My Lords, House of Lords Private Members’ Bills are rarely successful in reaching the statute book. I should know—I have introduced quite a few over the years. Their purpose is often to raise the issues in the Bill and encourage the Government to bring forward their own legislation. In that regard, the lithium-ion safety Bill has been incredibly successful: we have only got to Second Reading and already the Government have responded by publishing the Product Regulation and Metrology Bill.
Of course, as the Minister will say, that Bill will cover many of the areas in my Private Member’s Bill. In the light of that, I will therefore look to amend the Bill in Committee. However, while going through the clauses, there are a number of areas where I would like to question the Minister concerning the scope of the Product Regulation and Metrology Bill. I start by welcoming the Minister to her new role and thanking her for arranging a briefing from the Bill team, which was incredibly helpful and constructive.
The basis of this Bill is about protecting the public. Lithium-ion batteries are a vital part of the UK’s transition to a greener, lower-carbon future. Indeed, the acceptance of these batteries as an integral part of our lives ranges from laptops through to the electric bike I have parked outside the building today; it is, of course, an issue that we are not allowed to bring electric bikes into the building because of the potential fire risk.
The way we treat lithium-ion batteries shows how safe people feel about them. Although the vast majority of batteries are safe, there are two areas that need to be focused on: the fires that can be caused by poor-quality batteries and chargers; and the problems associated with disposal. Electrical Safety First, a prime mover in drafting this Bill, has calculated that, on average, an e-bike fire or e-scooter fire occurs once every two days in London—a worrying trend that is happening across the country. Since 2020, lithium-ion battery fires linked to the charging of e-bikes and e-scooters have been linked to 13 deaths in the UK, with many other people seriously injured or hospitalised—including, of course, members of the fire service—and significant damage caused to property.
Lithium-ion battery fires are caused by thermal runaway. The reaction in the cells of the lithium-ion battery produces an exothermic reaction that cascades through all the cells of the battery; this causes a prolonged release of energy and results in fires with temperatures exceeding 600 degrees Celsius. The batteries release toxic gases such as hydrofluoric acid, which corrodes the lungs. Once they have started, lithium-ion battery fires are almost impossible to extinguish with traditional firefighting methods as the battery creates its own oxygen.
Although the risk of fire is low, the ways in which people charge their e-bikes and e-scooters mean that these fires can be particularly dangerous. Many devices are charged in halls or stairwells—and often overnight, which is one of the reasons for the number of deaths associated with fires at home.
Forgive me for interrupting the noble Lord’s extremely interesting and important speech so early. Can I just ask at the outset whether this legislation proposal addresses the future? We know that a great tide of new technologies is going to replace lithium-ion. I have a list in front of me now: sodium-based batteries, graphene batteries and manganese oxide batteries. Most of them are being pushed by the Chinese. Does the noble Lord’s legislation look forward to this new scene and in any way address the obvious problems that are going to come with this new generation of different technologies for batteries?
The simple answer is no, I am afraid. Obviously, there will be a new generation of sodium batteries with their own problems, but they will, I hope, be extremely safe when brought to market.
There is a growing awareness of the fire risk from faulty batteries or defective chargers. However, less well known is the area of disposal. Many batteries end up in the waste stream without being segregated. Batteries are presenting acute challenges for operators in the metal recycling industry. The British Metals Recycling Association has estimated that each year more than 200 fires at metal recycling plants are caused by lithium-ion batteries, with damaging environmental impacts including harmful emissions being released into the atmosphere and contamination of firefighting waters. The insurance company Zurich has seen claims for lithium-ion fires increase significantly over the past few years, and research from Recycle Your Electricals shows that battery fires in bin lorries and at waste sites in the UK have reached an all-time high of more than 1,200 in 2024—an increase of 71% from 700 in 2022.
