Westminster Hall
Tuesday 8 May 2007
[Mrs. Joan Humble in the Chair]
Sustainable Transport
Motion made, and Question proposed, That the sitting be now adjourned.—[Mr. Tom Harris.]
9.30 am
Martin Linton (Battersea) (Lab): I appreciate having an opportunity to raise what is a topical issue, given that the campaign by the cyclists lobby and the Evening Standard to get more bikes on trains is in full swing.
If one stands outside a railway station and counts the number of people who turn up on their bikes, what one sees will say an awful lot about a country. In some countries, one sees masses of bikers cycling to work along cycle-only routes and putting their bikes in massive cycle parks outside stations. In Denmark and Holland, 35 per cent. of people who arrive at stations do so by bike, and even in Germany, the figure is 15 per cent. In the UK, however, it is 2 per cent., and we would need a tenfold or fifteenfold increase to reach the levels considered normal on the continent. I am tempted to say that we need a step change, but I fear that that would be a very pedestrian analogy, so let me say that we need a gear change to reach the necessary levels.
Let me assure my hon. Friend the Minister that this is not a moan against the Government, and I am not saying that they have done nothing—far from it. Ministers have been enthusiastic supporters of bike and ride and have led the way in many respects. Nor is this a moan against the train operating companies, many of which have also been enthusiastic. In East Anglia, they have been pushing for measures for a long time and have managed to increase the number of people arriving by bike to a massive 3 per cent. The Bittern and Wherry lines community rail partnerships, which must be somewhere in Norfolk, have not only fitted cycle racks and cycle lockers in every station, but have a discounted cycle hire scheme for train ticket holders.
Many local groups are also campaigning for measures to be introduced. In my area, I have campaigned with some success with the Wandsworth Cycling Campaign for more cycle parking at stations, and we now have a lot more cycle parking at Clapham Junction station, although there is not yet enough. We have also campaigned for wheeling ramps on the stairs, although so far without success, and I shall return to that. I pay tribute to those involved in the campaign, which has just won the cycling for adults award at Transport for London’s cycling communities awards for an innovative scheme to give professional cycling training to local opinion formers. Indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Mr. Khan) and various councillors have benefited under the scheme. The campaign is very active. The Cyclists Touring Club and the Evening Standard are also running a nationwide campaign on bike and rail in the run-up to the introduction of the Government’s White Paper on rail.
The purpose of this debate—I am glad to see that hon. Friends who are keen cyclists are here to take part—is to give a parliamentary focus to the campaign to introduce appropriate measures. It has been organised by the all-party group on cycling, and I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) will succeed in catching your eye, Mrs. Humble, because she has been at the forefront of the group’s work.
What do we want? We have a very short shopping list to start with. We want wheeling ramps on steps, and that sounds like a small point, but it is quite important. We want much more cycle parking, cycle hire at stations and a national approach to cycle carriage. We want better information about when people can and cannot take their bikes on trains, when and where they may need to make reservations, which trains have specific places for bikes and where on the platform we must stand to reach such places. We also want more consistency between train operating companies.
One of my beefs is that the railways do not make it easier to go cycling in the country. One of the most pleasant ways for my partner and me to spend a summer weekend is to cycle down winding country lanes past village greens and country pubs, with scarcely a car to be seen. Occasionally, we might cross a busy road, but then we are back into the idyll of rural England. Generally, people who want to cycle in the country have to get there by car; they have to put a rack on the back of their car and drive off to the country. However, they could easily get there by train if the railway system advertised cycle routes at stations and allowed round-trip reductions. Given the way in which the ticketing system works, people have to pay quite high fares unless they do a round trip.
The important starting point for this debate is to recognise that the different kinds of cyclists who use trains have differing needs. Commuter cyclists bike, park and ride; they cycle to the station, leave their bike and catch a train. They need much larger and more secure cycle parks, and most stations should be thinking about a threefold or fourfold increase in their present cycle parking facilities.
