Department for Transport (Fees) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Wednesday 17th October 2018 Grand Committee

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Sugg) (Con)]

My Lords, these draft regulations would be made under the powers conferred by the European Union (Withdrawal) Act. They form part of the work being done to adjust our existing legislative framework in readiness for our leaving the European Union. The draft regulations, if approved, will make amendments to three Department for Transport fees orders to correct deficiencies in the orders arising from the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the EU. This will be done by removing references to the Secretary of State carrying out functions to comply with EU law. Those functions will continue but under domestic law rather than EU law.

The fees orders themselves do not set fees, nor do they amend, raise or lower fees. They set out in secondary legislation the matters that can be taken into account when setting fees for delivery of the functions specified in the orders. For example, for any of the functions prescribed in the orders, account can be take of the proportion of the cost in providing staff, premises, equipment and facilities that are attributable to the carrying out of the relevant function. The actual fees for the functions listed in the orders, such as for driving licences, are contained in other secondary legislation. Generally, before any change can be made to the fee level in that other legislation, the Minister must first have the agreement of the Treasury, then conduct a consultation with representative organisations of those affected and consider the impact on stakeholders. The Minister must take account of that impact in deciding whether to proceed. Only after this process has been followed can the SI to change the fee be laid before Parliament.

The functions contained in the fees orders are all in the areas of road vehicles and drivers. They are carried out by three of the Department for Transport’s executive agencies: the Driver & Vehicle Standards Agency, the Driver & Vehicle Licensing Agency and the Vehicle Certification Agency. The functions that are relevant to the draft regulations are: driver licensing, vehicle registration, international road haulage permitting, vehicle type approval certification, the approval of tachograph calibration centres, international road passenger transport authorisation, licensing to operate public service vehicles, licensing to operate goods vehicles and, lastly, enforcement against UK and non-UK drivers and vehicles that break the law on these matters. The fees orders relate to both EU and domestic law, and the regulations before the Committee are concerned only with amending the EU-related aspects of the orders.

In conclusion, the amendments contained in this instrument are to ensure that the fees orders recognise EU exit but otherwise maintain the status quo. I commend the regulations to the Committee.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for outlining these regulations with such brevity and clarity. I have a couple of questions, though. As she said, they cover international agreements, driving licences, vehicle registration, public service vehicle operation and licences to operate goods vehicles. I believe we have added licences for trailer operation, or something, which we discussed in some legislation—I cannot remember its name now—a few months ago.

The Minister mentioned non-UK drivers. Does this change mean that the charges are going to go up? Did the European Union previously have any control or oversight or a role in setting these charges? It is always very easy to say that the costs of doing it are going up. There may have been some control or advice from Brussels as to how these things should be assessed and charged.

Lastly, the noble Baroness mentioned that there might be some changes to the licences of non-UK drivers. The impression I get is that licences from other member states will no longer be valid in this country. How do drivers get new licences and are they going to be charged a rate seen by most people to be reasonable—or is it going to be one of these Home Office ones that make you pay £500 to try to dissuade you from coming? I hope it is the former and not the latter. I look forward to the Minister’s comments.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her clear explanation. I believe this is the first in a very long line of statutory instruments on transport issues that are directly related to Brexit. I want to express my regret that the time and effort of the Department for Transport is being mopped up in this way when we face so many transport challenges. We would considerably appreciate its efforts being put to another use.

I want to ask a couple of questions that are not unlike those from the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley. I want to start with the Explanatory Memorandum. Paragraph 4.1 says:

“The territorial extent of this instrument is the United Kingdom”.


Then it says that,

“the territorial application is either the United Kingdom, or Great Britain”.

I am concerned about whether the devolved Administrations have been properly and fully consulted. These SIs are really going to annoy and upset the Scottish Government in particular. Therefore, it is particularly important that the Government maintain clear and detailed discussions with them on these things.

In the policy background section in the Explanatory Memorandum, paragraph 7.4 says that fees orders lay out the costs that the Government can take into account when setting fees. Paragraph 7.5 summarises the sorts of things that can be taken into account. They are very logical: driver licensing, vehicle registration, international permits and so on. Paragraph 7.9 then makes it clear that the Department for Transport is responsible for this legislation. It contends that these changes are “minor” and simply recognise Brexit. It says that, as a result:

“Stakeholders will not be impacted”.

--- Later in debate ---

Really? A significant slice of the haulage market is in the hands of small and medium-sized businesses with just a handful of employees. In addition, the haulage industry moves the products of a range of producers and is used to import components, ingredients and so on into this country. This involves both small and large businesses. Surely the Government should have given some consideration to the impact of this on small businesses. My concern is that if the Government decided to charge another £50 it probably would not mean make or break to large haulage businesses—it would be passed on to their customers, of course—but if they start to charge another £50 or £100 to small businesses, it might well make them uncompetitive in an already difficult situation. Our hauliers would be put at a disadvantage internationally, and anything in addition which makes life more difficult for them should be avoided. I would welcome any assurances the Minister can give on this.

