bikes.

[Mr Lammy]

The hon. and learned Gentleman makes a very good point. I knew nothing about electric bikes until I saw some in Holland just a few days ago. I thought that perhaps I should get one, but as I want to get rid of this girth I decided against it.

[Nicola Blackwood]

I wish to take the right hon. Gentleman back to his point about cycling proficiency. Would another point of transition for introducing cycling proficiency be when young people go to university, when they often get back on bikes having not been on them since they were young children? That can lead to dangerous situations and, often, to road deaths.

[Mr Lammy]

The hon. Lady makes a good point. Those people are getting on bikes for cost-saving reasons, but they are doing so in towns and cities, where the prioritisation we need on cycling is not there. The resulting deaths and serious injuries should be of great concern.

Nearly half of all car journeys made in London are under 2 miles long. That is an easily bikeable distance, so we have to ask why so many people are not choosing to bike. As the hon. Lady indicated, in London alone more than 500 cyclists were seriously injured in just one year, which is a rise of 22% on the previous year’s figure. It is right that the current Mayor has done much to encourage cycling in London, and he should be congratulated on getting behind cycling. His appointment of a cycling tsar has also been very important, but targets for reducing cycle casualties have been consistently missed. The number of cycling casualties in London has increased every year since 2008, which is only partly explained by the cycling participation rates. Nationally, 122 cyclists were killed on British roads last year. So road accidents are still proportionately involving cycling, despite the incidence of other road accidents falling. That issue has to be addressed and it can be done only if we challenge the culture of cycling and do not have a transport policy that sometimes feels like just a motorists’ policy. We need a policy that is prepared to put both pedestrians and cyclists alongside motorists.

Remarks have been made about the share of investment in cycling. Those remarks need to be taken seriously if we are to get the shift that the Minister has said he wants and that I suspect he will say he wants, as it feels a long way off for those of us who want cycling to get up to where it needs to be. Investment and participation campaigns are crucial, but they will go only so far. Ministers must treat British roads as existing not just for cars, but for cyclists. Much greater priority also needs to be put on safety, which means proper investment in cycling paths, borough to borough, road to road, and new radical solutions that promote cycling.

I welcome this debate, although it is only really the very beginning on this subject. I hope that the House will return to it, but I hope that we will see the step change that we need in this country over the coming months.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chi Onwurah]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that contribution, but the Local Government Association has many issues on which to share best practice. I agree that it provides an excellent forum for that, but the strength of Cycling England was that it did exactly what its name said—it was about cycling in England. Having lost that organisation, we need something to fulfil that role.

[Mr Lammy]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does she agree that we do not see the initiatives and half-policies such as those she is talking about in the Government’s transport policy on trains, buses, cars and roads? That is why we need a proper integrated strategy.