Electric Cycles: Illegal Use on Roads

Baroness Doocey Excerpts

Tuesday 10th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The noble Viscount is absolutely right: delivery drivers are a potential area of hazard. This legislation will apply to them, but it is also incumbent on those companies that employ delivery drivers to take action in the event of individuals being found to have breached the legislation, who have perhaps secured points on their licence and will, in future, perhaps be subject to this legislation.

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, given the challenges with identifying illegally modified e-bikes, and given the success of the mobile rolling road test benches used in the Netherlands that enable police quickly and accurately to determine whether e-bikes exceed legal power or speeds, will the Government consider looking at what is being done in the Netherlands and deciding whether that might be appropriate to use here? I think the Government will find that the success in the Netherlands is something that we really ought to replicate here.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness. I will certainly look at the position in the Netherlands and see what we can take from that. The measures that I mentioned will be before this House in very short order, when there will be an opportunity to examine and further debate them. It is also important to say that the police take very seriously the question of offenders on e-cycles that are modified and looked on as motorcycles. When appropriate, if they wish to, the police may even pursue an illegally modified e-cycle and employ tactical options to bring the vehicle to a stop. This is unacceptable anti-social behaviour, and the Government are taking it seriously and have put new legislation forward. For the very reasons mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, we want to ensure that the police up their performance in tackling this by making arrests and seizing bikes where they cross the threshold of illegality.