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Ms Meg Munn (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab/Co-op):
Is there not a great deal more that can be done to protect children on bicycles, such as having more separated cycle routes, particularly for young people going to school, which we clearly want to encourage? We need to develop proper, safe routes and proper training in cycling proficiency, as my hon. Friend has already outlined. Should we not also be impressing more on
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motorists their responsibilities to respect the road space of cyclists? I speak as somebody who regularly cycles to and from the House of Commons. All those issues have to be tackled along with that of wearing helmets.
Mr. Martlew: I accept that totally. If my hon. Friend intends to speak later, perhaps she will tell us whether she wears a helmet.
Mr. Martlew: I am pleased to hear that.
Mr. Dismore: My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Ms Munn) made a very good point about cycle lanes. Will my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (Mr. Martlew) join me in condemning Conservative-controlled Barnet council, which has decided to start to remove cycle lanes to allow traffic to move more quickly, thus jeopardising the safety of children and others who use bicycles?
Mr. Martlew: I have no knowledge of that, but as the council is not Labour-controlled, I will condemn it.
I return to the serious point that I was making. The death of a child is a tragedy, but a death that could have been avoided is a scandal, and today we are working to prevent such deaths. I hope that Ministers will take note of the debate and support the Bill.
The Minister for Children, whom I have already mentioned, has published a Green Paper, "Every Child Matters", in which the Government identify a number of outcomes that are important to children, including being healthy, staying safe and getting the most out of life.
David Cairns (Greenock and Inverclyde) (Lab): My hon. Friend speaks about avoiding children's deaths. Even if children who are involved in cycling accidents do not die, they can sustain serious head injuries that leave them with disabilities for the rest of their lives, and that, too, is a tragedy, so the Bill is also about preventing avoidable long-term damage to children.
Mr. Martlew: Yes, for every child who dies, about 10 are severely injured, and many of those suffer brain injuries.
Ian Stewart (Eccles) (Lab): Does my hon. Friend accept that when we reach adulthood we can have arguments and express different views about whether we should impose things on people for their own good, but safety is an educative process that is best started when children are young and impressionable, so that they accept good practice throughout the rest of their lives?
Mr. Martlew:
We have a responsibility in that regard as parliamentarians, parents and citizens of the UK. Some people have accused me of introducing a Bill that expands the nanny state. I suspect that few of my colleagues had a nanny, but we know that the job of nannies is to look after children. Children reach an age at which they can decide things for themselves, and the Bill says that once they reach 16 they do not have to wear a helmet. I am not one of those who say that helmets
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should be compulsory for every cyclist. This is not the thin end of the wedge; it is what we should be doing for children.
Before I was so kindly interrupted, I was discussing the Green Paper. It is all very well issuing a Green Paper, but if the Government fail to support the Bill they will send the wrong signals. I argue that cycle helmets are crucial to ensuring healthy, safe and enjoyable lives for hundreds of thousands of young cyclists in this country.
Mr. Chope: The hon. Gentleman says, "If the Government support the Bill" but I thought he had already said that the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Transport did so. Is he suggesting that his Government are speaking with forked tongue?
Mr. Martlew: I am a little disappointed. Originally, the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier), who I know supports the Bill, was to be the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman. It appears that the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) is interested only in making political points, which I find upsetting.
The sad truth is that a disproportionate number of accidents involve child cyclists. Figures from the Transport Research Laboratory and the Department for Transport starkly reveal how vulnerable child cyclists are. The TRL points out that although children account for 6.6 per cent. of road cyclists, they account for 21 per cent. of cyclist deaths in a three-year period. Child cyclists are four times more likely than adult cyclists to die on the roads. Once a fortnight, a child dies in a cycling accident on the roads of this country. More than once a day, a child is seriously injured in such an accident and is likely to be disabled. I mentioned that hon. Members were likely to be visiting schools in their constituencies today. I am talking about the equivalent of wiping out a primary class and severely disabling a secondary school every year. I do not claim that cycle helmets will necessarily reduce the number of accidents, but I am absolutely convinced that they will reduce the severity of the injuries sustained.
Mr. Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh, North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op): Statistics can be interpreted in various ways, but any death or injury is a tragedy. How many of the deaths of the 28 child cyclists killed on our roads each year could be prevented by the wearing of a helmet?
