Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill

Lord Lucas Excerpts

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 5th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Spicer]

My Lords, again, these amendments are important, particularly when the industry is new, when it can be not just inconvenient but disastrous to turn up at a point which was on the map but which does not exist. As the industry gets older and more points are automatically there, a sunset clause could be built into this amendment. However, at a time when there are hardly any points around at all, it is important that there should be such.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, retrofitting can be very expensive, particularly in concrete structures and if you have not provided for the proper electricity supply or at least the potential for it. We are letting ourselves in for large bills in the future, and small bills in the present, if we agree with the idea that we should insist on new builds providing for charging points.

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Randerson and Lady Worthington, for raising amendments for consideration around housing issues and future-proofing new homes and developments. I entirely agree that if we are to move to zero-emission vehicles, as we all wish to do, we need to make sure that we have the correct infrastructure in housing and non-residential developments.

On Amendment 18 and the removal of public charge points, I hope that I will be able to provide reassurance on this matter. Where charge points are installed on local highways or land owned by local authorities, obviously local authorities already have the ability to ensure the installation of charge points, or prohibit their removal in line with any contracts they have in place. Where charge points are installed with public-funded grants to local authorities, as all public-funded charge points currently are, local authorities will have contractual arrangements in place regarding the charge points.

On the issue of planning permission, where a charge point is installed as a condition of a grant of planning permission, which could be determined in accordance with a particular policy in a statutory plan, whether it can be removed will depend on the specific conditions of the grant of planning permission as set out by the local authority itself. The developer would therefore have to apply to the local planning authority to have that condition lifted if it wanted to remove the charge point. The planning authority has the opportunity to consider the merits of agreeing to lift the condition, but we expect that it would not, and it would be difficult for these charge points to be removed.

On Amendment 19 and the issue of charging infrastructure rights and wayleave agreements, I said in Committee that I would discuss this further with other relevant departments, which I have done. Wayleave agreements are sometimes required for rapid charge point installations if cables need to be laid across third-party land for a new connection to the grid or to upgrade the grid. Currently, the wayleave agreement is voluntary for the third party who own the land and they do not have an obligation to accept the wayleave.

As I mentioned in Committee, in cases where an agreement for a wayleave cannot be reached between the installer of electricity equipment and the landowner, we have powers under the Electricity Act 1989 which give the installer statutory powers upon which it can call if no alternative solution can be found, such as another route for the cable. This means that a statutory application can be lodged with the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to award the installer a necessary wayleave as long as it can prove why it is necessary and expedient. This process also allows the landowner to show how the granting of a wayleave will impact on their use and enjoyment of the land. This is a different situation from that of telecom lines, which, as the noble Baroness said, following the Digital Economy Act 2017 are now considered to be critical national infrastructure. There was widespread evidence of problems there which did not have the same resolution mechanism.

Therefore, although I appreciate the noble Baroness’s intentions, as she acknowledges, there is little evidence at the moment that the existing statutory powers are insufficient. Since Committee, we have discussed this issue with the trade body for the distribution network operators, the Energy Networks Association, which is of the view that the existing legislation is well established and effective, especially given the resolution mechanism.

We continue to have concerns that the amendment does not allow for the private rights of the owner of any third-party land to be taken into account or for any potential environmental effects to be considered. Because private land access rights are involved, we want to seek more evidence and consult a wide range of stakeholders before taking that any further.

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[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

My Lords, I wanted to concentrate my remarks on the final group of amendments, but I will intervene briefly on this one. We should be told—perhaps I could have the Minister’s attention—who is actually objecting. We have just been told that local authorities may have concerns, but are private companies, petrol companies or garages objecting? In this particular area, somewhere along the line, there is a blockage. Can we be told whom officials are meeting? What is being said at these meetings? What is blocking this change? Clearly, there is a lot of support across the House for the amendment moved by the noble Baroness.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, Clause 10 seems a crucial part of the Bill. We absolutely need a widely available, dense network of charging points if we are to get people to move to electric vehicles. If the Government want to discourage diesel vehicles, making diesel available only at motorway service stations would be a pretty good way of doing it. It is clear that what is in the Bill at the moment is vastly inadequate. For large parts of the country, motorways are irrelevant. I include my home town of Eastbourne in that; I do not think that I use the motorway from one end of the year to another. By and large, petrol retailers are small and specialised.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, pointed out, these charging points are not in the petrol station parts of motorway service stations. They are in the parking bits associated with all the things you can do for 30 minutes while you wait for your car to re-charge. You do not want to sit next to a petrol pump for 30 minutes. You want to be doing something—at a sports club or a nail bar, or whatever it is that you are going to fill the time with. It is at these big car parks, which are associated with something you can do for 30 minutes, that we ought to insist on charge points. We should insist not because it is in some way disadvantageous to these places to put them in but because, as my noble friend Lord Deben pointed out, some people are being remarkably slow—probably because there are not many electric vehicles around at the moment—to see the advantage of being at the front of the wave in putting in charging points. It is at these big car parks around the country—there are some of them near all of us—that we have to insist on charging points. That is what will make the difference to the take-up of electric vehicles.

