Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 6th November 2024 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Brinton]

8: Clause 2, page 2, line 23, at end insert—
“30ZA Statement of accessibility standards(1) When making a direct award under section 30(1A) the Secretary of State must lay before Parliament a statement to the effect that they are of the view that such an award will comply with the accessibility standards.(2) The Secretary of State must prepare a statement of the standards that they propose to apply in assessing, for the purposes of subsection (1), that a public sector company meets the required level of accessibility.(3) The principles must in particular make provision for the accessibility of—(a) the service,(b) accommodation for individual journeys, and(c) booking platforms and other interactive digital services and systems used in connections with journeys on the relevant franchise. (4) In preparing the statement under subsection (2) the Secretary of State must consult such persons as they consider appropriate, in particular disabled people.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment places a duty on the Secretary of State to make a statement to Parliament confirming they are of the view that making an award to a public sector company will meet certain accessibility standards.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as vice-chair of the Accessible Transport Policy Commission. I start by thanking the Minister for meeting with myself and the noble Baronesses, Lady Grey-Thompson and Lady Randerson, last week, for the very constructive discussions about issues relating to passenger assistance and support for disabled passengers, and for the other meeting with my Lib Dem colleagues and myself to discuss the Bill more broadly.

Before I speak to my amendment, I want to say that I support Amendment 11 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, which requires the Secretary of State to consult appropriately when awarding a public sector contract in order to encourage more services to be operated by devolved authorities.

Turning to my Amendment 8, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, and the noble Lords, Lord Blunkett and Lord Holmes of Richmond, for signing it. It places a duty on the Secretary of State to make a Statement to Parliament confirming that they are of the view that an award made to a public sector company will meet certain accessibility standards. The Minister has tabled Amendment 15, which puts in legislation for the first time that public sector companies providing train services under Section 30 of the 1993 Railways Act are subject to the public sector equality duty, and I thank him for that.

One of the current issues is that it is not clear what is required by law, whether a train company is publicly owned or not. That has resulted in inconsistent standards and services. I thank all noble Lords, not just those who have taken part in the Bill but others who have spoken to me outside the Chamber, who have commented on the experiences of disabled Peers, including the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson—and myself. The fact is that our experience is not unusual, and many disabled people report disrupted or poor services daily. People are surprised when we say what has happened, but it is actually the daily experience of many disabled people.

In Committee, the Minister said:

“I was going to list a range of areas where things need to change, but I am embarrassed to do so because so many speakers in this debate have listed them themselves”.


He went on to say:

“All I can do is acknowledge that I have heard the list quite clearly. We know that we need to do better, and it hurts me that the public service that I care about fails so regularly to look after people in the way that it ought to”.—[Official Report, 23/10/24; col. 694.]


I thank the Minister for that. I repeated it because I have some questions, although not on that statement but on the detail that will follow. First, can he clarify that the public sector equality duty does not already apply to the existing OLR train operating companies? If it does not, will the current OLR train operating companies have to comply with it immediately after the Bill is enacted, but before the rail reform Bill is passed? If the answer is yes, how will that work with the next stage of consultation on a stronger assistance service?

Following remarks made in an earlier group today, can the Minister explain the next steps to consult with the disabled community about the new universal assistance standards he wanted to correct in the list of problems? It included too many apps, a lack of level boarding, broken lifts, unsuitable rolling stock, and the lack of staff on trains and at stations, which he and many others referred to in Committee. How does that fit in with the publication of the rail reform Bill, be that later this year or early next year?

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I confirm that, as we work with the bodies that will be impacted by the proposed passenger standards authorities—the Office of Rail and Road, Transport Focus and the Rail Ombudsman—we will look at any opportunities to improve things for passengers in the short-term before the passenger standards authority has formally launched. I met Transport Focus yesterday on just that matter. I urge the noble Baroness to withdraw the amendment.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, in tabling Amendment 8, I was very aware of standing on the shoulders of giants, including Transport for All and many disabled campaigners over the years.

I thank the Minister for putting the public sector equality duty in the Bill. This is a big step forward. I thank him also for the commitments that the Government have made, albeit for the future. There is a real spirit here to make sure that things start to change. For the first time since I joined your Lordships’ House in 2011, I feel encouraged that we have been heard and understood. Amendment 15 is, we hope— I am not going to get Churchillian about this—the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning, or something like that. It will be the end of the current poor levels of assistance for passengers. I know that the Minister understands that there is much detail to be worked out to make that real change happen.

On that basis, I am happy to withdraw my Amendment 8. I look forward to seeing Amendment 15 become part of the Bill and to us seeing more detail in due course. The future higher standards of assistance services will transform the lives of disabled rail passengers. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 8 withdrawn.

Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 23rd October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I must first apologise to the Committee: I was not here for the Second Reading, because transport has never been my top priority in terms of matters that come before your Lordships’ House. Technology has been much more important to me, and it struck me that technology, which is advancing at an incredible pace—its capacity is doubling every two years—affects transport systems almost more than anywhere else.

We think here of the driverless cars that are being trialled at the moment, mainly in the United States, with a certain amount of success. The amount of money that the big tech companies in the United States can put into this means that we are going to get driverless cars within the foreseeable future, and that is going to completely revolutionise the whole business of how our cities operate. The price of taking taxis from A to B is going to come right down, which will affect car ownership. It will mean that people give up owning cars, which are getting more and more expensive, and will rent them for long journeys. At the same time our streets will be much emptier and it may well be, with the introduction of electric cars at the same time, that we reduce the pollution in our cities as well. This is coming whether we like it or not, and we must accept that technology is moving very fast and is going to have an enormous effect.

Driverless cars are tomorrow’s technology. Driverless trains are yesterday’s technology; we already have driverless trains. The Docklands Light Railway, which operates over 24 miles in the East End of London, was introduced in 1987. That is the sort of technology that our new train operators should be thinking of when they start running trains and taking up new contracts. If they do this, it will mean that we can start lowering the costs of operating trains.

I have to say that the history of this is not very encouraging because trains were introduced on new lines on the London Underground, and such was the trade unions’ opposition that those proposals were dropped and they are still driven by operators. This is not encouraging, but we have to look at the whole situation. There will be a lot of opposition to introducing new technology, and the result will of course be that passengers pay much more for travelling by public transport systems operated by people who need not be there.

We have to think now about where technology is taking us in the future. How are the Government going to resolve the conflict with the trade unions, with which to date they have decided on enormous pay increases for driving operators, when in the near future we are possibly not going to need those people at all? Do the Government stand up for the passengers and lower fares, or will they stand up for the wages of train operators who are not actually needed because technology has taken over their jobs?

The same also applies to passenger aircraft—in most airports around the world, ground control can now take off and land virtually any large passenger aircraft. Of course, people feel much more reassured by having a pilot in the seat. On the other hand, I can see the low-cost airlines coming along quite soon and saying, “Well, if you travel in a pilotless aircraft, we will actually lower your fare”. People will then have to decide whether they are prepared to trust the technology.

The basic story still applies: the amount spent on research and development by the big-tech companies is so great that it makes anything that the Government can spend look like chicken feed. At the end of the day, they will iron out the technological problems, and the safety issues will be resolved. At that stage, we will want to see the dividend that comes with that: the cost of travel coming down. The Government will have to decide whether they back the trade unions or whether they want to see cheaper travel for customers.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

I will briefly respond to the proposals from the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, and ask both him and the Minister some questions. I will not say that the recent BBC drama “Nightsleeper” should give us cause for alarm—the issues are very different—but the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, possibly the noble Lord, Lord Ranger, and I were heavily involved in the then Automated Vehicles Bill during its passage through your Lordships’ House earlier this year. Some of the questions I will ask now I asked in the debates on that Bill, too.

First, this is not just a question of having no driver, because there has been a push to remove from trains staff other than the driver, whether it is an old-fashioned-style conductor or a train manager. I wonder how on earth the emergencies that cannot be predicted, either by software or by people driving the train remotely, can be resolved. Should those emergencies on the line happen at very short notice and the train has to stop, how are people to get off? This is the point at which I start to talk about those who need assistance. If you do not have any staff on the train, how do you get people off who cannot clamber down and follow the side of the track? The reassurance of having staff on the train in that situation makes me feel confident that, if there were an emergency, I would be able to get off.

