Meeting of the Parliament 09 December 2025
I thank Sue Webber for securing the debate and raising the important issues that her motion highlights. It is good to hear cross-party agreement from Clare Adamson and Liam Kerr, who I know both campaign on issues of community and public safety.
I want to speak in the debate because the issue of e-scooters has been coming up a lot in my local communities. It has been raised by local constituents—last week, it was raised by some local postal workers, who were almost victims of e-scooters at the hands of very young children. They described a situation where it was quite dark and the postie was nearly knocked off his feet. For me, it is a matter of community safety and public health.
We have very recently had some stark warnings from Police Scotland and from medics at the Royal hospital for children in Glasgow. I was concerned to read that, between May and October this year, more than 30 children required emergency care at the Royal hospital for children—that is an increase from four cases in the same period last year.
Mark Lilley, who is the major trauma co-ordinator at the hospital, said:
“We know eScooters are popular and may feature on many Christmas wish lists, but the risks are significant.”
Some of the injuries that have been sustained by children aged between seven and 14 include
“major head trauma, broken femurs, chest injuries, and severe lacerations.”
Those are really serious matters.
In the conversations that I have had locally, people describe near misses. I am not asserting that those incidents are actually recorded anywhere, but one man told me that his wife was almost knocked over by an e-scooter on the street, and he has a very young grandchild. They are very concerned about the issue.
There is a wider point about policing. I think that people want more visibility from the police, and they want to know who is in their community policing team. With regard to resources for police officers, we need to ensure that our police are safely equipped to deal with these matters. I understand that if there is an incident involving an e-scooter or an e-bike, the police need to respond to that in a safe manner.
I hear what Liam Kerr says about his party’s response on these matters, but Anas Sarwar has very recently made it clear that the issue has to be a higher priority, and Scottish Labour has set out our plans on resourcing our police and making sure that we have clarity about community policing in every ward. I think that that is what the public wish to hear.