Mr. Martlew:
I was just coming to that. Many of the accidents involve serious head injuries, and scientific research performed both here and abroad has proved that cycle helmets protect the head and brain against the worst effects of injury. Dr. Andrew Curran, whom I met in the House of Commons at the launch of my Bill, is a consultant paediatric neurologist at Alder Hey hospital in Liverpool and has for three and a half years been involved in research into the effect of head injuries in children. He believes that the wearing of a cycle helmet reduces brain damage in children by 80 per cent. Perhaps the most comprehensive independent analysis of existing research is the Department for Transport-commissioned "Bicycle Helmets: A review of their effectiveness" published in November 2002. I recommend it as a very good read, although I am sure that all hon. Members read it before coming to this
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debate. I am grateful to the Department for its lead in marshalling and reviewing the evidence in this crucial area. The report states that
"there is now a considerable amount of scientific evidence that bicycle helmets have been found to be effective at reducing head, brain and upper facial injury in bicyclists. Such health gains are appropriate for all ages, though particularly for child populations."
The report states simply that cycle helmets save lives. Supporters of the Bill, which include a wide range of highly respected professional organisations, have clearly reached the same conclusion.
Mr. Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab): There are some who would accuse my hon. Friend of extending the nanny state. Does he agree that the same arguments were used in the 1960s and '70s against the wearing of seat belts, and that the legislation passed in that respect has reduced the number of deaths and the personal tragedy experienced by families whose members would otherwise have died on the roads?
Mr. Martlew: My hon. Friend is perfectly right. We have always seen a knee-jerk reaction against such measures, whether on the wearing of seat belts or preventing drink-driving, but, after a while, such things become common sense and we wonder why we did not do them before.
Mr. Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con): The answer to the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones) is that requiring people to wear car seat belts has not stopped car use, whereas the Bill, if passed, would have a dramatic effect in terms of discouraging children from cycling. When helmet laws were introduced in Australia, the result was large decreases in the number of people cycling: child cycling fell by between 30 and 50 per cent.
Mr. Martlew: If the hon. Gentleman looks at the facts, and not at that pamphlet, he will find that cycling has since returned to its former levels. In addition, he will recall that I said that only 6.6 per cent. of cyclists in this country are children.
I have strong support from various organisations. I have here a letter from Sir Peter Morris, president of the Royal College of Surgeons, who writes:
"This seemed to me an entirely sensible public health measure and I am pleased to inform you that the . . . Royal College of Surgeons of England yesterday expressed full support for your Bill."
I also have support from the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, the Faculty of Accident and Emergency Medicine, the Society of British Neurological Surgeons, the Faculty of General Dental Practitioners, the British Dental Association, the Institute of Road Safety Officers, the Child Brain Injury Trust, the brain injury organisation, Headway, the road safety organisation, Brake, this country's leading cycle retailer, Halfords, and, last but not least, and greatly welcome, the Royal College of Nursing, whose letter states:
"we strongly support the bill and our members have first hand experience of the tragic injuries and loss of young life which could have been prevented by wearing a cycle helmet. Whilst wishing to encourage people to cycle as much as possible we also want to ensure this is done safely".
One person who has first-hand experience of such tragic injuries is Mr. Alistair Fraser-Moodie, a consultant in accident and emergency medicine at Derbyshire royal infirmary for the past 26 years. He writes:
"It is quite obvious to me as a practising clinician seeing patients come through the front door of our hospital that once you are on a pedal cycle the chances of survival in a crash are far greater if you wear a helmet. These poor pedal cycle casualties only realise this when the shock has died down and some well-meaning ambulance man gives them their cycle helmet back again. Instead of suffering a fractured skull or worse they have a bruised skull, a bit of concussion and a smashed up helmet. So the helmets have taken the strain.
It is about time that we start looking after the children in our country. Many use their pedal cycles to get to school. Others use their pedal cycles for paper rounds or pleasure alone. It is about time we protected these children by introducing the compulsory wearing of cycle helmets. Failure to do this will inevitably result in carnage."
For me, Mr. Fraser-Moodie captures eloquently people's sense of anger and bemusement when, in the face of overwhelming evidence, no action is taken to protect children.
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