P&O Ferries and Employment Rights

Lord Mackinlay of Richborough Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

I really want to avoid the temptation to try to turn this into a political knockabout—[Interruption.] It is not. It is about 800 people’s jobs. When the previous two rounds of redundancy took place—I think I am right in saying that neither the hon. Lady nor any other Member of this House, perhaps bar one, approached me about them—the company quite properly consulted the workers and the unions and carried them out in a voluntary fashion. The expectation, therefore, was, quite properly, that that was what would happen again on this occasion. We are also talking about a commercially sensitive decision, which limits what a Minister can immediately say and do. But there is no excuse—and this is the point—for the way in which it was carried out. For some employees, for a four-decade seafaring career to be brought to an abrupt video end is just plain insulting.

Since the news emerged, I have spoken to one of the sacked employees, who has given years of service to P&O. He told me about the chaotic way in which the situation unfurled for him on Thursday morning. He said that after a decade of service, workers were brutally informed via a pre-recorded Zoom message, and that, despite the fact that some staff have now been offered redundancy packages, nothing can change the way in which these workers were let down. They found out, as the rest of the world was finding out, via a Zoom message, which was linked to some of those individuals’ homes.

[Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)]

I am very pleased that my right hon. Friend has had the opportunity to speak to some of the employees. Has he managed to glean the level of the financial compensation for redundancy? Will the package be the standard minimum or will it be different?

--- Later in debate ---

[Gavin Newlands]

I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend. The college will be looking on in horror at the current story, as numbers applying for courses perhaps plummet.

This is modern-day slavery on the high seas and in our ports. It must end. I would like to hear the Minister state that he will take a lead on trying to secure the required changes in international maritime law when he speaks from the Dispatch Box. The role of the agencies involved, Clyde Marine Recruitment, Columbia Shipmanagement and International Ferry Management, must also be called out. They have provided support to this action without telling any of the proposed replacement crew what was happening—in fact, as I heard on BBC Radio Scotland the other day from a Paisley merchant seaman, actively lying to the replacement agency staff.

A former worker who had been working on a P&O vessel just three weeks prior and who had asked for opportunities on non-P&O vessels was told that this was a brand-new vessel that required to be crewed. Agency staff were told nothing while they were holed up in an East Kilbride hotel for three days; in fact, they set up a WhatsApp group called “Mystery Ship”. He and several others walked away when it became clear what was happening. They viewed going on to that ship as tantamount to crossing a picket line.

For the past two years I have worked to end the practice of fire and rehire, with colleagues from across the House. We said to the Government at the start of this problem that if they did not act when British Airways made fire and rehire threats to 30,000 people, more would follow. The Government did nothing. Then British Gas, Weetabix, Marshalls and even Tesco made similar threats. The Government response? A change to the guidance. The actions of P&O go beyond fire and rehire, however; they are a supercharged version, complete with balaclava-clad human resources and handcuff-trained personnel to enforce P&O’s interpretation of employment rights.

We have been forced to hear from the Government Benches for the past six years how Brexit is about taking back control. I ask the Government in all seriousness what control they think they have taken back. Anti-union, human rights-busting oligarchs in Dubai are approving plans to hire private security contractors with handcuffs and balaclavas to physically remove employees from their place of work, so what control have the Government taken back? What improvements have we seen in workers’ rights since the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) said in 2019:

“In the Queen’s Speech on Thursday there will be a specific law which will safeguard workers’ rights.”?

There was no sign of that Bill in that speech.

[Craig Mackinlay]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Gavin Newlands]

If I have to.

[Craig Mackinlay]

That is very kind. The hon. Gentleman is quite right to talk about fire and rehire. Is he going to discuss the issue of Ferguson Marine, with no hire at all? The contracts for the vessels that could have been used for ferries in Scotland are not even being done locally—they are going to Poland, Romania or Turkey.

[Gavin Newlands]

I am delighted that I gave way to the hon. Member, but I am going to move on because that has nothing to do with the current debate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)]

I think the House is united this afternoon about the egregious manner in which these sackings took place by pre-recorded video. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Mrs Elphicke), who went down to speak to these people. She has explained carefully that these were not just local workers; some people had been bussed in as well. However, that is an argument for another day. A number of my constituents were working at P&O. I know that for a fact because when I have been on a P&O ferry and enjoyed a café breakfast, they have come up to me and said, “Oh, you’re my MP.” That will not happen again, not because my constituents are not working there, but because I will never use P&O Ferries again.

Let me pay tribute to the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Robert Courts), because I watched the ministerial statement he made last week and I could feel his anger. He laid out clearly what the Government are thinking about this. They will be looking at the contracts they have with P&O and DP World, and the Insolvency Service has been appointed to look at the manner in which these people were dispensed with. I am pleased that the Government are ensuring that all those bound up in this will get the support of the Department for Work and Pensions and others—that is scant thanks, but they will be available to help them. I am sure that the unions, which I will be supporting, would be looking at breaches of any contract law. As my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Laura Farris) said, we know that this is a complex area; it is about maritime law, with international contracts, which puts it in a very different place from what we might usually see.

I do not have the benefit of full, detailed knowledge about the profit and loss and finances of P&O Ferries. Undoubtedly, there have been substantial losses during the covid period, but P&O Ferries has received significant amounts of furlough money from the public purse. As the House will know, I am a chartered accountant, and I find it hard to believe that after the redundancy costs are taken into account over a period this could possibly be the salvation of a company in trouble. I am sure that fuel costs have quite a lot to feed into this as well. I would have hoped that the company would look for stability of revenues post-covid and perhaps some stability in the fuel price market and then made proper, duly considered restructuring decisions if and when they were needed. I agree fully with the rehire proposals that are coming out of this House, but I wonder: what on earth were the board of P&O and DP World thinking of? Did they not realise the reputational damage that this measure would do? My hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price) laid it out clearly: did they not think about the freeport proposals and DP World’s involvement with them?

I have advertised widely on the usual channels that I will never use P&O Ferries again and I recommend that we all do the same. Do you know what I would like to see as an outcome to this? I would like to see P&O Ferries going down the toilet and a new carrier coming out of the woodwork that is prepared to deal with local people properly and hire in the appropriate way.