The other key role of staff on a train, whether a driver or train manager, is to help when things go wrong. That could include trying to handle people who are behaving very badly, sometimes breaking the law, by alerting British Transport Police. It might include times when assistance goes wrong, such as trains not stopping at volunteer stops. We still have those; there are some between Salisbury and Bristol, where you have to give advance notification if you want to stop at a particular station. As someone in a wheelchair, I would be in real trouble if the train did not stop—and there would be nobody I could notify. Also, if you arrive at a station where there is a planned stop and you were expecting to get assistance, but nobody is there, other passengers would not know how to get the ramp out of the train, and they would not have the keys to do it. I am very concerned about those circumstances. If there are thoughts about having automated trains, the practical side of how passengers interact, particularly vulnerable passengers, concerns me.

Secondly, the Docklands Light Railway is an interesting example, and we see similar driverless trains in many airports around the world. That is fine, but I have some concerns about the concept at this stage. If our railways—the actual rails and their surrounds—are built before the plans for automation, there will be consequences for driverless trains when trees fall down at the last moment and children run across the line. You cannot manage those circumstances without a driver who can pick up an alert, respond, tell passengers to brace themselves and let them know where they need to go for support. For me, this is not about unions; it is about passenger safety. My particular interest is making sure that those passengers—not just disabled passengers but many elderly passengers; look at the demographics—get support from a member of staff on the train.

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[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I am not accustomed to making speeches on technological matters but, on this occasion, I feel I have some modest qualifications for doing so—although I must say in advance that I do so with a degree of trepidation, because nearly everything I know about driverless trains I have been taught by the Minister. I therefore sit in the uncomfortable position of being subject to not only his correction but his immediate correction the moment I sit down and he comes to respond.

It is possible to get oneself into a tizz about these things called driverless trains when what one is in fact discussing is signalling. When I first got involved in railways, I thought that signalling was a system where arms went up and down and red and green lights flashed, but that is all in the past. Modern signalling is, in effect, a huge computer brain that fundamentally drives the trains. It tells the trains when to go, when to stop and how fast to go in between. Its purpose is to maintain a safe distance between trains as they travel, taking account of the speed and the track’s condition and nature. It is specific to the track.

Although the noble Lord, Lord Snape, will find counterexamples—I am sure that he is right to do so—broadly speaking, it is safer to have the train driven by this great controlling brain than it is to have it driven by a human being. A large number of historical train accidents have been caused by driver inattentiveness. Indeed, in Committee on Monday, it was the noble Lord, Lord Snape, I think—it may have been another noble Lord—who drew attention to one cause of such accidents, driver tiredness, whereas the machine does not get tired. It knows what it is doing. It knows where every train is going and where it is in relation to every other.

The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, spoke of the person who remotely drives the train. There is not a person remotely driving the train; it is the great computer brain.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

From my experience on the then Automated Vehicles Bill, there is a person who watches various vehicles driving. If there is an issue, they will intervene. That is how reassurance was given, so it is not left only to the computer.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I was going to come to a point relating to that. I am sure that what the noble Baroness said is absolutely correct in relation to automated vehicles but, like automated planes, automated vehicles are very different from automated trains. An automated plane—indeed, any plane—must be 110% safe and known to be safe before it takes off, because if it develops a problem when it is in the air there is nothing you can do about it.

With an automated train, the approach to safety is totally different. Safety is based on fail-safe devices. If the computer brain sees that something is wrong—for example, if it loses a train on the system and does not know where it is—everything is brought to a stop. That is the solution. That is how you guarantee the safety of not only that train but the trains close to it. The trains further down the line are brought to a stop, which is of course not remotely possible when you try to apply a different technology to the air and to automated vehicles. That is the sort of system we are talking about. The level of automation that can be achieved is graded. Level 3 automation, as it is known, requires a driver to be present, although the driver is not actually driving the train.

My noble friend Lord Hamilton of Epsom referred to the Docklands Light Railway coming into operation in the 1990s. I think I am correct—here, I very much worry that I might have got this wrong and that the Minister will correct me—in saying that the Victoria line, which was introduced in the 1960s, was introduced with automated signalling at level 4. There was a driver in the cab, but they would arrive in stations reading the newspapers. This so disconcerted passengers that a stop had to be put to it and they were told that they could not read the newspaper while they were sitting in the cab, at least not while they were in or coming into a station.

So we know perfectly well that this can be done safely. We know that we can run trains much closer together and provide greater capacity if we have an automated system, because it is safer. That is why, if you go down to the Victoria line today—it benefits not from a 1960s signalling system but from a brand-new signalling system installed in the last few years—you will see the trains coming into the station so fast that the previous one hardly has time to get out before the next one arrives. If you had a driver driving that train, the headways between them would have to be much greater. By comparison, on the Piccadilly line, which, as I have mentioned on several occasions, has a signalling system so decrepit that it is hardly a signalling system at all, you can see how slowly the trains come into the stations. The driver has to conduct himself with great caution whereas, with automated signalling, they will come in faster and stop in exactly the right place. They do not have to make the human judgment that the driver has to make about stopping exactly on his mark; that is what he is meant to do, but it takes time.

I think that everybody who is involved in railways wants to head towards that; it is the direction we want to go in. The question then arises: if you have driverless trains with literally no driver in the cab, how are you going to handle the customers? First, as some people have said, there will be trepidation on the part of customers. I think that will be overcome. Even I have a degree of trepidation; I took some flights over the summer. Not many people realise that the pilot is already pretty redundant in most of the aeroplanes they are flying in. Conscious of this, I was thinking about it when I took off the other day, so trepidation is a factor.

The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, makes a much more serious point perhaps, which is that services are required for passengers in the train and in the event of an emergency. As I said, an emergency is likely to result in the train being stopped in the middle of nowhere, and possibly stopped long enough that passengers have to be disembarked. Who is going to do all that? Of course the train has to have people on it; it has to have staff on it. Although the Docklands Light Railway has no driver—which, as noble Lords probably know, allows children to sit up front and even adults to fulfil their childhood fantasies by sitting up front—even it has a member of staff on it to deal with the sort of eventualities referred to by the noble Baroness.

There is a sort of fantasy here. I depart slightly from remarks made by some of my Conservative colleagues—not here in your Lordships’ House but in other fora—that this will somehow free the railways from dependency on staff and, therefore, on the unions. It will not, of course, because those staff will have to be present even if they are not in the cab. They will probably be members of the RMT, too, which is not exactly freeing yourself from the trammels of the trades unions.

The general intention behind my noble friend Lord Hamilton’s amendment is an extremely good one. We should be moving, as far as we can, from level 3 to level 4. Over time, it is an inevitability, and the costs involved in doing so will have to be found. The increase in both capacity and safety that will arise from doing so will probably be worth 10 HS2s or HS3s or whatever we provide on the existing lines.

Knowing the Government’s intentions on this will be extremely helpful. Knowing how it will be afforded and prioritised in an entirely nationalised system is something that we would all like to know. I suspect, as on previous occasions, that the answer from the Minister will be that we will have to wait, that he is not going to tell us, that this is a very narrow, technical Bill, that all the goodies are coming down the track in 18 months’ time, and everything else. I hope he is taking account of the fact that the Committee is very concerned about this—that technological change has to be at the heart of the modernisation of the railways and that the Government are going to find the investment capacity to do so. It is a matter of priority and money. Can he tell us about it, please, when he stands up?

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Moved by

[Baroness Brinton]

17: Clause 2, page 2, line 23, at end insert—
“30ZA Statement of accessibility standards(1) When making a direct award under section 30(1A) the Secretary of State must lay before Parliament a statement to the effect that they are of the view that such an award will comply with the accessibility standards.(2) The Secretary of State must prepare a statement of the standards that they propose to apply in assessing, for the purposes of subsection (1), that a public sector company meets the required level of accessibility.(3) The principles must in particular make provision for the accessibility of—(a) the service;(b) accommodation for individual journeys;(c) booking platforms and other interactive digital services and systems used in connections with journeys on the relevant franchise. (4) In preparing the statement under subsection (2) the Secretary of State must consult such persons as they consider appropriate, in particular disabled people.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment places a duty on the Secretary of State to make a statement to Parliament confirming they are of the view that making an award to a public sector company will meet certain accessibility standards.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as a vice-president of the Local Government Association and of the Accessible Transport Policy Commission. The first amendment in this group, Amendment 17, continues the debate that was started at Second Reading on the concerns over the provision of assistance services and trains for disabled passengers.

Also in this group are Amendments 27A, 38 and 39. On Amendment 38, which I support, I just want to point out that the disabled passenger card is very important to disabled people. Scope tells us that the average disabled household faces £975 a month in extra costs and that, after housing costs, the proportion of working-age disabled people living in poverty is 27%. That is higher than the proportion of working-age non-disabled people, which is under 20%.

