The Department does not hold this information.

Electric bikes which comply with the Electrically Assisted Pedal Cycle Regulations 1983 do not require registration, tax or insurance. No assessment has been made concerning the number ridden on public roads.

The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) does not undertake roadside testing of electric bicycles for compliance with the Electrically Assisted Pedal Cycles Regulations 1983.

The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) undertakes market surveillance activity in relation to vehicles placed on the market, including e-bikes. This includes testing samples of vehicles at the point of sale. Enforcement of road traffic legislation and the use of vehicles on the road is a matter for the police.

The Department has published online guidance for consumers on electric bikes. This guidance covers the rules that e-bikes need to comply with to be classed as an Electrically Assisted Pedal Cycle (EAPC) and the rules that apply to e-bikes that do not meet the EAPC requirements and are therefore classed as a motorcycle or moped.

The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency’s Market Surveillance Unit (MSU) monitors the market for non-compliant or misleadingly marketed e-bikes and other vehicles. Where issues are identified, MSU can take proportionate action in line with its statutory remit.

In December last year the Minister for Local Transport wrote to the main food delivery companies to remind them of their obligations including the use of modified e-cycles by some delivery riders. The letter signposted government guidance on the safe use of e-cycle batteries including the Office for Product Safety and Standard’s ‘Buy Safe, Be Safe’ campaign. The Department is considering next steps in the light of the responses received.

Enforcement of the rules and regulations in respect of both e-cycles and e-scooters is a matter for the police.

Electrically Assisted Pedal Cycles (e-cycles) are legal to use on public roads so long as they comply with the requirements of the Electrically Assisted Pedal Cycle Regulations 1983. Broadly, this means that maximum continuous power of the electric motor must not exceed 250 watts, that the e-cycle must be fitted with pedals capable of propelling it, and that the electrical assistance must cut-off at 15.5mph. The Department does not have data on the number of e-cycles in use that do not comply with these requirements.

Private e-scooters remain illegal to use on public roads, cycle lanes and pavements, and rental e-scooters can only be used in national rental e-scooter trial areas.

In addition to the provision of over £5.5 billion of highways maintenance capital funding for local highways authorities in England over this Parliament, the Department works with all local highway authorities in England along with National Highways to assess road surface condition on a national level. This information is presented annually in “Road conditions in England to March 2022” published on GOV.UK. It includes surface condition, skidding resistance and highway maintenance treatments and expenditure.

The Department is also working with the British Standards Institute and the Transport Research Laboratory to develop a new standard for assessing road condition. This will help authorities identify, assess, and deal with road defects, including potholes, and help drive innovation within the road monitoring sector.

Reports of crimes involving motorcycles, mopeds and scooters are clearly a concern. The Government has been determined to ensure that everything was being done to support police efforts to tackle this threat. That is why we brought the police, industry, local government, civil society groups and others together to see what more could be done to prevent offending and keep the public safe.

This work sits alongside the Government’s consultation on police pursuits, which seeks to give police greater confidence to pursue suspects and will help tackle these crimes. The consultation closed on 13 August and we will set out the next steps shortly.

The number of instances of fly-tipping reported by local authorities, and the number of successful prosecutions brought over the last three years are set out in the table below.

The data is published on the GOV.UK website.

The overall trend in fly-tipping incidents had shown a steady decline between 2007/08 and 2012/13 until 2013/14 when there was an increase to 852,000 incidents. Prosecutions have been more variable, with a peak in 2011/12. The 2015/16 figure is more average.

Many local authorities have started to improve the way they capture and report fly-tips over the past few years, so the increase over time should be interpreted with some care. It has also been brought to our attention that the definitions used to describe fly-tips are interpreted broadly from the guidance.

The Home Office does not hold the requested information centrally.

Statistics on theft or unauthorised taking of a motor vehicle, which will include motorcycles, are regularly published by the Office for National Statistics. This can be found in Table A4 of the latest Crime in England and Wales publication.

