Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jonathan Ashworth and Norman Baker

Thursday 29th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab)]

1. What progress he has made on implementing the recommendations of Cities Fit for Cycling.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Norman Baker)]

The coalition Government is working hard to promote cycling and make it even safer. Yesterday I announced a further £20 million of funding for cycling projects. This is on top of the £30 million of funding announced earlier this year to tackle dangerous junctions. We have also made it simpler for councils to put in place 20 mph zones and limits and install Trixi mirrors to improve the visibility of cyclists at junctions, by reducing bureaucracy.

[Jonathan Ashworth]

I am grateful to the Minister for that detailed reply. I recently met representatives of the Leicester cycling campaign, who made it clear that they felt that, if I may say so, the Government need to put more emphasis on and more support into cycling. Given that, will the Government commit to implement all the proposals of the Cities Fit for Cycling campaign and invest in dedicated separate cycling infrastructure?

[Norman Baker]

That, if I may say so, is a churlish interpretation of what the Government has done, which is to put enormous effort into improving cycling and progressing all the recommendations of The Times Cities Fit for Cycling campaign, which I very much welcome. It is perhaps worth noting that there was a huge backlog of important cycling interventions that we inherited when we took office and we are progressing well to deal with those.