Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 17th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Goschen (Con)]

My Lords, I support this group of amendments, which very neatly follow on from the discussions we had on Monday, when there was a great deal of consensus around the Committee on the degree to which there is a problem, particularly with delivery riders on illegal e-bikes and delivery riders riding e-bikes illegally.

On my way back from your Lordships’ House on Monday, I saw a delivery rider riding the wrong way down Jermyn Street, about half a mile from here, doing about 20 mph. It is a one-way street and he was driving down it the wrong way. That is one anecdote, but walking here this afternoon, I saw a number of similar offences.

A number of different approaches to this problem have been suggested. The first is the major initiative that the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, would like to see—the registration of all cycles. There was some feeling that that would be difficult and perhaps a bit of a sledgehammer to crack quite a large nut.

The issue we have is that these delivery riders are flying under the flag, and are de facto commissioned contractors of, large companies whose agents, for want of a better term, are acting illegally. They are using illegal vehicles and are riding them illegally—the whole time. It is removing the incentive for those who seek to ride legal vehicles.

My noble friends are quite right to put the emphasis on those who can do something about this—the large companies that are commissioning these individuals to utilise these vehicles. They have to take responsibility for the actions of their agents. My noble friend Lord Hailsham may well have said that this goes beyond the law as it stands, but we are Parliament; we are here to change the law where we think that a change in the law will make a specific difference.

I have only one point, which is to urge the Ministers on the Government Front Bench, who have been diligent throughout the Bill and no doubt will be in the weeks to come, not to look too closely at their folders. I have not had a peep but I dare say the words are along the lines of, “Yes, isn’t it awful? There is a real problem. But it’s all very difficult to do something about”. This is the opportunity to do something about it, and I believe the Committee will listen very carefully to the Minister’s response, because we can all see illegal activity and people flouting the law.

The law is being brought into disrepute. There is almost no enforcement at all on this. Yet the Government, in the form of the Minister, say, “Well it’s very difficult but I’m not sure that any of the solutions that have been proposed will make any sort of difference”. If the Government do not like the amendments that my noble friends have proposed, fair enough, but let us hear their initiatives.

I feel that, if we do not get a satisfactory response, the House should not let this opportunity pass, when we have a Bill with clauses that deal directly with the issue of illegal cycling and sanctions. We need to do something about it. This is our moment. We look forward to a substantive response from His Majesty’s Government.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friends Lord Shinkwin, Lord Blencathra and Lord McColl on speaking to their amendments so eloquently. They take the debate one step further than the general debate that we had about dangerous and careless cycling, particularly on pavements—the main perpetrators of which are in fact delivery riders, as a number of us recorded in that debate.

What is particularly helpful about these three amendments is that they refer to the duties and responsibilities of the Home Office. The noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, has spoken about this on a number of occasions and we applaud the work of the City of London in pulling these perpetrators off the street, whether they are cyclists, e-cyclists or e-scooter riders, where they have broken the law. What is particularly appealing in my noble friend Lord McColl’s amendment is that he refers in particular to criminal activity. We know that e-scooters are heavily used in the theft of goods and telephones and the supply of illegal drugs. I almost posted a photograph of an e-bike that was mounting the pavement not far from here in Strutton Ground. I thought I would place it on Facebook. I am rather pleased that I did not, because he went on to do a drugs drop on Strutton Ground. There were schoolchildren and families there. My noble friend Lord Shinkwin’s amendment also highlights how it is particularly the disabled, the less able and the elderly, but also young people with families and those using wheelchairs, who are put at great risk. That has been highlighted by this group of amendments.

I shall put two questions to the noble Lord, Lord Katz, for when he sums up. What actions is the Home Office taking in this regard, outside the City of London and the one-off operations we have heard of, where 70 bicycles were taken off the street in one day? My husband is convinced that, every time one of these operations takes place, the word goes round the delivery drivers and they tell each other not to go out that day because enforcement is out, and therefore they evade that enforcement. What are the Government going to do to improve enforcement by the Home Office? We have moved one step further from the debate on Monday. This is a debate not just about transport and cycling but about people using e-bikes, pedal bikes and e-scooters for illegal and criminal activities.

I have a second question for the noble Lord, Lord Katz. My noble friend Lord Blencathra asked what happens to bikes that have been seized, but I have a wider question. What is the power to seize and confiscate pedal bikes, e-bikes and e-scooters? Do we as private citizens have the power to conduct a private arrest where we see an illegal activity taking place? Are we putting ourselves at undue risk in that regard? I hope that we will get a full response to these questions. Perhaps the Government might come forward with their own amendments because, where this is leading to criminal activities, as we have established it is, it is nonsensical to let it continue to its current extent. I look forward to listening to the Minister’s reply.

[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

My Lords, the amendments in this group from the noble Lords, Lord Shinkwin, Lord Blencathra and Lord McColl, are trying to probe the issue of who is responsible for dangerous cycling by cyclists working for delivery companies. While I support their aims, I do not associate myself with all the points they have raised and, indeed, the language that they have used. However, this is a real issue and one that many of us have looked at over recent years as we have seen this rise of delivery companies, whether it is for your shopping, takeaways or virtually anything you want from the click on your device.

This does not cover just pedal cyclists; it applies equally to those who provide deliveries on motorcycles and e-scooters. In the past, I worked on this at London City Hall to see whether we could work with, for example, the food delivery companies that we have heard so much about today, to see whether we could provide additional training for their cyclists and motor- cyclists, perhaps looking at some sort of charter mark to show that they had higher standards to deliver goods around the city, ensuring that we have professional riders providing this service on our streets.

However, the challenge is that most riders and scooters, as has been mentioned, are not employees of these companies, whose legal advice is that they do not want to go anywhere near that, because then they may be responsible for their cyclists’ or motorcyclists’ behaviour. In fact, you may find that some of these riders are working at the same time for a number of these companies, so it becomes even more complex to work out and identify which company would be responsible. However, the amendments raise an important safety point and I look forward to hearing from the Minister on this area about any ways forward to try to address this growing concern.