There is much in the motion I agree with. The first line says that this House “condemns” this, and of course we do. The motion rightly notes that DP World received a lot of Government money and that the Government should look at suspending DP World from Government contracts—I agree with all that. I do not agree with the call to outlaw fire and rehire, much in the vein that the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) put forward, as I do not think this is the time to jump on other employment legislation; this is the time to try to put this right and to show up P&O as a disgraceful company. I think we can unite on that this afternoon.

Heavy Commercial Vehicles in Kent (No. 2) (Amendment) (No. 2) Order 2021

Lord Mackinlay of Richborough Excerpts

Monday 6th December 2021 General Committees

[Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)]

I have a couple of points, mostly to reiterate what my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford said.

A couple of years ago, the Government allowed the use of map data from Ordnance Survey to be made available to the mapping software that underpins many GPS systems. We had a particular problem in Sandwich some years ago, which was always deemed to be the quickest route when lorry drivers, particularly foreign ones, were using free Google-type map data. At times it looked like going through the middle of Sandwich was the easiest route. I am pleased to report that there seems to have been an improvement on that, and we are not seeing that issue like we used to.

I understand that the purpose of the draft order is just to put right what should not have been wrong in the first place, but in easy language, does this permit the police and other authorities in the case of Operation Brock to use their powers to stop what might be called rat running? Could they force or cajole—I suppose force, as it has a statutory basis—traffic moving through Kent just to those roads so specified? That would be helpful. That is how I understood it, but I have not tried to interleave this order with the existing statutory instruments that it replaces.

Draft Airports Slot Allocation (Alleviation of Usage Requirements) (No. 2) Regulations 2021

Lord Mackinlay of Richborough Excerpts

Tuesday 19th October 2021 General Committees

[Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)]

First, I have a declaration of interest: I had a fledgling interest in an airline start-up that came to an end after 9/11 in 2001, and did not get any further.

Covid has hit this country’s aviation industry probably worse than any other. The figures across Europe put the UK’s reduction in air travel as far worse than that of any other country, and the recovery has been far slower. This is not the forum to discuss the fact that we have had some rather odd and illogical covid measures that have not applied in other countries, but which have caused the sluggish reflation of that industry.

We do not have a perfect industry or a perfect market operating with airlines and airports, because we have limited airport space. That has always been a limiting factor, so it is not the fair, complete and normal market we might expect—but thank heavens that we do have a more liberated market than in the 1970s. We could have had a candied industry in aspic following the flag carriers of various countries, and we would not have seen the rise of a multitude of low-cost carriers that has liberated all of us and enabled lower prices and a great deal more choice.

On the 50% measure that is being applied, will the Minister’s Deparment commit to looking at the load factors? They are published widely; the CAA publish these figures, and I am sure that they are at the fingertips of the Minister and his Department. Will they look at the load factors of those airlines that are using the 50% reduction in the required use of their slots to see whether they are using it for other commercial advantage, such as by getting their flights filled up to 99% or 100%, rather than to more typical pre-pandemic levels of, say, 85% or 90%, which would have been more typical? Will the Minister be looking at what these airlines are actually carrying and giving the nudge by saying, “Come on, your load factors are higher than previously; it’s time you started using these slots whose usage this legislation is allowing you to reduce.” I am fully in favour of free markets, but the flexibility and value of these slots is really quite exceptional. If airlines are not prepared to use them, they should be losing them in the longer term, so that new entrants can come in and we can all enjoy new airlines such as Wizz Air, Ryanair or EasyJet, which are a new and beneficial feature of low-cost travel for all of us.

Motor Insurance: Court Judgments

Lord Mackinlay of Richborough Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd September 2021 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Trudy Harrison)]

It is a privilege to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Ms Bardell, or indeed under any Chair in Westminster Hall as a Minister. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) for securing this debate on the effects of recent court judgments on motor insurance. I welcome the opportunity to provide an update and set out the Government’s position on this matter.

We have always been clear since the 2014 European Court of Justice’s ruling in the Vnuk case that we do not agree with it. That decision directed the unnecessary extension of the provisions requiring motor insurance to private land, as well as to a much greater range of vehicles. The excessive liabilities that it would place on the insurance industry and the potential increases to motor insurance are simply unacceptable. To be clear, if we had implemented Vnuk, which we are not going to do, these liabilities and potential increases are huge; they are not trivial. Government analysis suggests that Vnuk could have cost industry some £2 billion per year, and that would most likely have been passed on to consumers in increased insurance premiums.

Focusing on motorcar policyholders, that could have resulted in an increase in individual insurance premiums of around £50 for 25 million consumers. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) referenced, if Vnuk had been implemented, it would have had a catastrophic effect on the motorsport industry, and indeed all motorists. Vehicles would likely have been required to purchase motor insurance to compensate injury caused to other drivers, stewards and spectators. Motorsport in the UK is safe and highly regulated. Employer’s liability and public liability already provide a high level of protection, so adding a motor insurance requirement would have brought little benefit at a very high cost—some £458 million per year—had Vnuk been implemented.

Stakeholders have consistently informed us that it would have been prohibitively expensive for most of the sector, effectively making the motorsports industry unviable. The sector turns over almost £3 billion annually, generating full-time employment for around 38,000 people and part-time work for a further 100,000. That is why we announced that we would remove the effects of Vnuk from GB law in February, and delivering on that includes removing the associated financial liability imposed on the Motor Insurers’ Bureau via the Courts’ decisions in the Lewis case.

This commitment is a priority for the Government. Its removal is part of a new and prosperous future for the UK outside of the EU—a future where we can deregulate and set our own rules and regulations. At this point, I must commend the tenacity of my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) in challenging and successfully and competently setting out the direction he recommends that we take. His detailed knowledge provides important context on matters of EU legislation and is paralleled only by his ability to recall details and dates, which the debate has certainly benefited from.

That is why we will continue to explore bringing forward the necessary legislation as soon as parliamentary time allows, as it has not proved possible to provide a slot for a Government vehicle to disapply the effects of the Vnuk and Lewis judgments during this parliamentary Session. I hope that hon. Members will appreciate that responding to the pandemic was and remains of the utmost importance, and that we are still in a challenging time.

[Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)]

It is very kind of the Minister to give way, and I welcome her to her new post. As outlined by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash), there are European Court of Justice judgments and instances where that law was applied to this country while we were in the EU that we did not agree with, and we were probably outvoted under qualified majority voting at the time. Does her Department have officials looking at other instances, such as the Vnuk case, that can be expunged from our legal system at the soonest opportunity, because we never wanted them in the first place?