[Lord Berkeley]

This SI refers to goods vehicle licensing in the UK—or England, Great Britain, whatever—and as about 80% of the trucks crossing the channel are now driven by Romanians or Bulgarians or people from other member states, where the trucks may also be registered, what happens to the licensing of the vehicles from these member states if they come in here? Will they be subject to the same arrangement or is there another arrangement that would require them to be registered? If so, will they have to do that at the frontier and so on? I hope not.

[Baroness Randerson]

The noble Lord has found an ingenious way of adding an extra question and I will pass it on to the Minister.

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their consideration of these draft regulations. As the noble Baroness said, I am afraid they are the first of many EU exit transport regulations. The purpose of these regulations is indeed to make minor and technical amendments to the three pieces of legislation that we are discussing, by amending the language used to take account of EU exit, but otherwise to maintain the status quo.

As I said in my opening remarks, the regulations themselves do not set, raise or lower fees. The fees orders are supplementary to existing powers that the Secretary of State has in other legislation, and that other legislation sets the fees. The regulations do not in any way extend the powers of the Secretary of State or relate to a change in the fees.

I turn to the questions that were asked. The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, mentioned the Haulage Permits and Trailer Registration Act, as did the noble Lord, Lord Rosser. We have consulted extensively with the industry on that and we will be discussing the regulations under that Act soon. There is a government response to the consultation, which I will forward to the noble Lord, explaining where we are on fees. We will be discussing that soon.

As I said, the regulations do not set or change the fees themselves but merely set out what can be taken into account, so charges absolutely will not go up. There has been a role for the EU Commission in setting the charges in the past but there will not be after exit.

For the non-UK driver—an issue raised by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley—EU driving licences will continue to be recognised in the UK post Brexit, as set out in some of our recent technical notices, so the charges for getting a GB driving licence will not change.

On the question of devolved Administrations, which the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, mentioned, we are working closely with them throughout our entire SI programme—obviously more so on some which are directly relevant than on others, but on every one we are working closely with them. Some of the fees orders’ functions are GB-wide—for example, driving licences, as Northern Ireland has its own regime and its own legislation to set its own fees—while others relate to the whole of the UK.

[Lord Berkeley]

The Minister mentioned that driving licences from EU member states will still be valid. That was in the technical note and I should have mentioned it; I am sorry. What about licences for vehicles? Are we involved in quotas and the like? If so, how would that work? Will a Bulgarian vehicle need a licence to operate in the UK?

HS2: Budget and Costs

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Tuesday 24th July 2018 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Berkeley]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government when they intend to update the cost estimate and business case for HS2 Phase One.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Sugg) (Con)]

My Lords, HS2 cost estimates and business cases are periodically updated as the scheme design is progressed to ensure that the scheme remains affordable and viable. HS2 Ltd is currently developing an updated phase 1 cost estimate, to be finalised prior to the completion of the phase 1 full business case accompanying the authorisation of notice to proceed in June 2019. The Government remain confident that the phase 1 cost estimate will remain within the SR15 funding envelope of £27.18 billion.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for that Answer. It is good that HS2 is regularly updating its budget, but it is a pity that no one knows about it. The last public budget given was in 2013, which is five years ago. Since then, we have had reports of the land purchase costs going £2 billion over budget and well behind, while a report in the Sunday Times last weekend by the consultant to the Infrastructure and Projects Authority using Treasury figures said that the project is up to 60% over budget and was in a “precarious” and “fundamentally flawed” position. Many other reports have also cited increased costs and delays. How can Ministers go on saying that they do not recognise the figures that are coming from all these different sources? Indeed, the Minister has almost repeated that today. Is it not time that we had a review of this project in costs and programme terms, because spending £100 billion with no budget for five years is surely not a good use of public money?

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his question, and I greatly respect his lifetime of experience in the rail industry. I am also grateful for the noble Lord’s continuing scrutiny of HS2. As I have said, we continually update the cost estimates, but we do not share the details of those estimates as they are commercially sensitive. However, the headline figures will inform the business case as published in 2019. I understand that the article in the Sunday Times was based on an end-of-role report from a few years ago, and of course we do not comment on leaked documents. HS2 does not recognise or agree with either the analysis or the figure it contains, while the Infrastructure and Projects Authority recently described the HS2 programme as on target to be completed on time and on budget.

Stonehenge Tunnel

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Monday 9th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, the scheme is part of a long-term strategy to better link the M3 and the south-east to the M5 and the south-west. Upgrading to a continuous dual carriageway standard will transform it into a high-quality route. Of course, the local residents will benefit from that. I am afraid I do not have specific information for the noble Baroness on compensation, but I will write to her. But, as I say, there will be benefits, both from the improved connectivity and the removal of rat-running through villages.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, can the Minister explain how long the tunnel underneath Stonehenge is? This issue has been around for 20 or 30 years and the tunnel gets longer and longer because the archaeologists keep digging up further remains at each end of it. Is this the end of the tunnelling, or are they going to find more remains to make it even longer?

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, as the noble Lord points out, this is a key heritage site and we are being very careful when making our plans for this. The heritage site suffers significant congestion because the single carriageway carries significantly more traffic than it was designed for, and that is why the tunnel is important. The proposed scheme includes a free-flowing dual carriageway and a tunnel of at least 1.8 miles in length.

