Pedicabs (London) Bill [HL]

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Monday 11th December 2023 Grand Committee

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall be brief. Amendment 28 in my name is a probing amendment because I do not understand something. Clause 2(10) says:

“Pedicab regulations may … confer a discretion on Transport for London”


and

“confer power on Transport for London to authorise others to carry out functions under the regulations on their behalf”.

One could be very suspicious about that, or it may just be something that allows TfL to subcontract things. However, I would be pleased if the Minister could explain which it is because “discretion” can cover a wide variety of things.

I will speak briefly to Amendments 38 and 39 in my name, which are to do with consistency between the powers to immobilise and seize pedicabs and those available for motor vehicles. Clause 3(6) allows for pedicab regulations to authorise the

“immobilisation, seizure, retention and disposal of pedicabs that contravene, or are used in contravention of, the regulations”.

Of course, I do not object to any of that, but I hope that it will be taken by the Government and TfL as the sanctions being available only in serious cases. In theory, a pedicab could potentially be confiscated for minor offences, including those that might be committed unwittingly—you can see TfL doing that to a taxi driver who has contravened the regulations unwittingly. I hope the Minister will give me some comfort on that.

I beg to move.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, this is the first chance I have had to speak in this debate as I was involved in other business in another part of the House. I am delighted to be here at all since I was meant to travel yesterday; I think I must have reached a record in that three trains I was booked on were cancelled. I am just delighted to be here to discuss pedicabs—if I had taken a pedicab from the north of England, it might have been quicker to get here, but then I would not have been insured.

I welcome this Bill but, as the debates on earlier groups of amendments have shown, it does not go far enough in its current form. I will speak to Amendments 32, 35 and 36 in my name. I believe that these amendments are necessary because, on a reading of the Bill—in particular Clause 3(2)(a)—the penalties are simply not strong enough to reflect the gravity of a casualty that could occur through the use of a pedicab.

I may be raising points made earlier; I apologise that I could not be here for debates on earlier groups. When I did arrive, I listened very carefully to my noble friend, whom I congratulate on his new position, which is a very welcome role for him. He stated that existing legislation applies to e-scooters. I put it to him that the existing legislation is not being applied to e-scooters, e-bikes and regular bikes. I pray in aid the tragic case of Kim Briggs, the wife of Matt Briggs, who was simply crossing the road when an illegal bike with no brakes fitted at all knocked her down and killed her. At the moment, there are insufficient penalties. The offender was successfully prosecuted for her death, which was a direct result of the injuries that she sustained, but he could not be put away for anything other than the current minuscule offences in the Road Traffic Act.

Avid readers of the Order Paper will have noted that in the last three parliamentary Sessions I have tried to bring forward a Private Member’s Bill to plug that gap. The closest I came, sadly, was in the year when we were dealing with so many regulations relating to Covid that, as noble Lords will recall, no Private Members’ Bills were covered at all. Is my noble friend really satisfied that the existing regulations that apply to e-scooters, e-bikes and bikes are being applied? Why is it that on a daily basis in London, which is the remit of this Bill, and other parts of the country, people are being knocked down, sustaining serious injuries and in some cases being killed on pavements—which is strictly illegal for e-bikes, e-scooters and regular bikes?

The regulations are not being respected. If we stick with these pitiful, woeful enforcement measures in Clause 2, can my noble friend tell the Committee—I pay tribute to his years of service in the police force—who will monitor this? Will TfL have agents on the street to ensure that, for pedicabs, which are covered by this Bill, the measures that will be covered by these woeful, small penalties will be enforced? Who will it be? If it is not TfL—I hazard a guess that it will not be; it will be the British Transport Police or the Met Police—and they will not apply the regulations that already apply to e-bikes, e-scooters and regular bikes, who on earth imagines that they will apply them to pedicabs? Who is telling them to do this? I know this was mentioned earlier and I regret that I was not here to participate in that debate, but why are the Government not taking charge for this Bill, as I understand they did for other aspects of road traffic Acts in the past?

Clearly, the regulations that currently apply to e-bikes, e-scooters and bikes are not working. My noble friend said that there was no legislative time to bring in the next raft of regulations that will apply to them. Here we have it; we have a Bill before us today that is going through the House very quickly, with one day in Committee. Why, pray God, can we not attach it to this Bill, to prevent any further accidents and casualties on our pavements and other parts of the road?