[Lord Tunnicliffe]

My Lords, Clause 10 involves the classic dilemma of taking rights over private property for the greater good. I commend the fact that the clause is there, but whenever such rights are debated, you debate both breadth and reasonableness. I will listen to the response of the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, on that breadth with interest, because I think there is a case for an incremental improvement in the breadth and power of this clause.

My three amendments are about the other side of the coin: that the regulations should be reasonable. Amendment 27 seeks assurances on the whole matter of how the regulations shall be reasonably applied. Amendment 42 is about notice. We need to be assured that private owners will not be immediately required to do things and that there is appropriate and adequate notice. Amendment 43 relates to the consultation process being appropriate.

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[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, before my noble friend sits down, I am sure he will agree that the House has expressed widespread disquiet over the narrowness of this clause. Will the Government commit to continuing conversations between now and Third Reading?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I am possibly more aware than anyone else in the Chamber of the strength of feeling that we have had during debate on this issue. I understand where my noble friend is coming from but I would be misleading him if I said that I could give the commitment he asks for.

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[Baroness Randerson]

I shall speak to Amendment 33, which seeks to amend government Amendment 29. This would allow the Secretary of State the power to extend the provisions in Amendment 29 to other local transport authorities as well as to metro mayors. This is where I differ from the general view that has been expressed so far, and have differed from it in our past debates, because in our view it is unfair that this power should apply only to areas with metro mayors. Perhaps that is because I come from Wales, where it is the policy of the Government not to have metro mayors so, however large the city, you have no metro mayors.

However, I can think of other areas that might want to take a lead in encouraging modern transport—for example, Cornwall, which was granted special powers on bus franchising but clearly does not have a metro mayor. I remember reading recently that a list of the most congested towns in Britain was topped by Bournemouth, which has no metro mayor. Those are all areas that would quite likely wish to encourage the use of electric cars and ultra-low-emission vehicles which in some areas suffer from considerable congestion. As we all know, congestion means increased emissions, and that is why they would have a legitimate reason to want extra powers along the lines that the metro mayors are being allowed.

The new amendment was picked up by the DPRRC in its 28th report, to which I draw the attention of the House. In its previous report, the DPPRC highlighted the fact that the power to make regulations under Section 10 should be made by affirmative procedure, and it was not convinced by the idea that only the first set of regulations should be affirmative. In its 28th report, it argued that the new clause further undermines the Government’s argument. It states:

“Allowing mayors to request different regimes for their own areas, in our view, must imply that provision which will be made in such area specific regulations will be significantly different from that made in relation to the UK generally. Accordingly, we consider that the affirmative procedure should apply to all exercises of the power where regulations under clause 10 are made in response to a request under the new clause”.


We are asking for the Secretary of State to have additional powers to devolve powers, no matter what local government structure is in place because, as others have said, in urban areas, there is a strong need to encourage the use of ultra-low-emission vehicles.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, I support the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, and others in this group. Local transport authorities ought to be able to deal with particular problems that arise.

We have a problem in Eastbourne, surprisingly enough, with high levels of particulates—seemingly related to the geography of the place. The local authority therefore wishes that we should be able to reduce them. We do not have a motorway. My noble friend Lord Young said that service centres had not yet been defined. I should be interested to know how the Government are thinking of defining service centres. In Eastbourne and, I should think, most metropolitan areas, we have a petrol station as part of a large, shared area where there is a lot of parking and a lot of other retail. Will this be defined as a service centre? It is as close as we get to a service centre. That would enable the benefits of Clause 10 to extend to an area such as ours and, if the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, is accepted, we might even get the full benefits of Clause 10. As that is clearly a direction in which our community wishes to move, I would very much like the Bill to give it the power to do so.