Some commuters bike, ride and then take a second bike; they take their bike to the station, catch a train and then use a second bike at the other end—at a London terminus or wherever. That would be an argument for having cycle hire shops at stations and for having cycle parking on platforms. In that way, people could get off a train and use a second bike to cycle to work. There is acres of space on the platforms of London terminuses which could be used for that purpose.
The third category of commuters are the doorstep-to-doorstep cyclists, and their problem is carriage. They take their bike to the station, put it on the train and then take it from the station. They need to be able to get their bike on the train, and that is not a problem if they have fold-up bikes. However, most people do not want to ride fold-ups, but to get on a train with a normal, assembled bike.
I said that I would return to the point about wheeling ramps, and the quickest hit that the Minister could make would be to force all stations to install them on stairs. The cost would be next to nothing and they would take up no space, because they can be fitted
under a handrail, where no one can walk in any case. Give me a few hundred pounds and I could do Clapham Junction in a morning—it is that simple.
To take one example of the problem, my partner took her 10-year-old daughter cycling this weekend by the Thames. It was a lovely weekend, but the hardest bit was getting the cycles up the stairs at Clapham Junction. A 10-year-old cannot carry her bike up, and my partner, strong though she is, cannot carry two bikes up at the same time. A simple wheeling ramp to enable people to push their bikes up the stairs would solve the problem. Network Rail will think up lots of reasons why it cannot instal ramps, but I can assure the Minister that they are rubbish. Installing ramps is easy, practical and cheap and could be done straightaway.
The next problem is where to put the bike on the train. In the old days, of course, one would just look for the guard van, which could carry up to a dozen bikes without any problem. Now, however, that is pretty well impossible for commuting cyclists because cycles are banned in the rush hour. At Clapham Junction, that applies not only to trains going into London, but even to those going out of London. That policy derived from the Strategic Rail Authority—may it rest in peace—which laid out cycling policy three or four years ago in its cycling policy consultation document. The SRA had all the best intentions, including maximising the number of cycles on trains, but the document was laced with weasel words such as
“so far as reasonably practical”
“subject to the availability of appropriate space”.
The problem comes down to the fact that cycle carriage is treated as a luxury. Providing access for wheelchair users and parents with prams is regarded as an obligation, but cycle carriage is regarded as a luxury. A survey of commuters showed that 1 per cent. would take their bikes with them if they could, but that 28 per cent. thought that it was a bad idea to allow bikes on rush hour trains, because they would get in the way. It concluded:
“It is difficult to legitimise a worsening of conditions for 28 per cent. of passengers for the benefit of 1 per cent. of passengers.”
Stated like that, it sounds quite reasonable, and that approach led to the view that the train operating companies should each decide their own policy and, indeed, that they should feel free to charge up to the price of a single ticket for bicycle carriage.
We need to look beyond that. There is a problem of mindset. The authority accepted the need for space for pushchairs and wheelchairs. It would never tell mums or parents that they could not take their children on a rush hour train, or tell wheelchair users that they could not use rush hour trains, but it happily tells cyclists that. Of course it is not essential for people to cycle, but let us look at the question another way. The number of people who live within 10 minutes of a station is 15 times greater if those people are cyclists than if they are people who walk to the station. That is the simple application, I am told, of pir(2). A walker must live within half a mile of a station to be there in 10 minutes; a cyclist need only live within two miles of the station.
Using pir(2) it is found that the area in which cyclists are within 10 minutes of a station is 16 times greater. In other words, if we want more people to travel by train, we must encourage them to come by bike and bring their bikes with them. They will get to work quicker at the other end, too.