[Trudy Harrison]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, and it would only be appropriate to write to him with further details. It is also appropriate to put on record my thanks to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet for her work on the taskforce that generally assesses the potential for dealing with some of those unnecessary regulations.

Ultimately, the Government face many competing priorities in deciding what legislation to bring forward in the limited parliamentary time available. My right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Sir Greg Knight) asked whether the Government would support the Bill—we are certainly supportive. I hope that is music to his ears. The legislation proposed in the presentation Bill represents the best opportunity to address the issue at the earliest possible opportunity. Rest assured that the Government recognise the importance of the matter. We will be following the Motor Vehicles (Compulsory Insurance) Bill with interest, as it would deliver the desired effects of removing Vnuk from GB law.

The Government would like to see the presentation Bill being brought forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) succeed. The Government have worked hard to seize the opportunity to legislate quickly, as we recognise its importance. However, I am sure that all Members will appreciate that the usual pressures on parliamentary time have been made even greater by the amount of emergency legislation passed in the previous Session. The presentation Bill offers the best and earliest opportunity to make that change quickly and deliver the positive outcomes of removing Vnuk, which many Members have referenced today.

I was pleased to hear support from the spokespersons from the SNP and Labour, the hon. Members for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) and for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy). I very much look forward to their support when the presentation Bill comes forward. Indeed, I would invite the whole House to lend their support.

Airport Expansion

Lord Mackinlay of Richborough Excerpts

Monday 2nd March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)]

I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. India and China have 320 new airports planned for the next 10 years, yet here we are once again with a continuing national debate about the expansion of just one. Is my hon. Friend aware of the potential of Manston airport on the border between the constituencies of North Thanet and South Thanet? It is spade-ready to deliver important aviation infrastructure for a new global Britain in the shortest possible time.

[Kelly Tolhurst]

As my hon. Friend is aware, I know Manston airport, and I know his passion for it, and that of his neighbours, regarding the ability of that small regional airport to come back on stream. He is right: regional airports, connectivity—everything that I have mentioned and spoken about today—are key to levelling up and to economic growth throughout the UK. This Government are determined to deliver and invest, and I am extremely excited to be part of how we deliver that in the future.

Seaborne Freight

Lord Mackinlay of Richborough Excerpts

Monday 11th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I have to say that the hon. Gentleman brings new meaning to the term “utter hogwash”. First, he clearly was not listening when I said that we have spent no money on this contract. My Department is doing a lot of work on no-deal Brexit preparations, as are other parts of Whitehall—that is the prudent thing to do—but we have not spent any money on this contract. The contract was in fact assured jointly by my officials and officials in the Treasury.

The hon. Gentleman says the letter is worth nothing, but let me just quote from the letter, from the managing director of Arklow Shipping, one of Europe’s biggest shipping companies with operations in Rotterdam and Ireland, which covers chartering, technical and crewing, and finance. He said:

“Arklow Shipping has been working with Seaborne for twelve months in connection with Seaborne’s proposals to develop new freight services between the UK and continental Europe. Arklow Shipping is therefore familiar with Seaborne’s agreement with Her Majesty’s Government to provide additional freight capacity in the event of the UK’s departure from the European Union on a no deal basis.

3. In support of the current proposals to develop the shipping route between Ramsgate and Ostend, Arklow Shipping intends to provide equity finance for the purchase of both vessels and an equity stake within Seaborne which will be the operating entity of this project.

4. Seaborne is a firm that brings together experienced and capable shipping professionals. I consider that Seaborne’s plans to deliver a new service to facilitate trade following from the UK’s departure from the EU are both viable and deliverable. I will be working closely with the team at Seaborne to ensure that they have appropriate support from Arklow Shipping to deliver on their commitments to Her Majesty’s Government.”

Enough said.

[Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend share my disappointment that Arklow Shipping, a major Irish shipping company and the main backer of Seaborne, has pulled away from this contract? Can he give assurances to Thanet District Council and local taxpayers that the cost of keeping Ramsgate in a state of readiness as part of the Brexit contingency planning, which we are all happy to do, will not fall on local taxpayers?

[Chris Grayling]

I share my hon. Friend’s disappointment. We are spending a lot of money on contingency planning and resilience in Kent, and I personally regard the port of Ramsgate as an important part of that. He knows that I am committed to continuing to work with Thanet District Council, and I would like to see ferries come back to Ramsgate. Whatever happens, we must make sure that we keep open opportunities for the future, in my view.

Seaborne Freight

Lord Mackinlay of Richborough Excerpts

Tuesday 8th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

What a load of absolute tripe. I can tell the hon. Gentleman has not been listening to me. Ninety per cent. of this contract has been awarded to substantial and established ferry operators—DFDS and Brittany Ferries. We did not have a reason to exclude a small business from taking a small part of the contract with a legitimate, valid bid.

[Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)]

It is remarkable, is it not? If the Government were to do no planning for all Brexit eventualities, they would be condemned. Now they are doing sensible planning, they face derision. I have met Seaborne Freight, which has shown itself, over a number of years, to be the only party interested in running new services between Ramsgate and Ostend—that was even before this contingency planning. Personally, I welcome the dredging and improvements now taking shape at the port of Ramsgate at no cost to local taxpayers. We will have a regeneration bonus, no matter what, and I welcome that.

Thanet District Council and the people of Ramsgate will do all they possibly can for Brexit provision, so I welcome the measures the Secretary of State has taken, but there are people in this House who do not seem to be listening. Will he say once more that there will be no cash for Seaborne Freight if it does not run the services?

[Chris Grayling]

I am very happy to reiterate that. It is a responsible approach to a new contract with a new business that we will pay when the business delivers. It is disappointing to hear that the Labour party is so opposed to the regeneration of the port of Ramsgate. It was not so long ago that the Labour party represented Ramsgate in Parliament but, given this negative attitude, it does not deserve ever to do so again.

Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill

Lord Mackinlay of Richborough Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 29th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hayes]

Well, that would certainly be my wish. It will be for the Minister to confirm or otherwise whether that is the official position. I no longer speak in official terms, but happily endorse the view of my hon. Friend that we should have a UK-wide design and competition. When Gilbert Scott designed the red telephone box, of course he recognised that it was a functional item, as it remains. But he was also determined to make it something of elegance and style—something that, in the words of my hon. Friend, added to the built environment. And so it should be with these charging points.