My noble friend pointed out that you have to be licensed and insured to drive an e-scooter on private land, as is currently the case. I understand the level of casualties to be high—unfortunately I was not organised enough to bring the reply from my noble friend Lord Sharpe in this regard—but the Government do not keep the figures, so we simply do not know how many fines or penalties have been issued for that category.

I welcome the fact that pedicabs will be licensed; that will make a big difference. Can my noble friend tell me what the case is for Deliveroo drivers? They seem to be the bane of my life in London, particularly those who drive regular scooters for months, if not years, with L-plates on. Is there not a category of time beyond which you have to pass a test? Who is monitoring whether they are not actually learner drivers but simply have no intention of passing a test? Who is checking whether they are legally able to work here and to drive said scooters? Has anybody asked whether they have even read the Highway Code and are they tested on it?

With those few remarks, I praise the Government for bringing forward the Bill, but I hope that my amendments show what is required to make sure the Road Traffic Act brings in these changes, which I tried but failed to do through my Private Member’s Bill. I hope my noble friend will look kindly on those suggestions.

[Viscount Goschen (Con)]

My Lords, clearly the enforcement of the provisions of the Bill and the consequent regulations, however they are drafted by TfL, will be critical. My noble friend has made some pertinent points about the current enforcement of other forms of bicycles, e-bikes, scooters and so forth. My question to him is: what message can he send and what confidence can he give the Committee that the enforcement of whatever regulations eventually emerge will be taken seriously?

I quite agree with my noble friend that there seems to have been an abandonment, certainly in central London, of enforcement for contraventions of the Highway Code and traffic regulations by bicycles, e-scooters and the like. I guarantee that, if I were to walk to central London from your Lordships’ House, I would see vehicles without lights cycling the wrong way up streets. In fact, this morning as I was walking here, a delivery rider parked their e-scooter on the pavement of Jermyn Street at 90 degrees to the direction of flow of pedestrians, locked it like that and went in to deliver their goods.

That is wide of what we are talking about on the Bill today, but there is no point making regulations if they are not going to be enforced. Any law that is not enforced brings the Government, governance and law into disrepute. Perhaps my noble friend can say a word or two about how he sees this likely to be enforced in practice and say something a bit more broadly about the enforcement of motoring other than by camera, which is the default setting. We have seen the withdrawal of the police from enforcing what they may see as trivial road traffic regulations in central London in favour of things that are easier to do, such as putting up cameras, yellow box junctions, generating fines and so forth.

I appreciate that this might go slightly wide of the question under specific consideration today, but the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, and his amendments on enforcement raised very important considerations on the seizure of these vehicles. Nobody will take a blind bit of notice unless enforcement is taken seriously.

Mopeds, Motorcycles and Powered Light Vehicle Industry

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Thursday 23rd November 2023 Grand Committee

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, on calling this debate at such a timely moment. I also congratulate my noble friend Lord Davies of Gower on his new position and the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, on his position on the Opposition Benches.

I will focus on safety and a possibly tenuous connection to e-scooters and e-bikes. Like the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, I too have a little Bill prepared on which I hope my noble friend and the Government will look favourably. It proposes to

“amend the Road Traffic Act 1988 and the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988 to create criminal offences relating to dangerous, careless or inconsiderate cycling, in particular applying to a pedal cycle, an electrically assisted pedal cycle, and an electric scooter”.

I associate myself with all the previous remarks on batteries, but time does not permit me to explore that here.

I recognise that the majority of cyclists are responsible. However, they must have regard to other road users. I am appalled at the flagrant abuse of legislation by e-bikes, e-scooters and regular scooters from Deliveroo and others, particularly in mounting pavements. How long are these delivery scooters allowed to ride with an L-plate without passing a test to show that they are legally competent to drive? Not stopping for pedestrians at pedestrian crossings is an increasing problem. What fines have been issued in the last six months or year and what prosecutions have been made for the illegal use of such e-bikes and e-scooters?

Why have the Government extended trials of e-scooters to 2026? If the evidence already exists that there are issues regarding their safety, why are these not being addressed now and regulated? For what reason are e-cyclists and those on e-scooters allowed to ride without any insurance or a driving test as a prerequisite? Is it still the case that e-scooters, other than rented ones, cannot legally be used on public roads?