A consultation by the Government on battery disposal is planned. That is timely, but we should recognise that the rate of recycling is low; I suggest that the figures on recycling mask that because fewer batteries are actually recycled than are reflected in the figures. When I met it, the British and Irish Portable Battery Association set out some of the problems associated with recycling. One area worth considering is working on solutions to regulations to allow batteries to be collected, perhaps by delivery companies or supermarket delivery drivers. This could be a safe way of recycling the millions of used batteries that are in people’s drawers around the country without people dumping them in the rubbish; I suggest that many noble Lords have a whole box full of unrecycled batteries that they leave in places and always forget to take to the recycling centre.
My Lords, it gives me great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, and to congratulate him on winning a place in the ballot and on his very interesting speech. I shall come back to the issue of the support from the Government that seemed to come yesterday, which is rather good.
I and many other noble Lords have had concerns about lithium-ion batteries for a long time. I am honorary president of the United Kingdom Maritime Pilots’ Association. At its AGM a couple of years ago, a retired pilot gave a presentation about a ship a few miles off the coast of the Netherlands that was carrying several hundred lithium-ion battery cars for export to somewhere in the Far East. One of the cars caught fire. As the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, says, that is quite possible. The frightening thing is that the fire from these cars goes downwards, hits the floor, then goes sideways and of course, the fire says to its next-door neighbour, “Do you want to join me?” In the end, the whole ship caught fire. Worse still, the emissions from the fire were heavier than air, so they affected the lifeboat crew, who by that time were trying to save the crew and possibly the ship. As far as I know, the crew were saved. The ship sank.
That confirmed to me that there is no way of putting these fires out, as the noble Lord said: seawater, freshwater—it makes no difference. Then there were reports of a fire in a multi-storey car park at Luton Airport a year or two later. The local fire brigade said that it had nothing to do with lithium-ion. I thought, “Do I believe them?” Of course, everybody thinks that lithium-ion batteries are the answer to our green agenda and not having to use diesel and petrol in our vehicles, but we have to make sure that they are safe. This Bill is a really good attempt to ensure that the product used in these things is safe. Also, the London Fire Brigade persuaded TfL to ban e-scooters from the Underground because, as the noble Lord said, there have been a number of instances of e-scooter batteries catching fire on the Underground, which is clearly highly undesirable.
My Lords, it is a pleasure to take part in this Second Reading and to follow the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, on his Bill and on the impact that it has already had on the new Government. It means that, unusually for a Second Reading, I can indulge in more questions to the Minister than may otherwise be the case.
It is clear that we cannot turn our energy system green and we cannot reach net zero without batteries. The questions are what batteries and with what chemistry within them, and around how they are constructed, controlled and deployed. That goes to the heart of the noble Lord’s Bill, which I support and wish well on its journey. It seems it may have a longer and more winding journey—or perhaps shorter and more winding—than other Private Members’ Bills.
I have a number of questions for the Minister, not least on the Product Regulation and Metrology Bill, which encompasses much of the noble Lord’s principles in his Private Member’s Bill. First, would it be a good idea to have a complete prohibition on charging any of these batteries, whatever device they are in, in any hallway or common parts of shared dwellings?
Secondly, are the current sanctions against those who manufacture and produce batteries that are not of the requisite standard and quality at an appropriate level? I am also interested to hear what representations the Government have had from our courageous firefighters on what is happening out there? Do we have a clear picture of the number of fires caused by lithium-ion batteries? Do we have that mapping exercise and is it clearly understood? What do the Government need to do to support our firefighters to face different challenges? There will be an exponential increase in the number of these batteries, not just on our person but moving around on small, large and mega mobility devices. What is the Government’s plan to control and effectively deal with these devices when, in tragic and horrific situations, they go wrong?
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the important remarks by the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, on the drafting of this Bill. I think it has made an impact.
My interest in this was sparked when I was on a visit to the London Fire Brigade headquarters, because of the research it has done into low-level carbon monoxide poisoning in people who are living on houseboats—I chair the CO Research Trust. The senior officers who I saw that day were really shocked, because they had just had a call to a fire triggered by one of these batteries being charged in a living area in a flat, and the child to whom the new scooter belonged had sustained terrible life-changing injuries. They were devastated by what they had encountered. I feel that this Bill is incredibly important.
