---

Cycling

I am honoured and humbled to follow the right hon. Member for North West Hampshire (Sir George Young). The bicycle has been my main form of transport for at least the past 20 years, as it has his. It has been the only form of transport I have owned for that period. Having cycled as a child, it was logical for me to use the bike as my main form of transport, given the growing congestion in our towns and cities. The revelatory experience for me—the eureka moment—came in the mid-90s, when I was sent by “The World This Weekend” to my old primary school in Norfolk. I cannot remember what the news piece was about—whether it was about stranger danger, the safety of roads or even growing obesity—but I arrived at my old primary school to find that the bike sheds had gone. That was a shocking experience for me. Not only had the sheds gone, but in place of children coming and going by biking or walking at the beginning and end of the school day, there was traffic congestion, belching fumes, noise and chaos outside the school gates. From that moment on, I have not felt as passionate about many issues, across all public policy, as I do about this one.

Things do not have to be like they were at that school. I am glad to say that in Exeter we have bike sheds again at our primary and secondary schools. Thanks to the investment we received as part of the previous Labour Government’s cycling demonstration town scheme, we have had a massive increase in the number of children cycling and walking to school—one of the biggest increases anywhere in the country—and a huge increase of 40% in cycling levels overall. I ask those who still do not believe that we can replicate Danish and Dutch cycling levels because ours is a hilly country to come to Exeter, one of the hilliest cities in the country. We have done it. We know how it can be done, although we have a lot more to do.

The problem is that under successive Governments—I do not want this to be a party political debate—the approach taken to cycling has been a piecemeal hotch-potch; we have had a bit of funding here, a bit of targeted funding there and a grant that has to be applied for. As hon. Members on both sides of the House have said, progress has been bedevilled by the fact that there has not been sustained, real investment and sustained political leadership from the top.