I took great heart from the fact that, in connection with the tragic case of Kim Briggs, who died from injuries caused when she was knocked over by a cyclist travelling at speed on a bicycle with no legal brakes at all, my noble friend’s predecessor, my noble friend Lady Vere of Norbiton, wrote to her husband Matt Briggs on 23 March 2022:

“As the Secretary of State has already announced, we are considering bringing forward legislation to introduce new offences around dangerous cycling; we will do this as part of a suite of measures to improve the safety of all road and pavement users”.


What has happened to that legislation?

The ABI is deeply concerned about the implications for the Motor Insurers’ Bureau of a corresponding insurance requirement being levied on e-scooters in particular. Its key point is that legalising the use of e-scooters on UK roads should ensure that no additional liabilities are placed on the Motor Insurers’ Bureau without such a corresponding insurance requirement. By what date does my noble friend intend that the Government will introduce that? The ABI also argues that enforcement against illegal use of e-scooters on UK roads should be increased; is it my noble friend’s intention to do so? It also argues that the Government should share data on the outputs and results from trials to date to inform the public about ongoing discussions in this regard.

In conclusion, there should be space for cyclists, e-scooters and e-bikes, but only in so far as they are driven responsibly and with regard to the law. Are noble Lords aware of the superhighway to be built along Millbank, and that the iconic palm tree on the roundabout will be removed, enabling cyclists and e-scooters to travel at even faster speeds? That will put your Lordships at even greater risk when we try to cross the pedestrian crossing at Millbank. I regret that it may lead to more deaths and casualties of pedestrians and other road users.

E-bikes

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Tuesday 11th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

No, those people who are riding those vehicles in those circumstances are breaking the law. All vehicles that are not e-bikes—they would be electric motorbikes—have to be registered with the DVLA, insured and taxed; the person would have to have a driving licence and to wear a helmet. Essentially, they would be the same as a traditional ICE motorbike and, yes, there is type approval of those vehicles.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend replied to a Written Question from me, saying:

“The Government is considering bringing forward legislation to introduce new offences concerning careless or dangerous cycling”,


particularly in the case of “irresponsible cycling behaviour”, including by e-cyclists. Will she support my Road Traffic Offences (Cycling) Bill, which would introduce the offences to which she refers in her Answer?

Trains: Wifi Provision for Passengers

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Thursday 25th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I can say only what the evidence is from asking passengers. We have asked the train operating companies to look at the provision of wifi, to establish a business case which sets out the benefits to passengers—how much they need it, those who perhaps are unable to use a smartphone on 4G or 5G for example—and then to revert.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, will my noble friend take this as a response to her survey? Those of us who purchase our tickets electronically require wifi to both board and travel on the train. How am I going to be permitted legally to travel if there is no wifi to demonstrate that I have purchased a ticket?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I would hope that my noble friend would have got the ticket in the wallet on her phone because she would have needed it to go through the station anyway. Free wifi will remain available at stations and as I say, no decisions have been taken. We have asked the train operating companies to prepare business cases.

Bus Services

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Thursday 30th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend will be aware of the importance to rural bus services of concessionary bus fares. What will the future of these fares be after June?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

We are not planning any changes to the levels of concessionary bus fares, but we are looking closely at the implementation of the concessionary fares scheme. Over the course of 2023 we will look closely at the reimbursement guidance and the calculator to make sure that bus operators are getting the correct amount of money for the people they carry.

Avanti West Coast

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Thursday 23rd March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I am aware of some of the challenges of travelling down the west coast from Scotland. Many of them are due to infrastructure changes happening in the north of England. Sometimes it is tempting to compare the west coast with the east coast. One other element of the east coast that is worth thinking about is that it has competition. There are open-access operators on the east coast as well. That is a contributing factor to making the services better all round.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend will be aware of the severe delays and disruption caused by TransPennine Express, which seems to be competing very well with Avanti on its record. Will she update the House on the Government’s plans for a possible renewal of such a hopeless operator? Will it be allowed more time, or will it be put out to tender for other franchise operators?

