Off-road Biking

Peter Gibson Excerpts

Tuesday 20th February 2024 Westminster Hall

[Peter Gibson (Darlington) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of tackling off-road biking.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Latham. A core part of our role as Members of Parliament is to advocate for the safety and protection of our constituents; indeed, the principal role of Government is to ensure the safety and security of all citizens. One threat to citizens feeling safe and secure is antisocial behaviour, in particular the misuse of off-road bikes and quad bikes.

I make no apologies for raising this issue again, which has previously been raised here in the House by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (Matt Vickers); in fact, it has been raised by many other Members, too, in recent years. The fact that there have been debates, parliamentary questions and now a private Member’s Bill on this subject should tell the Government that it is an issue in our communities and that although there are measures to help address the problem, it has not gone away.

Off-road bikes and quad bikes are great pieces of equipment. They are great for going scrambling on or for getting around rural farmland; essentially, those are their legal and intended purposes. They were not designed to be used on our streets by people intent on causing terror and fear; they were not designed to be used by criminals wearing balaclavas or masks to evade police detection; and they were not designed to create a noise nuisance and safety fear in our community. Yet in Darlington, those things are precisely what we see happening. Indeed, we continue to see them happening and I know, having spoken to colleagues from across the House, that they see the same issues in their constituencies.

Reckless bikers have no care for others, nor do they seem to care about themselves when they opt not to wear a helmet and instead don balaclavas, for no other reason than to conceal their identity. They sail through red lights and ride on pavements, all without lights. It is a miracle that we have not yet seen the tragic death of a pedestrian, a rider or both, such is the danger this issue poses. I will not wait around until such an event happens, which is why I continue to raise this issue.

I pay tribute to Durham constabulary and to Darlington’s civic enforcement team for their work on Operation Endurance, which focuses on this issue. Operation Endurance sees the team gather data and monitor intelligence on these people, so that we can take action to disrupt them and stop their offending. There has been a big campaign to encourage residents to report any nuisance bikers, who will then face punishment. However, poor performance of the 101 service has meant that many members of the public are losing faith with this service and are not reporting as much as they could and should, meaning that the police have less intelligence than otherwise to tackle the problem.

Op Endurance has seen more bikes seized by police and if the perpetrators are Darlington council tenants, they could potentially lose their home. Section 59 orders under the Police Reform Act 2002 enable officers to seize vehicles that are being used illegally. However, that process must be made as quick and easy to use as possible by officers.

It is absolutely right that those who disrupt civilised society pay a price, and I welcome the efficiency with which the forces in Darlington deal with such criminals. I would value hearing the Minister’s thoughts on how we can ensure that the process of dealing with these people, when they are reported, gets sorted as soon as possible, and does he agree that they should automatically have their vehicle removed and should be prevented from buying another one in the future?

We also must reflect on what to do with the seized vehicles. Currently, the police recoup the recovery and storage charges for seized vehicles by auctioning them off. However, that leads to a merry-go-round of offenders buying back vehicles. Our forces need a ring-fenced pot of money to enable them to crush these vehicles and meet the costs of recovery.

To ensure that the police can act, we must make sure that the mechanisms to report are fit for purpose. In a previous debate, I have spoken about speeding up the response times of the 101 service, because these are fast-moving incidents that require intelligence to be passed quickly to the police.

There has long been a discussion about registration schemes for off-road bikes. I understand that the Government do not believe that the introduction of a mandatory registration scheme would be the most effective way to tackle dangerous and antisocial use, but it would certainly help. As we see more e-bikes, e-scooters and various other motorised transport, the problem is only going to continue to escalate. The current view is that registration would place a burden and a cost on law-abiding citizens. I understand that view, but law-abiding insurance payers meet the cost of damage caused by those who steal and cause damage every day. It is clear to me that when vehicles are registered, the possibility of people misusing them is lower. I therefore urge the Minister to look at ways of registering these bikes, which could deter the people who misuse them and make those people easier to track, trace and ban from offending further.

I remain an advocate of compulsory insurance for off-road and quad bikes, which would dissuade the casual user from illegal use of bikes on the road. Compulsory registration of off-road bikes would make the identification of those vehicles much easier for law enforcement. Mandating manufacturers to install immobilisers on those vehicles would also help to reduce theft and misuse by unauthorised riders. We really do need to see the Home Office, the Department for Transport and the Ministry of Justice work more closely on a package of measures to tackle the antisocial behaviour associated with off-road bikes.

[Sir Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate on an important subject. From what he said earlier, it sounded to me like a lot of the antisocial behaviour was taking place in inner cities, and not necessarily off road—albeit, on the pavement is off road, but not in terms of an urban or rural environment. Does he welcome the Government’s £160 million for tackling antisocial behaviour, and can he assure me that legitimate, sensible and responsible users are not dragged down by the sort of people he is referring to, who bring us all into disrepute?