The London Fire Brigade told me that it has seen a stark rise in e-bike and e-scooter fires; on average, there was a fire every two days in 2023; and, last year, three people died as a result of these fires, including Sofia Duarte, who on New Year’s Day was the first Londoner to die as a result of an e-bike fire. She was at her boyfriend’s house celebrating the new year when disaster struck. Five people escaped through the second-floor window, but she was trapped inside. Her family are now petitioning for new legislation on e-bikes and e-scooters.
The Bill aims to increase product safety of e-bike and e-scooter products, as sold online in particular. As the noble Lord, Lord of Howell of Guildford, raised, there needs to be future-proofing. I hope that the Bill will provide a template that can be built on as new products come online, because we need to have a starting point and the Bill is trying to provide that. It needs to include all high-energy and lithium battery types and materials, as well as non-rechargeable lithium batteries, all of which pose a real fire risk to the public, as well as the incredible risk to the firefighters themselves who need to tackle these awful blazes. The number of e-bike fires in the capital has risen from just 13 in 2020 to 143 last year and, by September this year, the numbers had risen even further. It is a prime example of how quickly new technologies can present a real risk and why future-proofing is so important.
My Lords, in principle I completely support the Bill. We must, however, look at the detail more closely. For example, we have to recognise that there are large numbers of different chemistries used to make batteries—the lithium battery is only one such. I was interested to see how we label them so I went outside for a magnifying glass to look at my hearing aid batteries, to see what the chemistry was. It turns out that the label does not tell me. It tells me that they may catch fire if I throw them on to a fire. On the other hand, these might be silver zinc batteries, in which case they are completely safe and unlikely to overheat or cause fires spontaneously.
The problem with lithium is that it is the lightest metal, one of the lightest elements, and is highly volatile. It burns very easily and there is pure lithium in batteries. What happens, as the noble Lord has mentioned, is a kind of chain reaction—the thermal continuation that feeds itself. All batteries will produce heat as part of the energy that they produce, and so produce the seeds of their own eventual destruction if they get overheated.
Clearly, therefore, labelling must be considered very carefully in the Bill. How you keep your batteries might be important. There is no question, for example, that charging a bike with a lithium battery overnight without supervision might be more serious than one realises, but it might be completely safe with many other different technologies and chemistries. One of the issues, therefore, is that the chemistry has to be labelled.
I do not want to add difficulty. Every time we table an amendment to a Bill we make it more difficult to pass, and I do not want to see that happen—this is a good idea and it is important. However, we must recognise, as the noble Lord, Lord Howell, said, that there might be technologies that change things. In the lithium battery you have lithium cobalt on one side, for example—incidentally, the cobalt is there for concatenation, which is interesting given the previous debate—and on the other side at the anode you have carbon, or graphite. The ions pass across and when they reach the anode they oxidise and you get power—and that is a rechargeable battery. There is of course a separator in the middle to prevent that, although at the moment these separators are permeable, not solid, and perhaps, with better technology, one solution would be that if the separator responds to heat and becomes completely solid the battery could not continue in that sort of way. Those sorts of technologies might make a difference. We should not condemn these batteries out of hand whatever happens, because that is something that we might feel important.
I just want to draw attention to the very point that the noble Lord has made about the waste of these materials. If we look at the disposal just of disposable vapes in this country alone, it is estimated that that is the equivalent of throwing away 10 tonnes of lithium each year.
I am grateful to the noble Lord. That would make a fantastic bonfire, would it not? You would not want to pour water on it.
Some batteries do not have that kind of technology. Silver zinc is an aquatic substrate in the battery, so will not get very hot—at least it cannot burn at the sort of temperature of 700 degrees Celsius.
