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news
Cyclists in London (image: Tomek Baginski on Unsplash)“Unfair” Cycle to Work scheme “problems” need to be addressed, admits government minister
The Labour government has admitted that it “absolutely recognises” there are “problems” with the current Cycle to Work scheme, which MPs have claimed is “unfair” and excludes people on low incomes from buying a bike or taking up cycling.
Simon Lightwood, the current Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport, made the admission that Cycle to Work – which has been the subject of criticism from both active travel campaigners and cycling retailers in recent months – needs to be addressed during Thursday’s transport questions in the House of Commons.
In September, cycling and walking charity Sustrans published a report which found that 38 per cent of people in the UK on low incomes or in unemployment (or around 1.9 million people) are currently priced out of buying a bike due to the high costs and lack of discounts available.
Introduced in 1999, the UK government’s Cycle to Work employee benefit scheme offers a tax-friendly initiative which enables people to buy a bike and cycling accessories through salary sacrifice.
However, the initiative excludes anyone who would earn less than the minimum wage of £17,000 a year once the salary deductions are taken into account, as well as those who are not in work, self-employed, or work for a non-participating employer.
The consequence of the scheme’s minimum entry point, Sustrans pointed out, is that just 30 per cent of people on a low income or not in employment have access to a cycle. On the other hand, data from Sustrans’ Walking and Cycling Index found that 59 per cent of people in professional occupations have access to a bike.
To help mitigate this disparity, Sustrans has suggested the introduction of a voucher scheme offering a 40 per cent discount on new bike and accessory purchases for people on low incomes, which would work in parallel with the current Cycle to Work initiative and, the charity argues, reduce the burden on the NHS, cut the number of sick days taken across the UK, improve access to work and education, and boost the local economy.
> Can 50% of Brits really not afford to buy a bike? Cycling and affordability discussed
Today in the House of Commons, the SNP MP for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East Seamus Logan asked transport minister Simon Lightwood what the Labour government was doing to address the concerns highlighted by Sustrans.
“The brilliant Cycle to Work scheme runs across the four nations of the islands, but under current rules, it can’t be used if you earn less than £17,000 a year,” Logan said.
“This is almost certainly contributing to the fact that only 30 per cent of people on lower incomes have access to a cycle compared to 59 per cent on higher incomes, that’s almost double.
“Various solutions have been proposed, including Sustrans’ suggestion of a voucher giving 40 per cent off the cost of a cycle.
“Can the minister do anything to address this unfair situation and help our national governments to support people on lower incomes who would like to be able to take advantage of the Cycle to Work scheme?”
Simon Lightwood (Official portrait, UK Parliament)
Responding to the question, Lightwood, the MP for Wakefield and Rothwell, said: “I absolutely recognise the problems that we have with that scheme and will be working closely with our colleagues in the Treasury regarding that.
“I was delighted to be at the launch of the report by Sustrans in the Palace [of Westminster] a couple of weeks ago and will be paying careful attention to the recommendations that they have placed in that report.”
Announcing the publication of their report into “cycling inequality” last month, Sustrans CEO Xavier Brice said: “A new UK Government brings new opportunities. Their focus on the economy, opportunity and health is critical, and integrating transport with walking, wheeling and cycling must be a part of this. To include those at all economic levels in this is a priority, or we risk leaving two million people to the dangers of transport poverty.
“The UK has 11.7 million people earning less than £17,000 per year or not in employment. People in this group are much less likely to have access to a car compared to the general population. For those who do, rising costs are making it unaffordable to run.
“The opportunity to get more people cycling is right here for the taking. The Cycle to Work scheme has existed for 25 years. Why shouldn’t the same opportunities be extended to the people that need it most – now?
“Using the Cycling Opportunity voucher scheme, we can tackle this inequality together and enjoy the benefits together too; for our bank accounts, our NHS and our environment.”
While Sustrans have suggested the creation of a scheme parallel to Cycle to Work, the initiative itself has come under strain over the past year, after senior figures from the cycling retail world met with MPs in January to make their case about the “need for urgent systematic change”.
