Nicholas Soames intervenes in Backbench Business Committee Debate on ‘Cycling’ Thursday, 16th October, 2014.

Sir Nicholas Soames: The hon. Gentleman has never seen me arrive at the Palace of Westminster on a bicycle, although I shall try to repair that. I agree with him about the support that is given, but does he accept that the trouble in a constituency such as mine, which has three small to medium-sized towns, is that there simply is not the money to provide the facilities for bicyclists that should be in place, because it all tends to go to the big towns? We need to devise a formula that will enable that to be fixed.

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Written Ministerial Statement – 16th October, 2014 Cycling The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Robert Goodwill): I am today publishing a draft cycling delivery plan for informal consultation to seek views from interested parties on its content.

On 12 August 2013, as part of a wider announcement on cycling, the Prime Minister set out his ambition for a cycling revolution. He committed the Department to publishing a cycling delivery plan which would set out a long-term 10 year strategy on how his ambition will be realised. Since then, my officials have been working with relevant Government Departments as well as with key stakeholders to develop a draft delivery plan which incorporates a number of Government commitments and actions to increase levels of cycling. The plan has also been extended to include commitments and actions to increase walking, across England. The delivery plan is also a key strand of the Government’s moving more, living more campaign to secure a physical activity legacy from the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

The delivery plan issues a call to action to local authorities, offering the opportunity to establish partnerships with Government that will open up access to a range of incentives. The plan also includes a number of specific actions for the next 10 years focusing on infrastructure developments, cycle-proofing our roads and wider transport infrastructure, and for facilitating behaviour change across the country by promoting cycling and walking as alternative sustainable travel choices. The key features of the draft plan include:

An aspiration to work with local Government and businesses to explore how we can achieve a minimum funding packet equivalent to £10 per person each year by 2020-21 - and sooner if possible - a focus of our engagement on the delivery plan over the next four weeks;

Quantified national ambition for increasing cycling - to double cycling by 2025 and a quantified ambition for increasing walking - to increase the proportion of school children aged 5 to10 that usually walk to school to 55% by 2025;

Responding to the recommendations made by the All-Party Parliamentary Cycling Group’s Get Britain Cycling report, and addressing many of the transport-related recommendations of the All- Party Physical Activity Commission.

As well as setting out Government’s ambitions for walking and cycling, the delivery plan is also a call to action for local authorities and local enterprise partnerships to formally commit to driving up walking and cycling across the country. The plan calls for expressions of interest from local authorities who would be interested in setting a long term ambition for walking and cycling in their area, and who, as part of that ambition would like to work in partnership with Government to secure its delivery.

The consultation will last four weeks, due to the prior engagement that has taken place. Interested parties can attend one of our six regional consultation events during October and November in Manchester, Birmingham, Bedford, Exeter, York and Durham or respond with comments electronically via: Walking.Cycling@dft.gsi.gov.uk.

We expect to be in a position to publish a final delivery plan on 27 November at a summit to be hosted by a senior Cabinet Minister.

I will be placing a copy of the draft delivery plan in the Library of both Houses.