[Peter Gibson]

Of course, I welcome any additional funding from the Government to tackle antisocial behaviour. There is a very clear distinction between lawful, legitimate users of these vehicles, who go about their business lawfully, and those who are terrorising a street by misusing them, so I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention.

Our constituents will thank us for tackling this problem and making our streets safer. The registering, insuring and tracking of vehicles would also help to protect farmers, who have thousands of quad bikes stolen every year. The National Farmers Union’s figures for 2022 estimate that this comes at a cost of some £3 million to our farmers, who are the backbones of our rural communities.

As well as deterrents and justice being served, an ongoing issue that we see in Darlington and across the country is actually catching offenders. Police are often unable to chase them as they tear through communities, making them difficult to track and trace. That is why we need to see greater investment in technology to track them. I have spent time with my local force, which is using high-powered drones that can see over considerable distances to help to track perpetrators, enabling the police to safely arrest offenders without the need to engage in dangerous chases on the street. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s thoughts on what more can be done with drones and the funding that the Government will provide for them.

In addition to the antisocial behaviour being a danger to communities like mine impacted by this issue, it is also clear that organised crime gangs are making use of cycle paths, quad bikes and off-road bikes to distribute drugs. Therefore, there is not only the crime of the behaviour of the bikers; they are often also involved in the dark trade of transporting illegal substances. That is yet another reason why we must end this abuse of the system. As well as causing a danger to other vehicles, pedestrians and livestock, by supplying drugs, these people are adding yet another layer of crime and danger to our communities.

Finally, I want to thank the Minister for the progress that has already been made on this issue and for the investment in drones and the efficiency of tracking the criminals. Equally, I urge the Minister to consider my suggestions. We must see better response times from the 101 service and the introduction of insurance, registration and tracking devices on the vehicles. We must end the merry-go-round of offenders being able to pick up another bike and take every step possible to make our communities safer.

[Mrs Pauline Latham (in the Chair)]

I call Jim Shannon.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Philp]

I thank the hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent for posing that question. I think that the requirement to have insurance under section 165 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 includes public places, and I will go away and find out whether common land counts as a public place, because that is potentially a relevant question. I will also look into whether the requirement to carry a licence plate applies just to those driving on public roads or whether it also applies on common land, which might be—I am not saying it is, but it might be—categorised as a public place. So I will look into the insurance and licence plate requirements for common land, which might be considered by the law as a public place, and write back to the hon. Gentleman with an answer. In relation to purely private land, I think that the comments I made earlier do stand.

[Peter Gibson]

The Minister referred to the disproportionate impact that may be felt by farmers who use off-road quad bikes in the management of their farm. Has any assessment of that been made by his Department or any other Department? Perhaps the National Farmers Union might be able to assist us with that. It is not uncommon for a farmer who uses his tractor primarily on his fields to have to go on a road. It is not uncommon for him to register his quad bike, because he may need to travel on roads. The impact a farmer would feel is perhaps relatively modest, and some further assessment could establish whether it is indeed a problem and a real barrier to the Government looking at registration. I appreciate that the Minister does not have the figures and statistics in front of him, but it would be great if he could come back to me on that point.

[Chris Philp]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. Some tractors, off-road bikes and ATVs are used on farms and private land and also on the road, so they do need to be insured and licensed, but quite a few vehicles—off-road bikes and ATVs, in particular—are used exclusively on private land. My hon. Friend suggested that we could consult the National Farmers Union to ascertain its opinion. If through his good offices, he could facilitate the NFU making contact with me to offer its opinion, I would listen to it carefully. If the NFU said that the proposal would have minimal impact on its members, I would give that some consideration. If the NFU does want to make such a representation, I would be happy to look at it.

During that intervention, I obtained some clarification on the question asked by the hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent. Common land counts as a public place for legal purposes. In a public place, which includes common land, a driver needs to carry registration plates and be insured. If someone is driving an ATV, such as a 4x4 quad bike or an off-road bike, on common land on top of a mountain or a large hill in the hon. Member’s constituency, or around the valleys, or anywhere else in the country for that matter, they should be licensed and insured. If they are not, that in itself is a breach of the law.

[Chris Philp]

I would be interested to hear representations from the NFU or any others on that specific question, but I am grateful to my hon. Friend for sharing her experience as a former farmer.

As I was saying, we want to have zero tolerance of antisocial behaviour more widely because it blights communities. In the spring of last year, we launched an action plan with a number of measures, which are now being rolled out. One of those is providing extra funding in England and Wales—there may be a Barnett consequential for Northern Ireland as well—over and above the regular police funding settlement to enable hotspot patrols in every police force area. There is £66 million of extra money in total, and the amounts vary between a minimum of £1 million per force up to about £8 million or £9 million for the largest, which is the Met. We expect that to deliver over 1 million hours of hotspot patrolling in the next financial year—it will start in April. Where the scheme has been piloted, it has been shown to be very effective, reducing antisocial behaviour and violent crime by up to 30%.