Travel is a luxury for many, but if they want to buy a ticket in person, and there is no ticket office available at their station, they cannot use their disabled passenger pass with a ticket machine. This amendment talks about other key ticketing issues that we need to address. Amendment 27A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, is an amendment on ticketing but does not highlight these specific details that I find inconsistent and confusing. My view is that it may be helpful to have this detail in the Bill for the annual report, because the annual report is also a helpful route to transparency and accountability.

Amendment 39 would require the Secretary of State to establish an independent body to monitor the impact of the Act on passenger standards, and I welcome that too. I hope the Minister does as well.

Amendment 17 in my name—I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Randerson and Lady Grey-Thompson, and the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, for adding their names to it—puts in the Bill a requirement for the Secretary of State to abide by the law in issuing a statement of accessibility standards and confirmation that a public sector company meets the required levels of accessibility. This is about not just the accommodation for individual journeys but the entire service, including booking platforms and any other digital service or system used.

It also includes toilets, which I know appear later on, but let me just say on this subject that I spend my life sitting opposite open toilets because wheelchair spaces are always by the toilets. When they are not very clean, it makes journeys every single day extremely unpleasant, but another effect is that if you are sitting in a wheelchair you become the toilet monitor when either there are people inside it or it is not working. The passengers look at you crossly as if it is your fault that they cannot get in. I see that the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, understands what I am talking about.

Why is this amendment necessary? At Second Reading the noble Baroness, Lady Blake, when she introduced the Bill, spoke about services only in the context of cancellations and disruptions, and there was nothing about the actual experience of the passenger. In the context of Amendment 17, the passengers requiring assistance are not always disabled, by the way. As I said in the debate on the previous group, we have to recognise the demographic change in this country, and a lot of passengers will require assistance in the future because they are getting elderly.

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Blake, who, following my speech, in her winding speech said that

“there has been some improvement over the last few years—for example, the new two-hour booking window for assistance and the Passenger Assistance app”.—[Official Report, 7/10/24; col. 1894.]

Neither of those two things is an actual improvement for disabled passengers. Yes, very large amounts of money were spent on developing two apps, and the first is for passengers. When that was being consulted on, all the disability groups and individuals asked for the capacity to be able to buy their tickets at the same time, but it does not permit that.

Why is that important? For some journeys you have to book a seat—a literal seat—when you buy your ticket, for example from Trainline or from a train operating company that you start your journey with. I quite often do journeys from Watford to Euston, Euston to York or Euston to Edinburgh. If I do not go on to the LNER app, I have to get a ticket reserved via the West Midlands app. It is a seat that I cannot use. Anyone who travels on LNER regularly will know that, at peak hours, there are no seats available, yet there is one with a sign above it saying “reserved” that I cannot use. If I have time, I will find the train manager before I board the train and say, “By the way, I have G16 reserved. I am not going to be sitting there”. This is a software problem but, perhaps more importantly, it is a problem of Network Rail and others not listening to the needs of disabled people.

You then have to ring or email the train operating company for that leg of the journey and book your assistance separately. LNER tells me that I should use all the different apps for each leg of my journey, but the whole point of the app was that the passenger should have to enter only one thing. The total irony of this is that behind each of the train operating company apps is one single app. It is an absolute nonsense, and it is all because disabled people were ignored. The noble Baroness, Lady Campbell of Surbiton, were she in here place today, would remind us that she and many other disability people have championed “Nothing about us without us” for many years, but the rail industry has not yet understood it.

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While I share the desire for the authority to be set up as soon as possible, it is imperative that we get the detail right and have the opportunity to hear, especially from passengers, what the body should do. That is why I will defend the Government’s intention to use the time they have over the coming months to develop and consult on the PSA so that it can be a body that we can all be proud of. Rushing to set it up and not being properly prepared will not serve passengers in the way that we intend. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, we want a body that covers the whole of the passenger experience now. We need a bit of time to create it, and we need it to champion the long list of passenger experience standards from the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, that it is impossible to disagree with. I would expect the PSA, alongside GBR, to champion the whole range of improvements in standards that he listed. I reassure noble Lords that we are not simply waiting; we have a list of innovations that we are delivering now. I will not make the House suffer by reading out a list, but I would say that we know that we should do more and I think this Bill will enable us to do it. I urge the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken to this group of amendments. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, for his very helpful comments and look forward to hearing from his office about a meeting. I will not go into details, but his comment about poor apps resonates with every disabled user.

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, for her comments, not just for further experiences of being left on trains but for her key point that nothing seems to change. My noble friend Lady Scott was right to say that this is all about the culture of the organisations in the TOCs. The issue is the culture at the top, not the culture of the staff whom we see face to face, and it is important to recognise that.

I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, for his excellent speech. He is right that all parties do agree on this issue, but why can we not get any change? A new station opened at Thanet Parkway in July last year. Not only do you need lifts to get up to it, but you do not have level boarding and it is not staffed all day. How, in 2023, was that allowed to happen? Pre-pandemic, there was a pilot for level boarding at Harrow & Wealdstone; it was abandoned because the train operating companies could not agree on an order of coaches to make sure that the level part was available.

My noble friend Lady Randerson was right that we have to focus on the needs of passengers, and my amendment in this group focuses on those who need assistance. We need this amendment. We have to be able to hold train companies to account. My problem is that my amendment is for the future; it is not for now. If there are any further delays, we will see yet again no further change. I ask the Minister: what change can we start having in the current poor standards of the train operating companies?

I remind the Committee that bus regulations were transformed in 2016 when a disabled passenger took a case to the Supreme Court. Perhaps we need the same thing to happen now; I hope not. We will return to this on Report but, in the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 17 withdrawn.

Public Bus Collisions

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Monday 13th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My noble friend makes a very good point. It is a matter for individual bus companies, and of training. This issue is clearly of great importance to bus users but, as I say, it is for the bus companies themselves to ensure that their drivers are properly trained and take great care.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, there is a particular problem for disabled and vulnerable passengers using the new bus stops that are in lanes between cycle paths and the main pavement—not least a very narrow pavement for wheelchair users trying to leave a bus, and a ramp, as a result of which you often almost go straight in front of the cycles. I must tell your Lordships that when you are coming down a steep ramp, you are not in control of your speed. Are there any plans to monitor accident numbers and to assess the risks associated with this new bus stop/cycle lane arrangement?

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for that question. The phrase used for these stops is “floating bus stops”. Local authorities are bound by the public sector equality duty, and it is for them to ensure that any infrastructure they install is safe, fit for purpose and delivered in a way that enables them to comply with equalities legislation. The department is aware of concerns raised by some groups about these floating bus stops, and that is why we co-funded research into the issue, led by Transport Scotland. This concluded recently and we will consider the findings carefully in deciding the next steps.

Automated Vehicles Bill [HL]

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 6th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to speak to this group of amendments. In doing so, I declare my interests as set out in the register, not least my technology interest as an adviser to Boston Limited. In moving Amendment 8 I will also speak to Amendments 18 to 24 and 27. I thank all noble Lords who have shown an interest in these amendments, particularly the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, who has put her name to all of them.

I will briefly take a step back. The major difficulty with the tone and tenor of this Bill on accessibility is that it takes a particularly utilitarian view—the greatest good for the greatest number. In this instance, accessibility is not even in the vehicle’s back seat. Similarly, it suggests that a disabled person should wait, and let innovation take its course and come to them. This is not only unacceptable but not pro-innovation. The whole point of accessibility, inclusive by design from the outset, is that it does not only enable and empower disabled people; it enables, empowers and benefits all people.

Similarly, there is a hint throughout the Bill that regulation is, again, anti-innovation. It can be—we have all seen examples of that—but in no sense is that inevitable just because it is regulation. Right-sized regulation can, indeed must, be pro-innovation. Plenty of good examples in our recent past, from various sectors, prove that.

Amendment 8 in my name is a resubmission of one of my major amendments from Committee. We heard in the previous group about the statement of safety principles. It seems perfectly logical, indeed thoroughly positive, to have a statement of accessibility principles in the Bill. If the Minister is unable to accept this amendment in its current form, will he commit, when he winds up, to the principles set out in this statement of accessibility?

Amendments 18 to 20, in various ways, ensure the accessibility of the vehicles themselves, in various parts of the Bill as drafted. Amendment 21 would require that disabled people be consulted on the granting of permits. This could be structured in such a way that disabled people would not need to be consulted at the micro level, on every permit; a structure could be put in place to ensure meaningful and effective consultation of disabled people throughout that high-level process.

