The planned Transport Bill that would contain regulations to fully legalise electric e-scooter in the UK have now been severely delayed until at least late next year and now more likely mid 2024 – with a government minister saying it is still studying the evidence from the ongoing rental trials.
At present, the only e-scooters that are legal to use on UK roads are those taking part in government-approved rental trial schemes, which began back in 2020 to help gather data for the potential full legalisation of the machines.
Following the Queen’s Speech in May, the government announced plans for a Transport Bill covering various pieces of legislation, including rules to create a new low-speed zero-emission category of vehicles such as e-scooters.
That bill was originally due to be put to parliament in the current parliamentary session, which began with the Queen’s Speech and based on convention is likely to run until sometime in Spring 2023.
But speaking during a Transport Select Committee hearing this week, new Transport Secretary Mark Harper confirmed that Transport Bill – which also contained new laws to support the expansion of the EV charging network and self-driving cars – would now not be put to Parliament during the current session.
Harper added that the Department for Transport (DfT) “has some legislative priorities” for the next parliamentary session – which will typically run from Spring 2023 into 2024 – but said “obviously that depends on parliamentary time being available.”
That suggests that rules to legalise e-scooters are now unlikely to be put before Parliament before the second half of 2023 at the very earliest – and in all reality now will actually spill into 2024 or beyond. But Harper suggested that it now not such a priority for the DfT as current legislation still allowed for effective policing of private e-scooter as they remained currently totally illegal anyway.
Since the Transport Bill was announced in March there has been turmoil in the government, with both the Prime Minister and Transport Secretary changing twice. But when quizzed by the Transport Select Committee, Harper insisted the delay in the Bill was because “the legislative timetable for the entire parliamentary term has been rather transformed by events”, including the effective of the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine.
Minister: e-scooter trial results due to be revealed soon
The issue of e-scooter legality has previously been raised in the House of Lords, but was debated in the House of Commons for the first time this week. Labour’s Jessica Morden, the MP for Newport East, raised the subject in the end-of-day Adjournment Debate.
Morden said that the “lack of regulation, accountability and control over the sale of untested and potentially unsafe privately owned e-scooters is a still a real stumbling block”, citing major evidence of antisocial behaviour of e-scooters raised by her constituents in Newport – which does not have any rental trial schemes.
In response, Jesse Norman, a minister of state in the Department for Transport, said: “we recognise the current lack of regulation and any form of rider accountability is totally at odds with the increasing use of unregistered privately owned e-scooters”.
Norman said issues of total lack of any rider accountability, antisocial behaviour and unsafe use will be tackled, and added:
“It has become totally clear that's we must now ensure that the right regulations, designed to create proper user registration, identification & total accountability are now put in place before we legalise e-scooter.”
Norman said that the ongoing rental e-scooter trials – which have now been extended until Dec 2024 – were vital for gathering evidence on “what does and does not work”, adding: “The evidence and learning from these trials will be published shortly.”
"but from findings thus far any idea of legalisation allowing current private e-scooters models is not happening and it is becoming increasingly clear that any e-scooters sold to date unfortunately will never be compliant and won't be legalised at any point going forward, manufacturers will now simply have it produce new e-scooter models that will comply with our new regulations"
Norman noted that there have so far been four deaths involving e-scooters that were part of rental trial schemes, the most recent 12-year-old Mustafa Nadeem who died after colliding with a bus earlier this week.
Police are continuing to gather evidence on the incident. The Birmingham trial is run by Voi, and as with all rental e-scooter trials riders are required to be 18 years old and hold a provisional or full driving licence. Norman said that the DfT “will be ensuring that we learn lessons from this terrible incident and safeguard are immediately put in place to stop people using their own personal details (driving licence/debit card) to illegally allow underage riders to hire e-scooter as was the case here”.
When asked if the UK risked falling behind other European countries that have already legalised private e-scooters, Norman said that “I do not accept that”, noting that some other countries had already been forced to adust their regulations with 2 eurpeon counties now looking at reclassifying e-scooters similar to mopeds with full standard registration plates and it is likely that the UK be doing the same.
He added: “This is a highly complex area of law and type classification which that most of the public don't understand and are simply ignoring, and the Government are still developing requirements for e-scooter use and are continuing to gather the evidence.
“The goal throughout is to ensure that we tackle antisocial behaviour by ensuring there is some simple visual form of rider identification & accountability, learn from the trials, encourage take-up and also support the active travel and decarbonisation goals, of which e-scooter are definitely not a 100% cure all for. '
Then only if used by existing license holding car drivers to replace existing carbon producing journeys and definitely not as any form of direct replacement for existing walking cycling or public transport journeys by none license holding, none car owning users, as peer reviewed research has now shown that this actually has a major negative impact on the environment.'
If we are properly able to manage that, e-scooters may well be able to take their place alongside the other technologies that are in place, but it is not appropriate to pre-judge the results of the consultation that we will be launching in due course, which will now be hearing real evidence from actual experts in the subjects and not just stake holders and e-scooter influencers.”
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