The meeting came two months after the Association of Cycle Traders and bike shops hit out at one of the scheme’s main providers, Cyclescheme, for deciding to prevent retailers from charging additional fees on bikes purchased using the scheme, a move described by the representative of independent cycle retailers as the “straw that broke the camel’s back”.
“The ACT is calling for a collaboration of everyone in the cycle industry to work together to reform Cycle to Work as the priority growth strategy for the cycle trade and to increase cycling for all,” the association’s director Jonathan Harrison told the All Party Parliamentary Group for Cycling and Walking earlier this year.
Highlighting challenges for retailers with the current operation, he added that the scheme is too complicated: “Typically, the employer pays for the voucher, the provider owns the bike, the worker hires the bike, the voucher is paid back via salary sacrifice and there is often a misinterpretation around ownership and many users never truly understand how the scheme actually works.
“The end of the initial hire period is another area of complication which needs reviewing. Typically, workers enter an extended hire period after salary sacrifice finishes. During the extended hire period the bicycle was still owned by the provider, with some providers charging fees providing an additional source of income whilst others do not. Often these fees come as a surprise to the end user.”
Most importantly, Harrison suggested that the scheme no longer fits the purpose for which it was originally intended – to get people cycling to work.
After obtaining a PhD, lecturing, and hosting a history podcast at Queen’s University Belfast, Ryan joined road.cc in December 2021 and since then has kept the site’s readers and listeners informed and enthralled (well at least occasionally) on news, the live blog, and the road.cc Podcast. After boarding a wrong bus at the world championships and ruining a good pair of jeans at the cyclocross, he now serves as road.cc’s senior news writer. Before his foray into cycling journalism, he wallowed in the equally pitiless world of academia, where he wrote a book about Victorian politics and droned on about cycling and bikes to classes of bored students (while taking every chance he could get to talk about cycling in print or on the radio). He can be found riding his bike very slowly around the narrow, scenic country lanes of Co. Down.
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55 comments
I have to say, my experience of schemes has been nothing like as complicated as that. Admittedly it was me who actually set the scheme up (company owner said "Mark, we need a bike scheme, pick one and set us up please"). I just went through GCI, for smaller companies there's the "Instant GCI" option, it took less than an hour to sort out.
Apparently we used GCI too
And it can get even more complicated than that - our scheme is only open for about two weeks twice a year, so you have to get all the moving parts to fall into place at just the right time to actually it processed through the scheme.
As a low income person I can tell you that a 40% discount on a bike still leaves me excluded and by a very large amount.
I have to say, I find that absolutely astonishing -- that really anyone cannot afford a bicycle. Admittedly, I am nowhere close to low-income, and I own a bunch of bicycles, but I also routinely pick up free bikes that are in rideable condition -- albeit dirty, and in need of a bath. There's a charity organization that collects unwanted bikes by the hundred, and ships them off to Africa in full 40-foot containers.
How much does a bicycle cost in your locale, such that anyone can be a large amount short of affording one?
Perhaps there's a business model for someone who is interested in collecting free bikes in my area, and shipping them to yours, for resale.
I don't think that the C2W scheme - to allow people to salary-sacrifice to get a new bike - helps when buying a cheap used bike, does it? And many people do find it difficult to save money, even the (relatively) small amounts required for a second-hand bike.
Most of the current C2W scheme providers don't permit you to buy 2nd hand bikes on the scheme, although at least one I know (GCI) does so it's not inherent in the legislation. However, even GCI requires 2nd hand bikes to come with a minimum 1 year warranty, which rules out most of the really cheap fixer-upper types. That restriction is probably fair enough - after all, the scheme provider is technically hiring you the bike for the duration of the scheme, so to some extent the provider has an obligation to ensure the bike is fit for purpose for that entire period (even though you are responsible for maintainance).
