Regulation of Wet Bikes (Hansard, 11 November 1997)

Mr. Gareth Thomas

I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to regulate the use of wet bikes; and for connected purposes.

I shall begin by defining the term "wet bikes", which has caused some confusion, and then refer to the nature and scale of the problem caused by these machines and the mischief that the Bill is intended to address. I shall also outline how my Bill will achieve its objectives.

I shall relieve the suspense of many hon. Members and explain that the term wet bikes is interchangeable with jet skis and personal water craft. Jet skis are a proprietary name for a well-known brand of wet bike. Suffice it to say that these craft—we all know what they are because they are an increasingly visible and, I am afraid, audible feature of our coasts—are equipped with very powerful petrol-driven engines. They suck in water and blow it out in the form of a jet at the rear; hence the name jet skis. They are capable of generating up to 135 brake horsepower and great acceleration up to 65 mph. They also generate a great deal of noise.

A particular feature of wet bikes, of which there are about 15,000 in this country, is the ease with which they can be used, which means that many users do not always acquire a sense of the danger inherent in the machines. Kawasaki's top-selling bike costs £7,500, and there is a significant and increasing market in used machines.

It is a surprising fact that, at present, there is no age restriction for the use of the machines. There is nothing to stop a five-year-old using one; there is no national requirement for insurance; there is no national proficiency test; and there is no system of national registration, either of the machines or of their users. In short, there is a glaring absence of consistent and rational regulation, and the danger posed by these machines calls for such regulation.

Wet bikes are a potential danger to all other water users—bathers, yachtsmen, water skiers, surfers, canoeists and children at play—in both coastal and inland waters. The bikes are also a danger to their riders.

Accidents have occurred across the country. This summer, there were two tragic fatal accidents. On the weekend of 10 August, Fay Grundy, aged 17, was fatally injured at Queensford lake, Oxfordshire. She was riding as the pillion passenger on a wet bike that strayed into the path of a boat pulling a water skier. Two weeks later—off the north Wales coast, in the constituency of the right hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley)—a 25-year-old nurse from Rochdale died after her Kawasaki wet bike was involved in a head-on collision with another bike.

Wet bikes are very noisy, and they can ruin people's enjoyment of our coastline and inland waters. In the wrong hands, they pose a threat also to the balanced environment of our estuaries and to the feeding grounds of rare birds.

Furthermore, a significant delinquent element uses the bikes. A police constable from the Essex police force marine unit was recently quoted as saying: Sometimes there are 50 or 60 in one area, like yobs teeming round on motor bikes. They buzz swimmers, buzz boats and zip in and out of moorings. It is a catastrophe looking for somewhere to happen.

710 There is an increasing body of opinion among local authorities, police forces and those involved in the activity that the public interest now demands that there should be national regulation of wet bikes. My hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Ms Jackson), the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions, is in the Chamber, and I am very grateful to her for coming to hear my speech. Although I know that her Department is working on solutions, it is time to grasp the nettle and to regulate.

In the United Kingdom—as a reflection of our long nautical history—there is a tradition of minimal regulation of private pleasure craft. Nevertheless, under the various public health Acts, harbourmasters and local authorities can introduce byelaws to prevent danger, obstruction and annoyance of bathers. Moreover, the approach of the Government, and of their predecessor, has been to be sceptical of national regulation; Governments generally have tended to rely on byelaws. There are, however, problems with byelaws.

As those who have been involved in local government well know, the process of enacting byelaws is lengthy, complicated and expensive. Byelaws are difficult to enforce and, significantly, they will do nothing to deal with the real problem of non-registration, making it very difficult to ascertain the identity of culprits or transgressors when they misbehave on bikes.

The byelaw system has produced an inconsistent pattern of regulation in an area where consistent statutory standards are essential. Despite the lightness of the legislative approach in this sphere, 1 propose that a special case should be made for wet bikes—because of their speed, the ease with which they can be used and the injury and damage that they can cause.

I propose, first, establishing a national registration system and requiring that every machine prominently displays its registration number, thereby dealing with the problem of locating the delinquent element.

Secondly, there should be a compulsory system of third-party insurance. Thirdly, there should be a compulsory national training scheme and a licence system for users, which I hope would be self-financing. Fourthly, there needs to be a minimum age requirement of 16. Fifthly, there should be a ban on the use of wet bikes on environmentally sensitive areas of our coast and on beaches traditionally used for bathing, as well as on rivers, reservoirs and lakes within our national parks that are subject to the right of navigation.

I commend the Bill to the House. It would make a modest but much-needed change to the law and would be manifestly in the public interest.