[Lord Tope (LD)]

My Lords, I need to begin by declaring an interest that I did not have in Committee, because I think that this morning I was elected co-president of London Councils. No one has confirmed that yet and, as a Liberal Democrat, I know only too well not to take things for granted but, just in case I was successful in an unopposed election, I declare an interest as co-president of London Councils.

When we debated this in Committee, there was considerable concern about the apparent slow progress of London boroughs in acting on rapid charging units. It is therefore only fair that I put on record a response, although I do not want to dwell on it. I am told:

“The TfL transformation has impacted heavily on their ability to engage efficiently and consistently with the London boroughs and other stakeholders. We have been told by a number of boroughs that they had identified and submitted numerous locations for rapid charging points to TfL, only for the engagement to end, in some cases for months, with little or no information provided to the borough on whether the plans are progressing. In many cases local authorities have done all that is necessary and are waiting for TfL to complete the installation”.


I thought it was fair to put that on record, but I really do not want to get into the blame game—none of us do; we want rapid progress to rapid charging points. To that end, now that the London borough elections are out of the way as well, I am pleased to know that discussions have taken place and continue to take place between the GLA, TfL and London Councils. I think that I mentioned in Committee that London Councils had already established a sub-group of members to deal rapidly with these issues, and I am pleased to say that that is now progressing. As a consequence, I understand, TfL has said that it will not pursue its wish for permitted development rights—and that is welcome to the boroughs and to me, having had some considerable experience as a member of the GLA and as a London borough councillor. So far, all that is good.

I turn to Amendment 29. I seek clarification; I think that I understood the Minister in moving the amendment to say that the government intention was that it would apply only to large fuel retailers and service area operators—and the Minister nods in agreement with that statement. That is not what the amendment actually says. It could certainly be interpreted—and indeed I think that it says this—as relating to all roads in the key route network. Anyone reading the Bill would take that as applying to all roads in the key route network—and, indeed, the other amendments apply it to all other roads. I understand that the Government intend to come back with a further amendment on that.

I think that the Minister has clarified this issue in moving the amendment and in nodding in assent to my interpretation of it. However, if the Government are bringing back further amendments in respect of what is before us—Amendments 30A, 31 and 33A—would it not be better also to take back Amendment 29 and rewrite it clarifying what the Government want it to mean: that it applies specifically to those two areas, to area operators and large fuel retailers, rather than to all roads on the route network? That seems to me a very sensible thing to do, given that we are going to come back to the issue anyway at Third Reading next week.

Those are my points. I went through in Committee at some stage as to why it is not a good idea to give metro mayors the power over things which, certainly in London’s case, are properly the matter for the borough councils as both parking authorities and highway authorities. I do not need to repeat that; I could give many instances of how that has not worked and does not work—but I hope that we are not going to go down that route and that TfL is not going to pursue that route, as I hope is nobody else. When we come back to Third Reading, I hope that the Government will bring before us amendments that make the situation absolutely clear, and we can progress to actually getting on and installing rapid charging points.

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[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords, Clause 12(1) states:

“Regulations may make provision for the purpose of ensuring the ongoing transmission of charge point data to a prescribed person or to persons of a prescribed description”.


Amendment 41 would insert the following:

“Regulations under subsection (1) may not impose requirements on owners or occupiers of domestic premises”.


There is a big hole in the Bill. I want to know where the Government will raise their revenue from when fuel duty is reduced. At the moment we raise £28 billion per annum. Over a period of years, as the use of electric vehicles increases, there will be a revenue loss. At the moment, the duty on petrol is nearly 60p a litre, on LPG it is nearly 32p, on natural gas it is 25p, and on diesel it is roughly the same as petrol.

The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders has expressed concern about this. Its view is that revenue will come through road pricing, which I think some people call “spy in the sky”. This whole question of road pricing has always worried me. However, there are other forms of raising the revenue. There is road fund licensing, which would be very expensive if it is substituting fuel duty, or a tax on the meter in the home. In the end, that is where they will have to raise the tax. However, I think that it would be based on the recorded usage on the meter at the residence. If it is based on tax according to the meter at the home, there will have to be two meters in every home—one for the domestic use of electricity and one for the raising of revenue to substitute for the loss of fuel duty—which means that there will be two separate rates. We are entitled to know the Government’s thinking on this. How do they intend to raise revenue in future to substitute for fuel duty losses? In the time that I have spoken, I am sure that the civil servants in the Box have provided the Minister with an answer to my question.

