My Lords, I support this little debate that we are having, in particular the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, about the fire risk. I, too, have been studying this. It seems that not only are we accepting that e-scooters and some e-bikes are in effect legal because nobody is stopping them, as noble Lords have said; there are still no manufacturing standards to give one any confidence. If these bikes or scooters—or even cars—are not manufactured properly, they could set themselves on fire. That is where we are starting from.
It seems extraordinary that we have got this far. We are not allowed to bring the batteries into some places but, much more seriously, we have seen three big fires this year. There was a report in the press this week about several cars catching fire. Luton Airport car park had a fire; I am told that the fire brigade is absolutely certain that it was not caused by lithium ion but it has not produced any evidence to support that. Looking at the way the fire transmits itself from one car to the next—the worst gases and fire go downwards rather than upwards and then along, obviously, because they hit the deck—I will be very suspicious until I see some independent resource and authority which says that these things are 100% safe. I may have mentioned before that a ship sank off the coast of the Netherlands in the summer with several hundred new lithium ion battery cars in it. One of them apparently set itself on fire, which happens occasionally. Luckily, nobody was
hurt, but the ship sank eventually because there is no way of putting out the fire, as other noble Lords have said.
Whether it is a scooter, bike, car or something else, is it not about time that we had a manufacturing standard before these things are allowed to be imported at all? In the meantime, perhaps the Minister and his colleagues could give us some advice as to how not to set ourselves on fire.
5.15 pm