Finally, some years ago I tried to introduce a Private Member’s Bill about the labelling of drugs. I wanted particular labelling—which I will not go into as it is not relevant to the Bill—as I felt that it was missing. The Government at the time were well disposed towards the Bill, and we went through Committee without any problem. However, the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, took me to one side and pointed out that this might affect EU legislation. At the time of my Bill labelling any product would be subject to EU regulation, and it was clear that we would not get it through the EU. We are now, of course, free of that—I am not a Brexiteer by any means, by the way—but there is still a problem about labelling. We must ask ourselves how we can get a decent label on a small package and what we put on it, with some kind of legal advice—maybe even commercial advice—to make certain that we can sell our batteries in the EU. We are trying to expand the industry in this country, with gigafactories and so on. We need to think about it very carefully, as clearly it would be valuable, having made safe batteries, to be able to sell them globally. I commend the noble Lord and support the idea of taking this to Committee.
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Winston, who in his own way has made us think more deeply about the chemistry, which we often do not. The specific points he made about the chemistry would probably be covered by secondary legislation or below that in regulations from the OPSS.
I congratulate my noble friend Lord Redesdale on bringing his Private Member’s Bill and on securing such an early Second Reading. His speech and the description of the clauses of the Bill have set the scene very well for us. I thank the organisations that have given us briefings, including the London Fire Brigade, Electrical Safety First, the Institution of Engineering and Technology, the House of Lords Library and the LGA. I declare my interests as a vice-president of the LGA, and as vice-chair of the APPG on Fire Safety and Rescue, which I have been for over a decade.
As an officer of the APPG on Fire Safety and Rescue, I had a meeting with the Minister responsible for regulation and representatives of the Office for Product Safety and Standards in the Department for Business earlier this year, along with other officers from the APPG, on this issue of regulating lithium batteries and their safe disposal. I will come on to some of those details later.
The fire background is stark. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, that our fire services absolutely know what is happening, and the APPG has been seeking meetings with Ministers at, I think, four different departments and counting. Part of the problem is that there are many different areas to be covered, so it is wonderful that we now have a Bill which enables us proper parliamentary time to discuss it. We heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, that the London Fire Brigade told us that London alone had 143 fires last year, in which there were three deaths and 60 injuries. In the first eight months of this year alone there have been 127 e-bike and e-scooter fires.
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I was going to give a long speech about disposable vapes, another real issue here. However, due to time, I will leave my noble friend Lord Foster to deal with that and instead move on to the clauses in the Bill. Clause 1 details the purposes of the Bill, including
“to better protect … householders, and … communities from the dangers of lithium-ion batteries”
and
“to increase public confidence in, and acceptance of, Battery Energy Storage Systems”.
Clause 2 would require the fire service, the Environment Agency and the Health and Safety Executive to be statutory consultees on planning for new stand-alone battery energy storage systems. This would allow for a greater understanding of the risk profile and necessary planning to allow any future incidents to be responded to by the relevant services. This clause may be addressed by Defra and the EA in the consultation they are taking forward and the work they are undertaking, but making sure that the fire and emergency services can access these batteries in the unlikely event of a fire is really important—especially if the batteries do not need planning permission because they are retrofitted into sites close to residential areas.
Clause 3 would require the Secretary of State to make regulations requiring the operator of online marketplaces to take reasonable steps to ensure that the products sold on their platforms conform to the relevant safety standards. Currently, substandard and dangerous products relating to and including high-risk lithium-ion batteries, such as universal chargers or ill-made conversion kits, are continually bought and sold across a plethora of online marketplaces, presenting risks to those purchasing and using such products. The health briefing from the Bill team indicates that this clause will be covered in the new Bill coming forward. However, I hope that the Minister can ensure that there is a focus on conversion and charging kits because this is where most of the fires occur.
Clause 4 would introduce third-party certification of all e-bike and e-scooter batteries before they can be placed on the UK market. This is a similar requirement to that for other high-risk products such as heavy machinery and fireworks. Having a dedicated safety standard to monitor and enforce compliance would also aid trading standards and the Office for Product Safety and Standards in their duties. This morning when I took my bike out, I read the back of the charger. It does have a CE mark, which gave me confidence—until I talked to members of the industry, who said, “That might not give you all the confidence that you really need”. I am fortunate that I charge my bike in a bike shed outside, on that basis.
