Automated Vehicles Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted and Lord Lucas

Committee stage
Wednesday 10th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (LD)]

My Lords, I think that this is the first time I have had an Amendment 1, but, in any event, it gives me pleasure to start the Committee stage of the Bill. For the purposes of Committee, I declare my interest, in that a family member works in the vehicle connectivity sector, but I have no financial interests.

I have three amendments in this group: Amendment 1, and Amendments 20 and 27, which are the same text appearing in different clauses. Amendment 1 is very much a “does what it says on the tin” amendment, and states that vehicle testing must include substantial real testing on roads as well as simulation testing for UK road situations. As well as for initial licensing, this may also have relevance when vehicles licensed in other countries are brought here, especially when driving on different sides of the road and road signs are differently placed. I was prompted to put in this rather obvious statement because among the various things that I read in the documents it was pointed out that simulation testing for UK road situations would be allowed—and I can accept its usefulness as an element when converting from well-proven automation on roads in other countries, for example. However, what I cannot accept is simulation on its own being sufficient, and I wish to ensure that that is not the case.

A further reason for this amendment is that I am aware of how, in the US, there have been issues moving from one city location to another, because of different road widths, despite those having been simulated. Noble Lords who do transport all the time can probably identify what I have read, but I am sure that moving from Los Angeles to the UK would have even more issues, including, for example, more narrow, ancient, humpback or bendy traffic bridges without traffic lights where it is possible only to go one way at a time.

Despite having come up with amendments, I take the approach across this legislation that I understand it is an enabling framework and will not contain detail and, further, that with consultations and so on, a broadly sensible approach will result. Nevertheless, when we have been given documents that explain current thinking and direction, they also explain that they are not fixed promises—presumably because there is still quite a lot of work to do and we do not yet know what the priorities will be. From looking at other amendments generally, it seems that other noble Lords also think we need a few more fixed promises on things that we can be certain will not be left out, and therefore seek to have them in the Bill. For me, real UK road testing, rather than only simulations, is one of them. Obviously, within that, I would expect the road testing to apply to the roads on which the vehicles will be licensed for automated use: on motorways for motorway driving, in towns for town driving, and country lanes with single-lane passing places—if you are lucky—for country lane driving. Will the Minister confirm that this will be the approach, and can we have assurance by some text in the Bill?

My other two amendments, Amendments 20 and 27, relate to adding insurance and captive insurance into the provisions that establish the financial soundness of an authorised self-driving entity. The Law Commission referenced insurance as being able to provide part of the financial soundness, and I would like to see that included, rather than it being thought an additional measure on top of everything else.

I also raised the issue of captives with the Minister at Second Reading, and I thank him for his reply. In the Bill, I would like to see captives acknowledged alongside mainstream insurance as an acceptable form of insurance in the context of ASDE financial stability. Call me cynical or pedantic, or probably both, but I have had too much involvement in financial services and insurance not to think that it needs specific elaboration to ensure that captives, as well as independent insurance, can be considered as an element of the financial stability package.

As I said, I found insurance mentioned in the Law Commission documents as a possible part of the financial stability assurance, so can the Minister say whether there was any specific reason for not following suit and not mentioning it in the Bill? If there were no specific reasons, will the Minister be inclined to recognise my warning, as there might be quibbling if it is not specified? I beg to move.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I have a number of amendments in this group. I begin by asking my noble friend the Minister to encourage his team to get me a reply to what I call my Eastbourne email. I hope to use that as a means of understanding exactly where the Government find themselves with a practical example of an early-stage project. It would be helpful to have that by the second day in Committee. If I have already received it, I have missed it, so I would be grateful to him for pointing that out to me.

What binds the amendments in this group together is, first, that I do not expect these things to appear in the Bill because I think that they are covered. But they are covered in a way that does not make it clear what the Government will actually do, so I hope to draw out of them some information on what their intentions are.

