Pedal Cycles

Viscount Colville of Culross Excerpts

Thursday 12th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Colville of Culross (CB)]

My Lords, I want to direct my words to the lack of a national strategy for dealing with e-scooters and e-bikes, both of which have become increasingly popular as a form of public transport tailored for the individual. Rental e-scooters are legally limited to 15 trial schemes in cities as diverse as Salford and Bournemouth, with many London boroughs participating. They are regulated and riders are supposed to be over 16 and to undertake a degree of safety training before they are allowed on the roads. However, there are 750,000 private e-scooters in this country, all of which are illegal to ride on public roads or pavements, yet illegally ridden e-scooters were responsible for one death in 2019, when they were first introduced into this country, and for 31 deaths since then and more than 900 injuries. Many of these victims were riders. The youngest was 12 years old and the oldest 75 years old. In fact, safety campaigners believe that lax reporting and recording of e-scooter deaths by the police means that the figures represent only 10% of actual casualties.

Anyone who lives in one of our big cities sees the illegal use of e-scooters daily, either when they are privately owned or even when they are legally rented. I have seen parents riding with their children on the back and two people riding together. It is extraordinary, when we know how carefully monitored cars are on our streets, that e-scooters do not receive the same treatment from our law enforcement agencies. Some agencies, such as the Safer Essex Roads Partnership, have two-week or three-week blitzes in which community volunteers and the police combine to stop illegal riders. They even welcome video evidence submitted by members of the public. This enforcement is piecemeal and only partially effective. Meanwhile, across the country the police seem to be confiscating fewer and fewer illegally ridden e-scooters.

The problems will continue until illegal riders feel that there is an effective enforcement campaign to act as a deterrent and suitable punishment for illegal riders. The exact number of illegal riders on our roads is not known. Some definite evidence has to be gathered, but I suspect that, when the evidence is gathered, it will show thousands of violations. I agree with my noble friend Lord Hogan-Howe that e-scooters should be registered for easy identification, which will help to combat the problem. Can the Minister tell me whether the Government intend to introduce this simple measure and make our roads safer?

The other electronically powered vehicle that noble Lords have talked about is the e-bike. For hundreds of thousands of people, renting an e-bike is a transformative, efficient and cheap way to get to work or navigate our great cities. But, as many other noble Lords have mentioned, the problem is when riders reach their destination. I am pleased that many people are enjoying the freedom and relative health benefits of riding an e-bike, but with nearly 38,000 rental bikes in London alone, the problem of parking them safely has to be addressed.

E-bikes provide such convenience for many thousands, but inconvenience for many thousands more when badly parked. I have spoken to the Royal National Institute of Blind People, which tells me that so many blind and partially sighted people have fallen over the badly parked bikes on pavements that many are deterred from going into the centres towns and cities or have to take taxis to reach their destination.

The problem is that there is not enough uniformity across local authorities in regulating their parking. These rental e-bikes all need to be carefully controlled, either with digital or physical docking schemes. At the moment, in London alone, e-bike rental companies have different memorandums of understanding with different boroughs about parking regulations. However, riders renting e-bikes from many providers are not given online safety training or even tips about where they should park the bikes. Some, like Lime and Forest, do not have a maximum capacity on the digital parking bays. Certainly, from my own anecdotal experience of e-bikes scattered across the pavements of this city, Lime bikes have a particularly laissez-faire policy on parking.

I understand that one of the problems is that local authorities are reluctant to provide enough docking on parking spaces on the road, because they will take away from the revenue-generating car parking spaces. On the radio this morning, I heard the leader of Brent Council calling for Lime and other rental providers to contribute to the cost of setting up parking bays, which is also sensible. Other local authorities are taking more immediate action. Wandsworth is setting up a range of bike bays in its local town centres, and when that has happened the council will ban any kind of laissez-faire e-bike parking from these busy areas. Other councils are planning to follow suit.

It seems to me that as these rental schemes spread out across the country, the lessons from London should be learned and applied. I ask the Minister whether his department is considering national guidelines on parking rental e-bikes and to increase powers against random parking on pavements.

These electrically powered bikes and scooters are a boon to so many. I want them to be success and to create flexible, cheap transport for thousands of people across this country. However, in order to do so, Ministers need to intervene to ensure that they are a complement to other forms of transport and not a curse.