E-scooters

Baroness Sanderson of Welton Excerpts

Thursday 20th January 2022 Grand Committee

[Baroness Sanderson of Welton (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for calling this debate. I hope noble Lords will forgive me for taking part not as an expert but as someone who lives in London and has become concerned and, to be honest, bemused by the rise of e-scooters on our streets. What a meteoric rise it is; having been properly introduced only in 2018, the companies that make these vehicles are now raising millions of pounds in venture capital, a clear indication that the market for e-scooters is not slowing down any time soon.

Despite their envisaged popularity, I am still unclear whom these scooters are aimed at or what they are for. The argument you hear most is about the environmental benefits—how they will contribute to greener, cleaner spaces in our towns and cities—but is this really the case? As my noble friend just said, and according to the Royal Society of Chemistry, unless e-scooters are used daily for many years and replace a car, their impact on the environment is ultimately damaging, with high carbon costs in manufacture and mining of raw materials.

Is it realistic to suppose that e-scooters can and will replace a private car? According to recent figures by Lime, one of the companies taking part in the Government’s trial, the average journey is two kilometres—a journey that would take about 20 minutes to walk. Is it not more likely that, far from replacing car journeys, e-scooters are in fact replacing walking or cycling, both of which are far more environmentally friendly? The evidence on this is still sketchy, but the Government’s evaluation is looking at usage. If it shows that e-scooters are replacing not car journeys but active travel—a key aim of the Department for Transport—can my noble friend the Minister say whether this will be a consideration in deciding how and whether to regulate further usage? When the House of Commons Transport Committee recommended legalising their use, it also said

“it would be counter-productive if an uptake in e-scooters … primarily replaced people undertaking more active and healthy forms of travel.”

The evaluation report will also look at the user demographic of e-scooters, which will make interesting reading. The 2020 Kantar report into public attitudes revealed that there was no obvious target market for e-scooters. Some people did not feel that they were relevant for their personal transport needs. Others thought that they were not suitable for their age or stage in life—for example, because they had children. In that case, why are there so many of them?

I refer today only to London, as that is my experience. In my area, where e-scooters are supposedly banned, they seem to be the exclusive preserve, as mentioned, of 20-something men, used at all hours of the day and night, often without much care and attention. Invariably, they tend to be illegally ridden private scooters. As one online writer said when test-driving the legally trialled version:

“At a tenner an hour, or a fiver for a 25-minute run, they’re hardly a cheap commute … but restricted to the roads and banned from most parks, they’re not much of a leisure activity either.”


If we are not sure who or what they are for and the green argument is by no means clear, are these scooters really worth all the associated risks—the many rider accidents and the danger to pedestrians? I would say no. However, as I suspect they are here to stay, can my noble friend say whether the Government will take account of the experience of other European cities? Stockholm is now halving its number of e-scooters from 23,000 to 12,000, Copenhagen has banned them in the city centre and Oslo has capped the number at 8,000. Arguably, these cities are all far more suited to their use than London but, having let the genie out of the bottle, even they are having to grapple with the consequences. I fear it will not be long before we have to do the same.