The third important element of charging points, as well as their accessibility and recognisability, is their affordability. It is absolutely right that we should have a single means by which people can pay. It is preposterous that people might arrive at a charge point, ready to charge their vehicle—perhaps even desperate to do so, if the remarks of the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) hold true—and then find that the means by which they have to pay does not fit their expectation and that they need some card or prepayment system. We need to ensure that all charge points conform to a single means of payment, or at least a number of means of payment that suit every circumstance. What we cannot have is different charge points with different technologies, different modes of payment, and a different look and feel. That would be preposterous and I know that the Government will not want anything preposterous to happen.

[Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way; he is being very generous with his time. As he got the Bill to its current state, did he consider that perhaps we have started the whole basis of the electrification of cars and batteries at the wrong point? The trouble is we are beyond this point already, as we have a Tesla-style battery, a Lexus-style battery and batteries by other manufacturers. Would it not have been more sensible and better if the current network of petrol stations had been places where we could simply change the battery? That could have been done in an instant, or within a minute or two, rather than waiting for this long charge system. I am concerned that the manufacturers have started us off on the wrong basis. Perhaps it is not too late to get us back on track.

[Mr Hayes]

Innovation and change often initially result in a multiplicity of systems. One thinks of the industry that I was once in—the IT industry. It took some while before MS-DOS, and subsequently Windows, emerged. Of course, there are still Apple computers with a different system altogether, but at the birth of the personal computer, all kinds of technologies co-existed. It was a while before standards became certain, adapted and adopted, widely recognised and used. I suspect that the same applies in this area of innovation and change. As the technology beds down, I expect that there will be greater consistency, but the Government must play their part too.

Although I am sure that the market will normalise around a set of standards, the Government can—by what they do both legislatively and in terms of the kind of incentives I mentioned earlier that might be provided to those who are developing charge points such as local authorities—help that process along the way and that will build consumer confidence. Recognisability, affordability and accessibility are critical if people are going to buy electric cars without the uncertainty that the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland described to us. She was a bold early adopter who entered the marketplace with a degree of optimism and hope. I hope that her hope has not been too tarnished by subsequent experience because the trailblazing spirit that she personifies is important if we are to get the momentum we want for this change in the way we drive and what we drive.

I welcome these amendments. As I said at the outset, they reflect sensible scrutiny of important legislation, although of course there is more to be done. In establishing this national infrastructure, I am confident that the same spirit of conciliation, collaboration and co-operation that has characterised our considerations so far will continue.

I begin the end of my remarks where I started—with Ruskin. Ruskin said:

“The training which makes men happiest in themselves also makes them most serviceable to others.”

Further to the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan), the change that I recommend will not work unless we have people ready to make it work. That requires skills and training that is serviceable to others. It requires building a human infrastructure fit to do the job to make the physical infrastructure as effective as it can be. I know that there will be more consideration of that during the rest of this debate.

In the short time that I have been on the Back Benches, I have learned that one of the virtues is that one does not have to stay for the whole of a debate. To stay longer, in any case, might attract more plaudits, and even I would begin to become embarrassed. In the interests of the whole House, not just my own, I am now going to end this brief contribution, sit a moment longer and then proceed to my dinner, safe in the knowledge that I pass the baton to others still more capable of continuing the debate in the spirit in which it began.

--- Later in debate ---

[Craig Mackinlay]

It looks as though I am bringing up the last of the Back Benchers, Mr Deputy Speaker, and it is a great pleasure to do so. I shall limit my observations to the part of the Bill that deals with autonomous vehicles. To my mind, what gets discussed in the corridors and the Tea Room should probably stay there, but this is an important Bill so I shall break my own rules of discretion to relate to the House an important discussion that took place with the then Minister of State for Transport, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes). The subject turned to the personal private transport of the future. The Bill encompasses that brave new world. The basic automation technology is already with us and it is rapidly evolving.

Among other things, the Bill attempts to resolve issues relating to software and insurance, and it is the software part that I would like, perhaps wryly, to comment on this evening. If other Members’ computers are anything like mine, they will know that the “not responding” message features all too commonly. It is followed by frustration on my part as I press ctrl+alt+delete to try to stop the offending application. Just imagine that at 70 mph in a 1 tonne vehicle of the future. Will software updates be regular, perhaps hourly, via an in-built mobile SIM card? The interpretation of the never-seen-before accident involving perhaps an errant sheep, a drunken cyclist and tin of paint falling from a white Transit van on the Thanet Way would need to be fed into the artificial intelligence algorithm that is doing the clever stuff and running the software.

Two Arnold Schwarzenegger films come to mind: “Total Recall” and the “Terminator” series. “Total Recall” featured the automated JohnnyCab and, while some Members scratch their head and try to remember it, I want to compare it with the current flexibility of Uber and the other similar apps that we live with today. As we take the inherently illogical human being behind the wheel out of the equation, I wonder what the point will be in the future of maintaining one’s own vehicle—a vehicle that spends 95% of its time completely unused. I use a free GPS navigation software called Navmii—Google Maps does the same thing—and people who use it will have noticed the red and amber on the screen telling the driver that there is traffic ahead, information which is based on the shared GPS speeds of the software’s myriad users. As a human, I can probably then make a rather sub-optimal decision as to whether to press on or to find an alternative route, and some navigation systems will already suggest an alternative route.

I ask Members to extrapolate things forward a few years to where the potential use of even more refined and extensive data will get us. Assessment could be made of car usage and times of travel, and hold-ups could be minimised through clever routing. With appropriate computer-generated tweaking of travel times, it could be determined for any particular town that x number of vehicles are required, with a bit to spare. That pool of autonomous vehicles could be available 24/7 either on a pay-as-you-go or fixed-price basis via an app, and personal car ownership could become a quaint memory of a bygone era. The physical number of cars would obviously be massively reduced, leading to implications for the car industry. Might the new JohnnyCab—the autonomous private vehicle of the future—be given a new name? Perhaps it could be called the Hayes or Norman after its ministerial fathers. Will domestic conversations of the future involve something like, “I will just finish the vacuuming, then let’s call our personal autonomous vehicle so we can go out.”? I would rather that they go something like this: “I’ll just finish the Hoovering, then let’s call a Hayes so we can go out.”

