Pedal Cycles

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Thursday 12th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, I too thank the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, for securing this debate. It relates to an issue of immense importance to disabled people. I should make it clear at the outset that, like other noble Lords, I believe cycling is a good thing.

Last week I had a surreal exchange with someone as he merrily cycled towards me through a red light as I was crossing the road in my wheelchair. It went like this. “The light’s on red,” I shouted. “Yes, I know,” he said politely and cheerfully as he continued his approach, while his companion looked on panic-stricken as she suddenly realised she did not know how to apply the brakes of her e-bike. Equally politely, but less cheerfully, I replied, “Well, stop! It’s illegal.” Needless to say, they sailed past.

That one incident encapsulated for me the problem we face, which we have discussed in detail this afternoon. The Home Secretary put her finger on it when she wrote in the Sun earlier this week that respect for the rule of law must be restored. She is right, and it needs to be restored precisely because, as the gentleman on the bike demonstrated, breaking the law on cycling has been normalised. It is, as the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, rightly said, routine behaviour for too many.

The effect of such law-breaking for many disabled people—especially, as we have already heard, for those with visual impairments, who are disproportionately at risk of being hit by a dangerously ridden bicycle—is that they might as well have been airbrushed out of society. Their understandable fear of being hit while out, and thus their decision not to go out, and their increasing isolation as a result, are seemingly outweighed by the decision of some cyclists to ignore the law and cycle dangerously and illegally, whether by going through a red light or by cycling on the pavement. And it is not just on pavements that people cycle illegally. As the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, who cannot be here today, told me yesterday, it is in parks, too—including, as I know from personal experience, the Royal Parks, not far from your Lordships’ House.

Several noble Lords have mentioned data but, sadly, the data that we have on the number of reported collisions is only the tip of the iceberg. Many pedestrians, such as my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe, who also cannot be here today but who spoke to me only a few days ago about this, are so relieved to be intact after being knocked over by a cyclist who then sped off that they do not actually report it. After all, what would happen if they did? The law cannot be enforced, can it?

My Lords, I believe it can. I believe the rule of law can and must be restored, including as it relates to dangerous cycling, for enforcement and thus deterrence. Of course, the police cannot catch everyone but, as my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham implied, the beauty of social media is that they would need to enforce the law in only a few well-publicised cases, for example by replicating the exercise carried out by Daily Telegraph recently on Westminster Bridge, just outside St Thomas’s Hospital, intervening at rush hour in the morning and evening and prosecuting those cyclists who went through red lights. That would need to happen only a few times for the behaviour of the gentleman I mentioned to stop.

In conclusion, I ask the Minister to read Policy Exchange’s report A Culture of Impunity, which has cross-party support, to which Members of your Lordships’ House contributed, and write to me detailing the Government’s response to its recommendations. I would be very grateful if he would put a copy of his response in the Library.