Sustainable Transport

I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Martin Linton) for initiating this debate and giving me my first opportunity to speak in the House on this part of my remit. There have been many debates in this Chamber on the rail side of my remit, and I hope that today’s debate will finish with a more consensual and friendly mood than some of those previous debates have. I shall begin by referring to comments that have already been made. My hon. Friend talked eloquently about the case for improved rail-cycle integration. He mentioned the need for wheeling ramps at stations. I trust his judgment that that would be a relatively cheap innovation at stations. I understand his cynicism in anticipating a negative response from Network Rail. I intend to seek a response from the company and shall keep him and other Members present informed of it. I accept that such ramps seem a fairly straightforward—and, I hope, cheap—solution to the problem that my hon. Friend raised. However, my hon. Friend equated the need for capacity to carry cycles on trains with the needs of wheelchair users and parents with prams. I hope that he will forgive me if I suggest that that argument is difficult to make for various reasons. I would not say to a wheelchair user that he or she had the choice of whether to bring their wheelchair on a train. However, it is arguable, although not in every case, that those taking their bikes on a train do so as a matter of choice. I do not mean that as a point of principle or policy, but I hope that my hon. Friend will at least recognise that the circumstances are different and not immediately comparable.