That said, I think there is a good argument that this scheme fills a significant gap in the current situation even if it wouldn't benefit everyone. There are already numerous charities (mostly operating on a local basis) that refurbish bikes and give them out or sell them for peanuts to help the poorest people. I think this proposed new scheme is aimed at helping the cohort above that - those with low incomes who can't access existing C2W schemes, but aren't completely broke. You can get perfectly adequate, new bikes from ~£500 (https://road.cc/buyers-guide/best-hybrid-bikes) so with 40% off that would be £300. Not a trivial amount of money, but an amount that is probably manageable by a significant proportion of the reported 11.7 million people not currently eligible for C2W schemes, and would quickly pay for itself in fuel savings or bus fare savings.
The 40% (it's actually 42%) discount can only achieved by people on higher rate tax, for the low income situation you describe, on a basic rate tax bracket, the discount is 28%. This used to be slightly higher but the recent reductions in NI rates have effectively reduced the discount percentage.
The 40% relates to the voucher scheme proposed by Sustrans that would be available to people on low incomes.
Ah, understood.
Something along those lines should be added to the scheme. It breaks my heart the number of abandoned bikes I see in my neighborhood. If charities or businesses that fix them up properly and make them affordable can benefit from the scheme, that's the change the scheme needs.
My employer (Decathlon) now offers it's '2nd Life' bikes thorugh both GCI and Cyclescheme - they come with the same warranty as new bikes.
Perhaps not, I wouldn't know -- but the point is, bicycles are incredibly cheap. Quite often available in my area for free, potentially plus a little elbow grease to clean it up, if need be.
How, exactly, can a person be a "large amount" short of affording something that cheap? Tisn't possible.
I think I also said, which isn't in your quote, that a lot of people don't have the savings or the spare disposable income to buy even a 'cheap' bike, or to be able to save for one...
Again, bicycles are routinely given-away for free in many areas. Acquiring a good that is often given-away for free does not require spare disposable income, nor savings. They are given-away in such quantity in some countries that hundreds of thousands are shipped to places like Africa, where they are actually scarce and valuable. https://www.villagebicycleproject.org/ alone have sent 142,000 donated bikes to Africa, and they aren't the only ones doing that. https://www.bikesfortheworld.org/ have apparently received a further 201,159 donated bicycles.
Untold thousands more are simply scrapped for the minimal value of their metal parts. Every time I see a junk trunk tooling around a neighborhood, it has at least one bicycle and often several on it.
Great, if you happen to live in one of those areas. Unfortunately, many of us don't; in London free bikes are definitely available but there are so many people wanting them that they are very difficult to get hold of. I can say this from personal experience: the three times I have given away a bike publicly (twice ones that were surplus to requirements and once one I found abandoned and I thought was too nice to be junked so did it up and gave it away) I was inundated with interest, literally 30 or 40 messages within 12 hours of putting it on Gumtree (UK equivalent of Craigslist (I think)). Additionally to that, many of the people getting bikes on the C2W scheme will be new to cycling or coming back to cycling for the first time since they were kids and quite likely won't have the tools, time or expertise to fix up a bike themselves. They will be looking for something they know is 100% reliable and safe and with the reassurance of a warranty if anything does go wrong. Others may have a commute that's too long for them on a mechanical bike and so will be looking to get an E bike; I've never seen one of those being given away but they are available under the C2W scheme. Don't assume that just because the scheme wouldn't necessarily suit you or be needed for someone in your particular part of America that it's not rather valuable for many other people in many parts of the UK.
Perhaps we can get one or two charities to redirect their shipping containers from Africa, to the needy folks in London.
First, nothing is 100% reliable or safe. Certainly no means of transport is. That's a red herring.
Second, you are arguing against a range of points that I did not make, nor even address. I said nothing about your scheme. I said nothing about long commutes -- although, since you brought them up, please explain the means by which these long commutes are undertaken for free.
I simply said that bicycles are extremely cheap -- indeed commonly-available for free. Therefore it is effectively impossible for one to be a "large amount" short of the ability to acquire one.
>> Review: Silca Elbow Grease 50ml - £275
There's a scheme near me set up by a local charity. They rescue unwanted bikes, do them up and sell them to the community at whatever price people can afford. But it's nothing to do with the Cycle to Work scheme.