[Lord Lucas]

Is there some rule of law that implies at the end of Amendment 41 the words “in respect of those premises”? If there is, I would like to know what it is. If there is not, then all that a vast operator of charge points has to do is to buy one house. It will then be the owners of domestic premises and this clause will no longer apply to it.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I think that it would apply to it as an operator, although of course it would not apply to it as an owner of residential property. We have made it absolutely clear that it is the charge operator and not the consumer who has to supply the data. That is the thrust of these amendments. Perhaps I may reflect on what my noble friend has said and write to him, but we do not see this as a loophole whereby a charge operator can escape its obligation to notify the national grid or whoever of the volume of consumption at a particular charge point.

I commend the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, for his ingenuity in seeking to broaden a rather narrow debate about data from a charge point into one about the future taxation policy as the nation moves from petrol-consuming vehicles to electricity. I am sure that there are brains in the Treasury who are aware of the potential threat to their revenue, but it is essentially a matter for the Treasury and not for this Bill. The Bill is not about taxation. The policy scoping notes and the Explanatory Notes make it clear that it is not intended to use this clause for taxation purposes in any way. The noble Lord raises important issues but, with respect, they do not arise from this narrow group of amendments.

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[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

My Lords, having been critical, I now extend a word of gratitude. In particular, I welcome subsection (1)(b) of the proposed new clause in the amendment to which the Minister drew attention, because that will definitely be needed in the future. It is a very helpful amendment indeed.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, I too am grateful to the Government for the amendment. I particularly congratulate them on subsection (2) of the proposed new clause which, for those who do not have the amendments with them, states:

“Each report must be laid before Parliament after the end of the reporting period to which it relates”.


A Government who could lay the report before the end of the reporting period would be some Government. This provision has no timescale, which could allow the report to be laid before Parliament 45 years after the end of the reporting period to which it relates. That is quite a commitment and again I congratulate the Government on their drafting.

[Lord Tunnicliffe]

My Lords, I believe that we asked for this provision in Committee, and if we did not, we meant to do so. Either way, we thank the Minister.

Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill

Lord Lucas 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.

[Lord Borwick]

My Lords, I think I rather agree with the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, about Amendment 28, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, being better than my Amendment 23. It is better because the point about manufacturers going bust had not occurred to me—so putting it into the passive is a much better way of doing it.

Amendment 25 seems to be approaching a sort of strict liability basis, with the automated vehicle’s insurer responsible even if that vehicle was not responsible in any way for the accident. I refer him to the accident that was reported a couple of days ago with a Waymo vehicle in which another car went into it. It was absolutely not the fault of the automated vehicle; it was hit by a manually controlled car. In that case it would seem to be particularly unfair that the insurer of the automated car had to pay out and then recover from somebody else. That was an entirely innocent case where the automated vehicle was totally not responsible for the accident.

A lot of this will come out in due course as we learn more. It is a problem at this stage that we have to legislate to get the insurance right in an industry that is developing.

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Moved by

[Lord Lucas]

26: After Clause 4, insert the following new Clause—
“Right of insurer to data and control
(1) An insurer may require, as a condition of insurance, that an automated vehicle transmits to the insurer when requested, at specified intervals or in real time, such data as the insurer may specify.(2) An insurer may require, as a condition of insurance, that an automated vehicle behaves in a fashion specified by the insurer on receipt of electronic instructions from the insurer.”

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, I beg to move Amendment 26, which has at its heart the flow of data between a driver and the insurer—but, more particularly, between an automated vehicle and the insurer. It suggests that the insurer should have the right to require data flows to be made in ways that are specified by them to support the contract for insurance. I am particularly thinking of data that might flow at the time of an accident so that the insurer can capture the full dataset at that point rather than risking it being destroyed, perhaps by a later fire or some other consequence of the accident. But we might also get a situation in which insurance flexes with the state and use of the vehicle. To go back to an aspect of my earlier Amendment 10, data flows are an important part of how we consider our relationship with automated vehicles.

[Lord Borwick]

My Lords, Amendment 27 is a probing amendment, triggered when I first read this Bill, which happened at about the same time as the very first fatal accident in America from a Tesla vehicle, when it was it was speculated in the press that Tesla would not release the data from the vehicle because it had proprietary value to Tesla. In fact, as I understand it, Tesla released the data in due course. However, I could imagine circumstances in which the owner or manufacturer of an automated vehicle believed that the less which was found out about this accident, the better for them.