Amendment 22 seeks to move a “may” to a “will”, to guarantee the intent of the Bill. Again, “may” is obviously conditional, and this would show, in a small example, the sense that this is wider than the voluntary or advisory “may”. It is an important amendment—changing to “will” would guarantee this sense. Similarly, Amendment 23 would assure this level of accessibility throughout.

Amendment 24, on the reporting requirement, seeks a minor but important change to the Bill. As currently drafted, the Bill sets out reporting requirements for those involved in automated vehicles. This amendment simply suggests that the first of these reports should be published before any of these vehicles are deployed—a small but important change.

Finally, Amendment 27 would put an obligation on the Secretary of State to commission and pay due regard to research around all elements of accessibility, including the vehicle, software systems and platforms, to ensure not just that the vehicle is accessible but that the whole experience and system are accessible and inclusive by design.

We are talking not only about inclusive by design but about a set of amendments that would make a real, material difference, not just to disabled people but to all users. Are they necessary? Just look at the situation we are currently in, with accessibility and inclusive design not being present at the beginning of the whole process of the development of automated vehicles. This is a clear indicator of the necessity of these amendments. Inclusion and innovation are important, but, more than that, inclusion for innovation is the thread that we should see shining through so many of our statutes: inclusion for innovation and not just for business. We must make it all our business. That is what these amendments are about. I beg to move.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, for his work in setting out such an effective group of amendments on this topic. I also thank the Minister for the very helpful round-table meeting we had a few days ago, in which we went through in detail many of the concerns that I, the noble Lord and others had.

I will not repeat the detail of the amendments that the noble Lord has outlined. I start from a slightly different perspective. When we started debating the Bill, back at Second Reading, the Minister told us that we did not need to worry about this because the regulatory authorities would be required to obey the public sector equality duty. I pointed out that the House of Lords Select Committee on disability was very concerned that there are holes in the PSED that the Government said they would look at two years ago and have not as yet, and so to rely on that would give us real cause for concern.

The Equality Act refers to “reasonable adjustments”, and it was prayed in aid that there can always be reasonable adjustments. I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, is in his place. I am reminded of his Private Member’s Bill—which I think he called the “10 kilogram cement bag” Private Member’s Bill. It would have made lots of small shops accessible to disabled people, particularly those in wheelchairs. That is a “reasonable adjustment”, but we are not in that position. We are talking about the technology of the future. It is really important to acknowledge that the millions of disabled people—over 10 million, or even more if you count the elderly—will require automated vehicles that take account of the full range of disability. To not start designing that in from the very start would be a short-sighted approach.

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[Lord Borwick (Con)]

My Lords, while I support the general principle of these comments—indeed, I personally made great changes to the taxi industry to get there—the particular circumstances that enabled me to do that a long time ago were very unusual.

The current situation with autonomous vehicles is that there are many manufacturers that are converting existing vehicles. They cannot change their donor vehicles to make them accessible for disabled people, however desirable that might be. Tesla, Waymo, Cruise, Wayve, Oxa and, indeed, Mercedes are all working on autonomous vehicles, but they are not likely or able to change their vehicles to make them accessible because they must be accessible from the original design. Automotive history goes back 120 or even 150 years. We are not able to change existing vehicles, however desirable that is.

What these clauses would do is stop disabled people being helped by autonomous vehicles coming along. I am thinking particularly of people disabled by a severe learning difficulty who would not be able to learn to drive, or safely drive, a normal vehicle who would not be able to drive as a passenger. I am afraid the clauses would prevent these manufacturers from coming into this market. They would rather go to a market where they could use their existing vehicles than make the changes.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Borwick, for outlining the current commercial position, but there are models of vehicle currently on the market that can be used for wheelchairs. I fail to understand why, if an entire nation’s rules say that that is the model that has to be followed, manufacturers would not swiftly follow suit. There might be a transition period—does he understand that?—but all the images that we see of autonomous vehicles in the future show a completely different style from even 10 years ago, let alone 100 years ago. Would he agree with that?

[Lord Borwick (Con)]

I agree with the noble Baroness, but the question for a manufacturer is whether or not to come into the British market. That is the trouble, as I see it. Much as it would be desirable that they redesigned their vehicles, or indeed designed them from the very beginning to be accessible, the reality is that we are talking about regulating a future market based on an existing product. I find it a great shame that that is the position we are in, but that is where we are.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, frequently during the passage of the Bill we have all discussed the fact that the entire Bill is regulating for the future. It seems that it is acceptable to regulate for the future of everything —except disability access and proper accessibility.

[Lord Borwick (Con)]

I find it distressing to disagree with the noble Baroness, but I am talking about the reality of the position. Even though I wish the world were different, I cannot agree that we can regulate to make it different in this one Bill.

I thank my noble friend Lord Blencathra for his comments. I am afraid I left the London taxi business a long time ago so I am not actually responsible for the current vehicles, but still I thank him. They are better in all respects than the ones I produced, which are still in business.

It is distressing that so few taxis around the country outside London are not accessible; the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, had her own problems in Watford, as I understand it. It would be so much easier to organise that all taxis all over the country were as wheelchair accessible as the ones in London. I would find that a much more useful use of our time than making these amendments, much as I support the general principle behind them.

Automated Vehicles Bill [HL]

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 15th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to open this debate on this group of amendments. In doing so, I declare my interest as an adviser to Boston Ltd. I shall speak to Amendment 26A, which I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, for co-signing. I look forward to hearing about the other amendments in this group, which I shall not trespass on at this time.

Automated vehicles are either accessible, or they should not be pursued. They have such potential to enable mobility through technology, transforming people’s lives, be they older people, disabled people or any member of our society. If accessibility is not the golden thread that runs through all their development and deployment, this project should not proceed any further.

We see in Clause 87 a couple of mentions of disabled people and older people. It is good to see that, but Clause 87 is not specific or sufficient. Without greater detail in the Bill, inevitably we will have potentially many elements of the user experience which simply will not be accessible, and there is precious little point in having 70% of the end-to-end experience accessible if 30% is not. That needs to run through all elements: not just the AV itself but everything involved in that user experience of engaging with an automated vehicle. That is why my Amendment 26A proposes a statement of accessibility principles which will run through and set out in the Bill, in detail, what is required to enable an accessible experience for all users.

As has been said, the vehicle itself, the physical features, must be accessible. All onboard systems must be accessible, but also the booking platforms and all the physical infrastructure that the AV needs to interact with, such as kerbs and drop-off points, must be accessible; otherwise, the experience will be unable to be seen as accessible. It can be rendered useless if just one of those elements is not accessible. We need to see a statement of accessibility principles set out in the Bill; it needs to be understood as an end-to-end accessible experience for users; and we need to see disabled people involved in the development and deployment of this whole AV enterprise. I believe that by having all these elements in the Bill, we will have much greater opportunity to enable an accessible experience for all.

It is clear that we need to have backstops. If the onboard system fails, if the booking system fails, if any element fails, by technical glitch or for want of accessibility, there needs to be a human in the loop, the potential for human intervention, so that a disabled person, an older person or, indeed, any person is not left, potentially, in a vehicle with a failed onboard system and no back-up, both for safety but also just for knowing where you are—the vital information to enable you to have an accessible experience in that AV.

We have spent many decades putting right inaccessible buildings, infrastructure and public realm that was built and conceived of long before accessibility, inclusion and inclusive by design were even considered, let alone deployed. That is still a work in progress, but we need to be absolutely certain that we are not potentially building new systems, vehicles and infrastructure that are inaccessible by design. We cannot start creating new steps—new barriers to access—in cyberspace and across the whole AV experience. We will get this right if we see it as a user experience, end-to-end, every beat point with a golden thread of accessibility ensuring that AVs can be enabling, emancipating and a positive experience for all users. I beg to move.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I declare my past interest as a member of the Select Committee on the Equality Act and its impact on disabled people, which included assessing PSV transport regulations for safe and effective travel for disabled people. Once again, I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, and to have been able to sign his Amendment 26A. I have three amendments in this group, also signed by my noble friend Lady Randerson.

I want to pick up the point the noble Lord made when he talked about not just disabled people, but the elderly and frail in our society. If you include all of those, we are talking about more than one in four of the population. This is not something that affects a few people; it is a major, really important part of automated vehicles, increasingly so as we become an elderly society, because it is less likely that people will be able to make their own journeys. One reason why so many disabled people cannot travel around is because they do not have access to the right vehicles.

