Product Regulation and Metrology Bill [HL]

Lord Redesdale Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 27th November 2024 Grand Committee

Responding to our debate on the first group of amendments, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, said that he believes the Bill will enable regulations addressing concerns about lithium-ion batteries to be brought forward. I absolutely believe that that is the case and that it is the Government’s intention so to do. However, at this stage, we need clear assurances that they will come forward and will cover all the concerns raised; equally importantly, we need assurances that they will come forward quickly. This is why I am so keen for the Government to accept my noble friend Lady Brinton’s Amendment 44, which would ensure that action happens within six months of the passing of this Bill: any delays beyond that will result in far more horror stories like Scott’s. I beg to move.

[Lord Redesdale (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 55 and 56 in my name. I start by commending my noble friend on the work he has done, over many years, in dealing with fire safety and issues around lithium-ion batteries; indeed, he had a Private Member’s Bill on lithium-ion batteries, but I beat him to it and got one in myself. From discussions with the Minister, I know that the Government are taking this issue forward, so I will not speak specifically on the dangers of chargers of lithium-ion batteries. However, I will mention my Amendment 56, which is the Minister’s own fault: in his bringing forth of this Bill, I raised this issue, and it has now taken on a life of its own.

I will speak first to my Amendment 55, which is about bikes and stopping their theft. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, will be open to my debate here because we often park our bikes outside the front of this building. I am happy to say that I do not have to lock that bike—not because I believe that people passing through the building are inherently honest; it is more that, if somebody can get past two guys with machine guns, they can have my bike. But I am lucky; not everybody in the capital has that joy, obviously.

To go back to the serious point, an estimated 200,000 bikes are stolen each year in London—and that is just the tip of the iceberg because many bikes are stolen but not reported to the police. It is possible that only stolen bikes that can be claimed on insurance are reported to the police, as I have myself experienced in the past. This is a real issue going forward because the cost is not only to the individual but to the insurance companies, the environment and the way in which we structure a transport strategy. If people have their bikes stolen on a regular basis, they will move away from cycling as an option.

So I have come up with a simple solution. The Minister will ask, “Why should I introduce it in this Bill?” The answer is simple: as I say to people, lobbying is 90% hard work and 10% luck. If you do not have the 10% luck, where you can squeeze something in, you might as well give up. This Bill talks about online regulation; it is difficult to get Bills that deal with online regulation through because of some of the inherent difficulties associated with it.

My concept is that there a simple solution to bike theft, which has been proven in the work of Merseyside Police: making sure that bikes have a security marking. If a bike has a security marking, which can be done cost-effectively and cheaply, and it is put on a register, which does not involve any new bureaucracy, you end up with a situation where it is very difficult for those stealing bikes to sell them on online platforms; this is proven to be the case. I have been talking to the Metropolitan Police lead on bike theft. His view is that thieves will not sell bikes in this way—this is the major way in which people sell bikes—because they would be sitting on stolen goods and could be clearly identified with the stolen object.

The Minister is going to say that, obviously, this should be outside the Bill because it does not talk about safety. However, I would argue that, for those who are buying a stolen bike, the theft of the bike will have probably damaged the bike and that it is not in the interest of whoever stole it to look after its maintenance and repair. Bikes on roads can be extremely dangerous. There are two types of dangerous bikes—those that are poorly maintained and those Lime bikes that people drive around—but that is a separate argument.

This would be a very simple measure to take forward. If the Minister is minded not to put it in this part of the Bill, I very much hope that he will agree to a discussion with the lead police authorities, because this would cut crime. In fact, it would not only cut crime but increase confidence in the police because 90% of bikes stolen in London are never recovered, with their thefts never solved. I hope that the Minister will agree to a meeting to look at whether this measure could be included in the Bill; I would argue that the Bill is so wide in its parameters that this could be added, which would be a way forward. Can he also discuss which other legislation we could add this to?

Amendment 56 came out of the arguments that we were having about lithium-ion batteries. I came up with an interesting solution: I plan to bribe the Government by saying that, if they agree to measures to take this forward or discuss it, I will remove my lithium-ion Private Member’s Bill and so free up a Friday morning. Actually, I am not sure that is bribery; it may be coercion.

