Meeting of the Parliament 07 January 2015
I fear that the debate will be somewhat repetitive.
We hear a great deal in the Parliament about the increasing levels of obesity in Scotland; the health demands of our rapidly growing elderly population; the persistent health inequalities in our society; and the serious health risks of an inactive lifestyle. The latter are indeed stark, as statistics show that seven deaths occur every day in Scotland due to inactivity. Many of them are premature. There is therefore a huge benefit to be had from getting people out of their cars and on to their feet or their bikes. All the problems that I have just mentioned can be helped by increasing the level of our activity as a nation.
Walking has no personal financial cost. It is the most common physical activity and it has many proven health benefits, as we have heard. It helps to maintain bone density; it can reduce the severity of dementia; it reduces cardiovascular diseases by up to 30 per cent; it reduces the risk of some cancers; and it helps to alleviate depression and high blood pressure. Indeed, it has been shown to cut overall mortality rates by up to 20 per cent. Given that obesity is currently estimated to cost the national health service more than £300 million a year, we can judge the significant financial benefits to be gained from improving our national health by increasing our physical activity.
In a country in which more than a third of women and nearly a quarter of men do not have a driving licence and 22 per cent of households with an income of less than £10,000 a year use walking as their main mode of transport, policies to support walking will disproportionately support low-income households. That has to be a good thing. The more people use active travel, the more they are likely to walk for pleasure and recreation. With fewer cars on local roads, routes to school and local facilities will become safer for all age groups—especially for children—and older people will be able to feel more in touch with their communities.
Active travel encourages access to shops and services in local centres and so helps to support local economies. As we know, it also serves to cut carbon emissions and other pollution in our communities. Surely that is an all-round win-win situation.
So far, I have mentioned the benefits only of walking, because that is what I personally relate to most, but cycling, too, has enormous health and social benefits, of course.
What I have said so far is well known to policy makers. During the Scottish Parliament’s existence, successive Governments and all parties have been committed to promoting active travel as a measure to develop a more active and healthier population. Various strategies have been put in place to try to achieve that ambition. As the motion states, the national cycle network has been in place for 20 years. The first cycling action plan for Scotland was published in 2010 and was refreshed in 2013, and last year saw the launch of the first national walking strategy as part of the legacy of the Commonwealth games. The active travel vision for 2030 has been articulated. It shows how Scotland will look by then if more people in Scotland are walking and cycling on a regular basis instead of using powered transport.
How close are we to achieving that ambitious vision? Sadly, not very, if we look at current trends as laid out in the briefing sent to us by Living Streets and Paths for All. The Government’s national performance indicator on increasing the proportion of journeys to work that are made by public or active transport has decreased from 31.2 to 30.7 per cent. In 2013, only 23 per cent of such journeys were made on foot, even though half of all of them were of less than 3km.
The number of children walking to school is stuck at about 50 per cent, with 20 per cent of morning peak traffic still taking children to school, although most primary school children live less than 1.5 miles from their school. I can of course understand parents’ fear of traffic when their children want to walk or cycle to school, but the more cars are used for school transport, the busier the traffic will be, especially in an area with rapidly increasing housing development, as there is where I live.
Sadly, commuter cycling rates remain very low. The rate in Aberdeen, for example, has increased by only 1 per cent since 1999 to 3 per cent last year, which is nowhere near the Government’s 10 per cent cycle share target for 2020. As we know, Edinburgh is doing better at 6.6 per cent, following specific financial investment, but it is still well behind the target, too.
Funding is clearly an issue for walking and cycling if the Government’s vision is to come near achievement. Local authorities receive Government funding for the development of pedestrian infrastructure, but details of how that money is spent are not available, because it is generally counted as expenditure on roads. Government money is also used for a wide range of sustainable travel initiatives, such as car clubs and cycling infrastructure projects, so it is hard to establish what the Government spends on walking.
Revenue and capital funding for cycling comes from the Scottish Government and local authorities—revenue funding comes under a number of budget headings—and there is a lack of clarity about where it is spent, which hinders efforts to deliver the Government’s goals. I believe that the cycling, walking and safer streets fund, which is a key source of finance for local authorities to implement active travel and infrastructure projects and is allocated to councils on a per capita basis, has been decreased from £8.2 million last year to £8 million.