On this group, I want to refer to the Minister’s response at Second Reading, when the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, and I raised accessibility just not being visible in this Bill, neither generally nor in Clause 83. From the Dispatch Box, the Minister said:

“The granting of self-driving authorisations will be subject to the public sector equality duty, and the Government intend to make equality impact assessments part of the authorisation process”.—[Official Report, 28/11/23; col. 1070.]


The granting of self-driving authorisations being issued by a regulatory body would mean that the grantee has to follow the PSED, providing that it is supervised by a state regulatory body and providing a public service, so he is no doubt correct that PSVs would be able to follow it. I would hope that the provision of public sector AVs would fall within scope but, as we have discussed, there are many other parties to the running of an AV, some of which may not appear to be party to the PSED or realise that they are required to obey it.

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[Lord Borwick (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest, as I have been involved in accessibility to modern taxis and other public transport over many years. I entirely agree with most of the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and my noble friend Lord Holmes. However, with their amendments, I am not sure that we are heading in the right direction. It is clear from Clause 87 that those clauses intending to make the vehicle more accessible are heading in the right direction, but the noble Baroness believes they do not go far enough.

I am not sure that adding an extra automated vehicle accessibility standards panel, as in Amendment 53, would do anything other than delay everything in practice. By the time that such a panel is formed and educated to the standard of familiarity that we all hold with the Bill—or most of us do—I am not sure that it would do anything but delay the whole Bill, when we are already behind others. Although I very much hope that we could be at the forefront both of the existence of automated vehicles and of accessibility, we are of course two years behind other countries in Europe. We have got to catch up. I hope that we can alter Clause 87 to achieve what the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and I would like to see, rather than add a completely new panel on top.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

I very gently challenge the noble Lord on his contribution. The problem is that, if there is no chance to rethink, for example, the design of some of the vehicles or the structures that go with it—including architectural software structures in apps—it will be too late. We will end up in the position that we have now found ourselves in on the railways; five years ago, we were expecting to have level access at every single railway station in the country to remove the need for ramps. Unfortunately, because there was no work done at that time, rolling stock was bought that did not conform with other rolling stock—let alone platforms—and it was delayed until 2023. It has now been delayed until 2035.

If we do not tackle this right at the start, it will prevent disabled people using these vehicles, because they will not be involved in the process. Just like trying to get hold of wheelchair-accessible cars, it will be almost impossible to find accessibility works for disabled people in AVs.

[Lord Borwick (Con)]

I understand the point that the noble Baroness makes.

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[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, has made the point that she can speak twice in Committee. I invite her to speak for a third time to confirm that the two amendments are mutually compatible.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

I suspect that between Committee and Report, the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, and I will discuss this in detail. We might even try to do it at the meeting with the Minister.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

I once again thank noble Lords for their contributions in this group. Self-driving vehicles present an opportunity to radically improve the accessibility of transport. In particular, automated passenger services could help open up new transport links in areas where accessible services are currently limited. As colleagues rightly point out, however, it will take work to get this right. Indeed, I remind the House of the Law Commissions’ comments on this subject; they said:

“there is much that is not known about how passenger services will operate in the absence of a driver. The immediate need is to collect more evidence and gain more experience, particularly on issues such as accessibility and safeguarding”.

The Government have taken that on board. We are undertaking research to improve our understanding of the current driver duties, so that we may better design requirements to ensure journeys are accessible. Further, applicants for passenger permits will not only be required to show how they are designing services to meet the needs of older and disabled people but obliged to publish reports on how those needs are being met in practice. That is in addition to the requirements under the public sector equality duty, to which I referred in our earlier debate.

On Amendments 53 and 57, we recognise the importance of co-designing the development of self-driving vehicles with disabled people. In our policy paper Connected & Automated Mobility 2025, we committed to setting up an accessibility advisory panel before we launch the passenger permitting regime. The panel will advise on the granting of permits and assist in the development of national minimum accessibility standards. Although we have chosen to do that through non-statutory means, such a body is in line with the principle underpinning the Law Commissions’ recommendation.

The Government already have a statutory adviser on transport accessibility in the form of the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee. The committee has an established role in providing independent advice to the department. It provided feedback as part of the Law Commissions’ review, and its expertise will be brought to bear alongside the advisory panel. Creating further statutory roles risks duplication; I do not wish to see additional complexity added at the expense of a material improvement in outcomes. By contrast, the flexibility offered by a non-statutory solution enables a tailored response that can adapt quickly to the rapid evolution of policy in this area.

I turn to the proposal for a “statement of accessibility principles” put forward by my noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond. I absolutely recognise the points he raised and the intent of his amendment, and I reassure him that the measures in the Bill already provide scope to consider accessibility at every stage. As I said during our last debate, the Government will require anyone seeking authorisation to submit an assessment of fair outcomes. As well as considering accessibility for people with different needs, the assessments will cover data biases. Applicants will be required to include plans for how they will avoid their vehicles unfairly discriminating against particular groups, as was recommended by the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation.

My noble friend’s amendment highlights the importance of adopting a whole-journey approach when reviewing accessibility. In his very apt words, there must be a “golden thread” running from the physical vehicle design to the booking system, the integration with public transport, the support offered by operators and beyond. Indeed, the respective roles of each of those elements will likely change considerably as the technology develops and as users become more confident. That is why we look to address those important issues in Part 5 of the Bill as part of the automated passenger services provisions. These provisions allow us to set specific requirements covering the whole-passenger experience, rather than splitting them across the authorisation and operator licensing processes. As I said, accessibility is a mandatory consideration in setting those requirements.

We have already indicated in our policy scoping notes that equality and fairness are likely to be included as part of the statement of safety principles. Therefore, a second set of accessibility principles may create overlap. However, I hope that this offers my noble friend some reassurance that the intent of his amendment is already being considered.

Finally, I turn to the proposal that Clause 83 be removed. Clause 83 disapplies existing taxi, private hire and bus legislation to vehicles operating under an automated passenger services permit. The application of existing public transport legislation to self-driving vehicles is complex and uncertain. While it will remain possible for providers to be regulated under these regimes, as was the case for the CAVForth bus project in Scotland, relying on this alone could leave gaps in regulation. This in turn could lead to unintended consequences and hamper the development of the automated passenger services industry. Therefore, the Law Commissions recommended offering a separate bespoke scheme, creating a clear and lawful route for service providers to become licensed. As well as bringing clarity, this has allowed us to create a modern, flexible framework, specifically designed to help grow our understanding of how automated passenger services can best support people with disabilities. The Government want public transport to be available to all. The intention of Clause 83 has never been to undermine that goal. Its purpose is simply to avoid the ambiguity and potential overlap in how current passenger licensing laws might apply to service providers.

In conclusion, I respectfully ask my noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond to withdraw his Amendment 26A. I look forward to discussing these issues further with him and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, in the coming days.

Automated Vehicles Bill [HL]

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 10th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, the amendments I am speaking to are basically about the process of external scrutiny and oversight of what the department is doing. In the previous discussion, we had a perfect illustration of why this is necessary, because the Minister said, “No—you can’t put the critical issue of safety in the legislation. It’s got to be left to the department”. That is what he was saying. Is that what we want in the public interest? Does it satisfy the concerns that people have?

I speak as a supporter of automated vehicles, but I believe that if we do not exercise the highest standards of safety in their introduction, we will get a public backlash which will put all this back for years. I say to the Minister: if he is so adamant that he is not prepared to accept my noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe’s amendment on safety standards, how is it also logical for him to reject all the amendments in this group, which are designed to improve stakeholder involvement and ensure that there is the widest possible consensus about what changes are to be proposed?

All the amendments in this group that are in my name are basically on this theme. Again, it is not the detail of the wording that matters at this stage—I am sure there are errors and faults in that—but the principle. Are the Government prepared to accept the principle that there should be widespread stakeholder involvement in this evolving issue of what regulation is necessary? As we know, there will not be a sudden change to automated vehicles. It is going to be a long process of evolution and change, as I think one of the noble Baronesses here said. We are going to have hybridity for a long time, so we have to face these questions of how we adjust our regulation in the light of experience.

The first amendment I put down was on the business of the statement of safety principles. The Government, unless they accept my amendment, are not even prepared to recognise the point in their legislation that there should be representative consultation on what the safety standards should be before they table them. That seems to be fundamental, so I am moving that as Amendment 11 and then speaking to the others.

On Amendment 33, we have the case that there will be reports, but there is absolutely no provision that they will be laid before, and provide an opportunity for discussion in, Parliament. Is that not pretty fundamental?

