E-scooters and E-bikes

Lord Watts Excerpts

Thursday 19th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The Government are committed to a crime and policing Bill—I was discussing it with my noble friend Lord Hanson of Flint just before Questions—which will look at the plight of local communities being plagued by anti-social behaviour. That Bill is intended to give the police stronger powers to stop vehicles being used to bring misery to our neighbourhoods, with officers no longer required to issue a warning before seizing them. That will allow them to swiftly deal with off-road bike nuisance in public parks and dangerous e-scooters on pavements, as well as street racing and cruising.

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

My Lords, Spain has started a scheme to identify those riding e-scooters who are driving too fast and are not wearing helmets, and a €100 on-the-spot fine has been introduced. Should we consider that?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I have with me a summary of the way in which 22 European countries have dealt with e-scooters. One of the most striking things is that there is no consistency across Europe or across the other countries surveyed about how to deal with this. One of the challenges of the legislation opportunity that we will take is to work out what is best for this country. There are all sorts of variations: minimum ages, whether you can ride them on pavements and whether you need mandatory helmets, and one or two countries have registration schemes—though that seems as hard for e-scooters as it might be for bicycles. We will have to work through what the best scheme is for this country in order to put forward the appropriate legislation.