One of the greatest advantages to the insurance industry of the automated vehicles is the enormous quantity of data that will be available from them. Not only will there be the product of six or more cameras facing every single direction but all the other information picked up about speeds can and will be stored in the vehicle as it goes by. Maybe the industry would be grateful if the Minister could confirm that to delete such data would be the offence of perverting the course of justice. However, in the meantime I wanted to propose the amendment.

Amendment 30, the next one in this group, is on the question of regulations, which has already been touched on in earlier debates about standards. However, I believe that the range of aspects of automated vehicles that we have discussed this evening is very great, and there is clearly a lack of knowledge on the part of noble Lords such as myself, not just about the sheer detail of this but about the industry and what is coming on. So many different things are happening, and each of them is an outstanding opportunity for the country. We need a legislative background that can cope with completely new circumstances, not only prohibiting things that are brand new and thoroughly bad but permitting things which are brand new and have not been invented yet.

On the suggestion that we can revert to new primary legislation, given the number of years it has taken to develop this legislation and the constant pressure on legislative time in both Houses, it would be wise for the Government to take regulatory powers to come up with new regulations to deal with new matters. Therefore, these limited new regulatory powers are proposed in Amendment 30.

[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, I take this opportunity to ask the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, for a little more information about his intention with regard to this amendment on transmission of data. One can see advantages to that flow of data, and one knows that it would naturally take place, because technically it can take place. However, there are huge issues about privacy. I am not entirely sure that I would want—to grasp an example from the air—information to be in someone else’s hands about the fact that I go swimming every week, so that suddenly a department store starts trying to sell me swimsuits every day of the week. I do not want that unnecessary invasion of my privacy. There could be very much more sensitive issues. I could be visiting a hospital and wanting to keep my medical condition private—that kind of thing. There have to be rules about what this data is used for, how it is kept, and so on. Is it the Minister’s view that current legislation on data and privacy going through this House would cover that sort of issue, or will we need other legislation to cover it? Does the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, envisage a sort of situation akin to the black box that some drivers use now to reassure their insurance company that they are driving safely and within speed limits, and so on, which, in return, keeps their insurance premiums down? I am interested in that point.

Finally, I will make a comment about Amendment 30. I am not usually keen on giving the Government delegated powers but there are some sensible limits on this here. I understand that we are envisaging a future; we cannot predict every requirement accurately and we cannot wait around on every occasion for primary legislation—so, as far as that goes, it seems a sensible proposal to me.

[Lord Lucas]

I share the noble Baroness’s admiration for my noble friend’s Amendment 30, which puts things in a very simple and clear way and is well worth having in the Bill. As far as the insurance amendment is concerned, I was looking for a way within the narrow confines of the Bill of illustrating the need for the Government to go further now. Even dealing with the subject of insurance, there are matters that need to be discussed now which we may need to bring into secondary legislation to enable things to operate properly. We should make provision for these things to be done in the Bill. I do not have answers to the questions that the noble Baroness has asked. I imagine that, in an automated world, having a dump of the data for the quarter of an hour before an accident and through as far as the machine keeps recording would be a useful way of establishing what happens during an accident; it really ought to be something we are thinking about, even in the narrow confines of this Bill.

I turn to what my noble friend said about motor vehicles. I presume the Bill will somehow, through the atmosphere of legislation, pick up the definition of motor vehicle from Section 185(1)(c) of the Road Traffic Act 1988:

“a mechanically propelled vehicle, intended or adapted for use on roads”.

However, I think the Bill uses motor vehicle in a slightly different sense, as vehicles that,

“are or might be used on roads”—

that is okay so far—

“or in other public places”.

Clearly, we have a different definition of motor vehicle here from the one in the Road Traffic Act. Therefore, we are somewhat adrift; we are dealing with things that might be used in public spaces and therefore presumably might interact with footpaths, crossing all sorts of land; they could include the sort of thing that mows golf courses too, which might very well go automatic, or the farming equipment my noble friend was referring to. If you have a footpath across the land and one of these vehicles is trundling across it, it is occupying a public space at that point; we are encompassing a wide range of vehicles beyond the definition in the 1988 Act. This might be something worth resolving at some stage.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, the co-pilot is in charge of this group of amendments. As my noble friend Lord Lucas said, our transport networks are becoming increasingly digital. The regulation of the collection, sharing, use and deletion of data will be vital. Several stakeholders, including the insurance industry, have highlighted the need to ensure access to automated vehicle data, not least because it will help determine who is liable in the event of an accident, as my noble friend has just said.

