Contribution
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Stringer. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire) for setting out the case for regulation of e-bikes and e-scooters with great passion and conviction. She spoke very movingly of the loss of her constituent Jacob’s life, and highlighted the enormous geographical range of police forces that are concerned about this issue.
Hon. Members from across the country have also spoken with great thought on some of the key themes of the debate. First and foremost is the human impact of the problem of illegally modified and used e-bikes and e-scooters: not only the deaths and the injuries, but the fear that so many people feel, particularly people with disabilities or who are partially sighted, and the fact that pavements are no longer thought of by everybody as a place of refuge from motor traffic and somewhere that they can rely on to safely complete their journey.
Some hon. Members also highlighted the growing financial impact of the problem in terms of insurance payouts, where users of these vehicles who are not insured mean that everyone else bears the cost through increased premiums. They noted the problem of battery fires, which sometimes lead to loss of life, and rightly stressed the need for greater enforcement and for more support and resources for our police in dealing with the issue.
Part of the problem comes from the complexity of what an e-bike or e-scooter is or is not. A legal e-bike has pedal-assisted electric power up to a speed of 15.5 mph and no more. In some parts of the country there are long-standing trials of e-scooters, but in most places there are not, and that adds to the complexity. According to statistics from the Office for Product Safety and Standards, the vast majority of battery fires arise from conversion kits and unknown brands of e-bike, highlighting the need for much greater product regulation.
In 2025, London’s Metropolitan police seized more than 2,200 illegal e-bikes and e-scooters across London. In the first seven months of 2026 it seized more than 2,500—already exceeding the whole of 2025. In March 2026, a two-day enforcement operation seized 52 illegal e-bikes and mopeds. The London Fire Brigade reports that e-bike fires have doubled between 2022 and 2025, with most fires caused by illegally modified or designed e-bikes and their batteries. Many people see some food delivery couriers using e-bikes, sometimes illegally modified, in a reckless and inconsiderate manner.
However, there is also a great opportunity if we can get e-bikes right. In 2024, the UK sold just 2.1 e-bikes per 1,000 people, compared with 8.5 in France and a staggering 36.1 in Denmark. If we do not buck that trend, we are unlikely to achieve the continuation of cycling into older age that happens in the Netherlands, where e-bike travel accounts for over 50% of cycling distance in the 65 to 75 age bracket. There is an opportunity, as well as a problem that needs to be solved.
As well as the many hon. Members from many parties who have spoken on this issue, the all-party parliamentary group for cycling and walking conducted an inquiry into this issue last year and produced a very thoughtful and wide-ranging report. At the Liberal Democrat conference in September, which is still only last month—time is a very strange concept in this job—we passed definitive policy on the need to take much tougher action on illegally modified e-bikes. The strength of feeling in this room shows there is a widespread lack of confidence that the current Government are taking the co-ordinated and sustained action we need on this issue.
This is a multifaceted problem that straddles many Government Departments, and we know from many Select Committee reports and the Institute for Government that, alas, we have not always been good at tackling problems that straddle multiple Departments. Hopefully the Minister will give us some assurance that a multi-pronged, multi-departmental approach will be taken on this issue.
Our asks of the Government are as follows: first, we need to tackle the root cause, which is the supply chains. We need to make online retailers police and stop the sale of all non-conforming e-bikes, conversion kits, batteries and chargers, dealing with the problem at its source. We also need to deal with the perverse incentives created by the gig economy. The phenomenon of worker substitution makes avoiding individual identification and accountability too easy, while the pay-per-delivery model used by many of the delivery platforms incentivises reckless and illegal behaviour. Delivery platforms should be undertaking their own speed and e-bike checks. They need to take some responsibility for the issue.