I will finish with Arnie’s “Terminator” films. Perhaps the end of the human race will come not at the hands of robots connected to Skynet looking to terminate us all in an orgy of violence, nor from a yet-to-be-mutated bacterium or an asteroid strike, but from future JohnnyCabs or Hayes or Norman vehicles, controlled in the cloud by “Taxinet”, deciding that we do not deserve what they do for us and crashing simultaneously into walls and trees. However, it is more likely—this is the serious part—that the crashes could be caused by an aggressive computer virus from a hostile nation. In future, beware those countries where the people simply prefer to drive themselves.

This is a great Bill, and I fully support it.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

HGV Fly-parking: Kent

Lord Mackinlay of Richborough Excerpts

Wednesday 7th September 2016 Westminster Hall

[Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately) for securing this debate. I have had much correspondence on this issue with the Kent Association of Local Councils—I am sure my hon. Friend has as well—and it regularly fills up my email inbox. It is a struggle to know exactly how to solve it. The Stanford West development will be key to solving the problem of fly-parking, which is unfortunately blighting not just the immediate area around Dover and Folkestone, but the whole county. The attendance this afternoon of my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Amanda Milling) demonstrates that this is an issue that extends beyond Kent, across the country.

I want to put a few facts on the counter today. Some 88% of all HGV traffic passes through Kent going towards the Dover ferry port or Eurotunnel and 70% of that traffic passes down the M20 as the most logical high-speed route from the M25 and elsewhere to get there. We have 10,800 freight vehicles—5,400 each way—passing through Kent every 24 hours. As the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Robert Flello) noted very well, one of the reasons that Calais is not used is that, in the current environment, lorry drivers simply dare not park for long periods in Calais, as they may need protection from unwarranted and unwanted illegal migrants.

It is not just the primary routes that are suffering. Driving up here from my constituency on a regular basis, I have noticed areas particularly around Cobham. There is a particular on-off road around a petrol station, which is the main route back on to the dualled M2, and which is always chock-a-block with fly-parked lorries. The issue also affects minor roads. It is not uncommon to go anywhere in Kent and see lay-bys, meant for people to take a temporary stop or to dispose of rubbish from their cars, that have become overnight stops. Minor roads are also used. Traffic regulation orders have some value, but local authorities are often hamstrung by fairly limited powers and the difficulty of enforcing any penalty notices they issue. My hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent noted that the fines are so small that the cost of recovering them, using the SPARKS network and the powers under the Local Transport Act 2008, which allow local authorities to pursue foreign fines across borders, is often so prohibitive and aggravating that it is simpler to do nothing.

[Amanda Milling]

Picking up on the point about the nature of the areas where these lorries are parked, does my hon. Friend agree that it affects residents badly, such as those on Leathermill Lane and Love Lane in Rugeley, but it also affects businesses and other organisations in the locality, because they are parking on business parks as well?

[Craig Mackinlay]

My hon. Friend makes a valid point. The problem is that, if a vehicle is properly insured and there is no traffic regulation order to prohibit the parking on, say, a housing estate, under the law the vehicle can park there. It comes down to the lack of facilities that we have. Because of tachograph requirements and driver hours, some drivers are forced to stop wherever they can. That enforces the argument for proper sites across the country to stop that happening.

The mess that is created down the last part of the Thanet Way has been mentioned. I know my right hon. Friend the Minister is familiar with that area. There are four or five lay-bys, which are used overnight. I have cause to stop there from time to time when driving with my dog, so that she can take an appropriate break. I pick up what comes out of my dog, but I sometimes wonder if there have been several inconsiderate dog owners. Sadly, that is not the case—it is human waste and filth, which the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South ably described.

The way to solve the problem is a mixture of carrot and stick. Enforcement notices have a valid part to play. Figures from Kent police, which I think my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent already raised, show that in the six-month period from December ’15 to May ’16, 1,354 lorries were moved on and 370 suffered a graduated fixed penalty notice. A penalty notice should be sufficient to prevent those drivers from fly-parking the next time, but, unfortunately, a degree of lunacy comes into play. The Minister might be interested in this point. I have been doing a lot of work in Sandwich to try to stop big lorries going into the town as a result of blindly using the free software on their phones that is designed for cars, not lorries. Thankfully, we now have a 7.5 tonnes traffic regulation order. When it came in, I asked the police what they were going to do to enforce it. There is new signage of course, but the big stick of fining can work when a fixed penalty notice is issued to a UK haulier, because we know where they are and they can be pursued easily through the British legal system. The problem is with foreign drivers, of which some 65% seem to be the ones responsible across Kent. There is just one handheld machine for taking a credit card across the whole of Kent police. I found that quite incredible. I could set up a shop tomorrow and get a credit card machine in, but Kent police only have one. I am taking that up with the police and crime commissioner.

Cost is the big issue. That £20, or whatever the cost is, is quite a lot of money to the driver or foreign driver and it is not surprising that they want to avoid that. Farthing Corner, one of the key stations on the M2, charges £20 per night—it is not surprising if drivers avoid that charge.

There is a big contrast here with our EU neighbours, who tend to do this better than we have. In France, they have the aires system of truck stops. In Hungary, a place that I am more familiar with—my wife is Hungarian—all main motorways have pull-in areas. They are not full service stations, rather they are off-the-motorway pull-in areas with toilet facilities, called pihenöhely—I will leave a note for Hansard. My first time in Hungary I thought it was a place; there seemed to be rather a lot of places with the same name—they are all over the place.

Drivers’ hours are at the heart of this and until we provide proper facilities we are hamstrung on what we can do. Carrot and stick needs to come into play. The provision of areas, at reasonable cost if necessary, is the carrot. I do not know if there will be a cost associated with Stanford West for usual use; I would imagine there probably will be.

[Damian Collins]

The Stanford West site will have lorry parking charges for overnight parking but would be free for use for other means.

[Craig Mackinlay]

That may not solve the problem of overnight fly-parking, because people will want to park for free somewhere else. That is perhaps something we need to pursue.

Once facilities are available, we need the stick: a higher fine. My hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent raised that point. That stick should also be linked with Kent police getting more than one credit card machine—that might be useful. Also, local authorities should take the step to enforce. The cost to local authorities of cleaning up the human waste and rubbish in the lay-bys has not yet been quantified, but it must be substantial. It does little for the general quality of our road network.

