Asked by: Fabian Hamilton (Labour - Leeds North East)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what role will organisations representing cyclists and pedestrians play in shaping the work of the Road Safety Board and Expert Advisory Panel.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
On 7 January 2026 we published our new Road Safety Strategy, setting out our vision for a safer future on our roads for all.
The Strategy sets an ambitious target to reduce the number of people killed or seriously injured on British roads by 65% by 2035. Delivery of the Strategy will be supported and monitored by a new Road Safety Board chaired by the Minister for Local Transport. This will be supported by an Expert Advisory Panel, which will provide insight from those working directly with road users and communities.
The Board and Expert Advisory Panel are currently under development and decisions regarding membership and format will be made in due course.
Asked by: Fabian Hamilton (Labour - Leeds North East)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, when will the Department publish further guidance on how cycling and walking will be reflected in delivery of the Road Safety Strategy.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
On 7 January 2026 we published our new Road Safety Strategy, setting out our vision for a safer future on our roads for all. Roads aren’t just for motorists; it is vitally important that everyone using our roads is kept safe including cyclists and pedestrians.
The strategy builds upon ongoing work in this area. On 12 December 2025 we announced that we are allocating £626 million for local authorities from 2026-27 to 2029-30 to deliver walking, wheeling and cycling schemes, enough for 500 miles of new walking and cycling routes and 170,000 more active trips per day.
This is in addition to the almost £300 million funding for active travel in 2024/25 and 2025/26 which we announced in February 2025. This will help local authorities to provide high-quality and easily accessible active travel schemes across England and will enable more children to walk and cycle to school.
In November 2025 the Government launched a consultation to develop the third Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy (CWIS3). The consultation sought the views of stakeholders on a national vision, statutory objectives and underlying performance indicators. The consultation closed on the 15th of December, and the Government is now considering the responses to the consultation with the final strategy to be published in the spring.
Asked by: Fabian Hamilton (Labour - Leeds North East)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how will linked health and police data be used under the Road Safety Strategy to improve understanding of cyclist and e-bike injuries.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
While police data records injury type as assessed by the attending officer, health data provides far richer clinical detail on injury patterns, severity, and longer-term outcomes. This includes standardised measures, allowing injuries to be classified consistently and compared across collisions, locations, road users and vehicle types. Linking health and police records will also identify collisions resulting in cyclist and e-bike injuries that never appear in police data, addressing known under-reporting.
For cyclists and e-bike users in particular, this enables new forms of analysis, including how injury severity varies by road type, collision circumstance, and vehicle involvement, as well as how outcomes differ between conventional cycles and e-bikes. This evidence will support more targeted and evidence-led interventions. Overall, the linked data underpins a shift toward evidence-led cycling policy based on real injury outcomes.
Asked by: Fabian Hamilton (Labour - Leeds North East)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps are being taken to ensure consistent recording of e-bike collisions by police forces in England and Wales.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
Data on reported road collisions in Great Britain are recorded by police forces using the STATS19 system. Guidance on recording is provided in the STATS20 document which is published on gov.uk:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/road-accident-and-safety-statistics-guidance#data-collection
Currently the recording of e-bikes within STATS19 follows the relevant legislation, the Electrically Assisted Pedal Cycle Regulations 1983, with officers encouraged to use an accompanying free text field to provide further details where possible.
The Standing Committee on Road Injury Collision Statistics (SCRICS), which oversees the STATS19 collection, is currently reviewing the recording of vehicle and propulsion types within STATS19 with a view to providing better guidance to reporting police officers on the classification of e-bikes.
Asked by: Fabian Hamilton (Labour - Leeds North East)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment she has made of the potential implications for her policies of British Transport Police’s recent changes to its policies on responding to bicycle thefts at railway stations; and what steps she is taking to ensure that cycle security is prioritised for (a) promoting active travel and (b) supporting the her cycling and walking strategy.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Everyone should be confident in choosing active travel, including cycling, as part of their everyday journeys.
Ensuring the railway remains safe for passengers and staff, and creating a hostile environment for criminals on the network is a priority for both the Department for Transport and the British Transport Police (BTP). Decisions on the use of resource and deployment of officers across the railway are for the BTP, as an operationally independent police service.
I would like to reassure you that the BTP have not taken the decision to stop investigating bike theft that cannot be narrowed to a two-hour window, which was reported in the media. The BTP’s screening policy, introduced in August 2024, takes into account factors including the possible time window an incident could have taken place in, but also the availability of witnesses and CCTV, the realistic prospect of a successful outcome, and a range of other factors. In some instances this may mean that an investigation is not progressed, but there is no blanket ruling and each case is judged on its own merits.
Asked by: Fabian Hamilton (Labour - Leeds North East)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether her Department plans to introduce legislative proposals to extend the ban on pavement parking outside of London.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The Department held a consultation on pavement parking in 2020 and has been considering all the views expressed in response to the consultation and is currently working through the policy options and the possible legislative opportunities for delivering them. We will announce the next steps and publish our formal response as soon as possible. In the meantime, local authorities can make use of existing powers to restrict and enforce pavement parking.
Asked by: Fabian Hamilton (Labour - Leeds North East)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether she has considered the potential merits of a certification scheme for e-bikes to be carried on public transport; and whether she has had discussions with Transport for London on such a scheme.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
It is for transport operators to decide on their conditions of carriage, as safe duty holders, including whether to allow people to bring e-bikes onboard.
While I have therefore not discussed any form of certification scheme with Transport for London, Ministers and officials have regular discussions with TfL on a variety of issues, including on e-bike safety.
Asked by: Fabian Hamilton (Labour - Leeds North East)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, with reference to the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Cycling and Walking's report entitled Unregulated and unsafe: the threat of illegal e-Bikes, published in June 2025, whether her Department plans to support the introduction of scrappage schemes for unsafe (a) e-bikes and (b) conversion kits.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
While there are no plans to introduce a scrappage scheme, the Government is bringing forward the Product Regulation and Metrology Bill. This will enable the UK product safety framework to keep up with innovative products and technological progress, giving Ministers the power to update relevant product safety laws accordingly to tackle products that pose greater risks.
Asked by: Fabian Hamilton (Labour - Leeds North East)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether her Department plans to include measures to tackle the use of (a) illegal and (b) unregulated e-bikes in its Road Safety Strategy.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Only e-bikes that are fully compliant with the requirements of the Electrically Assisted Pedal Cycle Regulations 1983 are legal to use on the roads, and we recognise the risk to road safety of those e-bikes that are not compliant with regulations.
The Government treats road safety very seriously, and we are committed to reducing the numbers of those killed and injured on our roads. My Department is developing our Road Safety Strategy and will set out more detail in due course.
Asked by: Fabian Hamilton (Labour - Leeds North East)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether her Department is taking steps to encourage bus companies to install cycle racks on their vehicles in (a) rural and (b) other areas.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The government is committed to delivering better bus services that meet passengers’ needs, including in rural areas, and has set out ambitious plans to reform bus services, including through the Bus Services (No.2) Bill and investing over £1 billion to support and improve bus services. The majority of bus services operate on a commercial basis, and decisions about the management and design of their bus fleet are for bus operators to make, including whether to install cycle racks.
The government recognises that bus services are part of a wider transport ecosystem, and it is vital to view them in the context of an integrated transport network designed with passengers as the priority. We have announced plans to develop an Integrated National Transport Strategy to set the long-term vision for transport in England. This will focus on how transport should be designed, built and operated to better serve the people who use it and ensure that the transport network is complementary, including the interaction between different modes of travel.