Clause 5 would introduce safety standards for ancillary products associated with these devices, such as a standard for conversion kits and chargers. This would reduce the risk of improper battery systems powering converted e-bikes and the risk of overcharging the battery, which can lead to thermal runaway.
Clause 6 would introduce regulations for the disposal and safety information supplied with the battery, giving clear information on the disposal requirements and the cell chemistry in the battery. This clause would help to reduce the number of fires at waste disposal sites and in bin lorries and provide information about the chemicals that people may have been exposed to, helping healthcare professionals to administer appropriate treatment.
I look forward to the Minister’s response. In light of the Product Regulation and Metrology Bill, I have feeling that this Bill might not sail through the House and on to the Commons. However, I will be looking to perhaps move forward to Committee, where I would address any concerns, especially those raised by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. If the Minister can give me assurances at a later stage, I may even withdraw the Bill.
Much of the meat of the new metrology Bill—I keep thinking of it as “meteorology”—will come in secondary legislation. I hope that the Minister will hold consultations with all parties going forward, especially on this issue. To help me decide whether to withdraw the Bill, I hope I can have a meeting with some of her officials and the relevant parties before the next stage.
I thank all noble Lords who are taking part in this debate. I beg to move.
That, of course, leads on to the attempts many of us have been making over the last few years to persuade government not only to introduce some product regulation, as the noble Lord’s Bill attempts to do, but to link that with how these things are used. A lot of people like using scooters, for example. Some noble Lords may not agree on this, but I love using scooters— the legal ones, of course—and I have an e-bike. However, we do not want to be seen to be contravening the law every time we use them, because we do not know whether the batteries are safe as they do not have the conformity stamp, for example. So there is a lot of work to be done on this. This Bill and my noble friend’s Bill, which we heard about yesterday, are essential parts of getting the conformity issues correct.
There is the parallel side, which probably comes under transport, of making sure that the people who use these things use only batteries that are sound and that they comply with the law on riding on pavements, which we will no doubt be debating next week. However, on this Bill and the issue of conformity, it is terribly important that the whole thing be seen to be done properly. For example, to judge by the report on the Grenfell Tower fire, the insulation clearly was not done properly. It is fine saying that there is a stamp, but if it is not properly delivered on, that does not help. At the moment, I remain to be convinced that lithium-ion is the answer to everything that people say that it should be. I do not like petrol or diesel cars either—I would rather have cycle power—but there we are.
We also need regulation as to what size of batteries are used where. Two or three months ago, your Lordships’ House debated a regulation that allows batteries in freight bicycles, if we can call them that—you see them on the streets quite often—to have double the power output. I remember asking the Minister why we need double the power output in cargo bikes. The Minister replied that it would enable them to carry bigger loads. But are the brakes tested? He said, “If you want to get up the hill to Hampstead Heath, you need power”. But what about coming down? You have to be able to stop. It seemed a rather odd regulation that was brought in for no particular reason. I am sure the cargo people are very happy, but it does not help safety or anything else.
I hope that the new legislation that my noble friend has promised is going to cover everything that we have talked about today, and that she will encourage her colleagues in the Department for Transport, and I suppose the Home Office, to look at the other side of the coin and make sure that people comply, with enough people to enforce and inspect users, and take them to the cleaners if they do not—otherwise, we will have failed.
The fires that the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, and I have mentioned are frightening. People do not know about them because they are kept under wraps. London Fire Brigade has done a great job warning people, but the solution is not to stop people using these things; the solution is to have a conformed battery that works and is safe. It must be safe and it must be seen by independent regulators to be safe—otherwise, it will not have done its job.
I was interested in the Minister’s letter to noble Lords on 5 September about the introduction of the Product Regulation and Metrology Bill. It is a good start, but it estimates that
“at least 300,000 UK businesses must adhere to product safety legislation”.
How many people will inspect that and check that the legislation works and that people are complying? I am not really expecting my noble friend to answer that today, but she can try.