Bus Industry Support

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Thursday 16th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

We can congratulate them; they do a fantastic job. Noble Lords will have seen that the Government announced £25 million of funding for zero-emission buses only recently—I believe that all the £25 million in funding went to Wrightbus in Northern Ireland, which has seen astonishing growth in jobs and skills and should be congratulated.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, can my noble friend explain what the future of concessionary bus fares will be? They are particularly important in rural areas.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

We have seen a decline in the number of people using concessionary fares since the pandemic; certainly, those are the sorts of people who we want to get back on to buses. It is so important. We are reviewing a number of elements of the concessionary fare structure and, of particular importance to local transport authorities, we are looking at and will be consulting on the reimbursement guidance and calculator during the course of 2023 to ensure that local transport authorities are getting the money back from the system that they need to fully cover concessionary fares.

Rail Strikes: Impact Assessment

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Thursday 8th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

Well read, my Lord. I do not accept what the noble Lord just said. Indeed, I slightly object to him telling me what I know when it is followed by words that are not true. There is a good offer on the table from the Government, which is fair to workers and to taxpayers, and includes important workforce reforms. Without these things, we will not get the services we need and the fares we want. He says it will cause thousands of people to lose their jobs; there are guarantees of a job for anyone who wants one. The one thing that would take this forward would be for the RMT executive to ask its members whether they would like to accept the offer from the Rail Delivery Group and its members. It is refusing to do so. That would provide the clarity and transparency for everybody to understand what the membership of the RMT actually wants.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, could my noble friend update us on what will happen to the scheduled £6 million improvements to York station, which we understand cover both track and signalling? Will she give a guarantee that these will go ahead despite the strikes?

HS2: Wales

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Tuesday 8th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

The noble Lord is trying to get me to make commitments from the Dispatch Box which I am not able to make, unfortunately. However, I think it is worth understanding that the Crewe interchange as it is now planned was substantially revamped following significant concerns from stakeholders in north Wales and beyond. We have altered the Crewe northern connection so that it could allow for five to seven trains per hour to call at Crewe and then to be able to go down the high-speed line or, indeed, the conventional track.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend referred to the uncertainty over the northern part of HS2. Will she commit to rail improvements for the northern rail project to make sure that we have a new line to open up the railway between Teesside and Liverpool?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

As my noble friend will know, the Government set out in the integrated rail plan tens of billions of pounds of investment across the north and the Midlands. We want to take that forward in line with the 2019 manifesto. She will also be aware that an Autumn Statement is coming up on 17 November, and I cannot say anything further at this time.

Drivers’ Hours, Tachographs, International Road Haulage and Licensing of Operators (Amendment) Regulations 2022

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Tuesday 8th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister for her comprehensive introduction to this SI. My reason for tabling this amendment is that, when the SI was tabled in July, I came across quite a lot of evidence of a lack of availability of some of the tachographs, lack of information about the costs, and lack of general information and, possibly, training for the people who would have to make this work.

I do, of course, support the regulations, and I congratulate the Government on them, but they have to be workable. Maybe things have moved on since July, but I have a few questions for the Minister which I am sure she will be able to answer. Most of the comments that I heard came from a magazine called Roadway, which comes from the road freight industry. It comments that, since January 2022, the DVSA has changed its approach and is—as the Minister said—enforcing these regulations at the roadside and during operator investigations, which is good. It is interesting that the traffic commissioners are now getting involved, which is also something quite new. Could the Minister say whether there have been any prosecutions yet, and outline how many investigations have been going on?

Secondly, what has the DVSA done to raise awareness of these requirements? I suggest that the Government have an obligation to ensure that these very complex regulations are widely known and understood. Have the drivers been trained to meet these requirements? If they have not, it is not going to work.

Regarding some of the comments in the Explanatory Memorandum, can the Minister give some idea of whether the smart tachographs—version 2—are available, whether they will they fit into all the types of vehicles that they are supposed to fit into, and how much they will cost? If there should be a supply shortage, the whole thing will not work and the Government will get a very bad reputation over it. I assume that the cost of installation is possible. It is often found that some of the bits of equipment that people are required to use do not fit into the vehicle concerned; it also applies to ships, but I will not bring that up today. I know that it is in the future, but light goods vehicles are going to be brought into scope in 2026, which, again, is probably a good thing but will make the equipment more difficult to install.

