I beg to move, That this House has considered cycling infrastructure in rural areas. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Vaz. I thank the Minister for being here to listen to this important debate, and I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

I am a member of Oxfordshire county council. During my time living in the Netherlands as a young student, not so many years ago, I experienced at first hand the ease of cycling. Villages and towns are interconnected by safe cycle routes, which make taking a bike the obvious choice.

I fondly remember cycling from my university in Leiden to the beach in Katwijk. Never once did I feel concerned about the quality of roads or any danger; never once did I feel the need to take a car.

Later, living in Brussels, I saw the stark differences between the traditionally cycle-friendly Flemish region and the car-dominated capital city. However, conscious policy decisions are changing cities.

Brussels, like many capital cities across Europe, including our own, is now reclaiming road space from private motor vehicles and giving it over to active travel.

I am proud to be part of the administration in Oxfordshire that pedestrianised the famous Broad Street, much to the criticism of local Conservatives, and is rolling out further measures across the city.

These policy decisions in cities demonstrate that there is no natural order to transport infrastructure. Transport choices are made consciously and by design.

Although much more needs to be done in cities and towns, rural areas risk being left behind, and the consequences are paid in lives lost and lives ruined.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour for giving way, and I congratulate him on securing this debate. He talked about connecting villages.

In Oxford West and Abingdon we have Botley and Eynsham, which are both growing in population, but whenever designs are put forward, they are often missing the pots of money.

Even though we tried to get a design linked to the expansion of the A40, we were told that we could not, because if we did, that bid would fail. That is entirely the opposite of what we would expect from a modal shift. Does my hon.

Friend agree that the funding pots available and how they connect are at odds with what the Government say they want to do, particularly regarding a modal shift towards biking and other forms of active travel?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that funding is key to resolving these issues. In particular, slashing the active travel fund from £200 million to £50 million, as the Conservatives did in 2023, was shameful.

While much more needs to be done in towns and cities, more also needs to be done in rural areas. Mortality rates on rural roads are 2.7 times higher per mile cycled than on urban roads.

If the Government continue to ignore rural areas in policy development, it could have devastating consequences.

I congratulate the hon. Member on securing this debate. I am very lucky that my constituency is interconnected by a series of rivers and canals, the Mid Cheshire waterways ring. When I am among council officers, I refer to it as “the fellowship of the ring”, just so they remember.

It runs 26 miles around my constituency and is crying out to be used as a cycleway. It is far safer to use canal towpaths than traditional cycleways. They are already traffic-free, and it is much cheaper to develop the infrastructure and implement it. That potential no doubt exists nationwide.

Does he agree that there is significant untapped potential for rolling out a cycle network across our canal towpath network?

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Vaz. Please accept my apologies, because I am likely to have to leave before the conclusion of the debate as I am hosting an event elsewhere on the estate. I congratulate my hon.

Friend the Member for Henley and Thame (Freddie van Mierlo) on securing this debate. It is a privilege to speak on a matter that is of great relevance to communities like those in my Lewes constituency.

While cycling is often associated with urban transport solutions, it holds untapped potential to transform rural areas, if we address the challenges that prevent it from being a viable option for many. Two weeks ago, I had the pleasure of attending the Cycle Lewes annual general meeting.

That dedicated group has been advocating for safer, more accessible cycling in Lewes and surrounding villages since 1998. Their work, from installing new cycle racks to critiquing transport plans that prioritise cars over active travel, is a testament to the power of local campaigning.

However, as was made clear at the AGM, piecemeal progress cannot overcome the systemic barriers to cycling that rural communities face.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way, and I thank you for your chairmanship, Ms Vaz.

I am from Stroud and for the past six years, even before I became a politician, I have been trying to get a greenway established in the village of Dursley that would run for about six miles to the train station.

I found that there was not even funding for a feasibility study, so at the moment, we cannot get it off the ground. So I want to ask the Minister whether there will be a fund to make feasibility studies of new routes.

It is customary to wait to hear what the Minister says—you might be delighted.

If no other Members wish to speak, I call the Lib Dem spokesperson, Steff Aquarone.

I call the Opposition spokesperson.

The Minister has moved on to the “how”, but I wonder whether it is worth reflecting for slightly longer on the “why”.

With my Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee hat on, I wonder whether he noted that the chief medical officer’s annual report last year on an ageing society mentioned cycling 13 times, in the context of meeting the needs of an ageing population.

He might also have noted that rural areas age faster than urban areas because of demographic shifts. And he might also have noted that in the 2022 annual report, cycling was mentioned 88 times in the context of air pollution.

I note that the Government’s life mission is for people to live “well for longer.” To what extent is the Minister’s Department planning to be part of the delivery of that mission, and how is he making that happen?