Cycling

Hugh Bayley Excerpts

Monday 2nd September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Mike Thornton). I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin) and the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert), the co-chairs of the all-party group, of which I am a member, on the report. It is sponsored by The Times, which I congratulate too. I should declare that The Times is still in Wapping in my constituency, so there is a little bit of self-interest there. Other national newspapers—The Guardian and The Independent—have been trying to catch up and are supporting the campaign. My comments will be made as a Londoner and as a London cyclist, and will not necessarily reflect issues in other parts of the country.

I invited my constituents, through the social media of Twitter, Facebook and the East London Advertiser, to contribute to the debate by raising issues that they thought I might want to mention. I was staggered by the response—more than 50 people e-mailed or tweeted issues that are of importance to them. I am very limited for time and cannot name them all, but I will list some of them. Before doing that, I want to thank the cycle firms in my constituency, in particular Bikeworks, a social entrepreneurial group that does great work and made a running repair to my bike in half an hour last Wednesday morning to get me back on the road, and also Halfords and Evans, which are national organisations that support cycling in Tower Hamlets and in the community.

I will run through the list of issues raised by my constituents: keeping cycle routes clear when there are roadworks and parking problems; cycle superhighways not being up to the necessary standard—my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali) raised the incident of the Aldgate East fatality—with just a coat of paint on a road and nothing more; and lower speed limits, an issue raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley North. Cycle training and education in schools was mentioned by several hon. Members. That is critical. I am doing an Industry and Parliament Trust Fellowship on logistics. I spent some time with TNT, which trains its postal delivery people to ride bikes. When they have down time, they partner local schools to train the kids there. If TNT can do it, the question to the Minister is this: is Royal Mail doing it? There must be other companies out there that could contribute, too.

[Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)]

Royal Mail is doing that. It has a cycle workshop in my constituency, which maintains 500 bicycles used by the Royal Mail in the Greater York area.

[Jim Fitzpatrick]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the extra time he has given me; I knew that somebody would respond positively on behalf of Royal Mail.

Questions have been raised about HGVs and the fear factor, a road deaths investigation board and improved statistics on serious injuries and fatalities. The Home Office and the Department for Transport have always resisted a fatalities inquiry board for road traffic fatalities because there are just too many of them, but we have to raise the bar and look more seriously at investigating more thoroughly the fatalities on our roads.

Other issues raised include: congestion charging and road closures to force traffic to surrender more space to cyclists; advanced stop areas; earlier green lights for cyclists; blitz enforcement of transgressors—whether car drivers or cyclists—in advance areas; cycle storage; and mandatory helmets. I know that many people are opposed to making helmets mandatory. I am in favour, but it is not going to happen. The evidence against it coming from Australia and America is somewhat time-limited. If we get our kids using helmets in schools, they will graduate into wearing them.

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[Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)]

The House has a fairly rigid dress code, and I think I inadvertently broke it earlier today because, for the first time in my career, I wore a pair of cycle clips in the Chamber. That was not because I was trying to celebrate the debate, but because I had rushed here from one of my two bicycle visits today so that I would be in time to ask my question during Defence questions—[Interruption.] I got no answer, but that is the nature of parliamentary questions. I make the point because I have been cycling to Parliament and to meetings near Parliament for more than 20 years. As other Members have observed, in that period there has been a huge growth in the number of people who cycle—not just the number of people working in the Palace of Westminster but the number of people in general on the roads of London. That increase has not just happened—it occurred as a result of public policy and public spending. That is the first thing that I would say to the Minister: we need an increase in Government spending to promote cycling and make the roads safer for cycling, but it needs to be long-term and predictable funding, which is why I particularly welcome the proposal that there should be spending by his Department on cycling measures at the rate of £10 per capita.

There are environmental and health benefits from cycling. It is a convenient and time-saving way to travel short distances. No one has mentioned the fact that it is a cheap way of travelling. For MPs, there is one more advantage. I sometimes use a car in my constituency, and when I do, no one notices me driving round. However, when I am cycling round my constituency people notice me all the time. They point, they probably laugh, but at least they see that I am in my constituency—that is a tip for Members on both sides of the House.