We have to tackle non-compliance and make sure that, to start with, the regulations do the job that they are intended to do, rather than giving in to the manufacturers’ pressure that it will be all right on the night and we will have a better model next year. Next year’s problem may be different or it may be the same, and I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, will be looking at whether the current Bill covers the future. We have to get this right and make sure it is tight. If Grenfell is not a good example, I do not know what is. I wish the Bill well.
Looking broader than the Bill, it is clear that the Government need an overall battery strategy. We saw issues with Britishvolt in the north-east, so I am interested to hear from the Minister about the Government’s current strategy for battery use and development, and to get the UK to the level of battery manufacture that it requires to deliver on net zero and our mobility needs.
I refer the Minister to a report on this issue of the Science and Technology Committee, on which I was involved, a couple of years ago, called Battery Strategy Goes Flat. I cannot claim to have been the author of the title but, as it referred to the previous Government, perhaps the Minister can tell us the current Government’s strategy for the battery needs of the country.
Similarly, what level of investment is going into developing and understanding not just current battery technologies but—as the debate already referred to—all the new technologies coming on stream and very nascent technologies that are likely to form a large part of our battery need in a short time? All have potential, but allied to potential risks that need to be understood and legislated for.
Finally, on the future, what is the Government’s grand vision for the role of batteries and fuel cells across our economy and society, so that we have a safe, positive transition to green energy, to mobility for all in an inclusive manner, and a situation where the chemistry and science are fully understood so that, most importantly, we can all go about our business safely. I wish the Bill well and look forward to seeing how it interacts with the product safety Bill to put the country in a far better situation for the generation and storage of energy, and, crucially, our safety.
E-bikes and e-scooters catch fire incredibly quickly if their batteries become damaged or begin to fail, but they can just catch fire spontaneously. Although privately owned scooters remain illegal in public places and on London’s roads—and, very fortunately, are not allowed on the Underground—they are not illegal to purchase. New York has taken the issue so seriously that it has banned the sale, use or rental of e-mobility devices and related storage batteries that fail to meet recognised safety standards.
When these batteries catch fire, as has been said, the temperature is astounding. They can reach a temperature of between 700 and 1,000 degrees centigrade spontaneously, and the fire comes with outreaching plumes of flame, so it is not just that the device burns but that it seems to explode. These plumes of flame cause life-changing injuries to anybody nearby, and they happen so fast that it is before people can take action to avoid being near them.
Many of us have devices in the home with Li-ion batteries in them, and we are often completely unaware of the future potential of these. I noticed that I have a vacuum cleaner which has one of these batteries in and is rechargeable, and I recharge it within the flat. I have become aware that this may be quite dangerous. It is of crucial importance that they are not charged near any exits or in bedrooms. In blocks of flats, it is important they are not charged indoors, as this endangers the lives of many people and blocks the exit from the building.
A problem area is when these batteries are bought over the internet, from places of dubious provenance in particular, and then charged without the correct charger. One brand of battery has been particularly dangerous.
Conversion kits are a major problem. The London Fire Brigade believes this innovation has come ahead of proper safety standards, and there is inadequate regulation for e-bike and e-scooter conversion kits and accessories. Many of the lithium battery fires have been caused by faulty or mismatched and unsafe products. Clause 5’s focus on conversion kits is an important inclusion to protect the public. People can modify bikes to e-bikes with a conversion kit. These kits involve sourcing a battery and a charger separately, which may not reach correct safety standards. The batteries are then more susceptible to catastrophic failure when the incorrect charger is used. It is essential that all the data on these is collected centrally to allow people to better understand the risks relating to these conversion kits and that regulation is robust. I hope that the Government will look at the importance of data collection nationally—I mean across the four nations—to understand where these fires are breaking out and exactly what is being used.