This is a very simple look at how to remove lithium-ion batteries from the waste stream. My noble friend has talked about how lithium-ion charging and bikes are a danger but, with the advent of throwaway vapes, even if the batteries are removable, you still have the problem with small lithium-ion batteries ending up in the waste stream because people just throw them away. A large number of fires are taking place, at massive cost to local authorities and insurers, because batteries being thrown away in the waste streams are crushed or get water in them and then cause fire. The best thing would be to remove them from the waste stream in the first place.

I am developing this argument—I will come back to it at a later stage with a more refined amendment—but this amendment would allow online retailers to provide buckets so that people could put batteries in them and take them away. I have talked with all elements of the industry. There is no reason why this should not happen. There is no hazardous waste; it falls under the hazardous waste directive, so Defra could not complain about it. It would be a quick and easy way of recycling batteries, which I know are not meant to be thrown into the waste stream; they have a sign on them saying “Do not bin” but, of course, loads of people do. How many people have a bag of used batteries, lithium-ion or otherwise, in a drawer? My argument is that, if they are dangerous in the waste stream, they are dangerous in people’s homes, so removing them from people’s homes is important.

People might say that you can take them to supermarkets or recycling centres. My argument is that, yes, they must be recycled from supermarkets because there is a duty on the supermarket to provide that facility. The problem is that online retailers often get around this by saying, “We don’t have a premise”. My argument is that that really does not fly any more. Amazon provides its own batteries so it should take them back. I do not think that it can rely on saying, “Take it to someone else’s supermarket”; it has a responsibility to take them back. Of course, the point at which it should take it back is from the delivery: if you cannot go to a shop, because Amazon does not have shops, the only point you have is the delivery driver. Amazon may make the point that it does not own the vehicle but it still has the obligation. In talking to the industry, I have shown it—I could not bring it in here, obviously—a small plastic bucket to be taken along. Not every delivery would end up with people providing batteries; it would be a small amount because, once you got rid of the batteries once a year, you would probably then collect.

I have been talking to people from Duracell about this. They believe that, over a year, you could probably recycle about 1 billion batteries through that method; that is an enormous amount. This would take the lithium-ion or other batteries out of the waste stream and make sure that they could be recycled. It would also allow us to build up the waste streams in this country in order to make the development of recycling facilities here profitable. I do not think that the buyback scheme everyone suggests would work because one Duracell AAA battery is worth 0.0002p in recycling, if I have got the noughts right, so that is not worth while; however, once it is recycled, it has a value in the recycling scheme.

Could I meet the Minister and his officials to discuss whether this regulation could be put forward? Could we get direction from the Government, in our debate on the next amendment, saying that this is something that could be taken forward? Online retailers already have an obligation but it has not been pushed at the moment because people have gone back to the default position of, “We do this in shops”. If that is the case then, after the discussion at the next stage, the Minister could just stand up and say, “This is an obligation”, at which point we could make sure that the buckets went out and that this process started. The whole battery industry is keen on making sure that this happens.

I have put forward these amendments. I very much hope that the Minister can give me some assurance that we can meet.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I will be very brief. I found that a most interesting explanation of lithium-ion batteries and their various aspects. I confess to not being an expert at all, so it is very clear that I—and, I imagine, the general public—need to be better informed on this. I imagine that regulations will form an essential component of becoming better informed.

It was interesting how the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, said that he was worried about the scope of the Bill. This Bill will take pretty much anything you like—it is enormous—so I would not have too many concerns about that. I ended up, funnily enough, with a couple of questions, which we can perhaps discuss later. I am curious to know how much of the safety of these batteries is contingent on the way that they are stored, used and maintained. That would be an interesting subject to explore further.

[Lord Redesdale (LD)]

My Lords, it is worth mentioning because we have raised the issue and it is picked up whenever we discuss the danger. The actual danger of good batteries is extremely low. The problem is in the waste stream when they are hit by water or crushed. That is the issue that local authorities have.