While we certainly recognise the potential value and use of data, especially for vehicle insurers—and the need to look at the subject of data generated from automated vehicles—as with many previous amendments we do not consider that now is the correct time to start making provision for access for insurers, as suggested by my noble friend in Amendment 26. Nor do we believe that this is the right time to consider new offences regarding the deletion of data, as suggested by my noble friend Lord Borwick in Amendment 27. However, I shall seek to give both noble Lords some reassurance.

It is likely that the international UNECE regulations underpinning the type approval system, which allows vehicles to be sold in the UK, will require the use of a data collection and storage system in automated vehicles. In response to my noble friend’s Amendment 26, it is of course important that insurers have access to the data they need in order to establish liability for any accident. I hope that he finds that reassuring. However, to balance the needs of industry and consumers, we still require detailed engagement on which parties will require access to this data and how it should be shared. It is clear that some data collected by automated vehicles, such as location information, may constitute personal data and will therefore need to be handled appropriately—a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson. Therefore, there is a need to balance the personal privacy of automated vehicle users with the public good, and this is an area that will most likely need to be resolved internationally to help ensure consistent standards.

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At this stage we do not know what other powers we will need, which is why the Law Commission is carrying out a far-reaching review of our regulatory framework with respect to AVs. This is a three-year project, launched on 6 March this year. It will produce a scoping report, as the first stage in identifying and consulting on future areas of regulation, towards the end of 2018, and this will inform the Government’s next moves. So although I understand and appreciate the intention behind the amendments, we do not consider that they are appropriate for this Bill—and against the background of the assurances I have given, I ask my noble friend to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for that reply. I will assume that included in it, but not vocalised, was a promise to write to me about the definition of motor vehicles. I like my moments of pedantry as well as the next man, and I would be interested in pursuing that subject in correspondence.

On the main points, I am delighted that my noble friend found at least half a warm word for my noble friend Lord Borwick. I think there is a real opportunity here that, with a little persuasion and some crafting of the amendment, we might, unusually, find ourselves supporting the Government in giving themselves some powers that they do not yet know how to use, within this limited area, because it would have such a potentially positive effect on the economy of the UK. I beg leave—

[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.

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[Baroness Randerson]

Not in Wales, no—in London. We are not that advanced in Wales.

[Lord Lucas]

The noble Baroness raises a very valid point. What we seek to regulate is autonomous automated vehicles that are likely to interact with people. That will include delivery drones, whether they are flying or trundling on the pavement. It would be quite useful in parts of London to be able to go amphibious and drop into the Thames for a bit, run up the river and then back on to the bank. We are talking about things that will interact with the public. I hope we are looking at a wide definition here and not just talking about things that are supposed to confine themselves to the road. One of the virtues of automated vehicles is that they do not have the same need to do that as other things, and they might well turn out to be quite versatile. I look forward to learning in correspondence where we are on the definition, and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 26 withdrawn.

Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill

Lord Lucas Excerpts

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

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, with regard to Amendment 1, the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, and I are in complete accord that the Bill is far too narrowly drafted. We have here a sizeable opportunity for the United Kingdom and one that is part of our industrial strategy, yet we are introducing a very narrow Bill for a very fast-moving technology, which will, as the noble Baroness pointed out, likely be outdated within a year or so, when we could be passing something which gives the Government a much broader remit to introduce rules and regulations to enable them to continue promoting this technology for some years to come.

I very much hope that we will manage to get agreement around the Committee that, if the Government do not table their own amendments to broaden the Bill, we will send it back to the other place with some widely agreed amendments which do that. It is enormously important that we take this opportunity because legislative opportunities are few and far between. It is unusual for this House to insist on the Government having more powers than they propose to take, but this is an occasion when we should consider that. I look forward to conversations with the Benches opposite to see if we can agree some way of doing that. I would be even more delighted if the Government were to come forward with their own proposals, but they have not yet shown any signs of doing so.