Amendment 49—let me find this part of the Bill; I do not want to mislead the Committee—would come after Clause 93. Its principal proposal is for the establishment of an advisory council, which would bring together stakeholders and people who are relevant to this debate. At one end, it would include trade unions, because if you are talking about automated delivery vehicles and automated bus services—that may be one of the first areas where automated vehicles will be used fully—then you have to carry the representatives of working people with you. It is only right that trade unions and employers should be involved.

When we are talking about an advisory council, these things cannot just be driven by the industry and the producer interest. We have to look at the views of people such as cyclists. Cyclists are probably more at risk in a hybrid situation, alongside pedestrians, than any other group. The cycling association has thought about this quite hard and has quite sensible views, so I would like to think that the department was institutionally obliged to consult it and take its views into account.

That is the very valid point of this group of amendments. I would like to hear from the Minister why he cannot accept them, because it seems self-evident that if we are not prepared to put things in law which require high safety standards, then we will have to find some other mechanism by which the public can be reassured.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I want to make a brief intervention on this group of amendments. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, for raising the important issue of an advisory council. The disabled community talks about the importance of co-production right from the start to make sure that there is not consultation at the end when it is really too late to do things. I hope that the Minister will take that on board. The Government have finally begun to understand the importance of co-production with disabled people. You can never have just one representative and it is important to understand all the issues. But as the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, said, that also applies to other users, so an advisory council is going to have to cover a fairly broad range of interests. As the Minister reminds us continually during the course of the Bill, we are in new territory and design is inevitably going to have to change, so I hope that he will support these amendments.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I will intervene very briefly and apologise for being late. I support my noble friend Lord Liddle in his comments on Amendment 49 and the need for an advisory council. We have come across this before in many other Bills and Ministers always seem to say, “We don’t want to list those people who might be on it, because they might change”. I just draw the Committee’s attention to the news, which I think came yesterday or today, about the new board for Channel 4. The comment was made that the only person who had any experience in diversity had been rejected. Whether it was because of that or because she was female we do not know, but everybody else—except for one—was a white male. The Government may say these things, but they do not always appear to do it.

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Moved by

[Baroness Brinton]

21: Clause 6, page 4, line 39, at end insert—
“(6) A person may not be an authorised self-driving entity unless they meet the following requirements—(a) they have obtained a certificate of compliance with data protection legislation from the Information Commissioner’s Office for their policy in regard to the handling of personal data,(b) their policy in regard to the handling of personal data clearly outlines who has ownership of any personal data collected, including after the ownership of a vehicle has ended, and(c) they are a signatory to an industry code of conduct under the UK General Data Protection Regulation.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to probe a number of concerns around data protection and ownership and seeks to prevent authorisation of companies as self-driving entities unless robust personal data practices are in place.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, we move to a group that looks at data protection issues, which were covered at Second Reading. In this group, I have Amendment 21, the Clause 42 stand part notice and Amendments 35 and 36. I have found the Information Commissioner’s Office response to the joint consultation from the Law Commission and the Scottish Law Commission on automated vehicles, dated March 2021, extremely helpful. That response set out the legislative landscape and said, in paragraph 6:

“The consultation refers to Directive 2002/58/EC, known as the ePrivacy directive (‘ePD’), however, reference should be given instead to PECR, which is the UK law that gives effect to the ePD … Section 17.54 notes that the legislator ‘clearly did not have AVs … in mind’ when the Directive was enacted, and that ‘At the time, the typical terminal equipment was a telephone handset’ … Therefore, care must be taken when interpreting the legislation, so that its underlying rationale, and technology neutral approach is fully understood and any proposals accord with its objectives. The ICO has produced guidance”


on this. It is saying that GDPR rules are clearly not enough on their own.

I was grateful at Second Reading for the Minister’s clear response on the protection of personal data— I may disagree with what he said but I was grateful for the clarity of the response. He said:

“However, data must remain properly protected. Self-driving vehicles will be subject to existing data protection laws in the UK. Our proposed Bill does not alter that, so manufacturers and government will have to ensure that data is protected”.—[Official Report, 28/11/23; col. 1072.]


I remain concerned that the Bill, especially Clause 42, sets out a very high level, a top level, of legislation—whether primary or secondary, of which we know nothing yet—by which information will be protected, but it does not put in place the mechanisms by which individual people could rest assured that their personal data was being appropriately protected. The ICO further commented on personal data in its response to the Law Commission, at paragraph 12:

“Automated vehicles pose particular challenges in relation to personal data, as often they will process the personal data of several individuals: owners, drivers, passengers and even pedestrians. If the personal data of these users is processed inappropriately, there is a heightened risk of intrusion into individuals’ work and private lives. The Government and technology providers should therefore adopt a data protection by design and default approach, ensuring that privacy protections are built into the design and development of automated vehicles”.


To return to the Bill, Clause 42(4) sets out the offence of breaching data protection, but then Clause 42(5) gives a very wide range of defences, which is, frankly, quite worrying. It says:

“But it is a defence to prove that—(a) the person from whom the information was obtained as described in subsection (1) consented to the disclosure or use, or (b) the recipient reasonably believed that the disclosure or use was lawful”.


I have been trying to think through what this might mean in practice. Let us say that you call an AV—it could be yours; it could be a neighbourhood vehicle; it could be a taxi; it could even be getting on a bus—and when you call it, it will ask you, probably in your app, to confirm the terms and conditions. We all do this every day when we go online; we just tick “Yes”, but do we know what the operating licence holder might be doing with our personal data? Worse, the licence holder or a future recipient of that data, somebody else in the chain of information, might think that disclosure was lawful. Amendment 21 sets out the baseline good practice for any organisation that is dealing with personal data, especially data that the individual is not necessarily aware of.

I want to give the Committee an example I experienced when a number of people and organisations were involved in handling personal data. My dentist—please do not laugh; it is relevant—requires patients to sign online, before they are seen every time, that they are content with their personal, medical and other personal data being held, so that the surgery can better look after patients, with an assurance that it will be held appropriately. That is fine. A couple of years ago, the regular online form changed, and after page one I was asked to sign a different set of Ts and Cs from a specialist data processing company. I clicked through, read the 17-odd pages and discovered that in the small print this multibillion-dollar company wanted my permission to be able to pass my data, medical and personal, on to other interested parties in its group and for other associated services. This included insurance companies, providers of healthcare and pharmaceuticals. I was not happy.

When I raised it with the dental surgery, it was really shocked. It had not clocked the detail because it had not clicked through two or three times, as I had to do, and it dealt with it straightaway, but I am making a point: we are not expecting a single authorised organisation to process all the data. There will be many different tracks coming down the line, and the problem here was that this was an American company using American law, not GDPR. The defence in Clause 42(5) would have succeeded, because one would have automatically ticked on the Ts and Cs thing on the app. That is one of the reasons that, at Second Reading, I probed on protection for data. I hope that my amendments will strengthen what the Government are planning to do.

Amendment 21 sets out the criteria that would have to be met before a person or a body would be permitted to be authorised as a self-driving entity. First, they must

“have obtained a certificate of compliance with data protection legislation”

from the ICO for their policy of handling of personal data. Secondly, their policy relating to handling personal data of clients, passengers et cetera must clearly outline

“who has ownership of any personal data collected, including after the ownership of a vehicle has ended”.

Thirdly, they must be

“a signatory to an industry code of conduct under the UK General Data Protection Regulation”.

Because I remain concerned about Clause 42, I have laid that it should not stand part, partly as a probing issue to get the issues out and bring a response from the Minister. I hope the Minister can provide the Committee with stronger reassurance than that given at Second Reading, given the 10 pages of response from the ICO to the Law Commission consultation.

I have two further amendments in this group. In every debate so far—and in meetings with the Minister—the Government have made it plain that the Bill is charting new territories and new technologies that not one other country has yet managed to do. Much of the focus on the Bill is understandably on vehicles, but the other element of newer and untested technology is how data will be used. We know just from the advances in AI over the last few months, let alone year, how fast it changes. Amendment 35 sets out for an annual report to Parliament on the use of personal data in relation to automated vehicles. This way, when the sector responds it can see how many breaches there are and how new technology as yet unseen and unknown—not even thought of—will affect individuals. Equally importantly, we will be able to see trends in data collection so that Governments and Parliament can consider whether further legislation is needed to further regulate the collection of data. Amendment 36 sets out the requirement for the Secretary of State to consult with the ICO in relation to the collection of personal data prior to the Secretary of State making any regulations in relation to personal data collection.

I know that the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, made the point about the Secretary of State making these decisions, and I just want to add at this point that this Government have had a habit of pushing an enormous amount of information into secondary legislation. I think we all understand that some of it needs to be there but, particularly with new technologies and new areas, Parliament is very concerned about giving permission for things that are not yet even understood, let alone explicit.