Information on prosecutions is the responsibility of the Ministry of Justice. They have informed us that they do not hold the requested data.

We are in regular dialogue with Govia Thameslink Rail (GTR) who provide Southern services about the performance on their network. We are determined to see services improve and are working hard with the industry to achieve this.

Raising revenue is not a legitimate objective for such deployments. The objective of enforcing moving traffic contraventions should be to meet the traffic authority’s legal network management duty to secure the expeditious movement of traffic. That is, to secure the efficient use of the road network and the avoidance of congestion. Relevant governing legislation, such as the Traffic Management Act 2004, is not revenue raising legislation.

The number of defendants proceeded against at magistrates’ courts and offenders found guilty at all courts for fly-tipping related offences, in England and Wales. from 2007 to 2011, can be viewed in the table.

The figures given in the table relate to persons for whom these offences were the principal offences for which they were dealt with. When a defendant has been found guilty of two or more offences it is the offence for which the heaviest penalty is imposed. Where the same disposal is imposed for two or more offences, the offence selected is the offence for which the statutory maximum penalty is the most severe.⁽²⁾ Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from large administrative data systems generated by the courts and police forces. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when those data are used.⁽³⁾ Excludes data for Cardiff magistrates' court for April, July and August 2008.⁽⁴⁾ An offence under Section 33(8) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990⁽⁵⁾ An offence under Section 33(9) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990⁽⁶⁾ An offence under Section 34 (2A) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990⁽⁷⁾ An offence under Section 33(6) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990⁽⁸⁾ An offence under Section 59 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990⁽⁹⁾ An offence under Section 1 of the Control of Pollution (Amendment) Act 1989⁽¹⁰⁾ Offences under the Refuse Disposal (Amenity) Act 1978Source: Justice Statistics Analytical Services - Ministry of Justice.

Ref: PQ HL427

Following the 2011 review of waste policy in England, action to tackle fly-tipping has been taken forward on a number of fronts.

We are making it easier for businesses to dispose of their waste legally. This includes, for instance, a responsibility deal committing the waste industry to offer smaller businesses more accessible contracts and understand their waste management responsibilities, and a best practice guide to assist local authorities or waste management companies in setting up “bring sites” in business parks and other suitable sites.

We are cracking down on waste offenders by working with the Sentencing Council to ensure that fines and sentences act as a real deterrent and strengthening the powers of local authorities and the Environment Agency to stop, search and seize the vehicles of suspected waste criminals.

We are taking action through the Defra-chaired National Fly-tipping Prevention Group. The group has helped develop a draft fly-tipping partnership framework outlining best practice for the prevention, reporting, investigation and clearance of fly-tipping. The framework is currently being finalised ahead of publication. Defra is also funding two pilot projects during 2013-14, in Suffolk and Swindon, to test the best practice options outlined in the framework.

While there has been a reduction in reported fly-tipping in recent years, local authorities still recorded 744,000 incidents in 2011-12. We will continue work with interested parties to identify measures to reduce this further.

Local authorities in England have recorded 4.96 million incidents of fly-tipping in the past five years. The estimated cost to local authorities of clearing the fly-tipped waste was £243 million.

A breakdown by financial year is provided in the table below.

*Source: Environment Agency Flycapture database

Note: Some of the reduction in the number of fly-tipping incidents will be due to changes in the reporting arrangements of some local authorities over time.

There has been no specific analysis carried out to explore a link between increasing landfill charges and fly-tipping incidents. However, data reported by local authorities to the Environment Agency’s flycapture database since it was set up in 2004 shows that the number of fly-tipping incidents has been decreasing each year, from a high of 2.6 million incidents in 2006-07 to 744,000 in 2011-12. However, some of the reduction in the number of fly-tipping incidents will be due to changes in the reporting arrangements of some local authorities over time.

The cost of landfill has steadily increased in recent years, in part due to the landfill tax, in order to decrease waste going to landfill and encourage more recycling and recovery.