Secondly, the amendments encourage the Government to take the standards-setting process seriously. I have some long experience observing the telecommunications industry. That has faded from my early days in the City, when we were one of the dominant world players, to now, when we are nothing. Part of that decay has been because we let standards-setting slip. If you want to be a place where a new technology is establishing itself and where companies want to come and be part of what you are doing, being part of the standards-setting is absolutely key. You have to assign good people to it—people who will be internationally respected for their views and insights in the industry—and give them the time to make a really serious contribution to the process. It is then independent of what is happening in the UK; they become part of the wavefront of what is happening, because the whole standards-setting process involves understanding the way things are going, what is happening and who is doing what. That information then flows back into the structures in the UK, and you get a local understanding of where the opportunities are and how the UK might take advantage of them.

If we had had that with telecommunications, we would not be in the dire state we are in now. We started with huge advantages, but they have all gone. Here we are with a new industry and a very clear need for international standards, so we absolutely must take that seriously and put our backs into being part of that process.

I will pick up on the individual amendments. The vehicle identification system—the way in which vehicles will say, “Hi, this is me”—will clearly be electronic. The whole business of using number plates has broken down, and there are 10 million or so unauthorised vehicles on British roads, for all sorts of reasons—vehicles that are just not known to the DVLA, are not taxed and have strings of outstanding parking tickets. Nobody knows whether a number plate they see is real or cloned. We do not need this happening in a new industry, where it will be really important to establish exactly which vehicle was doing what and at which time. It has to be an electronic system, it has to be something that is embedded in hardware, and it absolutely has to be consistent internationally. A vehicle coming over from the continent has to use the same system. This is an example of something that we have to develop and a direction we have to go in, and we absolutely have to be part of setting that standard.

Amendment 15 looks at the question of a passenger alarm. If you are in a vehicle that is travelling totally autonomously and something is wrong and you want to raise the alarm, how do you do it? What is the system? What should you expect to find in the vehicle? Are we going to restrict travelling to people who happen to have mobile phones on them at the time? I hope not. What is the system to be? Again, we ought to be part of establishing international standards, because we want to be able to admit vehicles to the UK. This should be about not just our own domestic expectations; there should be something running internationally.

We want vehicles to be able to communicate where they are and, if they are part of some kind of lending, taxi or other scheme, whether they are available. Again, this needs to be done in a standard way, so that different owners and manufacturers are all sending this information out in a consistent way, and on the back of it can be built the sort of systems consumers will need to know whether or not an autonomous vehicle is available to them. We should not reach a block or allow this to become balkanised, with different companies owning little bits; the information available to consumers ought to be clearly available to everybody.

Amendment 17 looks at the process of reporting on the condition of vehicles, as there are various bits of the Bill that make it clear that automated vehicles are expected to be well maintained. If a vehicle detects that it is not in the state that it ought to be in, that needs to be reported. It needs to be reported not just internally to the system but in a way that makes that information, and the fact that it was reported, available to investigating authorities. Again, we need a standard for that, and it needs to be an international one.

Amendment 18 looks at the question of waymarkers: how a vehicle knows exactly where it is in a relatively autonomous landscape. Are we going to be totally reliant on the navigation satellites working or are we going to have a more ground-based reference system? Some manufacturers clearly think that they will have within their vehicles an image of the routes that they are taking and that the vehicles will recognise where they are. That is a darned hard thing to do on some motorways—you just do not know which bit you are on, or indeed which country you are in: “Am I in Germany or am I still in the UK?” There is a system on motorways where, in the physical sense, you can look at the waymarkers—if you are not travelling too fast—and see where you are; if you break down, it allows you to read the sign and say what distance from it you are. Are we thinking of building that into automated vehicles?

Lastly, how will vehicles communicate with the emergency services, whether it is a fire engine coming up from behind asking the vehicle to pull over and let it through or a policeman standing at the edge of the road, waving down the vehicle to stop? How will that be achieved? Again, we will want there to be an international standard; we do not want to find that vehicles coming in from abroad are unable to speak English. There has to be a common system in there somewhere. However, we absolutely want it to happen—we do not want our police to be powerless and for the automated vehicles to sail past them because they do not understand a hand wave. There has to be some communication system. There are lots of options, but we have to specify it.