I also want to add that I support the other amendments in this group from my noble friend Lady Bowles and from the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, all of which strengthen the protections needed for a technology that will have even more access to people’s personal data than we know now, whether it is commercial or third-party data. All the amendments in this group are following the ICO’s principal concern.

I say again that AVs pose a risk to individual rights if they have insufficient control over their data and their data protection rights. The ICO says that data systems for AVs should have a data protection system by a design and default approach. After all, it is a new technology.

I really look forward to hearing the Minister’s response. I beg to move.

[Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (LD)]

My Lords, I have four amendments in this group. I am looking more at the commercial interest side of things, partly because “information” is a very broad word that can mean all kinds of things. My Amendment 29 adds to the end of Clause 14 that information sharing

“must respect rights of ownership and privacy, including with a view to compensation in respect of any commercial rights”.

I will talk more on compensation in connection with later amendments as well, but there is a significant issue here.

Under Clause 14, authorisation requirements may state that there has to be information sharing with the Secretary of State, public authorities and private businesses. Clause 14(4) says that the purpose of the shared information must be disclosed, which is fair enough as far as it goes, but says nothing about privacy or commercial rights. Further, the information may not belong to the body being authorised. It may belong to individuals. Even in an anonymised state, it may belong to others than the authorised entity. I accept that there may be instances where sharing is needed—accidents and failures come immediately to mind—but there will still need to be ways to make sure that neither individual nor commercial rights are undermined.

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[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

I omitted to say that I will copy in all those noble Lords.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I thank all the contributors to this debate. We are delighted that others have been so supportive of our amendments, which cover a considerable range of data protection issues. I am grateful to the Minister for his response and thank him, because, yes, I think a meeting is particularly important. He said in response to my noble friend Lady Bowles’s first amendment that the Government are not yet sure how data will be used or shared. That is the reason that the ICO is so clear that there needs to be extra provision, because otherwise, if everyone just assumes that it will be the way we have always used GDPR, we—being the Government and the public—are going to come a cropper pretty quickly, not least because technology has changed, is changing and will change again so fast. I hope that, as we have our meeting and progress towards Report, the Government will seriously consider following the ICO’s advice and make very clear, designed-by-default arrangements for this sector, which will be like none that we have seen so far. With that, I withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 21 withdrawn.

Disabled Air Passengers

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Monday 4th December 2023 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Brinton]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure disabled air passengers are able to travel safely and with their equipment, including wheelchairs.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Lord Davies of Gower) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government are clear that everyone should be able to travel by air safely and with dignity, and they are committed to working with industry and the Civil Aviation Authority to achieve this. The department is committed to reforms that will help protect all passengers, including disabled passengers, and has ongoing engagement with industry and consumer stakeholders to identify ways to continue to improve aviation accessibility.

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

I thank the Minister for his reply, but, as the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, and I pointed out in a debate in Grand Committee last month, many disabled air travellers face repeated problems whenever they fly, including airline ground managers and pilots at airports making personal decisions about equipment, including wheelchairs, and refusing access to a plane, even if their decision does not follow IATA guidance. Will the Minister agree to a meeting with me, the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, the Civil Aviation Authority and IATA to discuss how this can be remedied?

Automated Vehicles Bill [HL]

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 28th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, not just because of his general thought-provoking comments but specifically those around accessibility. I have been able to cut a couple of paragraphs I was going to start with.

I declare my past interest as a member of the Select Committee on the Equality Act and its impact on disabled people, which included assessing PSV transport regulations for safe and effective travel for disabled people. It must be right that the future of sustainable motoring lies with autonomous vehicles. The Bill, despite many of the issues raised so far, is a welcome first step to addressing how driving will change and what regulations will be needed to ensure that people—passengers and pedestrians—are safe. I will focus on just two specific interests that concern me.

The first is data protection, and I am very grateful for the comments made by my noble friend Lady Bowles earlier. I want to go into a very specific area. In Chapter 3 in Part 1, the Bill sets out the collection and sharing of information in relation to autonomous vehicles. While it is important that data is collected to understand how services and vehicles operate, what protections for personal data are proposed to ensure that any data collected is ring-fenced and can be used only by the relevant parties in a pseudonymised form?

The nature of the data collection of automated vehicles—whether PSVs or not—means that a far wider range of organisations would have legitimate access to that data. However, the collection of this data will be much more detailed than current systems. I cite Uber as an example; the company, the driver and the passenger who has booked the ride all share data between them. But that is not as much as is proposed in this Bill. There is a significant amount of data that will be shared for learning about how automated vehicles will work.

One of the points I am interested in is whether the Government would have access to that data. Would that also be ring-fenced specifically for transport purposes and not made available to either other departments or public bodies? For example, the Home Secretary and the police have asked in three Bills recently, that I am aware of, for access to personal confidential data—health data and other data—of individuals. Through amendment we have managed to ring-fence that to real need of it, rather than just the automatic right to collect it. That ought to be considered in this Bill too. Will organisations collecting the data be permitted to sell on some or all of it for commercial purposes? If so, will there be safe- guards to ensure that none of the identifiable individual data will be sold, other than through pseudonymised or truly anonymised formats?

My second issue relates to disabled and vulnerable passengers and people. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Borwick, was right to say that the Bill is an opportunity for disabled travellers, but there are also concerns, some of which the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, outlined. The Bill rightly talks about the importance of the safety of passengers in an automated vehicle. By disabled and vulnerable people, I mean the full range of those who, like myself, use a wheelchair, through to an elderly person who may need assistance or just a handle in the right place in the vehicle or more safety getting in and out when there is not anybody to assist them. Will the designs of all automated vehicles address the needs of disabled and vulnerable passengers?

It is very difficult and expensive to get an electric wheelchair accessible vehicle—WAV—at the moment, mainly because the automotive companies put the large batteries at exactly where the adjustments would be made to install a ramp and securing services for a wheelchair. If the Bill is heralding a new approach to building vehicles, accessibility needs to be built in right from the start and not by exception—by the norm. That way, disabled people will not have to pay over the odds for journeys that others just take for granted.

I will give an example from another sector. Habinteg, the housing charity, has costed up designing a house for a lifetime, rather than it having to be adapted as people get older. We are living in a society where that demographic change is happening rapidly. The initial cost is minute, but, thereafter, the facility of all homes built that way means that people do not have to move into other places or spend tens of thousands of pounds on the most basic things.

This brings me on to my second area of concern. Clause 83 disapplies taxis, private hire vehicles and bus legislation. The Explanatory Notes say that this is

“insofar as a permit holder is providing an automated passenger service in areas and vehicle types specified in the permit”.

My concern is that much of the disability equality regulations in transport might be covered by that exemption. I understand that there needs to be a different approach to regulation for automated vehicles, but can the Minister tell me how disabled passengers will be able to retain their rights under law to safe and effective travel?

I will give an example to illustrate that point. The PSV regulations give bus drivers the power to enforce the priority of wheelchair users over children’s buggies or even people who refuse to move out of the wheelchair space. That is the only place that this is held, so, if PSV regulations are disapplied, how will we ensure that disabled passengers will have the right to use spaces that they have now?

In Clause 93, in Part 6, there is a discussion about real-time traffic information for automated vehicles, including bus lanes, roadworks and diversions. The Explanatory Notes say that this information would also be available to other electronic equipment used by vehicles on roads. But this raises the issue of a disabled passenger—they could be visually impaired, in a wheelchair or just very frail—who suddenly finds that their PSV automated vehicle has been diverted and, without a human driver, they do not know where to get on or off. Believe me, it is hard enough when buses are suddenly diverted and you have to work out where you are going and whether the new drop-off space is on a pavement wide enough—but the drivers are there and able to be helpful. Without a driver, what would happen?

The Select Committee on the Equality Act 2010 and Disability report, The Equality Act 2010: The Impact on Disabled People, commented on the street scenes that the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, referred to, and on how disabled pedestrians—especially but not only those with visual impairment—struggle with very little separation between road and pavement. Clause 93 of this Bill covers the provision and also covers street scenes. How will automated vehicles, both PSV and private, be programmed to watch out for disabled pedestrians who may not be able to see? This is a different point from that of the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, about jaywalkers: I am talking about people who may not be able to see and may not get the information that an automated vehicle is approaching them.

Here I will briefly quote the 2015 report from the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, Accidents by Design. At the end, he said that

“there is an urgent need for an immediate moratorium on shared space until there is more and better evidence about the impact of shared space schemes, including an improved … record of accident data and a better understanding of the consequences of people literally designed out of these spaces”.

