Lord Winston
Main Page: Lord Winston (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Winston's debates with the Department for Transport
(11 years ago)
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Earl Attlee
My Lords, we are acutely aware of this problem. We strongly encourage children to wear helmets. However, again because of the difficulty of enforcing the wearing of helmets for children, we do not want to make it compulsory—a legal requirement—but we strongly encourage children to wear helmets and we think it is a very good idea for adults to wear helmets as well.
Lord Winston
My Lords, does the Minister agree that the health benefits of cycling may not be as great as he imagines, given that in London the pollution from slow-moving traffic is about 10 times the legal limit in Europe?
Earl Attlee
My Lords, the noble Lord raises an interesting point. The noble Baroness, Lady King of Bow, has raised this matter with me and I have had a meeting with her about it. We are doing everything we can to improve the air quality in London, but it is difficult to get to where we want to be.