Haulage Permits and Trailer Registration Bill [HL]

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Ping Pong (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 4th July 2018 Lords Chamber

I welcome these amendments and thank the Minister again for her help.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I also welcome these amendments. I share the noble Baroness’s concern about the method of allocation of permits, but I think that we have gone as far as we are going to get on that one. I was particularly interested in the Minister’s comments about Amendments 5 and 6, which she said did not apply to Northern Ireland. I thought the whole point of trailer registration, in Part 2 of the Bill, was that it was a necessity to have trailers registered in case there was a need for any trailer to go outside the UK on to the continent, or into the EU, following Brexit, which of course would also apply to the Republic of Ireland. My logical mind therefore thinks that, if a trailer cannot be registered in Northern Ireland, it cannot leave Northern Ireland—or the UK—for the European Union, which means it cannot go across the border to the Republic.

Notwithstanding that, in Amendment 11, if a driver does take a trailer into the Republic that is registered in Northern Ireland—which apparently it cannot be—they can still be fined. This seems slightly illogical because, if I were a trailer owner in Northern Ireland and not able to register it and therefore go into the Republic, that would not seem quite right to me. Can the Minister explain where I have got it wrong or whether there is something more that needs to happen?

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, I agree with much of what the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, said, but also that we have gone as far as we can in those areas. On government Amendments 5, 6, 7 and, I think 8, my research assistant, Catherine Johnson, who drafted the original amendment passed in your Lordships’ House, assured me that the Minister has accepted your Lordships’ amendment but put it in her own words. Accordingly, we support the government amendments and thank the Minister for her efforts.

Railways: Wales

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Monday 2nd July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, we are committed to electrification where it delivers passenger benefits, but we must also ensure that it is good value for money. Where possible, we will also take advantage of new technologies to improve journeys without carrying out disruptive electrification works. I have not seen the details of the system mentioned by the noble Lord but we continually assess the investment decisions in our programme of railway upgrades to deliver passenger benefits in the best way possible so as to give passengers and taxpayers maximum value for money.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, while accepting that the Government have made progress in the devolution of railway issues, is it not time for much greater devolution of the infrastructure and train operation to the Welsh Government? The noble Baroness has talked about bimodal trains. The only reason we have those trains is that Network Rail has failed to electrify the track. Bimodal trains are slower, more expensive and more polluting. Surely the answer is to give the Welsh Government total control without the micromanagement that seems to come from her department.

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, the Government made a commitment to devolve powers for the Wales and Borders franchise following recommendations from the Commission on Devolution in Wales, which I am very pleased that we have delivered. It is a good example of effective co-operation between the Welsh Government and the UK Government. On the devolution of infrastructure funding, we do not believe that it is desirable generally to reopen discussion on the Silk recommendations, around which there was no consensus. We do not intend therefore to revisit the question of devolving Network Rail funding, given the discussions on the issue during the St David’s Day process. Of course, we continue to work closely with the Welsh Government on the specification and funding of Network Rail’s operations.

Road Maintenance

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Tuesday 19th June 2018 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Berkeley]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the funding they provide to Highways England and local authorities to ensure that roads are maintained in a safe condition.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Sugg) (Con)]

My Lords, over £12 billion has been provided to Highways England and local authorities to maintain and renew the road network in England outside London in the six years up to 2020-21. This is a significant increase on previous years. It is of course for each authority to assess which of its roads need repair, based on local knowledge and circumstances, but the Government believe that the sums allocated are ensuring that roads are maintained safely.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Minister for that reply, but many organisations will think that even that increase is nothing like enough. The RAC reckons that potholes cost drivers £100 million a year in damage to their cars. Cycling UK notes that in 2016, 64 cyclists were killed or seriously injured because of potholes. I nearly joined that rank when I fell into a pothole, which was under water, outside your Lordships’ House. The repair consisted of a white line painted round the pothole—and it is still there, three months later. On 13 June the Government issued a British road safety statement, which included measures to improve the safety and reduce the deaths of vulnerable road users such as cyclists, pedestrians and motorcyclists. Will the Government put that into practice, with more commitment? One idea would be to put an extra 3p per litre on the price of petrol, ring-fenced for potholes on local roads.

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, we must certainly do all we can to reduce deaths and injuries on our roads. According to Cycling UK, over half of people say that they would cycle more if they were not so worried about the state of our roads. Potholes and poorly maintained roads are a menace for all road users—including noble Lords—which is why we are taking action to improve the condition of the local road network. In particular, the Department for Transport has allocated £296 million to the Pothole Action Fund, on top of existing funding. Noble Lords will know that fuel duty is most definitely a matter for the Chancellor, but I will certainly pass on the noble Lord’s suggestion.

Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 13th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Worthington (CB)]

My Lords, I too thank the Minister for her introduction of these amendments. They are very helpful; they clarify the position and make the Bill much more useful. In Committee we debated the fact that this is a very narrow power being taken in relation to the infrastructure necessary to facilitate a greater uptake of electric and zero-emission vehicles. It is important that we look carefully at what more can be done to encourage everybody, at all levels of government—whether national, metro mayor or indeed at borough level—to take stock and introduce an effective network of chargers, which can help people to be confident that they will be able to use electric vehicles in a way that matches their current vehicle use.