Between 2008 and 2010, York received £3.68 million as one of the 12 cycling cities designated by Cycling England. It had a number of goals, including increasing the use of cycling by 25% from 10%—a relatively high level—at the beginning of the period to 12.5%. In fact, it increased the use of cycling by twice the target—by 50%—to 15%. Interestingly, in York, as many women cycle as men, and that is a goal that we ought to try to roll out nationally.

Under the scheme, we pledged to increase commuter cycling by 10% from 12% at the beginning of the period to 13.2%. Although there was no national survey of the number of people who commute to work by cycle, looking at the big employers in York, the increase in that period ranged from 17% to 35%. Achieving an increase depends on whether employers provide incentives such as safe cycle parking, cycle workshops where people can repair punctures for instance, and cycle loan schemes. The House could do a lot more for the people who work here, and I hope that that is something the all-party group will press for.

I welcome the proposal in the report for a goal of increasing cycle use to 10% by 2025, but we need different goals for different local authorities. The hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert), who introduced the debate, has in his city a cycling participation level far above 10%, and so does my own city. We will not achieve 10% national usage unless we set challenging goals for those local authorities that are in the lead.

Finally, greater efforts should be made to employ trained personnel in local authorities to supervise the safety of transport schemes, and for institutes such as the—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order.

--- Later in debate ---

[Norman Baker]

I think the Communities Secretary is capable of answering for himself.

I want to mention the funding arrangements which this Government has put in place. If people believed some of the earlier comments, including from the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw), they would think that this Government had not been funding cycling. That is quite untrue. In fact, we are funding cycling more than the Labour Government did. Between 2005 and 2010 the previous Administration spent £140 million—£200 million with match funding—on cycling. Under this Administration, £278 million—£375 million with match funding—will be spent in our five-year period. That is almost double what the Labour Government spent in the previous five years. When Opposition Members complain that there is not enough funding, a little more humility would not go amiss.

I entirely agree with the comments made by hon. Members that it is important not to neglect rural areas. That is why the Government has committed £600 million to the local sustainable transport fund, which equates to £1 billion with match funding. That local sustainable transport fund has funded 96 projects, 94 of which have cycling elements. A further £100 million capital and £78 million revenue funding has been allocated for the LSTF in 2015-16. We have seen £44 million committed throughout this Parliament to support cycle training for schoolchildren. I might say to the shadow Secretary of State that the first thing we did on cycling as a coalition Government was to commit to Bikeability funding throughout the whole Parliament to give the certainty which she says she wants.

In addition to all that, £159 million has been announced since the beginning of 2012—£94 million to increase cycling in eight cities and four national parks, £20 million to deliver safer junctions outside London, £15 million to enable cycle parking at rail stations, £15 million to provide more safe cycling links between communities and £15 million for junction safety in London. In times of plenty, the allocation to cycling measures was £200 million. In times of hardship, we have had £370 million from this coalition Government.

[Hugh Bayley]

I am concerned that much of the money spent on cycling measures under the previous Government and the present one is spent badly because the planners and engineers who design road systems do not understand cycling well enough. Will the Minister meet the Institution of Civil Engineers, the Royal Town Planning Institute and others to try to create a professional qualification for cycling planners, and then to insist that local authorities use such people in designing their systems?

[Norman Baker]

The local sustainable transport fund schemes—there are 94—were all subject to expert analysis, including by those from local authorities and others who know about cycling, but if the hon. Gentleman thinks that it would be helpful for him and me to meet particular people, I would be happy to do so. He should phone my office and we will sort it out.

I also want to mention a key recommendation that, to my surprise, was not touched on much in the all-party group’s report: cycle-proofing—although the shadow Secretary of State referred to it in her comments. The “Action for roads” Command Paper, published in July this year, made it plain that we want to cycle-proof our road network and minimise situations where major roads are a barrier to walkers and communities. All new roads and improvement schemes on the strategic road network will be designed with cyclists, as well as motorists, in mind. There is almost £5 million for 14 schemes identified in the strategic road network where the Government will fund significant improvements to remove barriers to cycling, with a further £15 million for such improvements in 2015-16. Officials are currently planning a conference on cycle-proofing roads later this year, which will involve council chiefs, directors of highways and planning, representatives from local economic partnerships and national parks and so on to ensure that we have the expertise and can work out how best to cycle-proof our roads, streets and communities.