Motorcycling: Government Support

Ian Paisley Excerpts

Tuesday 26th October 2021 Westminster Hall

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship today, Mr Robertson. I congratulate the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Bill Wiggin) on putting this important matter on our agenda. I want to speak on three points about motorcycling: sport, support and safety. I also want to add to the hon. Gentleman’s point on strategy, which is very important.

I declare an interest as an office holder of the all-party parliamentary motorcycling group. It is the most collegiate APPG in the House. We never discuss Brexit or remain, Scottish nationalism or Ulster Unionism; we discuss our favourite subject, motorcycling, and what we can do to promote, enhance and encourage it. I encourage any Member who wants to learn about proper collegiate activity in Parliament to join the motorcycling APPG to get a fresh view of people’s attitude to politics. It is very refreshing. I am also a member of MAG, which was mentioned by the hon. Gentleman, and I will comment on it in a moment.

Motorcycle sport contributes very significantly to our culture and identity. Too often, it is ignored when we think of the activities of some of our most spectacular sporting heroes, whether that is Carl Fogarty from GB or Jonathan Rea from Northern Ireland, who has dominated world superbikes more than anyone in the history of that sport. That is incredible and we should take a moment to pay tribute to those people.

My constituency is synonymous with road racing, with the Dunlop brothers and their nephews, William and Michael. They made a considerable contribution to people’s understanding of comradeship, sport, prowess and athleticism right at the pinnacle of motorcycle sport. These people have led and controlled it.

[Sammy Wilson]

Does my hon. Friend accept that while this country, especially Northern Ireland, has produced some world-renowned motorcyclists, the sport attracts hundreds of thousands of adherents and supporters? It is not only good for local economies but for tourism.

[Ian Paisley]

My right hon. Friend has obviously been reading my notes, which is very unfair of him––do not read them any more. Sporting tourism is huge in Northern Ireland. He talked about people visiting sporting races. Almost 40,000 people go to an average round of the British superbikes and in some cases more, depending on the size of the track. In the North West 200, just outside my constituency in East Londonderry, over 100,000 spectators will visit in a week in May. It will contribute £12 million to the economy of Northern Ireland. The Ulster grand prix attracts tens of thousands of people and contributes about £7 million to the economy. Those are not insignificant figures for the economy. The hotels and cafes could not do without them. Those events are a significant driver of tourism.

Our sporting heroes need to be properly recognised. It disheartens me year on year when I see the achievements of people like Jonathan Rea not honoured by the BBC in its sporting pinnacle programme about celebrities in sport and its main sporting achievement award. That insults what these gladiators on two wheels achieve, because they put their lives at risk. They do it for our enjoyment because we enjoy the spectacle, but it is an incredibly dangerous sport, though it is obviously very well managed. We must ensure that the sport is supported and that young people are encouraged through motocross into the other, faster rounds of motorcycle sport.

May I turn briefly to support for motorcycling? The hon. Member for North Herefordshire talked of the need for a national strategy. I agree but the state of our roads is key in this. Bikers are voters. Those millions of people who take to motorcycling or ride scooters or whatever else are ultimately voters. We should ensure that the roads that they use are safe and properly tarmacked and that the barriers are not lethal but designed to cope not only with motor cars but with motorcyclists. It is essential that we have proper support in place for those riders.

We must also look at the issue of tech and tech support. British motorcycling and motorcycles have had a number of boom years. Consider the Triumph company over the past 20 years. It was started up again after years in the doldrums and is now one of the most successful brands in motorcycling. I am fortunate to own a Triumph motorcycle, as I have for tens of years. It is a fantastic bike. The brand itself is now incredibly desirable. It says Britishness around the world. It is a marketing tool that can be used around the world for superb engineering. The company is now developing electric scooters and cycles. That may not be something we necessarily look forward to––the smell of petrol is in our blood. However, we could be world leaders in the area of new tech and driving electric bikes if we make sure there is proper investment, encouragement and support from the Government. Of course, there are many other brands of British bike that Members can also use.

The third matter that I want to speak about briefly is safety, which has been touched on brilliantly by the hon. Member for North Herefordshire. Motorcyclists, I believe, are much more alert to this issue than car drivers. A young person on a motorcycle who is taught to drive it safely will be a much more alert car driver when they eventually get behind the wheel of one: they are much more alert to the traffic around them, because they are used to constantly looking around them and being aware. They are also alert to the fact that if they come off a motorcycle and hit concrete or tarmac, it hurts. Therefore, they do not want to be in a situation where they either put people into tarmac or concrete, or crash their car.

While we cannot make motorcycling compulsory, we should look at encouraging young people to get on a motorcycle, to understand how it is used and to be much more aware of the openness of being on the road, which will have an impact on their insurance premium and encourage them to be much wiser and skilful car drivers. Motorcycling is a gateway into safer driving generally, and we should work on that and encourage it in some way; I think that should be in the strategy.

[Sammy Wilson]

Does my hon. Friend also accept that motorcycling is one of the cheaper ways for young people to gain mobility at an early age? For some, it releases them to be able to gain wider employment opportunities. For others, it means more recreational opportunities as well. It is the first and the cheapest way for a young person to gain mobility, and for that reason it should be encouraged. Does my hon. Friend agree it is significant that the delays in the testing regime put people off?

