Lord Rogan
Main Page: Lord Rogan (Ulster Unionist Party - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Rogan's debates with the Department for Transport
E-scooters: Trials
Lord Rogan Excerpts(3 weeks, 3 days ago)
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Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
Gosh—I do not much care to be lectured about drift by somebody who represents a party that did an experiment in 2021, published some results in 2022 and then did nothing. In any event, these things are becoming part of life, whether we like it or not and whether they are brightly coloured or not. The point at issue is to discover how they are used—rental trials in various towns and cities are as good a way of finding out as any—and then to work out what the legislation should say. It is a challenge for anybody, including the noble Lord opposite, to work out what the right standards are from the variety of regimes in the 21 European countries. We shall work that out carefully.
Lord Rogan (UUP)
My Lords, earlier this year from the Dispatch Box, the Minister, with his customary good grace, committed to
“consultation with all the enforcement authorities”
before any changes in the law on e-scooters. He also gave an assurance that any new law
“is framed in a way that can be enforced both in Northern Ireland and elsewhere”.—[Official Report, 7/1/25; col. 612.]
To that end, has any representative of His Majesty’s Government been in recent contact with the PSNI to inquire about the ongoing experience of e-scooters in Northern Ireland, where they remain banned on public roads?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
If the noble Lord is accurate, I must have been correct in what he reports I said, so I am sure that I did. I cannot immediately answer him on whether and to what extent there has been consultation in Northern Ireland, but I take his point. I will take it away and write to him about it.