At the moment each train operating company has its own policy. They all have totally different and confusing rules, and I shall give a few examples of those. Eurostar has a complete ban on bicycles. Its rules state that Eurostar does not have traditional brake or baggage vans and therefore cannot accept accompanied cycles unless they are folded. In Scotland things are a bit more liberal. First Scotrail says that the London to Scotland Caledonian Sleeper can accept up to six cycles, except for the Inverness to London service, which can accommodate three. Rather mysteriously, it says that a special road vehicle will carry cycles between Inverness and Thurso during the summer of 2006. On Hull Trains there is a different system again, in which up to two cycles can be conveyed, which must be stored in the train manager’s office in coach D. People must know the rules of their local line. On the Isle of Wight, the Island Line reserves the right to restrict the carriage of cycles when the punctuality of the train may be jeopardised. Ominously, the rules state that implementation of the restriction is at the conductor’s discretion; I have visions of trying to get on a train at Cowes. The Stansted Express carries only bikes that are flat packed for air travel. That is an example of a train operating company that bans normal commuter bikes completely.
A single national rule would be much better for cyclists. The CTC has suggested four spaces on existing trains and six on new or refurbished trains, and then one more place for every 24 seats after the first 100. That provision would be split so that half would be dedicated provision for cycles and half would be flexible—seats that could be folded up for people to park bikes. At least one space should be available for tandems, tricycles or trailers, which are usually ignored in cycle provision. The CTC also wants places to be provided on replacement bus services. At the moment, a cyclist who gets on a train at the weekend, when engineering works are being done and a bus service is provided, must get on their bike instead of the bus and see whether they can keep up with the bus on the way to the next station, because bikes are not accepted on replacement buses. A simple national rule would be that all train companies should be forced to provide space for at least 10 bikes per train. That would be a good start.
The European Parliament has taken a lead on this and in January MEPs voted for a specially designated area to be provided on every train, for bicycles, baby carriages and sports equipment; they wanted this to happen by 2008 on international trains and 2012 on domestic trains. I hope that the Government will not resist that demand, which seems a good starting point for getting what we need. We should not be negative about bike and ride. We should welcome the power of cycling as, apart from anything else, part of the battle against climate change. We should make bike and ride easy, because it is a match made in heaven. Bikes and trains are the two most sustainable forms of public
transport; they create a perfect synergy for clean, green travel, and they are quicker and cheaper at the same time.
There are some signs that things are going in the right direction, and others that they are not. At St. Pancras, for instance, only 30 spaces have been provided for bikes; but I see that next door, at King’s Cross, there is a planning application for a cycle storage area that would accommodate 800 bikes—much more like it. The Department for Transport referred in its last White Paper to providing 2,900 additional cycle parking spaces, of which, so far, 2,500 have been provided. That is a great advance, although something of the order of 10,000 is more like what will be needed.
The same patchwork of arrangements applies to reservations. Three train operating companies allow bikes to be put on all their trains, with no reservation. Another six allow them to be put on all trains, but require a place to be reserved. One company allows bikes only on off-peak services, but without any need to reserve a place, and there are 15 companies that permit bikes only on off-peak services, and require a reservation. That is another aspect of the matter in which a much simpler, national approach would be appreciated. Pre-booking should always be available as an option, but it should not be mandatory, because that is difficult for cyclists to live with.
I probably do not need to stress the health arguments for the approach that I am advocating. Regular cycling can halve the chance of heart disease and reduce resting heart rate, obesity, high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes; it improves strength, stamina and posture, and typically gives people the fitness level of someone 10 years younger. The members of the all-party group on cycling provide a testament to that. It adds two years to life expectancy, as well as creating no air pollution and very little noise pollution. More important, perhaps, from the point of view of individual cyclists, is the fact that not only can people beat the bus on a bicycle; they can plan their day better. They know when they will arrive and can time their day better, as they are not at the mercy of waiting times for buses and trains. They also make time in their day for exercise without having to sacrifice anything else. As hon. Members on both sides of the House will, I am sure, attest, cycling can cut London commuting times by up to an hour.
I urge the Minister to go with the cyclists on this. An important first step, although it may sound like one of the least important, would be the setting up of a UK national cycle-rail forum. Cyclists themselves are in the best position to advise on ways of increasing the bike and ride rate. If we all agree that the rate in this country is too low, as I think we do—the Minister is convinced of it, the Government are trying to raise the bike and ride rate, the train operating companies, by and large, have an interest in gaining more custom in that way, and everyone agrees that it would be good for health—we should listen to cyclists and find out what is inhibiting people from using bike and ride.
