It occurs to me that after Holland, which has long had a better set-up for cycling and one which would be difficult to impement in this country, the UK must be the most densely populated and built-up country in Europe. It also must have a very much higher car-ownership than most of them. This makes life harder for people who might like to ride a bike but are too put off by the sheer density of traffic on our generally narrow roads. I don't know what the answer is but I don't the figures are a cause for despair at all. Given the conditions, I think an astonishingly high number of people ride!
Peter, you're on fragile ground.
The Dutch set-up for cycling was the result of a political decision about 3 decades ago. AIUI it was a national government decision, but ICBW.
It's not a decision that I can forsee any UK government making after the next election.
Nevertheless I'll agree that "our generally narrow roads" are a huge constraint. The traffic engineers have spent the last few decades devising and implemnting schemes that maximise the throughput of motor traffic, regardless of the damage to the rest of society. Many roads have become narrower because residents have become entitled to park outside or near to their homes. In Birmingham, some of those roads are arterial routes that really ought to have bus lanes. But there isn't enough road width for a bus lane, never mind a scheme that would allow timed bus lanes to match the flow of people during the rush hour.
The cycling statistics, as presented, are a bit too simplistic, given a very hetergenerous population of utility cyclists in England (I can't speak for other parts of the UK).
Personal observation is that the number of commuters on bikes in parts of central London saturates the cycling facilities during rush hour.
I haven't seen numbers of cyclists like that in the West Midlands since the 1960s.
Neverthless I'd guess that the number of cyclists in Solihull is very roughly 10 times as many as it was 2 decades ago. It's a pity that about a quarter ride on the footway and seem to assume that they have the same rights as pedestrians