E-scooters: Insurance

Lord Brennan of Canton Excerpts

Wednesday 14th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The use of e-scooters needs legislation to regulate it. This is a question which I have answered in the House before and which no doubt will continue to come up until we produce draft legislation. The issues are complex. Noble Lords will know that I have replied to the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, putting in the Library a résumé of the legislation applying in all European countries, where there are vast differences in where you can use them, whether you should have a helmet, whether there is an age limit, whether they should be registered and whether they should be insured. We are working hard through those issues. They are not easy to solve, but the noble Baroness is right that determining what can be used on pavements and what is safe in a world where people with disabilities are, rightly, very worried about this, is very important.

[Lord Brennan of Canton (Lab)]

My Lords, even when things are made legal, they can be abused. There must be enforcement. E-bikes are supposed to travel at a maximum of 15.5 miles per hour and not be throttled up to that speed. Yet around us all the time we see employees, in effect, of multinational companies delivering our groceries and our takeaways being exploited on illegal and uninsured vehicles. Will the Government take that into account when considering any regime for e-scooters?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

My noble friend is absolutely right. The speed limit of 15.5 miles per hour determines the point at which an electric bicycle, capable of more speed than that, is a vehicle that needs to be licensed. The enforcement of the law is a matter for chief police officers, but we are considering what we can do in this area. I recognise as much as everybody else in this House that these alleged bicycles travelling at 25 or 30 miles per hour silently, and with the logos of quite major companies on the back of their riders’ rucksacks, represent a significant challenge to the legal use of the roads system.