Wera Hobhouse

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Jardine. I am a cyclist. I love cycling; I have always cycled, ever since I cycled to school as a six-year-old. I have cycled throughout my life, including as a university student, and I still cycle today. I see cycling as a means of transport. For me, it is not a sporting activity; it is very much my choice of transport. However, recently in Bath I was about to cross a road, turning to the right, and I stopped, and the driver next to me pulled down his window and commented on my skirt. Me? I mean—I am a 65-year-old woman, and he was commenting on my skirt. I was so shocked that I wanted to get away, and then I nearly went into a car—I made that mistake because I was so shocked. Cycling is not a very safe mode of transport anyway, but being harassed makes it even less safe. Women want to cycle, yet today only one in four cycling trips are made by women. That is not because women do not want to cycle. Almost 60% of women limit how much they cycle because of safety concerns. As we have heard today, one in five women have stopped cycling altogether after feeling intimidated by drivers, just as I felt intimidated by that driver in Bath. This is clearly more than just a personal issue; it is a public policy issue. We must build the infrastructure that makes women feel safe, visible and supported on the road. Too often, women are forced to choose between two unsafe options: dark, isolated roads, or busy roads without protection. If we had built well-lit, segregated and visible routes, especially for evening and night-time travel, far more women would feel sufficiently safe and confident to cycle. Cycling UK’s “My ride. Our right.” campaign calls for women’s safety to be embedded in all transport and safety strategies, including the upcoming cycling and walking investment strategy, and I echo that call today. The new cycling and walking strategy must include measurable targets that improve women’s safety, including clear goals to increase the proportion of cycling trips made by women. The draft strategy already recognises that investment in well-lit, safe and high-quality walking and cycling routes increases people’s feelings of personal safety. Of course, that includes the personal safety of men and boys, and of all children, but it is particularly important for women. Such improvements support the Government’s work to tackle violence against women and girls. Cycling UK urges the Government and Active Travel England to update design guidance LTN 1/20, strengthening standards for lighting and night-time safety, and introducing gender-responsive safety audits for all new active travel schemes. I very much hope to see those measures in the final cycling and walking investment strategy. Right now, the UK lags behind many of our European neighbours, and I would say that includes the number of children who are allowed to cycle at an early age to school. There are a lot of things that we can do to encourage young people at school to take up cycling; I myself became a lifelong cyclist because I started early. However, in Britain fewer than one in five people walk, wheel or cycle on an average day, compared with more than one in four people across Europe. Now is the time to change that.