Helen Maguire
Main Page: Helen Maguire (Liberal Democrat - Epsom and Ewell)Department Debates - View all Helen Maguire's debates with the Home Office
Antisocial Behaviour
Helen Maguire Excerpts(1 day, 7 hours ago)
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Naushabah Khan (Gillingham and Rainham) (Lab)
It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Butler. Antisocial behaviour is not a minor nuisance; left unchecked, it frays the fabric of our communities and leaves people feeling unsafe in the places that they live. In my constituency it covers a lot of ground, but for the purpose of today’s debate, I want to focus on e-scooters and e-bikes being used in a harmful way. The bikes I am talking about are not the legal e-bikes most people might picture; many have been modified well beyond that. Some are capable of doing more than 70 mph, and they are being ridden along pavements and in and out of people who are doing their shopping.
Helen Maguire (Epsom and Ewell) (LD)
At a recent roundtable I held with police, they talked about how illegal e-scooters and e-bikes were facilitating crime and antisocial behaviour. When I was canvassing in my constituency, the issue of young people in balaclavas zooming around on e-scooters and intimidating families and children also came up. Does the hon. Member agree that the Department for Transport’s current consultation on the hired e-bike scheme should be extended to include all illegal e-scooters and e-bikes, to address their role in antisocial behaviour?
Naushabah Khan
I do agree. The law is fairly clear: a private e-scooter or an overpowered e-bike cannot be ridden on a public road. The difficulty is how easily they can be bought. Couple that with the reality of an individual riding at speed, a police officer on foot and the risk to the rider themselves in a high-speed pursuit, the challenge in tackling this issue becomes glaringly obvious.