Sustainable Transport

That is why I deliberately qualified my comments and said that someone who cycled would not in every case necessarily have the option of not cycling. Like the hon. Member for Rochdale (Paul Rowen), my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea talked about the need for a national, uniform policy on cycle-rail integration. My hon. Friend said that for a start all TOCs should be forced to accommodate at least 10 bikes—per train, I imagine. I shall come back to that. He also talked about the need for a cycle-rail forum. I assume from that that he is to a certain extent unhappy with the work being done by Cycling England, with the train operating companies, on behalf of the Department for Transport. I am very satisfied with how Cycling England is operating and shall be happy to comment later on the progress that it has made. I am delighted that the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young) is present. I regularly see him coming up Millbank on his bike of a morning as I pass in my ministerial car; that is more a confession than anything else. The right hon. Gentleman said that the paradox was that I seemed to have more control over train operating companies than my predecessor had over British railways when they were nationalised. As a former Secretary of State for Transport, the right hon. Gentleman is informed about many areas of rail policy, but I caution him not to believe everything he reads in Conservative central office press releases. The influence that I have over train operating companies is certainly far less than that which Rail Ministers—or indeed Sports Ministers—had over British Rail in 1975. The right hon. Gentleman talked of the need for a cycle challenge fund. Many of the outputs that he would anticipate from such an innovation are already being achieved through the cycling demonstrating towns that Cycling England is promoting. I am happy to say more about that later. My hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) has talked extremely passionately on the subject, not only in the House but to me over coffee in Portcullis House on a number of occasions, and I listen carefully to what she says as she is extremely knowledgeable: she is not only a cycle user but chair of the all-party group on cycling. I look forward to joining her and other colleagues on the annual Westminster cycle run, which I think will be next month. She mentioned that Southeastern Trains has decided to ban all cyclists from its trains during the Tour de France. That was raised with me on Friday by a member of the Cyclists’ Touring Club. I understand that that is not actually the case and that Southeastern Trains—I am prepared to be corrected—was approached by the organisers and asked to lift its existing restrictions on cyclists, and that it refused to accede to that request. Without commenting on that decision, I suggest that that is not the same as introducing a new ban on all cycles during the Tour de France. My hon. Friend might want to clarify the point, but she criticised First Capital Connect for installing new bike parking at stations that already had CCTV coverage. She suggested that perhaps the Department for Transport should have specified the locations for the new cycle parking and went on to express concern about the increase in bike crime. I do not have an in-depth knowledge of First Capital Connect’s policy, but it seems sensible that if any train operating company is going to try to combat the increase in cycle crime and cycle theft, it should install new cycle parking where it is most secure. It seems that the best place would be in areas that were already covered by CCTV.