I echo the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, in asking: can we hear a little more from the Government, specifically about car parks but about destination charging in general? I feel that it is a little too laissez-faire to think that this will all happen through market forces. There are going to be times when we will need to take a strategic look at this in a specific geographical region. We need to have sufficient powers to enable us to make this infrastructure happen; we will otherwise not see the uptake that we need to hit our air-quality and climate-change targets.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, at the risk of causing a bit of trouble at this stage of the Bill, I cannot see why it matters particularly where the charging points are in a motorway service station. If you are going to park your car and go off to have a drink, you might as well plug it in while having it. If you do not want to do that but have a high-powered, high-speed charger you can probably do that as if you are filling up with petrol. The general principle in the Bill is all right but I suspect that the commercial pressures on the operators will persuade them to put the charging points where they are most convenient.

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for bringing forward these amendments, which seem to have produced a consensus on all the issues which were brought up on Report. I must agree with other speakers that the Bill is narrow and, to be fair, it is generally our role to scrutinise Bills. While we have done that, there has to be much wider consideration given by government to this whole area. That consideration has to work with other parts of government and local government, so that we do not trip into the area of sovereignty conflict. Fortunately, that seems to have been effectively solved by the amendments and the consultation. It is an important area to get straight if we are to achieve the spread of charging points that will be necessary, particularly to achieve our air-quality targets.

Railways: East Coast Main Line

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg]

I am afraid that yet again I will have to disagree with my noble friend on HS2. Our railways are at capacity; we have seen the doubling of passenger numbers since privatisation, and HS2 is much needed to relieve that capacity and provide a better service for people across the country.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, will the Minister confirm that the trains which she pleasingly told the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, would be going to Lincoln will have enough seats for everybody in this House, and that they are not just two-car trains? More seriously, can she confirm that there is enough capacity on the branch line, and on the main line provided by Network Rail, so that these trains can be operated without any disadvantage to other services?

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, I am afraid that I do not know the exact size of the trains on the new local railway. On capacity, moving towards the east coast partnership, as we are planning to do in 2020, will enable both Network Rail and the train operator to work closely together to ensure that we have enough capacity on all lines.

Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 9th May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Borwick (Con)]

My Lords, I should first make an unusual declaration of interest: namely, an investment that does not exist at this moment but which will almost certainly be made in the next few days. I will have an equity interest in the Penso group of companies and become its chairman. Penso is a manufacturer of very high-tech carbon fibre parts for the automotive, aerospace and rail industries, and produces the Vito London taxi for Mercedes in Coventry. The investment is likely to complete in the next few days, making the interest declarable as its product is very relevant to the lightweight future of electric cars. I should explain that none of my amendments seeks to confer exclusive benefits on the company and that I am moving them because I believe them all to be in the public interest.

Unfortunately, the grouping of the amendments in today’s debate is slightly unusual and many groups contain amendments that do not naturally fall together. Some of my later amendments overlap with, and propose different ways of achieving the same ends as, the amendments of the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson. I apologise if the Minister has to repeat the same points in different sections.

Although I support the noble Baroness’s Amendment 1, we may yet hear from the Bill team that Amendment 2 is just not the way in which they wish to go with this definition. I must say that I believe that that is a mistake, because, although the Society of Automotive Engineers standards may change and the Government normally like to be in complete control of the definition, the choice here is between a vague definition that could be interpreted in different ways by different lawyers and an international standard developed by the SAE and adopted worldwide. Chinese vehicle producers will adopt the SAE regulations, as will producers all over the world. There seems therefore to be a great deal of merit in sticking to the worldwide standard rather than inventing our own because we believe that our choice of English will be so elegant that we can achieve it.

There are other ways of achieving the definition from those used in the Bill, and I will come to them in my later amendments. However, were the Government to change their mind and support the noble Baroness’s Amendment 2, I would immediately support it as well.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the first amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson. It is important that we keep the scope of the Bill as wide as possible. The noble Lord, Lord Borwick, mentioned manufacturing in China. I suspect that by the time many of these cars and technologies have come on to the market, a very large proportion of the equipment will come from China anyway. There has to be some world standard—I am not sure which; we will come to that later—otherwise we will be in dead trouble. I also share the noble Lord’s concern about Amendment 2.

I was interested in the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, about turning railways into roads. We heard this before, about 30 years ago.

[Lord Lucas]

It was not about turning railways into roads; it ends up with turning roads into railways. It is just a different method of moving people on railways.

[Lord Berkeley]

I am grateful for the noble Lord’s explanation. It depends on whether the road is as defined in Clause 1(1)(a),

“roads or in other public places”,

on whether or not it will be a railway.

I want to point out that autonomous railways are happening at the moment. The centre section of the Thameslink railway is effectively driverless. It does not go very far—from Kings Cross St Pancras to Blackfriars—but it does not need a driver. Of course, a driver is there, but that is the state of technology on the mainline railways, and the underground railways and metros have done it for a long time. Whether the same number of passengers could be taken by these autonomous pods up a railway, road or whatever, compared with a 12-car train every two minutes with people standing is a debate we can have. But I am not sure that I would support widening this Bill to get that far.