Business and Planning Bill

Debate between Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted and Lord Lucas

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 13th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted [V]]

My Lords, this amendment follows up the point that I raised at Second Reading about the use of outdoor spaces within the curtilage of premises that are not spaces covered by the definition of relevant highways and pavement licences. I did not get a reply, which I am sure is an oversight, as the Minister wrote on another matter. I wrote back on Friday, so at least there has been some advance notice about this somewhat fuzzy issue.

Newspapers have been proclaiming that this Bill allows pubs to turn their car parks into beer gardens. One such article was in the Sun on 23 June, headlined:

“Pubs and hotels allowed to turn car parks and grounds into beer gardens to boost economy as lockdown eases”,


and the Mirror said:

“What pubs will look like with beer gardens in car parks as lockdown is eased.”


Even the trade magazine Morning Advertiser said:

“This means pubs and restaurants will be able to use car parks and terraces as dining and drinking areas using their existing seating licences ... thanks to the Business and Planning Bill”.


There are other articles—indeed, so many that it looks like there must have been a briefing.

If that is correct then I am content, but I am confused as to how this is achieved by the Bill if car parks are not part of a relevant highway. So my first question is: are they covered as a “relevant highway” under Part 7A of the Highways Act? I know that they are public places in relation to some driving offences but, as I understand it, they are not highways. A simple look at Part 7A implies that they are not, but who knows what terms one might uncover with more research. In any event, I am also interested in patios, courtyards and other places that might be within the curtilage and not already under the licence. They are clearly not highways. So where is the general new provision? I have proposed one in my amendment just in case it is not there.

Next is the question of whether a licence is needed anyway. My starting point was an awareness that various pubs have already applied for licence variations for car parks and patios. I have also had some emails sent to me on the subject. Some people have the understanding that off-sales cover car park use—on the basis that it is the sale and not the drinking that is licensed—and that the extended off-sales therefore bring them into play if they were not in play already.

However the FAQs about off-sales on the Stafford Borough Council website make the situation clear:

“Q: Can I provide seating for customers of the business, for the purposes of consumption?”


That is for the consumption of off-sales.

“A: No. Seating cannot be made available (and this can include areas not under the control of the premises) and this is not restricted to seating within the premises such as beer gardens and adjoining smoking areas, but would include areas adjacent to the premises which also might include public benches.”


It rules that out: no providing of seating for drinking your off-licence purchases, although local authorities can vary significantly in their levels of strictness.

Then there is the matter of where the sale is made. If there is a bar in the car park, it is clear that the sale is made there. If a table order is taken and paid for in the car park or the beer garden, some people think that is the point of sale, but in the 2002 Valpak packaging case the judge held thatAn article in 2018 about pubs and gardens in the trade magazine Morning Advertiser notes that it is necessary to consider: whether the pub’s outside area is already part of the licence and what rules apply, as restrictions are common, often on time; if it is unlicensed and it is wished to include it then bear in mind there can be objections during the application procedure; that it can be used anyway if it is accompanied by the service of hot food between 5 am and 11 pm as that does not require a licence; and whether it is part of a public highway as then both planning and a pavement licence may be required.

All that, and indeed a lot more, is the background to my amendment, which in simple terms just says that open-space licences should be available on similar terms to pavement licences to cover cases where such a provision is needed. In most instances, non-pavement outdoor spaces are less likely to cause obstruction, and that is a valuable consideration, although they would still need to be treated sensitively with regard to noise and nuisance, especially in residential areas, and for that purpose I have copied in all the parts of the pavement licences referencing such matters. I beg to move.

[Lord Lucas [V]]

My Lords, I am delighted to support this amendment. I hope the Government will consider allowing councils considerable freedom as to what land they allow premises to use, obviously subject to the permission of the council and the landholder. If you look at a rather complicated town such as Eastbourne, there are few places where you can use the pavement, but not that far away there may well be spaces you could allow a premises to use. It gets quite difficult to negotiate the Bill as it is written, but with a bit more freedom for a local council to apply common sense to where they are prepared to allow tables to be put, we could get to a useful outcome. I encourage my noble friend to look at widening the scope of the permissions that the council is allowed to give so that we can find within the confines of a convoluted town the space that our businesses need.