Parliament has put pressure on Government to ensure that cycling represents 10% of all journeys within 12 years and a quarter of all trips by 2050. One hundred MPs spent nearly four hours on Monday evening debating the All-Party Parliamentary Cycling Group’s recent report ‘Get Britain Cycling’ and resolved to endorse those targets made by the report.

Julian Huppert MP of the Cycling Group said that only 2% of trips are currently made by bike, well short of the levels found in many countries. He described the targets as “entirely do-able and still below what the Dutch manage to achieve.”

But in a response to the report last Wednesday the Department for Transport said: “Government does not believe that to set national targets for cycling will encourage take up at a local level.”

The report had also called for Government to appoint a National Cycling Champion. But the Department’s response pointed out that Central Government’s Norman Baker “already champions cycling, as Minister for Cycling.”

At the Parliamentary Debate Mr Baker said: “I hope that I am a national champion for cycling, but so are the Secretary of State for Transport, the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister. The danger of having one person identified in the role is that others do not feel the need to participate in the same way.”

Shadow Transport Secretary Maria Eagle called for “a step change in the Government’s commitment to cycling” and said all parties should sign up to a long term cycling plan that will last across Parliaments.

(Photo: Martin Addison)

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