Electric Scooters and Electric Bicycles: Pedestrian Safety

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Tuesday 7th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

My noble friend is right: there are plenty of imports and plenty of illegal sales of these in this country. It is a trading standards matter and there has been some action. If I leaf through these pages fast enough, I will be able to find the statistics for what we know about what has happened so far. But, of course, that is a local authority matter. In the end, we need legislation. It is a shame that it did not start with e-scooters. The Government are committed to doing something. The subject of the original Question—the effect on disabled people—is clearly of great concern and we will seek to address it.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I am really grateful that the Minister just referred to disabled people. Many people in wheelchairs are finding that dockless bikes being dumped all over the pavements means that they do not just have a problem but cannot go down the street. Just before Christmas, the RNIB’s most recent survey of its members said that 47% of respondents had said that they felt unsafe on the pavements. Will the Government consider ensuring that e-scooters and e-bikes are more visually and audibly detectable? Whether or not they are illegal, they are on the pavements and causing problems. Will they also please ban dockless bikes?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I certainly recognise the passion with which the noble Baroness speaks. Before Christmas, the Government published the English devolution White Paper, which has in it a provision for local transport authorities to be empowered to regulate on street micromobility—that is, e-bikes and e-cycle schemes—so that local areas can shape these schemes and tackle the scourge of badly parked e-cycles and e-scooters.