I have also been studying a few issues related to the content of the Bill, and recently met the author Christian Wolmar who has written a book, Driverless Cars: On A Road To Nowhere. I recommend that the Minister and other speakers to read it; I am not going to give it away today. Without necessarily supporting what he says, there are issues relating to the human reaction to automation that are quite useful to study, including how close a vehicle can get to the one in front, and all the things we spoke about on Second Reading, which I shall not repeat today. It may take rather longer than some noble Lords think for all this to come about. We are certainly right to debate it now and to concentrate on common standards.

I certainly support my noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe. I think he was speaking to Amendment 8, which I did not know was in this group, but he made a good speech and I certainly support it.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Sugg) (Con)]

My Lords, at the outset of this debate today on automated vehicles, I think it is helpful to set out what this Bill is trying to achieve. The provisions within the automated part of the Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill extend compulsory motor vehicle insurance to cover the use of automated vehicles when operating in automated mode, so that victims of an accident caused by an automated vehicle while driving itself will be covered by the compulsory insurance in place on the vehicle. The insurer would be initially liable to pay compensation to any victim, including to the driver who had legitimately handed control to the vehicle. The insurer then would have the right to recover costs from any liable parties under existing UK common law and product liability law.

The Bill therefore requires the Secretary of State to publish a list of automated vehicles which are,

“designed or adapted to be capable, in at least some circumstances or situations, of safely driving themselves”.

The purpose of this power is to allow manufacturers, owners of vehicles and insurers to know if the extension to compulsory motor insurance in this legislation applies to their vehicle. This will provide certainty to the automotive and insurance industries, as well as clarity to the public. The scope of the Bill applies to highly and fully automated vehicles only—that is, vehicles for which, when driving themselves, there is no monitoring or controlling role required of the driver.

This is broadly equivalent, as the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, said, to levels 4 and 5, as defined by the Society of Automotive Engineers—the SAE—and does not apply to vehicles with lower levels of automated technology or utilising advanced driver assistance systems, no matter how sophisticated. It does not apply to level 3 vehicles, and the Tesla vehicle the noble Baroness mentioned would not be covered. We will come to this point later, but level 3 cars still require monitoring by a driver, so they are not fully automatic and are not covered by the Bill. It also only applies to automated vehicles that are or might lawfully be used on roads or in other public places in Great Britain.

I acknowledge the point made by many noble Lords on the narrow scope of this Bill. It was designed with a specific purpose in mind, and I look forward to hearing the views of noble Lords from across the House on the amendment from my noble friend Lord Borwick introducing more powers for the Government.

Regarding the first amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, on the inclusion of vehicles manufactured and purchased outside Great Britain, there is already a long-established process, along with guidance on the GOV.UK website, which covers the permanent use of foreign-registered vehicles in the UK. As part of this process, any vehicle which drives on UK roads must already be type-approved. For temporary use of vehicles on our roads, through the Motor Insurers’ Bureau we operate a Green Card scheme—an international certificate of insurance to make sure that victims of accidents involving foreign-registered vehicles are covered. We think this process would be the same for automated vehicles and, therefore, do not think the amendment is necessary at this stage because all vehicles manufactured and/or purchased outside Great Britain will be covered by the existing text.

The Bill does not define automated vehicles by SAE levels, as proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, in Amendment 2. This is because the SAE levels are generalised industry categories describing a broad capability, which could change over time. The type approval of an automated vehicle, the criteria of which have not yet been agreed, will not be carried out according to SAE levels of automation. Noble Lords may find it helpful to note that the UNECE working parties that set the international standards by which vehicles will be type-approved and used have rejected the SAE definitions because they do not meet the level of precision needed for regulation. Instead, they simply set out broad definitions.

The categories set out by the SAE are under continual revision. A direct link to the levels creates problems if the definitions move away from what is needed for the proper functioning of the Bill. I want to be clear: we are not rejecting the SAE levels. They are helpful, but they do not—the UNECE agrees with us here—meet the level of precision needed for type approval and regulation.

[Lord Berkeley]

Could the noble Baroness explain what she means by “manufactured in Great Britain”? She is aware of all the Brexit debates about certificates of origin, and that bits and pieces and components go right across the world and back again. What exactly do we mean by “manufactured in Great Britain”? Is it just the name on the front?

[Baroness Sugg]

Happily, the Bill covers vehicles manufactured in Great Britain and abroad: it covers any vehicle. I am afraid I do not have an exact definition, but I imagine that it is when the majority is manufactured in the UK. As I say, the Bill will cover all vehicles, wherever they are manufactured.

On Amendment 33, I am in complete agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, that we must ensure that all new automated vehicles are safe and secure for use in Great Britain. We have many amendments to come on that. We are working at the United Nations level to develop international requirements for vehicle manufacturers on both vehicle safety and cybersecurity. These standards, which are still being developed, will then form the basis of the type approval process which automated vehicles, like conventional vehicles today, must pass before they can be sold for safe use on British roads or in other public places, or get on to the Secretary of State’s list for insurance.

Based on the international UNECE standards, which the UK is actively contributing to, and our evolving domestic regulatory programme, we expect it to be very clear which vehicles, including their software, can safely operate in automated mode. We do not think it appropriate at this early stage to set too precise criteria.

