Electric Scooter Trials and Traffic Signs (Coronavirus) Regulations and General Directions 2020

Baroness Randerson Excerpts

Tuesday 29th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I welcome the Motion, which gives us the opportunity to examine this important issue. The Government have come to this pretty late in the day; we have now been talking about this for a couple of years. Cities across Europe and well beyond have been grappling with the issues raised by electric scooters for a long time now. My own experience as a frequent visitor to Brussels has been of a problem of abandoned scooters on pavements, often left in the way of pedestrians. Make no mistake, electric scooters are a very divisive issue. I am therefore surprised that there were only two weeks’ consultation, after years of thought building up to this.

I agree with the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee when it criticises the poor quality of the explanatory material provided with this legislation, and the apparent failure of the Government to build on experiences elsewhere. To make it clear, by instinct I welcome these trials. Electric scooters are exciting, and they look fun—I wish I were young enough to take up riding one. However, it is also important to remember that they are a complex issue, because they are frightening to many pedestrians, particularly older and disabled people. Overall, I find it anachronistic that we have a new environmentally friendly form of transport that remains illegal in Britain on public roads and footpaths.

Looking at the safety concerns in detail, on the roads, riders of electric vehicles will be exposed to traffic and, as they are lower than bicycles, are less likely than cyclists to be seen by motorists passing in their cars. On pavements they are an obvious hazard to pedestrians because they are both speedy and silent. Can the Minister explain why there is no requirement for a helmet, given that their maximum speed is same as that of an electric bike? Why should they not have lights? Why is there no requirement for reflective clothing? Should there not be visible registration numbers? These are vehicles on the roads, or soon will be. We have come round to the view that we require registration numbers for drones, so I think there should be registration numbers for electric scooters.

I also draw the attention of the House to the concern felt by the ABI, representing the insurance industry, about the lack of requirement for insurance.

Lessons from abroad indicate significant costs to local authorities in clearing up abandoned scooters and regulating the rental process. Will the local authorities that hold these trials be provided with any finance?

Who will enforce the requirement to have at least a provisional licence? If you are caught by the police doing something illegal on an electric bike, will the fact that you have a licence mean that you will get points on it? That is the kind of clarity I seek.

I draw the Minister’s attention to the Doppler schemes; they have been a particular cause of problems because of the method by which the scooters are recharged. They rely on people doing casual work, going around picking up the scooters and recharging them in their own homes; they are paid according to the number they recharge. The effect of this rather casual approach has been that scooters abandoned in difficult places get left there, unrecharged. So I urge the Minister to make sure there is a proper way of docking these vehicles.

One government response quoted by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee referred to making legal other micro mobility vehicles. Can the Minister please explain what other vehicles the Government have in mind?

Studies show that generally scooters are used much more as leisure vehicles and for short distances. Have the Government taken this into account? The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee raised the lack of clarity about the Government’s purpose. It is being done under the Covid umbrella; the Government say that they see this as an important alternative form of transport.

How many trial areas do the Government envisage? The press has mentioned 50. What is the timescale for the rollout? There will be some places where scooters will share space with pedestrians, so what about the rules of the pavement? Who will give way to whom?

How will the Government evaluate each of these trial schemes, and will the Minister undertake to publish a full evaluation and let us debate it here?