[Ian Paisley]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention. It is absolutely true if people decide to get on to a motorcycle, we should make sure they are encouraged to ride it safely, and if they want to get their test and move up the grades of motorcycle, there should be no impediment placed in their way: they should be encouraged to do so.

My happiest moments as a kid were spent on the back of my brother-in-law’s motorcycle, going to places, enjoying the freedom that that offered and the opportunities that were available to us. Those happy moments are shared across this nation by many people who have got on a motorcycle at a young age and never looked back. I hope that this House can do more to encourage motorcycling—to encourage safety on motorcycles, sporting prowess, and support for biking.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kerry McCarthy]

I have been invited to Motorcycle Live in December in Birmingham to have the opportunity to ride some of the new electric bikes, so I may decide to do that. Former Member Hazel Blears, who I think is 4 feet 10 inches—I am not tall, but she is considerably shorter than me—was a keen biker, which shows that it can be done. Perhaps I should take up the challenge.

I will flag up a number of issues. The hon. Member for North Herefordshire talked about road repairs and presented a rather rosy picture of the amount of funding. It is important for motorcyclists that we keep roads in a good condition, but the money has been cut. The Government promised £1.5 billion to repair damage on roads across the country in the financial year 2020-21, but that was cut to £1.125 billion in the following financial year. Pothole funding was due to be cut by an average 23%, and overall total spending on roads maintenance would drop by an average 22%.

We can compare that with the massive Government road-building programme. It is important that we should not just be looking at building new roads, but at making sure the roads we have are kept in good condition. The insurance industry has raised that point with me. The vast majority of the claims it pays out are caused not by driver error but by the condition of the roads.

As it stands, it will take 11 years and £11 billion to clear the backlog of potholes. On National Pothole Day in January this year, the Chancellor tweeted,

“enjoy #NationalPotholeDay before they’re all gone...”

He was boasting about how much money is going into addressing the problem, but we could be marking National Pothole Day for quite some time to come at the current rate. Perhaps we will get some good news about road repair funding tomorrow.

I agree with the hon. Member for North Herefordshire that safety is incredibly important. The hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) spoke about electric motorbikes, which I will come to a bit later. He also spoke about the smell of petrol and his colleague, the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson), mentioned the noise. Those things are part of the thrill, as motorcycle organisations have said to me. I totally get that, but when a cyclist is in that little space in front of the cars at the traffic lights, sometimes people on motorbikes do not act as responsibly as they could and are not aware that bike users are more vulnerable than them. For the cyclist, they have a bigger vehicle pushing in front of them, and the smell is not great. The sooner we can move to cleaner vehicles the better.

[Ian Paisley]

The hon. Member makes an important point. Once electric bikes become the fastest bikes, whether that is for motocross or as a track bike, that will become the pinnacle of the sport and that is where people will ultimately move. Encouraging tech design will create safety and environmental change.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention.

On the points made by the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker), there is a really interesting discussion to be had. The modal shift is important. Why have we not moved to moped use in the way that, say, France or Italy has? It is not as commonplace in this country—perhaps it is the weather. There is an interesting debate about road space and how we use it. We are starting to see e-scooters on our roads, there are more people cycling and a lot of town planning wants priority bus lanes. All of that raises questions about who gets to use priority lanes, whether we have segregation, who is entitled to use the segregated lanes and what that means for cars—what road space is left for cars? I think we will be addressing those points more and more in the years to come.

Finally, I want to talk about the need to decarbonise—an issue that the industry has contacted me about. Support for the industry so far, in terms of decarbonisation, has been pretty limited. The plug-in motorcycle grant, which helps support the sale of low-emission bikes, is £1,500 at the moment—less than for cars. The funding is guaranteed only up to March 2023. I was going to ask the Minister whether the Government plan to keep the grant beyond that date or, as is the case with the car plug-in grant, to reduce it year on year, but as we have the Budget tomorrow, I suspect I know what her answer would be. Could she answer this question instead? In the transport decarbonisation plan, the Government promised an action plan for zero-emission light-powered vehicles by the end of the year. We have not seen any sign of that yet. Will it be published before the end of the year?

The 2030 ban on new petrol and diesel vehicles was announced back in November 2020. We are still waiting for the publication of the promised consultation on a 2035 ban on petrol motorbikes. There are also currently no Government targets for regulating the CO₂ produced by motorbikes, unlike for cars and vans. That raises a few questions. Why are the Government allowing polluting petrol motorbikes to be sold until 2035, when there is a 2030 date for petrol cars? Will the Minister give an update on when those consultations and so on will be published?

It is really important that the transition to zero-emission vehicles is smooth. I welcome the Government’s recent announcement that they will introduce a zero-emissions vehicle mandate, but there was no mention of motorcycle manufacturers in the summary, despite the 2035 commitment to banning new petrol motorbikes and the suggestion that plug-in grant support may end sooner than that, in 2023. Will the Minister explain whether the Government want to offer the same support to motorcycle manufacturers as they are to EV car manufacturers, through the electric car mandate, which will encourage them to make the shift to producing cleaner vehicles sooner? If not, why are motorcycle manufacturers being left out?

I will conclude on that point because I am keen to hear from the Minister. It has been good to hear people’s enthusiasm today. We certainly want motorcycles to continue on our roads, but they do need to move with the times. I hope the Minister will tell us more about how they can do that.