--- Later in debate ---

We believe, as do a number of stakeholders, that the Government should introduce an accreditation scheme for technicians to work on future vehicles. If they are not proactive, the UK will not be able to support growth in these new technologies. So will the Minister look at bringing in such a scheme, not only to address the skill shortage but as a wider set of protections for insurers against unauthorised repair and maintenance of such vehicles, as set out in the new clause?

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, I support Amendment 29 in the name of my noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe. He is right about the need for such an authorised inspection regime, and in his worry about unauthorised repairs. The Committee may or may not be aware that a lot of trucks, and probably many modern trains and other big pieces of plant and equipment, are already remotely monitored. Where I live in Cornwall, outside the front door of the house is a 200-tonne gantry crane that operates on rubber tyres. It was manufactured in Italy and erected in Cornwall, and if the driver does the wrong thing, or the wrong person drives it, the people in Italy know exactly what is happening and they will stop it: they will prevent it operating. If it tries to lift 300 tonnes when it is capable of lifting only 250 tonnes it will be stopped, so that the equipment does not get severely damaged. That is very common, so my noble friend’s amendment is absolutely right. I hope that the Minister will see the need for some kind of scheme to cover at least the specialist equipment that will be in the vehicles.

I worry about Amendment 3 and the suggestion by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, about the word “adapted”. She said that adapting a vehicle would probably be done in a back yard somewhere, by somebody who probably would not know what they were doing, and could therefore be dangerous. That is certainly a worry. But the word “adapted” would also cover current vehicles adapted for people with certain disabilities—for example, if someone cannot use a brake pedal so there has to be a brake behind the steering wheel. I know we are talking about a different technology, but the word “adapted” will be difficult. I suggest to the noble Baroness that, if Amendment 29 were accepted, all vehicles, whether specialist, adapted or not, would have to be covered by the authorised “inspection, repair or maintenance”, so it would be better to go down that route rather than inserting the word “adapted”, as she suggests in Amendment 3.

[Lord Craig of Radley (CB)]

My Lords, I too have some difficulty with the word “adapted”. I understand that modern technology is more difficult to handle than when the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, and I were pulling our Austin 7, or whatever it was, apart. Nevertheless, you cannot totally slam the door on any form of cottage or other industry which was set up in order to help individuals to produce an adaptation of a particular vehicle. I do not support this amendment in the way in which it is drafted.

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[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, I accept that my Amendment 3 is a very simple and straightforward device. It was an attempt to approach one aspect of the safety issue. Amendment 29 is a much more complex and comprehensive approach. If Amendment 29 or something like it were adopted, there would be no need for Amendment 3.

I was trying to begin to talk about safety and to raise the issue that if you allow adaptations, the Secretary of State will have to devise a way to apply a wide and rigorous range of safety tests. Currently, if you build your own car in a garage you can test it pretty straightforwardly and take it on the road. You could be stopped by a policeman and you could take it to a garage and it would or would not get its MoT on a series of straightforward yes or no tests with no doubt about it. But, if we are talking about adaptations to autonomous vehicles, the danger in these adaptations will almost certainly be in the software, which it is very much more difficult to test. We have only to look back at the Volkswagen scandal. Volkswagen installed the so-called defeat device in the software of its diesel cars that kicked in only when it detected that it was being tested. It was therefore able to mask the true extent of emissions. That is a very complex operation. To test software we would have to go through very lengthy, all-situations style testing to make sure that a vehicle is truly safe. It is not just a case of putting your foot on the brake and saying that it stops quite quickly and it is fine.

[Lord Berkeley]

Would the noble Baroness be tempted to press the Minister to have a meeting on these issues before Report and come back with a much shorter text than Amendment 29 with the intention of covering these issues? I think that would give many noble Lords who have spoken in the debate quite a lot of comfort.

[Baroness Randerson]

The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, puts forward a very good idea. I know that the Minister is always very generous in providing opportunities to discuss issues. We already have two issues that we need further information on. I am sure that there will be other amendments later where we will need a meeting or, at the very least, a fairly lengthy letter—but it would be better to discuss it.

I readily acknowledge that the approach taken by the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, is a more thorough approach to the issue of safety. With that, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

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Another complication concerns the word “individual”. If driverless cars are to be able to cope with driving on ordinary roads, such as country roads where things are changing all the time, then in order that they should not use a computer more powerful than their engine, they are going to have to communicate with other driverless cars and build up enough data and information in that way: they are not individuals, they are communicating with a cluster of other cars. I make these points because they are technically relevant and indicate the subjectivity of trying to decide whether there is a need for monitoring.

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, I want to speak briefly to Amendment 35. Having a definition of “road”, as suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Borwick, is essential. I know there are lots of different definitions of roads within the various road traffic Acts, but I happened to come across a case a few years ago where somebody who was driving a 4x4 on a road which did not appear to be a road within the definition of the road traffic Acts was arrested and charged with drink-driving. He was convicted in the end and it is quite clear, which I did not understand before, that that offence can occur anywhere—in a field, a factory, or anywhere else—because it is not particularly a road traffic offence: it is being drunk in charge of a vehicle. I do not know whether that will be reflected when we get to who is in charge of these vehicles, but it demonstrates the importance of having a definition of “road” where such legislation will apply.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, I think there is a difficulty with what my noble friend’s Amendment 4 proposes. There is no reason to suppose that we will not have vehicles that are dual-capable—capable of being driven by people and driven autonomously—maybe as part of the evolution to a fully autonomous system. I do not suspect that a farmer will want their Land Rover to be autonomous for a long time in the future, except when it is on a roadway and switching between two modes may become quite important. Therefore, a vehicle that is capable of switching between the two modes, and is therefore not always autonomous, will be an important part of the evolution to autonomous vehicles.