Again, I thank my hon. Friend for securing this debate. This issue needs to be solved, because, no matter which part of the county we are in, Kent is very much at the frontline of the problem.

GPS and Heavy Goods Vehicles

Lord Mackinlay of Richborough Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd March 2016 Westminster Hall

[Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered GPS satellite navigation and heavy goods vehicles.

This is an increasingly complex issue because of the proliferation in recent years of devices and, more importantly, software available across Android, Apple and Microsoft-driven smartphones. The issue is not new but has been bubbling in the background for well over a decade. In-vehicle information systems, or IVISs, have received Government attention over the years, including in the Road Traffic (Driver Licensing and Information Systems) Act 1989 and the Driver Information Systems (Exemption) Order 1990, which concentrated on a licensing scheme for providers of real-time on-the-move information, such as Trafficmaster.

There was also a Government consultation in 2006, which sadly received just 111 replies. The results of that consultation were published in May 2008, but there were no firm recommendations for action. However, the sat-nav problem was highlighted in the consultation. In those days, very few heavy goods vehicle-only systems were available, which shows how technology has moved on at an exponential rate. The report concentrated heavily on the safety issues of—this is quite bizarre nomenclature—the human-machine interface, or HMI. There was subsequently one welcome legislative amendment, in 2011, giving local highways authorities the ability to implement advisory signs without formal traffic orders needing to be made.

On 6 March 2012, the Department for Transport hosted a “Delivering the best information to all in-vehicle satellite navigation users” afternoon. It was intended to encourage appropriate sat-nav use, local authority involvement with the mapping companies, and consideration of using the insurance market to force HGVs to require appropriate HGV-robust sat-navs. That is especially important when hugely expensive bridge collisions occur, as happens in many constituencies. Those collisions can stop train services while the damage is assessed. That has not been an uncommon occurrence on the north Kent line running through Strood.

Kent County Council, as the highways authority for Kent, issued a freight action plan in October 2012 to cover the four-year period from 2012 to 2016. It highlighted the problem, unique to Kent, of having the active cross-channel ports of Dover and Sheerness, the port of London, the then fully operational Ramsgate port, and the channel tunnel. Kent has a uniquely high level and density of foreign trucks on its roads because of the port activities, and that presents unique problems. The KCC action plan highlighted inappropriate sat-nav use and particularly the necessity of appropriate advertising of strategic road use across the county.

The Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones), told the House on 20 July 2015 that legislation might be an inappropriate and bureaucratic means of addressing these issues. Despite a number of years considering the problem and despite the numerous initiatives, the problem persists, and it is my contention that it is getting worse and more widespread than ever. The A257 Sandwich to Canterbury road suffers from inappropriate HGV use, and, importantly for the historic fabric of our nation, there are far too regular occurrences of economic standstill in the historic town of Sandwich as inappropriate vehicles that have absolutely no cause to be there become literally stuck, sometimes for hours.

I apologise in advance for the technical nature of my next comments, but I think it is worth while to lay out the framework of the advanced wizardry behind this now routinely used technology. The global positioning system comprises 31 US satellites orbiting 12,500 miles above the Earth. The system became fully live in 1995, but was available before then at lower levels of accuracy.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend, who is making an excellent speech on a subject that is important to my constituency. He mentions the wizardry involved. He may be interested to learn—I will talk about this later—that one of the houses in my constituency that is most frequently damaged by HGVs was used for the set of the Harry Potter film. Unfortunately, that wizardry is not available to us.

[Craig Mackinlay]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I am sure that if we asked just about every Member of the House, they would be able to cite similar problems of historic buildings being hit.

I will develop a little further my point about the technical wizardry. The GPS concept is based on time and the known position of specialised satellites, which carry stable atomic clocks that are synchronised to one another and to ground clocks. The satellites’ locations are known with great precision. The GPS receivers that we all have on our phones and cars and wherever else also have very accurate clocks. GPS satellites transmit their current time and position, and a GPS receiver, looking at multiple satellites, solves a complex equation and determines its exact position.

As can be imagined, given the usefulness of such technology, it was designed in the US primarily for military use, but its use rapidly spread to marine navigation and has now spread to road navigation, as accuracy levels are now down to 5 metres or less. The system is free to any user on the planet who has a GPS device and it must be considered a true gift from the United States taxpayer to the world. Other countries have replicated the system, or tried to replicate it. There is the Russian GLONASS system, and the European Galileo system and Indian, Chinese and Japanese equivalents are in progress. However, I doubt that any of those new variants will ever overcome the dominance of the US GPS system, obtained through reliability and dependability. There is of course the downside that the US Government could at their discretion turn off the system for civil use at any time. One can imagine that at times of global instability that might be done, but it has never happened thus far.

It was not too many years ago—perhaps 15 years ago—that I was looking with some wonderment at the new gadgets that were appearing on friends’ car dashboards. TomTom was an early market entrant, and for many it became a status gadget, along with early in-built dashboard models in premium cars. However, it became clear within a year or two that they rapidly became out of date as new road schemes came into being. Updates for such machines were cumbersome, were often subject to expensive upgrade charges and, in the case of in-built systems, were sometimes available only at main dealers.

[Andrew Bingham (High Peak) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for initiating this debate on a pertinent issue. He makes the point about devices losing their accuracy as new roads are built. It is also still a problem that they cannot tell how big or small a road is. In my constituency there is a place called New Smithy, near Chinley. Wagons continually get sent down the road there. The county council, which I rarely have a good word for, has done what it can with signage, but devices lead drivers down to a low bridge that they cannot get under. They have to turn round and they knock the bridge, and the costs of having to keep repairing the bridge are ridiculous. That is all because of sat-navs not being able to tell that there is a low bridge under which drivers cannot get their wagons.

[Craig Mackinlay]

My hon. Friend highlights exactly what the debate is all about. I will be coming to exactly that issue in a moment.

There are now a host of portable devices—they are actually called nomadic dedicated devices—that people can put in their pocket and in different vehicles that they own. They are available at varying costs, with new brand names now commonplace in the market. TomTom was a market leader in the early days. Now there is Garmin, which was traditionally a big player in the marine navigation market, and there are names such as Mio, Navman, Magellan and many others. The price of those machines for car use is now as little as £50. For larger screen sizes, the prices can be up to £250.