Mr. David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op):
Will my hon. Friend accept that a real barrier, which is not mentioned anywhere, is that when people put their bikes on a train—particularly on a First Great Western 125—they have no idea how long they have to do it? By
the time they have put it in the guard’s van and tied it up, and run to the carriage, they must sometimes literally jump on the train. There is surely a need for some consistency about the physical aspects of putting a bike on a train, and that point seems never to be made. I wonder if my hon. Friend would like to comment.
Martin Linton: I take that point entirely. There should be cycle racks in the guard’s van. If there is dedicated space for bikes on a train, there should be racks on which bikes can be put easily, rather than being slung up against the side. There should be a system whereby bikes can be parked quickly and efficiently. On most trains, the guard’s van is connected to the rest of the train by corridor, so the problem that my hon. Friend mentions must be a quirk of First Great Western trains.
It is important that we address this matter at this level of detail and understand what the inhibitors are. Everyone agrees on the goal for this area of policy, but worries about the practical difficulties. To overcome those difficulties, we need train operators, cyclists and the Department for Transport to sit around a table and discuss them so that we can remove the impediments and let the number of cyclists increase.
9.50 am
Sir George Young (North-West Hampshire) (Con): I congratulate the hon. Member for Battersea (Martin Linton) on securing the debate and on his eloquence in speaking on behalf of the country’s cyclists. As he said, the debate is timely, as the Government are drafting their White Paper and our constituents are e-mailing us asking for a more friendly interface between cycle and rail. It is also timely, because London is preparing to host the start of the Tour de France on 6 July.
I was interested to read in Hansard an earlier debate on this subject, at the end of which the responding Minister said:
“I hope that we shall return to this subject many times in the future and that this debate will have the effect of encouraging Ministries and local authorities to adopt a forward-looking policy.”
That debate was in 1975, and the Minister, Denis Howell, was replying to an Adjournment debate initiated by the then hon. Member for Ealing, Acton. I am delighted to see my successor-but-two, the hon. Member for Ealing, Acton and Shepherd’s Bush (Mr. Slaughter), in his place this morning.
At that time, I was also the chairman of the all-party group on cycling. In the intervening 32 years, I have progressed to become a patron of that august group. I am sure that I was not nearly as active a chairman as the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) has been in putting forward a programme for parliamentary colleagues. We did, however, start a parliamentary cycling pool in the 1970s, to encourage back on to two wheels Members who had lost the habit of cycling and did not want the hassle of buying and maintaining a bicycle. The pool had a large number of members, who each got a key to a box in the Members’ cloakroom. In the box they would find another key to a padlock, which gave access to a bicycle on which they could be let loose on the streets of London. The pool encouraged a large
number of Members back on to two wheels, but it was not an unmitigated success because many bicycles migrated to Members’ constituencies and we never saw them again. In 1979, anticipating the Thatcher reforms, I privatised the cycle pool and sold it off to its members.
The 1975 debate was answered not by a Transport Minister, but the Minister for Sport, which reflects that cycling was then seen more as a recreation than as a valid means of transport. In that debate, the villain of the piece was British Rail. Like the hon. Member for Battersea, I had a shopping list of requests, one of which was for
“a bicycle unit within the Department of the Environment...which could advise local authorities, British Rail and others on measures to encourage cycling.”
“I cannot accede to the request that my Department should set up a separate cycling advisory unit.”
Happily, we have had alternative Administrations in the meantime, and that particular deficiency has been put right.
I went on to ask for a cycling allowance. I said that if the Minister wanted a trial scheme,
“he could start with Members of Parliament, many of whom need some gentle daily exercise to keep them in proper condition.”
“Speaking on behalf of 98 per cent. of hon. Members who find the present mileage allowance totally inadequate to cover the cost of driving their cars on parliamentary business, I must say that I cannot encourage the hon. Gentleman in that direction.”
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