I also suspect that once a vehicle is autonomous, it will not ever be truly not in someone’s charge. If you have a set of vehicles which are essentially public vehicles—small buses, which are just picked up on the street and you take one to wherever you are going—some kind of alarm system will be necessary. There will probably be some oversight in case of a known problem: you will want to say, “Right, all vehicles within a particular radius shall slow down or stop because there appears to be some problem developing here”. Defining who is in charge of a vehicle where those capabilities exist will be quite problematic. This comes back to my wanting the Government to give themselves the flexibility to adapt the regulations as circumstances change, our knowledge improves and systems move.

The picture the Government paint of a Bill every year is just not feasible: government does not work that way. This sort of backwater gets a Bill every four years if we are lucky. We absolutely have to reckon that this Bill has to last the rest of this Parliament and probably the first year or two of the next. There is not the space in a Government’s life for off-centre Bills on a regular basis. The Bill is underpowered for the mission it sets out to achieve.

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The advantage of Amendment 9 changing “must” to “may” is that it gives the Government the opportunity to be flexible that my noble friend suggested earlier that they needed. “Must” is a red rag to a lawyer; it suggests that, because the Government have not done something, there is some liability knocking around that they can attach a claim to. I am therefore worried about this requirement that the Secretary of State “must” produce a list and that it “must” include this or that. It would be much better for the Government just to take the power and decide in the future to what extent they want to produce this list. I beg to move.

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Borwick, about “must” and “may”. It is interesting that the Government like to put “must” on its own. I am sure the Minister will have a view on that.

I have a short comment on Amendment 12, which is in this group. I support it. The Minister may say it is too early but, if you are going to have a written notice under proposed new subsection (2), surely the documentation, certificates or anything relating to not only the vehicle but the software, control system and everything else should be included.

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, I am sorry to disappoint my noble friend on further regulatory powers in the Bill. As I said, I would be interested to hear views from noble Lords from across the House on further regulatory powers later but, at this stage, we are just not ready to make further regulation. That is why we have not asked for the powers.

The purpose of the list in Clause 1 is to allow manufacturers, owners of vehicles and insurers to know if the extension of the compulsory motor insurance in this legislation applies to their vehicle. The aim is to provide certainty to the automotive and insurance industries, as well as clarity to the public. As I have said, the list itself is not a mechanism to approve which vehicles are safe to use. This will be determined by future regulation, most likely based on international standards. The list in Clause 1 is simply to inform the insurance industry which vehicles require automated vehicle insurance.

My noble friend Lord Borwick’s Amendment 9, which replaces “must” with “may”, would imply that preparing, updating or publishing this list might be at the Secretary of State’s discretion. We believe it is right that the Bill imposes a duty on the Secretary of State, who “must” ensure that the list, comprising any vehicle that may lawfully be used when driving itself on roads or other public places in Great Britain, is published and kept up to date. If the list is not updated, people may obtain the wrong type of insurance, leading to difficulties for victims in securing compensation quickly and easily. As I said, this aims to provide certainty.

In order for the Bill to deliver the insurance framework that it is intended to—this is after consultation with the insurance industry—it is important to maintain the list as a duty on the Secretary of State. Perhaps this is something we can discuss further before Report.

Amendment 12 concerns the duty of a manufacturer to notify the Secretary of State. I understand my noble friend’s intention but, at this stage, it is not appropriate to legislate in this regard. There are already existing processes in place when registering a vehicle or notifying changes regarding a status of the vehicle, and we are working with the DVLA on how to replicate these processes for automated vehicles. We have yet to complete that work, so we do not feel it is the right time to legislate in this regard. I hope that, given this explanation, my noble friend is able to withdraw his amendment.

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[Lord Tunnicliffe]

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 21 in this group. The Bill as currently drafted means that the insurer or owner of an automated vehicle is not liable where the event was caused by a person allowing the vehicle to drive itself where it was not appropriate to do so. However, it does not define when it is or is not appropriate to do so. This amendment requires the Government to provide regulatory guidance for when it is and is not appropriate for a person to allow an automated vehicle to drive itself.

It would clearly not be appropriate in some circumstances for vehicles to drive themselves: for example, early automated vehicles might be deemed safe to use only on motorways and not on some urban roads. Another example would be that a software issue might arise so that using the automated function at that point would be inappropriate. Clause 3(2) is not clear enough in its intentions. Does it even apply to fully automated vehicles or bimodal vehicles? We need more clarity on this.

One of the primary purposes of Part 1 is to provide a framework to give insurers, manufacturers and potential users greater clarity, providing confidence and encouraging progress on automated vehicles. However, it is still not clear from the Bill what the Government have in mind about when their use would be appropriate. We are asking for regulations to be brought forward to better define those circumstances, because we cannot afford to have confusion here. People must be clear about where their obligations lie. If we are to see the growth in the industry we all wish for, we do not want to leave this issue hanging over it.