That is relevant not just to today’s shared spaces but to the Bill as a whole. It would be a real missed opportunity not to include safe disabled provision by design for a new age of automated vehicles.

I hope the Minister will be able to answer my questions, but I also wonder whether he might be prepared to meet with me, the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, and a couple of disability organisations to ensure the consideration—which he outlined—of the rights and needs of disabled people, so that they are not left out of legislation, planning and building in the future.

Air Travel: Disabled Passengers

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Thursday 23rd November 2023 Grand Committee

Asked by

[Baroness Brinton]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of air travel for disabled passengers.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Fire Safety and Rescue Group. I thank the House of Lords Library for its helpful briefing, as well as Transport for All, Disability Rights UK and Rights on Flights for their continuous campaigning to improve the service that disabled people receive when trying to travel by air.

I emailed the group of disabled Peers prior to this debate and am grateful to those unable to attend today for their comments and to the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, for being here. Every single one of us has faced repeated problems, and our experience reflects that of the wider disabled community.

More than a decade ago, when I started using a wheelchair regularly, the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell of Surbiton, warned me that flying with a wheelchair was a fraught issue. A couple of days ago, she said to me:

“Until I gave up flying, I was regularly left on aeroplanes, sometimes for hours waiting for my power chair to be brought to the door of the plane. In the end I decided I simply couldn’t stand the stress anymore after my power chair was smashed by the bag handlers at Heathrow. I didn’t find out until we arrived in Canada and … was unable to use the chair independently (my husband had to push me everywhere) for the entire holiday. We could not find any repairers near enough to our location who stocked the part needed. I was not compensated and only after several complaining letters did I receive an apology”.


What has changed since then? Not a lot. Disabled passengers are still having to fight for their right to be able to use a plane, travel through an airport and rely on their wheelchairs and mobility equipment not being treated as baggage. Not only is failing to provide a safe service in breach of the UN charter for disabled people but it is legally discriminatory in the UK, the EU, the USA and many other countries. Worse, every glitch in the journey is emotionally exhausting. This is not like losing a suitcase. Damage to mobility aids can mean that you cannot get around in the country you are travelling to, and the level of payment, set internationally, when damage is done on the journey does not recompense for the actual cost of repairing the mobility aid or the hiring of an alternative, if that is even possible, as the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, told me.

The noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, told me that he avoids flying whenever he can, because he feels he is treated like cargo, not a customer. Disabled passengers have to sit around and wait: check into the airport at least an hour before everybody else and wait on the plane, and wait on the plane while one’s chair is, or more usually is not, brought from the hold. That reminds me of arriving at Mexico City Airport and waiting for my wheelchair to arrive in the baggage reclaim area. British Airways had put it in the special wheelchair container—I wish everybody used those—and through the glass window I watched staff remove it from that then try to put it on the moving conveyor belt. Unsurprisingly, it got stuck because the chair was larger than the hole it was going through. It fell off the conveyer was damaged. That was not a good start to being a UNICEF visitor followed by an international conference.

The noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, told us that it is the practice that we need to change, rather than just keeping stepping up enforcement, because enforcement is not working. Too many airlines send out messages that disabled people are just not welcome. He says that changing practice would ensure a win-win because smooth journeys mean an end to horror stories and a better reputation for the airline and service providers in the airport, even though it is only the airline that has responsibility under 1107/2006.

The noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, told our group that he has been left on planes twice this year when ground staff forgot about him. On one occasion the pilot took him off the plane and even through passport control. The pressure for that, by the way, is that the new captain and crew for the next flight cannot come on board until the last passenger leaves. There is no comparable pressure on ground staff. The noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, also 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.

My experience of three flights this year has forced me to reconsider whether I should fly at all. In May I flew from Gatwick to Stockholm with Norwegian. All forms were repeatedly filled in, and Gatwick and Norwegian accepted my lightweight travel chair with two lithium batteries, carried into the cabin by ground staff for safety as per IATA guidance. After my conference I returned to Arlanda Airport. I got through check-in, again repeating battery details, but when I got to the plane the ground staff told me that the pilot had refused to allow the lithium batteries to be brought into the cabin because under IATA rules they cannot be in the hold. I asked to see the pilot, showed him my outward ticket from Gatwick and said, “But your colleague flew me out”. At that point he said, “Well, on this one occasion you can fly, but not again”. Thank goodness I had flown out with the same airline.

In September I flew Wizz Air from Luton to Vilnius for the day to speak at another international conference. I checked in to be told that my lithium batteries were now too big. They were not, according to the IATA chart, but the ground services manager refused to come to talk to me directly, so I had to leave my chair at Luton and fly without it. I was in considerable pain, and not just for that one day.

In October I flew Wizz Air from Bucharest to Luton after speaking at another international conference, this time about the barriers that disabled people face. This time I took my regular dry cell battery wheelchair—this one—to avoid the row about lithium batteries. The ground services manager in Bucharest had got his battery types muddled and would let me on the plane only if I personally carried them both into the cabin. These batteries are old-fashioned bus batteries. They are bigger than old-fashioned car batteries. I cannot lift even one of them easily, and under IATA guidance they are designed to remain in situ in the hold with the electrics immobilised. He refused to allow me on the flight. It cost me €900 to fly back with British Airways as there was only one seat available over the next 48 hours. Worse, the Wizz Air complaints system does not work for this type of problem because the flight was not delayed or cancelled. The CAA has now kindly put me in touch with a senior Wizz Air manager, but I was in despair for seven hours at Bucharest Airport that day.

Here is the problem. The current systems allow too many tiers of staff to make ill-informed decisions that muddle up different regulations and different types of batteries. In my role as vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Fire Safety and Rescue Group I recognise the importance of keeping batteries safe and getting it right. IATA has two sets of guidance: the Battery-Powered Wheelchair and Mobility Aid Guidance Document and the Dangerous Goods Regulations, which sits with the International Civil Aviation Organization’s Technical Instructions for the Safe Transport of Dangerous Goods by Air. The latter, the DGR, is related to commercial freight and differs entirely from the Battery-Powered Wheelchair and Mobility Aid Guidance Document, but it is not clear.

My first question to the Minister is: when will there be one clear international flowchart with one set of common data relating to wheelchairs and mobility aids and one standard for service for disabled passengers? There is much confusion about what is or is not included, and I fear that is often an underlying problem when things go so wrong. There are moves for a universally accepted wheelchair passport, which would help, but it must be recognised by all the airlines, not left to the whim of checking staff or even the pilot.

There must also be a standard for training staff and for ensuring that disabled people are not handed on from person to person. On one journey at Madrid airport, I was handled by four different people before I could get to my own chair. At one point, I was literally just dumped in front of a concrete wall airside and told to wait for the next person to arrive; I was on my own for nearly 15 minutes.

There are plenty of talking shops. I have sometimes been invited to the industry/departmental meetings convened by the noble Baroness, Lady Vere, in the past, as have other Peers, and it is good that disabled people and organisations are involved, but until there are real changes nothing will change. The examples that I have given today are repeated every day when disabled people travel. Everyone is horrified when they hear what has happened, but there is no urgency to solve it. The noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, said that if non-disabled people received this level of service it would simply be deemed unacceptable. Personally, I think there would be riots.

My last question to the Minister is: how can this Government get all the parties together to change what is happening? I do not mean just in the UK. This is a global problem that can be solved only by Governments, regulators and airlines coming together. It can and must be improved so that disabled people can travel and live their lives like everyone else.

Rail Services

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Tuesday 20th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I agree with the noble Lord that some train operating companies have struggled recently: they have had to cut their services, and that is deeply regrettable. However, since then a lot has been done around recruiting more drivers. Services are coming back and I hope the noble Lord will see an improvement.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, Southern Rail got rid of its guards five years ago. Last year, it awarded a passenger compensation of £17,000 because she was repeatedly left on her train in a wheelchair. Part of the negotiations between the train companies and unions at the moment is over removing guards from further trains in other areas. The Minister talked about a high-quality and reliable service for passengers. How on earth can that be possible when, for disabled passengers, guards are absolutely key to having a safe journey and being able to get off?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

Absolutely. Our ability to provide a good service for passengers with reduced mobility is top of mind. It is why we developed the app to enable passengers to be able to book ahead. It is the case that guards can provide a very useful service, but so can people at the station. That goes back to the issue around ticket offices: sometimes it is better to have people outside ticket offices, walking around platforms, and being able to assist people with mobility needs in order that they can get on the trains that they need to.