Hansard

I do not know whether the member wants me to nominate members who should be on the top floor, but I will certainly have a look at his suggestion.

We also need to look carefully at road safety. What does the evidence tell us about trends in road safety for pedestrians? Since 2008, pedestrian casualties have fallen by a quarter, but it is worrying that fatalities have increased by a third. The majority of the casualties occurred in built-up areas where the speed limits are up to 40mph. The majority occur in the winter and in the evening. At weekends, the casualty peak times for adults were between midnight and 2am.

Very concerning for me as a road safety campaigner was the number of pedestrian casualties, more than a quarter of whom were aged under 16. In 2012, 60 per cent of the casualties were male. The UK Department for Transport figures show that the annual pedestrian KSI—killed or seriously injured—figure for the UK has been rising recently. Using those statistics, the DFT concludes that walking is more dangerous than travelling in a car.

There are solutions, of course. I do not have time to talk about the graduate driving approach, in which I am actively interested. We need to develop road safety education in schools, safe walkways for schools and better designed walkways in towns, cities and rural areas.

What are the environmental benefits of increasing active travel? My colleague Claudia Beamish will go into a lot more detail about that in her contribution, but we clearly need a modal shift if we are going to reach our 2020 target on emissions.

The Scottish Government included active travel as one of the means by which to reach our 2020 target on lower emissions. Substituting short carbon-polluting car journeys with walking or cycling is a relatively easy early gain. It is also important to note that it would have a knock-on effect on air pollution, to which are attributed more than 2,000 deaths a year in Scotland.

It is important that we look not just at the numbers but at the human stories of how bad air quality can have a detrimental effect on people’s quality of life. We should think of the small child who has asthma walking to school while inhaling emissions from the exhausts of the cars of their schoolmates’ parents. Safety at the school gates would be greatly improved if more people made the trip on foot or by bike. I know that it is not possible for everyone to leave the car at home, especially in remote and rural areas, but we do need a change in culture and mindset. Active travel is good for a healthier life balance and the environment.

I will also briefly touch on how active travel can have positive effects on the economy and personal finances. It is interesting to note that, according to the national household survey, 22 per cent of households earning less than £10,000 a year use walking as the main method of transport while only 8 per cent of households whose earnings exceed £40,000 do so. Car ownership has been steadily increasing but 30 per cent of households still do not have access to a car; many of those are low-income households.

Many people without cars rely on active travel methods to get to work or school, but they are faced with unnecessary obstacles and dangers such as badly lit walkways and cycle paths. That means that not all spending on active travel benefits all members of society; it particularly benefits those who do not have the option of travelling by car.

The Scottish Government vision for 2030 has an ambitious plan to increase active travel by 20 per cent and a target of 10 per cent for all journeys to be made by bike by the year 2020. We share that ambition. Is the minister confident that those targets can be met? What obstacles need to be overcome?

The figures on walking illustrate that little has changed since 1999, which means that there is a slight downward trajectory. There is clearly a bit of room for improvement here. The figures for cycling show a similar trend. We need to encourage people from all walks of life and of all ages to regard cycling as a reliable and safe means of transport. We have to ensure that young children get the opportunity to learn how to cycle in a safe and encouraging environment so that cycling becomes part of their lives as adults. We have already heard from Claudia Beamish about the importance of bikeability Scotland and having on-road experience.

I recall Merkinch school in Inverness in 1965 where I got the cycling proficiency certificate. I assure Alex Johnstone that that is not my only certificate—I am working on that.

It is clear that we need to do a lot more work to create a nation of walkers and cyclists. We need investment to ensure that people feel confident and able to leave their car behind for a pair of shoes or a bike. We also need to improve road safety, which is why I welcome the Scottish Government commitment to increase the active travel budget in 2015-16 and the cabinet secretary’s commitment to an additional £10 million investment in cycling and walking infrastructure. Those are good headline figures and I welcome what the Government has put forward, but we need more than that. Currently, there is little information on where exactly the money will be spent and how much will go directly to improving infrastructure. I would be grateful if, in his winding-up, the minster would give us a bit more detail.

The campaign group Spokes has highlighted its concerns that only half the £10 million additional funding will go on improving infrastructure. It is also concerned that the ring-fenced budget that has been given to our local authorities for cycling and walking routes is being cut from £8.2 million to £8 million in the current budget, which could have dramatic effects on local authorities’ abilities to improve cycling and walking. We know that there are funding pressures for local government, but I flag up that there is best practice on promoting cycling and walking, with the Labour-led City of Edinburgh Council being a prime example in that regard.

I welcome this debate and stress Scottish Labour’s strong support for active travel. We believe that making walking and cycling more accessible will make a substantial contribution to addressing the physical health and mental health problems in Scotland. We welcome assurances from the minister that funding is available to meet the ambitions of the various strategy documents, such as those for the cycling action plan, active travel and the national walking strategy. As Lao Tzu said,

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

I move amendment S4M-11980.1, to insert at end:

“; acknowledges that the number of people participating in active travel has remained relatively stagnant and more needs to be done to increase the number of people cycling and walking as a normal means of transport through improving infrastructure, promotion activities and road safety, and calls on the Scottish Government to set out how the active travel budget for 2015-16 will be spent, in particular the proportion that will be allocated to cycling and walking infrastructure”.