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, I will make what I hope is a helpful suggestion to my noble friend in connection with Amendment 21. The most appropriate authority to make these regulations would be the Office of Rail and Road. It is responsible for safety on the railway; it should be responsible for road safety, but we have not got there yet. Maybe the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, would support me on that one. However, I hope that is a helpful suggestion.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, given Network Rail’s safety record over the last 10 years, I would absolutely support that recommendation.

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[Lord Young of Cookham]

I think I said when I was speaking to the amendments that at the moment the powers we have are sufficient. We can use existing powers in the Road Traffic Act 1988 to revise existing, or create new, road vehicle construction and use regulations to transpose or reinforce new iterations of the global regulations as they appear. However, as has been the case with other regulations we have debated, on safety and other issues the Government will bring forward the appropriate legislative framework in due course if we do not already have powers under existing primary legislation.

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, the Minister has mentioned the Law Commission report several times. Can he give any timetable for when the Law Commission will report on various issues? I am not just thinking about this one. One report on railway level crossings was completed about five years ago. I know that you are supposed to wait two years after a report has been produced before it is introduced into legislation. However, if one waits three, four or five years, the report’s conclusions may get out of date. I remember threatening the last coalition Government with putting the whole Law Commission report on level crossings down as amendments to a suitable Bill—it would have been about 50 pages long, but that was not the problem—in order to get the coalition Government to do something. My impression is that, because of all the Brexit legislation, everything has come to a grinding halt. I am not necessarily suggesting that the Minister will be able to answer my detailed question, but if he or a colleague could write to me on that, I think it would be a useful subject for discussion later.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I understand that the Law Commission work on the issue that we are debating now is a three-year programme. I am not sighted on the level crossing review, but either I shall write to the noble Lord or, perhaps later on, during one of our debates, we can update the exact timescale of the Law Commission review of the existing legal framework for automated vehicles. Obviously, automated control is not in operation.

Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Wednesday 9th May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, these are interesting amendments. When my noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe was speaking to Amendment 25 and mentioned the word “victim”, I began to think, “Well, who is a victim? Can a car be a victim, or only a person?” I think it is too late tonight to start a long debate on that, but perhaps the Minister could think about that some time.

I turn to Amendments 23 and 28. My worry about Amendment 23 is: what happens if the manufacturer has gone bust? In other words, the manufacturer does not actually have to be the person who supplies updates; it can be anyone. My gut feeling is that my noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe’s Amendment 28 is better because it just says that the vehicle may not be operated unless the application software relating to the vehicle’s automated function is up to date. I think that would cover what Amendment 23 covers but in a better way.

What nobody has mentioned tonight, which the noble Baroness touched on, is what happens if the software does not work and you are stuck on a motorway or in a one-way street and cannot move the car? Again, I think that is a debate for another day, but I hope the Minister will have some response to the points made by many noble Lords, particularly about who updates the software.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I entirely agree with my noble friend Lord Borwick that software updates should be the responsibility of the manufacturer. They are capable of updating it, and of making it automatic that it is updated. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, that systems need to be better than they are at the moment. I note that my iPhone issued by this House is automatically updated with software. About two weeks ago it deleted all my telephone contacts and it resists all efforts by all our excellent people in this House to restore it to normality, because Apple takes no responsibility for this, of course. It just produces the update and there is no recourse to make the thing work properly.

In the case of automated vehicles we absolutely need to have recourse to the manufacturers, and they need to know that that is where liability for these things rests. It is their responsibility to make sure that their fleet of vehicles on the roads is up to date and functioning as expected. This reflects back into other aspects of the Bill that we have already discussed, as to who should be allowed to make modifications and how the whole fleet of autonomous vehicles should communicate with each other.

I am also happy with Amendment 25; it is an excellent thing. I would only point out in the drafting of Amendment 28 that it refers to “public roads” whereas the Bill refers to “public spaces”. With reference to a conversation I had earlier with the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, that presumably includes the airspace above public spaces, so the Bill includes your future Amazon drone wandering along six feet above the pavement to drop your parcel over your gate. I see nothing in the Bill that excludes airborne vehicles—or indeed waterborne vehicles—so I presume that both are included in that definition of public spaces. I do not know which definition of public spaces is being referred to. The ones I can find in legislation are pretty vague and not really related to this subject, but I would assume that at the same time as thinking we are dealing with road vehicles, we are also dealing with ones that could be airborne—at least within reasonable reach of the ground.

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[Baroness Randerson]

Before the noble Lord sits down, is he aware that there are now reasonably big drones delivering goods? They trundle along pavements and across level crossings and so on, appearing to behave a bit like pedestrians. I have been thinking about what the noble Lord is saying, and he is raising a good point. What is the difference between a drone delivering an Amazon parcel and a driverless van delivering an Amazon parcel? The only difference is probably the size, so there will have to be some definition of a cut-off point—unless we are going to insist that drones are insured, in the same way as vehicles.

[Lord Berkeley]

Before the noble Baroness sits down, may I ask her whether she really thinks that drones trundle along pavements?

[Baroness Randerson]

I have indeed seen them. There are experimental systems that are wheeling along pavements.

[Lord Berkeley]

On wheels?