The market has changed, because we now have the ability to download smartphone software, often for free, across the major phone operating systems. A search of Google Play or Apple’s App Store would reveal a huge choice of available software. Some is free if one is prepared to accept adverts, and some is free for a limited trial period. There are also fully paid systems, but even those are at a remarkably low cost, sometimes of less than £20. Practically every personal digital assistant device that we own—smartphones, iPads, other tablets—now has GPS functionality, and they can all support such software. Many operate on the widespread Google Maps application, which, as with everything Google, is becoming dominant.

[James Cartlidge]

I want to go back to the point that my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Andrew Bingham) made. My hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Craig Mackinlay) is talking a lot about technology, and I must admit that I do not have the same level of expertise that he does. Is there any sign in the industry that the technology is reaching a point at which, without us having to legislate or regulate, it could tell a driver, “This road is inappropriate relative to the size of your vehicle”?

[Craig Mackinlay]

If my hon. Friend will let me continue just a little bit further, I will address the potential solutions.

We all realise the dominance of Google in our lives and on every machine that we own. Google Maps is a widely used application, but the downside for many of us is that it needs data transfer and use while on the move. That is not particularly helpful for people who are travelling abroad, given the data charges for foreign use. Software-based systems—the dedicated TomTom-style devices—have underlying, in-built maps called geographic information system data. They are installed so that there is no mobile data use. That is often the underlying framework used by nomadic and smartphone devices.

I think the solution lies with the base maps that the systems use. Only a few are actually used. A market leader is Navteq’s SDAL map, which is now called HERE. The Tele Atlas system drives TomTom and provides Apple Maps with its data. Of course, Google Maps has its own system. There is also an open source system called OpenStreetMap. There are 100 or more software variants that can run across different types of map data, and there is interchangeability in some software and devices so that they can accept and read any maps, from wherever they are sourced.

[Royston Smith (Southampton, Itchen) (Con)]

I appreciate my hon. Friend giving way and congratulate him on securing the debate.

The emergency services sometimes have a problem if, for example, a road has been cut in half because something has changed, with a housing estate being built or something of that nature. However, they tend to make that mistake only once. Can something be done along the lines of what the emergency services do, so that updates to roads can be fed in to the companies that supply us with devices?

[Craig Mackinlay]

On the Navteq website, the public have the ability to put in new data as they arise. The company will then check those data and, if it is satisfied with their quality, they will become a new variant of future maps that it produces. Everybody is able to update those maps on a regular basis. It comes down to the fact that the data are out there if one could only find them.

For anybody who uses such systems, other data sources can be laid over the map data—often speed camera information or locations of points of interest such as museums, restaurants or even petrol stations—but, again, another problem creeps in. There is a huge black market out there of free downloads across so-called torrent sites, and that is becoming a huge industry. Therein lie the problems of accuracy and reliability, and questions about whether the data driving the devices are actually up to date at all.

Within a huge majority of the systems with which we are now becoming familiar, choices are available, including voice type and whether the data are required in metric or imperial. One can set up advanced warning alerts, choose whether travel is on foot or by car and decide whether one wants to take the shortest route, the fastest route, or a route with or without tolls. Wrong data or out-of-date devices are issues. If that is applied just to driving in a car, the worst that could possibly happen is that it could lead to a fine if entering a changed road layout, for example. In HGVs, the problem—and this is at the heart of the debate—can be infinitely more serious.

On that point, I come to the key issue. The use by HGV drivers of those cheaper car devices—available for £50, as I mentioned earlier—is all too common. That is compounded by smartphone software that is designed for car use only and, overlaid on that, the use of out-of-date map data that are perhaps downloaded illegally or from dubious sources. I am pleased to say that the problem is not largely seen across the UK lorry fleet. I pay tribute to the Freight Transport Association for its attempts to encourage its 15,000 members to buy HGV-compliant devices. It even has its own industry specialist shop, and provides a high level of advice to its members. I am pleased to say that common sense prevails across its wide membership and influence.

I do not particularly want to single out foreign drivers as the main culprits, but the example I want to present is from Sandwich in my constituency. I am sure that in almost every constituency in the country there are instances—such as those that have been raised by hon. Members today—of HGVs too often using inappropriate roads. A common excuse is usually advanced, and it always runs something like, “Oh, my sat-nav told me to.” After that, there is often a mad struggle for Google Translate to solve the communication problem.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. These issues might sound trivial to some people who do not have constituencies that are constantly affected by them. In my constituency, the A170 runs up Sutton Bank and there are two one-in-fours divided by a hairpin bend. There are two incidents there a week with lorries having to back up all the way into the village, often causing damage to property and huge tailbacks for several hours. Does my hon. Friend know the combined economic costs of all these issues nationally?

[Craig Mackinlay]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point about not just the physical damage that occurs to road structures and historical buildings, but the economic cost of hours of tailbacks. One could probably make a reasonable guesstimate of what that cost would be in an individual place but, as my hon. Friend points out, this is happening in virtually every town in every constituency on a weekly basis.

[Andrew Bingham]

My seat is very rural so we have all the economic difficulties but there are also safety issues. Wagons are being shoehorned down lanes such as Mainstone Road, which is related to the problem in my constituency that I have already mentioned. Large wagons go down little lanes and roads, often at times when schools are turning out and so on. There is a safety issue as well as all the inconvenience, and the problem is particularly acute in rural areas.

[Craig Mackinlay]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that point. Not only do we have physical damage but we have the economic costs and the serious issue of road safety in areas that should not be affected by having such huge lorries in the wrong places.

Sandwich in South Thanet is the best preserved medieval town in the country—I am sure other Members will be on their feet claiming the same of towns in their constituency—and HGVs have caused damage to its roads, kerbs, signs and, perhaps more importantly, its historical buildings. There is a particular junction—Members will realise the historical nature of Sandwich—called Breezy Corner, and just a little way away is a barbican dating back to 1539 and an ancient toll bridge. Those structures are damaged on an almost weekly basis. In addition—and this addresses the economic points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake)—40-foot HGVs are completely unable to negotiate the tight corners in such an historical town, which often leads to the complete blockage of the town for many hours while emergency services attempt to sort out the mess. That is time that the emergency services, particularly the police, could and should use to deal with other issues.