The danger, of course, comes from online marketplaces. People from all backgrounds use e-bikes, and people on low incomes are more likely to report being regular users. They are then at higher risk. These include people working in delivery companies, as has already been said, and people living in high-rise properties, who are at greater risk of charging them in hallways and communal areas. The London Fire Brigade has recently worked with Deliveroo to try to reach delivery riders with important messaging about e-bikes and e-scooters, because although they provide cheaper and sustainable transport in London, the batteries present a unique fire challenge.
Regulating the sale of batteries to online marketplaces is vital to increase standards to protect people. I know the London Fire Brigade has been working with Amazon to ensure anyone buying an e-bike or related products gets safety advice emailed to them after the purchase.
The Clause 3 provisions to regulate online marketplaces are welcome, but consideration must be made for how this will work for second-hand products sold online through online marketplaces such as eBay, Facebook Marketplace and Gumtree. That must also cover e-bikes and chargers and batteries, because of the ferocious fires. During a London Fire Brigade investigation, it has seen second-hand products involved in incidents across the capital, including the lucky escape already referred to at Sutton railway station where, thankfully, there were no injuries. The Bill must align—and, from the way the debate has gone so far, will probably be replaced—with the Product Regulation and Metrology Bill, which looks to address product safety and online marketplaces.
There are two brands of e-bike battery that have had withdrawal notices issued on them. These are UPP and HL R-Team batteries. Unfortunately, they are still around and being used.
The term “micromobility vehicles” needs to be clearly defined so we cover all types of e-bikes and e-scooters and other battery-type devices. The conformity standards have been partly defined through the European or UK conformity assessment markings but, as has already been said, these need to be enforced, and we need to ensure that the inspection of these is adequate.
In the last moments, I will tackle disposal of batteries. People are completely unaware of how to dispose of these batteries. Recycling centres and scrapyards have had terrible fires, which are difficult to extinguish. People need to be able to dispose of them easily and safely through local advice. The inclusion in the Bill of how to dispose of batteries is really important. I hope that the lessons from it can all be taken forward.
There is clearly more need for education about the subject. I will not go on at great length but I want to suggest a few points. I do not know whether my hearing aids have lithium in them; they might be lithium-air, but they have not so far caused my ears to burn while I am sitting by the fire—that happens only when people talk about me.
We have not dealt with something important in the Bill. Lithium is a rare resource. It is difficult to mine and there are not many places in the world where you can mine it. There are many of these technologies, such as silver, and zinc too to some extent—all of these things are precious and we cannot renew them. The noble Lord pointed out in his speech—nobody else has properly pointed it out—that when you come to recycling it is difficult to separate the elements. The problem is that if you take, for example, a hearing aid—it is tiny and one could ask whether worth recycling, but a deaf person using a hearing aid for five years will build up quite a lot of batteries—there are no instructions as to whether we should preserve that material and find some ways of better recycling it. There is more to be done to separate the various metals, and there are large numbers of different metals in batteries that we need to consider. The chemistry needs to be thought about in the future.
I do not think it is part of the Bill, but the labelling is relevant in terms of public consciousness. Above all, we must recognise that if we continue to overuse the world’s resources, such as lithium, we will run out of what could be a valuable element in other ways. That is one of the important points in this issue.
Last year in Cambridge, Gemma Germeney and her children, Lilly and Oliver Peden, lost their lives when an e-bike bought online exploded and set their flat on fire. Her partner, Scott Peden, was in a coma for a month and has prolonged injuries as a result. He has demanded tougher regulations for such devices. He had no idea of the dangers of the item he bought online. Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue Service wrote to the coroner to ask for better regulation of online sales of e-bike batteries. Although the inquest has been opened and adjourned, it has not yet come to its final conclusion, and it will be interesting to hear the coroner’s views on what should happen.
The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Fire Safety and Rescue has seen videos of lithium battery fires. The description of the fire by the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, was helpful, but actually watching that white explosive fire burning at 1,000 degrees gives a lasting impression of how dangerous they can be.