I think VIPcyclist's point was another angle on the fact that Cycle to Work benefits high earners disproportionately: the very opposite of a progressive income tax system that our systems are based on. As a self-employed person who now has to work part-time because of long covid, I stick with old bikes now. I'd love a way to get 40 per cent off a new machine sometime, but it ain't gonna happen.
Again, if "unwanted bikes" are available for rescue, then this is not a expensive good that we are discussing -- which is my point. How, exactly, can one be a "large amount" short of buying a good that is routinely given away for free due to being unwanted?
I am actually doing basically what you describe with a rescued, unwanted bike right now -- except that I'm making it a far nicer than it needs to be and have sprayed a high-end paint job on it and am replacing most of the parts. I doubt seriously I'll get back even the money I've spent on it -- and it remains plausible that I will still have to give it away, even in outstanding condition -- but hopefully it is sufficiently-nice that someone puts miles on it, instead of it heading to a landfill, which was my motivation.
Well if so, they should have said that. They did not, they said "As a low income person I can tell you that a 40% discount on a bike still leaves me excluded and by a very large amount."
That statement does not jibe with the bicycle market in any location known to me. If there is such a place, let me know where it is, so I can ship the aforementioned bike there and profit.
While we're talking about barriers I think it would be good if powered wheelchairs and mobility scooters could use the cycle network. Not sure were they'd fall on the hierarchy of road users though.
You're right. Depends on classification for where they can go (e.g. road, footway) but many (all) aren't allowed on cycle facilities.. I think there's some sensible thought behind the classifications but it needs an overhaul. Not least - cycles are not classed as mobility vehicles!
Contrast the Dutch arrangement where it seems to be much simpler:
a) pedestrians are by law always (?) allowed to use cycle paths and
b) there is explicit guidance that e.g. wheelchairs, adapted cycles and the whole zoo of mobility vehicles (including Cantas) are allowed on cycle paths. The only exception being if you were trying to use a higher-powered motor scooter as such.
However since infra in the UK is still such a mess perhaps such clarity of rules might not help the reality.
First far too much of the UK "cycle network" is currently "roads with too much traffic / speed limit above 20mph / bus lanes / cycle lanes on road not cycle paths off-road" as well as just "UK-grade roads with all kinds of holes and obstacles". And thus far from ideal for able-bodied folks on bikes with large wheels never mind others...
So "legacy infra" and/or barriers on the edges of schemes might still stop people. (At least some people are actively considering solutions e.g. here).
Cycle lanes are also compulsory for cyclists in the Netherlands. I'm not sure I'd welcome that change in the UK, even if infrastructure was improved.
*Klaxon sound* "cycle lanes" aha, sort of a double trick question. In fact john_smith brought that one up over on another thread.
Trick because technically I believe you're correct - cycle lanes are mandatory to use...
BUT a) there aren't many (see this article about them) b) many people conflate "cycle lanes" with "separate cycle paths" which are generally extremely good (compared with anything in the UK).
Now ... some (but not all) of those are mandatory to use (rather than the road) (see midway down this article). But generally they are more convenient than the road (e.g. fewer traffic lights for one, even priority at some urban roundabouts).
And as David Hembrow pointed out while it's understandable that some cyclists outside NL have a fear of "being excluded from the roads" for most people that's the reality already - they're simply not cycling. Given the quality of infra in NL it would be the equivalent of walking in the road (presumably yelling "You can't exclude or stop me! It's my right to be here!" - and stopping at traffic lights...) rather than using a great footway.
Of course the notion that the UK's infra could be improved to Dutch levels within most lifetimes seems ... rather far fetched. (But even say a couple of decades of a genuine adoption of a "sustainable safety" policy and prioritising active travel * could see "mass cycling" becoming a reality in parts of the UK. It happened in Seville...).
* Cycling basically - as you get walking for free.
Finally the majority of "cycle infra" by length in NL is in fact ... the streets! They've just been "calmed" in many places eg. not made "thru routes" for motor vehicles but this is usually facilitated for cycling. If certain groups hadn't seized upon "LTN" as a buzzword and started creating conspiracy theories we could (continue to) be doing that more widely in the UK...
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