The A257, the Sandwich to Canterbury road, is served by lots of little feeder roads, some barely wide enough for a car. That is just within 10 miles of Dover so, again, it is commonplace to find foreign HGV drivers slavishly following their sat-nav’s guidance after selecting the shortest route option.

[Royston Smith]

My hon. Friend rightly mentions the physical damage to buildings and the economic damage, but there is also the emotional damage and the frustration caused to residents when lorries constantly drive into residential areas.

[Craig Mackinlay]

My hon. Friend makes the perfect point. I have many residents in Sandwich who are fearful for their property and for their very life, and he raises that problem well.

I would never call myself a luddite, but consulting a good old-fashioned road map always seems to result in greater awareness of my location and how to get to my destination. When using a sat-nav, I am reduced to the state of a compliant zombie, like an automaton at the wheel doing exactly what I am told by the artificial voice from the machine. “Turn left in 300 yards,” and so on. I am sure hon. Members have all felt the same.

I have consulted various retail websites and—this is the important point—HGV-compliant sat-navs are available. For instance, the TomTom Trucker is available at £290, with little obvious difference in screen size or functionality from the car model available for a third of the price. As part of my research before the debate, I consulted a nationwide haulage company, R Swain & Sons. The company’s head office is in north Kent and I know the owner, Mr Bob Swain. He explained the approach taken by his business. He uses no sat-navs at all in his fleet—not one—but he ensures that his drivers are provided with maps and given time to plan their routes before setting out. I know of no instance where one of his lorries has caused such problems.

Of course, it is easy to highlight in Parliament the problems that we face, but I like to come at such problems with potential solutions. In this case, there are six potential solutions. We could implement legislative change to force the use of the right HGV-compliant sat-navs. If we go over and drive in the continent, we face the requirements under French law to carry high-vis jackets, reflective triangles and alcohol breath testers, and we accept those requirements as the rules of that place. I do not propose the mandatory use of sat-navs so that they have to be carried by HGVs, but I suggest that, if they are used at all, they should be compliant and suitable for the vehicle or else face potential forfeiture once found not to be appropriate.

I have encouraged Kent County Council’s highways authority, and I would do the same for all highways authorities, to ensure that maps of Kent that clearly highlight strategic road routes that should be used, and clearly mark the towns and villages that should be avoided, are provided free at ports of entry. With the implementation of an Operation Stack truck-stop solution coming to Kent in due course, providing such maps could serve a useful double purpose. I imagine that advertising sponsorship could be found to defray or cover the costs of such maps.

I would like to see greater use made of the freedoms of the December 2011 road signs measures so that local areas can clearly advise of dangers ahead. As a Government we could encourage data standards for the submission of data by the highways authorities to the mapping companies, because those companies are key. It is frustrating that all the data are known for every road in the country—be it heights, widths or road changes—but they are not being appropriately consolidated and provided to the mapping companies.

I recommend a benchmark standard for the sat-nav manufacturers and software providers to which they should be encouraged to adhere. The benchmark would include—this is the key—a mandatory lorry option across every single device. There is already an option to choose whether one is on foot or in a car, so let us add a mandatory lorry option. That would require manufacturer and software producer buy-in to a voluntary industry code of practice.

I would also like to see a widening of local authorities’ civil powers to levy fines outside of the police’s powers. We have seen a general reluctance among authorities to enforce fines across borders on foreign lorries, as we have seen with Transport for London, the congestion charge, the Dartford crossing and general parking enforcement. It sounds good, but it might not prove as effective as imagined.

I close by highlighting that we face an unprecedented free-for-all in current sat-nav use, with inappropriate devices and software in play across many HGVs—mainly, I am sorry to say, foreign ones. I am not one for draconian legislation, but our towns, villages and historical locations need protection. I would be happy to work with the Department for Transport to find a workable and practical solution and I look forward to the Minister’s comments.

--- Later in debate ---

[Craig Mackinlay]

I thank you, Sir Alan, for your excellent chairmanship. It would have been nice to have a few more Members with us, but there is activity elsewhere. It would be stretching it to think that I will speak for a further 15 minutes—I will not delay Members for that long—but I will make some comments about the excellent contributions made.

My hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge) laid out very well the damage to the fabric of our great nation that we face from many HGVs being inappropriately used. My hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Andrew Bingham) added a road safety dimension to the debate. Road safety is key, particularly at peak times when children are out of school. My hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Royston Smith) mentioned that, even though we do substantial road improvements or have restrictions in order to do engineered solutions, those are overcome by the automaton-like, slavish adherence to the voice that comes out of the machine—I think we are all prone to that.

I am grateful that the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) took part in the debate. I am not sure whether the shortage of drivers in the UK is relevant to the core of the debate, but we do have a shortage of available drivers as the HGV industry in this country is growing at all times and the volume of HGV traffic is only increasing. That gets to the heart of why the problem we face with sat-nav use is so relevant. I very much thank the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden), who brought to the debate a high level of knowledge about various aspects of the road industry.

Turning to my hon. Friend the Minister, I was very encouraged that there was an area I did not know about. I go away with some additional technical knowledge, that Ordnance Survey is spending £3 million on open source mapping, which could be vital to further improving the quality of data available to mapping companies. Underneath all of the systems, no matter whether they are nomadic or on personal digital assistants or smartphones, is the fundamental map data.

My hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen mentioned the potential for driverless cars, which are much in the news. I would not like to think about how driverless HGVs in Sandwich might get on—we will come to that, perhaps, in 10 years’ time. I think that we stand here today in awe of some of the technology that we do not really understand but regularly use, and on the concept of driverless cars, we can foresee the potential for companies going across every road, accumulating data such as widths and heights, and then feeding it back almost immediately into a database system and updating maps almost in real time.

I understand the concerns about more overbearing legislation. I am not for that; markets can decide things effectively and rather more rapidly that Governments. But the plea, I think, from the Chamber this afternoon to the manufacturers of the nomadic devices and the software is that they please put on that little lorry symbol. I realise that that would be a commercial decision, because the same machine for HGV use is often sold for three times the price, but it would solve, at a stroke, many of the problems. We understand that no HGV driver wants to be caught down that small road or to be hitting that bridge or historic building—that is a given—and that additional button could relieve many of the problems.

I thank hon. Members for taking part in the debate, and I thank you, Sir Alan, for your forbearance.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered GPS satellite navigation and heavy goods vehicles.