The next issue—I do not have very many more—relates to what is called triangulation, and cabotage. Paragraph 7.20 of the Explanatory Memorandum refers to

“removing the triangular rights of EU hauliers and the cabotage rights following unladen entry”

into the UK. It says that because this is the same as the reverse on the EU it is probably all right, but is there any intention of trying to renegotiate some of these things? One reads quite often of vehicles, maybe small ones used by theatre clubs or orchestras taking their equipment across when they want to tour many different member states. We have had debates in your Lordships’ House about that, but it is a complex consequence of leaving the EU. It is not a very big problem except for those who suffer it and I hope that the Government will look at that again.

Paragraph 7.22 of the Explanatory Memorandum refers to excluding combined transport. I question why combined transport is excluded, because if the truck happens to be loading or unloading a container from a ship or train that should be included, along with everything else.

Finally, the usual question from me and other noble Lords: if there is going to be a bonfire of EU regulations, are we going to have to go through all this again or will there be a new lot? I am sure the Minister will want to write to me on that, rather than answering today, but I beg to move my amendment.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I will briefly raise some points that follow on from what the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, has said. They were raised by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee and are just to put my mind at rest.

In particular, on page 16 of its 10th report the committee raised a number of questions in paragraph Q2. The department seems to agree that these questions are causing some concern, and has confirmed that industry raised these concerns. The committee asked:

“What are industry’s concerns, is it the cost of the new equipment or are there supply issues that will make compliance by the deadline set difficult?”


In its answer, the department says that it is both: the cost of the new equipment and meeting the deadline. Can my noble friend the Minister put my mind at rest on whether the cost issue has now been resolved? Given that the department realises that there will be “only a few months” before the supply and installation “into newly registered vehicles”, can she confirm that the deadline will be met, or will the department be fairly flexible and allow them more time in this regard?

The department says:

“If there is a supply issue it would be felt at European level not just in the UK.”


But obviously the House is concerned about how that is to be addressed in this country. I therefore ask for confirmation: how does the department expect to address this issue of supply? Are we perhaps getting a little ahead of ourselves and should the deadline for when they should be fitted be a little more flexible than it has been?

The department says in its concluding paragraph on question 2:

“The Department will work with industry to raise awareness of the new requirement.”


Perhaps my noble friend will be good enough to tell us how that is to be achieved.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, who pays such good attention to government legislation. Some of my comments will reflect his concerns. This is possibly our third attempt at transposing various bits of EU tachograph rules into post-Brexit British law.

I want to use this opportunity, reflecting the noble Lord’s concerns, to express the fact that I am seriously concerned that some bright ministerial spark in a recent Government thought it a good idea to put a sunset clause on all EU law now transposed on to our statute book. That will mean that we have to go through it all over again, having spent so many months on it.

I feel great sorrow for and sympathy with officials and the Minister for the amount of time they must be devoting to finding neat, or less neat, solutions to this issue. It must be a depressing and nugatory experience. Even worse, it is one that, in this case, the business community is queuing up to oppose because it makes its job even harder. I wish we had time to look at the future of transport, as it needs legislation, and plan for the future rather than re-treading the past.

Turning to the detail of this SI, I have some questions and comments. Paragraph 3.1 of the Explanatory Memorandum says that it was originally laid on 23 June then withdrawn on 29 June. Can the Minister explain why it was withdrawn? Was it connected to the lack of version 2 of the smart tachograph? The new smart tachographs are superior because they allow better data exchange so that enforcement officers can download data without stopping the vehicle. It will also be more difficult to falsify the data in future.

If I have understood correctly, it seems that there will be no obligation for older UK vehicles making only domestic trips to have the updated tachographs. Only vehicles travelling to the EU will have to have them. If so, effectively we will have two standards applied to vehicles on our roads. These standards are very much connected, as the Minister made clear, with safety. Driving safely is an issue not only for drivers going to the EU; driving as safely as possible affects every driver on our roads and the tachograph is an essential part of that. I am concerned that we are going to have two separate standards of enforcement and two separate standards of evidence available to enforcement officers. I am also concerned that we will be allowing many people participating in our haulage industry to lag behind the rest of Europe on safety standards.

The amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, refers to concerns on timing. As the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, made clear, this SI has been subject to a report by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. In appendix 2, it states that the

“main tachograph manufacturer will not gain type approval for their version 2 until April 2023”.