Lithium-ion Battery Safety Bill [HL]

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 6th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the important remarks by the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, on the drafting of this Bill. I think it has made an impact.

My interest in this was sparked when I was on a visit to the London Fire Brigade headquarters, because of the research it has done into low-level carbon monoxide poisoning in people who are living on houseboats—I chair the CO Research Trust. The senior officers who I saw that day were really shocked, because they had just had a call to a fire triggered by one of these batteries being charged in a living area in a flat, and the child to whom the new scooter belonged had sustained terrible life-changing injuries. They were devastated by what they had encountered. I feel that this Bill is incredibly important.

The London Fire Brigade told me that it has seen a stark rise in e-bike and e-scooter fires; on average, there was a fire every two days in 2023; and, last year, three people died as a result of these fires, including Sofia Duarte, who on New Year’s Day was the first Londoner to die as a result of an e-bike fire. She was at her boyfriend’s house celebrating the new year when disaster struck. Five people escaped through the second-floor window, but she was trapped inside. Her family are now petitioning for new legislation on e-bikes and e-scooters.

The Bill aims to increase product safety of e-bike and e-scooter products, as sold online in particular. As the noble Lord, Lord of Howell of Guildford, raised, there needs to be future-proofing. I hope that the Bill will provide a template that can be built on as new products come online, because we need to have a starting point and the Bill is trying to provide that. It needs to include all high-energy and lithium battery types and materials, as well as non-rechargeable lithium batteries, all of which pose a real fire risk to the public, as well as the incredible risk to the firefighters themselves who need to tackle these awful blazes. The number of e-bike fires in the capital has risen from just 13 in 2020 to 143 last year and, by September this year, the numbers had risen even further. It is a prime example of how quickly new technologies can present a real risk and why future-proofing is so important.

E-bikes and e-scooters catch fire incredibly quickly if their batteries become damaged or begin to fail, but they can just catch fire spontaneously. Although privately owned scooters remain illegal in public places and on London’s roads—and, very fortunately, are not allowed on the Underground—they are not illegal to purchase. New York has taken the issue so seriously that it has banned the sale, use or rental of e-mobility devices and related storage batteries that fail to meet recognised safety standards.

When these batteries catch fire, as has been said, the temperature is astounding. They can reach a temperature of between 700 and 1,000 degrees centigrade spontaneously, and the fire comes with outreaching plumes of flame, so it is not just that the device burns but that it seems to explode. These plumes of flame cause life-changing injuries to anybody nearby, and they happen so fast that it is before people can take action to avoid being near them.

Many of us have devices in the home with Li-ion batteries in them, and we are often completely unaware of the future potential of these. I noticed that I have a vacuum cleaner which has one of these batteries in and is rechargeable, and I recharge it within the flat. I have become aware that this may be quite dangerous. It is of crucial importance that they are not charged near any exits or in bedrooms. In blocks of flats, it is important they are not charged indoors, as this endangers the lives of many people and blocks the exit from the building.

A problem area is when these batteries are bought over the internet, from places of dubious provenance in particular, and then charged without the correct charger. One brand of battery has been particularly dangerous.

Conversion kits are a major problem. The London Fire Brigade believes this innovation has come ahead of proper safety standards, and there is inadequate regulation for e-bike and e-scooter conversion kits and accessories. Many of the lithium battery fires have been caused by faulty or mismatched and unsafe products. Clause 5’s focus on conversion kits is an important inclusion to protect the public. People can modify bikes to e-bikes with a conversion kit. These kits involve sourcing a battery and a charger separately, which may not reach correct safety standards. The batteries are then more susceptible to catastrophic failure when the incorrect charger is used. It is essential that all the data on these is collected centrally to allow people to better understand the risks relating to these conversion kits and that regulation is robust. I hope that the Government will look at the importance of data collection nationally—I mean across the four nations—to understand where these fires are breaking out and exactly what is being used.

The danger, of course, comes from online marketplaces. People from all backgrounds use e-bikes, and people on low incomes are more likely to report being regular users. They are then at higher risk. These include people working in delivery companies, as has already been said, and people living in high-rise properties, who are at greater risk of charging them in hallways and communal areas. The London Fire Brigade has recently worked with Deliveroo to try to reach delivery riders with important messaging about e-bikes and e-scooters, because although they provide cheaper and sustainable transport in London, the batteries present a unique fire challenge.

Regulating the sale of batteries to online marketplaces is vital to increase standards to protect people. I know the London Fire Brigade has been working with Amazon to ensure anyone buying an e-bike or related products gets safety advice emailed to them after the purchase.

The Clause 3 provisions to regulate online marketplaces are welcome, but consideration must be made for how this will work for second-hand products sold online through online marketplaces such as eBay, Facebook Marketplace and Gumtree. That must also cover e-bikes and chargers and batteries, because of the ferocious fires. During a London Fire Brigade investigation, it has seen second-hand products involved in incidents across the capital, including the lucky escape already referred to at Sutton railway station where, thankfully, there were no injuries. The Bill must align—and, from the way the debate has gone so far, will probably be replaced—with the Product Regulation and Metrology Bill, which looks to address product safety and online marketplaces.

There are two brands of e-bike battery that have had withdrawal notices issued on them. These are UPP and HL R-Team batteries. Unfortunately, they are still around and being used.

The term “micromobility vehicles” needs to be clearly defined so we cover all types of e-bikes and e-scooters and other battery-type devices. The conformity standards have been partly defined through the European or UK conformity assessment markings but, as has already been said, these need to be enforced, and we need to ensure that the inspection of these is adequate.

In the last moments, I will tackle disposal of batteries. People are completely unaware of how to dispose of these batteries. Recycling centres and scrapyards have had terrible fires, which are difficult to extinguish. People need to be able to dispose of them easily and safely through local advice. The inclusion in the Bill of how to dispose of batteries is really important. I hope that the lessons from it can all be taken forward.