I strongly urge any Members present and any colleagues watching to ask their local chief constable or police and crime commissioner to select any areas where they are worried about antisocial behaviour for hotspot patrolling, which will then happen regularly throughout the next financial year. It will be visible to the public, but also catch and deter antisocial behaviour. Where it has been piloted—in places such as Lancashire, Staffordshire and Essex—it has been very effective.

[Peter Gibson]

The Minister is being incredibly generous with his time, and I thank him for highlighting hotspot policing. Darlington has had hotspot policing allocated to seven of our key wards. We can see that increased policing, but it does not solve our ongoing issues with off-road bikes. We have two police officers out on patrol providing visible policing, but they cannot chase these bikes and they have no means of identifying them. Although I fully welcome the additional funding, resources and visible policing that hotspot patrolling brings, it will not solve the underlying problems with this particular offence.

[Chris Philp]

I am glad that my hon. Friend welcomes hotspot policing, which will provide an opportunity for officers patrolling on foot to report to their colleagues if they see off-road bikes being used.

Let me turn to the question of catching off-road bikers behaving antisocially, which has been raised by a number of Members. First, as I said, hotspot patrolling will help to identify those people so that help can be called in. Secondly, my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington made a point about 101 response times, which vary greatly by police force. Some are very good, and some are frankly terrible. From March this year—next month—we will be publishing tables of 101 response times, as we do already for 999 response times, to shine a light on which forces are doing well and which are not. I hope that that will include not just the answer time but the abandon rate—what percentage of incoming calls get abandoned. I hope that that will shine a light on the 101 issue and provide an opportunity for those forces that are doing badly to improve their performance dramatically.

We then come to the question of how we catch people after the incident has been reported or noticed. I know there are different policies in different police forces around pursuit and what is sometimes called tactical contact. That is an operational matter for police chiefs, but I would urge chief constables, within the law and the realms of a proper approach to safety, to pursue people on ATVs and off-road bikes. If we do not pursue them, the problem just escalates.

I am a London MP, and we do not really have this problem so much here, but we did have a slightly different version of it a few years ago. People were using mopeds to commit crimes such as stealing mobile phones and expensive handbags or stealing from a shop. They would flee on a moped because Metropolitan police policy at the time—this was about four or five years ago—was not to pursue if the person on the moped was not wearing a helmet. Word soon got around that this was the case, and so-called moped-enabled crime went through the roof because criminals knew that if they were on a moped with no helmet, they would not get chased—they would just get away.

I remember having meetings with the then commissioner of the Met and other London MPs about this, urging the then commissioner to change the policy and consider pursuing and on occasion even using tactical contact, which means physical contact to stop the person. Eventually, the problem got so bad that they did adopt a pursue policy and a carefully calibrated tactical contact policy, and the problem rapidly and dramatically reduced. I would ask all chief constables around the country to keep that example in mind. I understand that they do not want to cause an injury, but equally, if we do nothing and do not pursue, the problem snowballs and gets worse and worse.

There is more we can do on technology, which a number of Members, including the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Nottingham North, mentioned. Using drones to pursue and track off-road bikes and ATVs is really important. We need to work with the Civil Aviation Authority to ensure that we can fly these drones beyond the line of sight. There are currently some restrictions, so I will meet the Civil Aviation Authority soon to try to get those relaxed for the purpose of law enforcement. I have met a company from America with a very interesting solution that is used by many American police departments, including the New York police department. They have autonomous drones that can fly to a specified location automatically, with a system that avoids crashing into buildings, electricity pylons, people and so on. I think they can even lock on to a target and pursue it automatically. They can provide video feedback to the control room. That technology solution will help us a lot.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Gibson]

Thank you, Mrs Latham, and I will be brief.

I thank everyone who has attended this debate and made a contribution. We have heard some interesting contributions from across the House, largely focused on safety. I was particularly interested in the concerns the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) raised about roll cages for quad bikes. My hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Jill Mortimer) talked about the safety of her community, as did the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris), who spoke from the Opposition Front Bench. However, the one thing I will really take away from this debate was raised in the contribution by the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley). I would love to go and see the work—the collaboration—going on in his constituency, and I hope the Minister can find the time to go again.

I am really pleased to hear that the Minister is willing and able to look at the NFU and the registration issue; I undertake to write to the NFU and to engage in that piece of collaboration with him. I look forward to continuing to tackle this issue on behalf of my constituents and to improving the safety of the streets of Darlington.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the matter of tackling off-road biking.

[Mrs Pauline Latham (in the Chair)]

Order. The sitting is suspended. We will probably have three votes, so it will be suspended until 4 o’clock, unless we continue to vote after that.