Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of the progress of trial schemes for e-scooters; and what plans he has to introduce legislation on e-scooters before those trials expire in 2024.

Rental e-scooter trials were launched in July 2020 across England. The Department for Transport commissioned an independent evaluation of the e-scooter trials, covering data up to December 2021. The evaluation examines how and why rental e-scooters are used, and by whom, as well as safety, mode shift, environmental and wider social impacts.

The Department published the findings report of the national evaluation of e-scooter rental trials in England on 15 December 2022.

The findings have already been used to inform updates in guidance and regulation of the e-scooter trials and will continue to be used to inform policy development. These include:

mandatory unique identification numbers for all rental e-scooters, to allow members of the public to differentiate trial from non-trial e-scooters; and

increased guidance and encouragement for operators to provide helmets and incentivise their use.

The Government plans to introduce legislation for private and rental e-scooter use when parliamentary time allows and will consult on regulations in due course.