The Institution of Engineering and Technology provided a helpful focus on how regulation and development might work in practice. Thinking about building in safe design alongside assessing product risks is vital. If there are clear standards and firm regulation in design, the sector will work much better. The institution also suggests greater OPSS involvement with international alert systems for dangerous products —for example, Safety Gate—but this must be adequately funded and staffed. There has already been reference to global online markets these days, and it is really short-sighted to think that self-regulation could ever stop at our borders. I will return to that in relation to flying with lithium batteries.
The OPSS also has a role in raising consumer awareness levels and changing purchasing behaviours, which would thereby complement enforcement measures. That is the biggest thing that we need to do. Just having adverts saying these things might be dangerous is not enough. None of us is aware of how many lithium batteries we have around us every day.
The LGA forwarded the data on fires in waste trucks and waste sites, which is really shocking. Local government and large retailers, such as supermarkets, can and should help to raise awareness about the disposal of batteries, especially those that cannot be removed from small appliances, for example, electric toothbrushes.
Most people do not know that the act of crushing even a healthy battery is likely to cause a fire. It is the act of crushing that does it. Anything that goes into the waste could be compacted either in a truck—there have been fires in trucks—or on the waste site itself.
The London Fire Brigade suggests some possible strengthening of the Bill. That has been covered by other noble Lords and I will not repeat it. I shall move to the LFB’s concerns about Clause 4, which states that lithium-ion battery-powered vehicles must have a safety fire certificate. There has been mention of micromobility vehicles needing to be clearly defined. The LFB suggests that perhaps mobility scooters ought to be added to the list of registrations.
The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, talked to us about doing regulation properly, which relates to one of the problems that the all-party group faced. I want to come on to the details of why this is. We are thinking only about where there has been a fire, but we have not yet got to grips with how people’s lives can be affected by the poor regulation that we have at the moment, but not in a fire-safe way. I apologise for using personal examples, but scooters and wheelchairs with lithium batteries are a real problem for disabled people. We had a debate in your Lordships’ House last year where I said:
“The noble Lord, Lord Blencathra … talked about the ridiculous process we have to fill in for our wheelchair dimensions and battery details when booking the flight, then again when the airline confirms the booking, then again when you check in online to get your seat, then again when you arrive at check-in and again when you arrive at the departure gate”.—[Official Report, 23/11/23; col. 97GC.]
That is because everybody in the airport is worried about batteries. They cannot take the evidence that you have given them.
In an APPG meeting with the Fire Minister last year, we were told that there was a plan to produce wheelchair and wheelchair-battery passports. That seems to be really helpful because not only would it act as evidence that the battery had been bought safety and approved but there would be the numbers of the batteries in the passport and it could act as a logbook. I know I have to have my electric wheelchairs maintained at least twice a year to make sure that the batteries and other parts are safe, so that is important. However, I have had three experiences in the past year where there has been an issue with my wheelchair batteries. First, an airport refused to allow my wheelchair on a plane because it said, incorrectly, that the lithium batteries were too big even though they met the IATA regulations. Secondly, after I flew to Bucharest using not my lithium battery chair but my bus battery chair, the ground services manager told me that I personally had to physically lift out my two bus batteries and carry them on to the plane because I needed to have them with me in the cabin. Thirdly, I hit a problem when I got to Sweden: I had been allowed out there with the wheelchair with the lithium batteries but was refused a flight back. I persuaded the company that that would not look very good because they had flown me out three days earlier. We need to think about this sort of thing because if we start regulating only for safety, we will completely miss the way that all of us live with batteries in our lives. For those of us for whom lithium batteries make travel easier, if we are buying the right things, we should not be penalised.
I shall end a point about making sure that all departments are involved. It is right that the Department for Business and Trade and the OPSS lead on this. However, as far as fire is concerned, we already have a problem with where the dividing line is between the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and the Home Office. There are other issues as well, particularly for disabled people, so there needs to be involvement from the Disability Minister too. Will the Minister ensure that, as the Bill progresses, the discussions that were beginning to happen between Ministers across departments in the previous Government continue, and that, particularly for issues affecting disabled people, the Disability Minister and disability organisations are kept informed as well?