I hope that the noble Baroness will not press Amendment 2, because I think there is a large opportunity for level 3 vehicles as a replacement for trains on what are currently railway tracks. Let us imagine a large number of vehicles that will fit about eight people each running in place of trains; whether that is on the rails, which has advantages in terms of cost—both the energy cost of running a vehicle and the cost of maintaining the highway—or on a smooth surface on rubber tyres, which has advantages in terms of braking capability, meaning that you can run vehicles more closely together, seems an issue for the technicians.

If you used that space currently occupied by Southern Rail, in my case, on which the Government—because they own it—manage to run infrequent services at an average speed of 45 mph, for automated vehicles travelling at very safe intervals, perhaps two seconds apart, with individual vehicles stopping only at stations that the occupants wanted to stop at, probably travelling at 70 mph or 80 mph between stops, you would get a much better service. We would be able to get the Brighton main line back to the sorts of speeds they were used to in the 19th century; we might even be able to exceed them. For me, stuck down at the end of the Eastbourne branch, the service would be immeasurably better, both locally along the south coast and up into London. You would be able to reopen the second route from Brighton to London; the main route is frequently cut because of the age of the line and the difficulty of maintaining the tunnels—indeed, we are enduring two weeks of complete blackout this summer so that some work gets done on the tunnels.

There are all sorts of reasons why using level 3 vehicles—current technology—on the space currently occupied by Southern Rail would give everybody a much better service. You would not have to go for a scheduled train. There would be a vehicle there when you wanted to leave. There would probably be one leaving every minute. They would be faster and more reliable—because an individual vehicle, particularly if it is on rubber tyres, can just steer round your average cow which is what appears to cause the most frequent problems. You would not have these eternal delays caused by some minor obstruction on the line because that problem would no longer exist.

The advantages of this technology are known to the Government, Network Rail and other authorities. What we have all thought of as the disadvantage of being stuck with Southern Rail suddenly becomes the opportunity to have a really large network of autonomous vehicles, way ahead of anything else in the world and at a scale the rest of the world cannot match. It would provide a much better service than commuters and users get at the moment, probably at a lower cost, and a base for autonomous vehicle technology to work from in this country. I think it would prove enormously attractive to international business since it is very unlikely to be replicated elsewhere.

This is level 3 technology. You do not need anything more. You have a space where humans are not admitted. You do not need the sorts of capabilities a vehicle has to have to travel on the roads. Indeed, you might make these vehicles such that, when they got to a station, a human could take over and drive on. This technology might work. All sorts of things might work because you could try them as little add-ons to a large system. It would be much more efficient than what the Government are having to do at the moment—a whole series of minor experiments in little, confined areas, trying out different bits of technology without being able to integrate them properly. This is a really big opportunity, but it requires that we list and license level 3-capable vehicles because, even at this level, we need a proper amount of control over what is going on.

I like the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe. We will have to be really cute in making sure that the software on these vehicles is up to date. One vehicle approaching another will have to know what software the other is using and, therefore, how that vehicle will behave in case of difficulty—such as a wheel falling off—so that they become predictable. To allow random collections of software, randomly updated, is just not going to work in an autonomous world.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, remarked in the course of her speech on Amendment 1, this Bill needs to be broader so that the Government can have the sort of powers they will need to regulate a fast-expanding industry, using as yet unknown technology. We need to give the Government flexibility. It is important that they have the tools necessary to make this industry succeed. I very much hope that this is something the Government will recognise in this Bill.

[Lord Hunt of Chesterton (Lab)]

My Lords, I was on the Science and Technology Committee and we discussed automated vehicles. After our session, I met some industrialists—people making and selling cars—in the context of automated vehicles. One of the things it was suggested that the Secretary of State might consider—it would come under Clause 1, referred to earlier—is that people purchasing vehicles, particularly those that are partially or wholly automatic, should understand the properties of the vehicle. There were some examples this year or last year when someone had a blackout and the vehicle took over control and moved them. So it seems that already some of these level 3 properties are not well understood by the people buying the cars. For some people, as I understand it, once you have paid by credit card or hire purchase the car arrives at your front door and off you drive. Even Tesla makes you have 95 minutes of training before you buy and use one of its cars. This is an area covered by subsection (1)(b) that the Secretary of State should be considering very strongly.

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[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.

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I assume that other countries are also tackling this through similar legislation. What definitions are they using? To go back to Amendment 1, in the Secretary of State’s list we need to use the same definitions otherwise a car could be considered automated in Australia and non-automated in Britain. That goes back to my original point that we all have all known that a car is a car is a car, but in future we may be arguing about whether an automated car is an automated car.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, can I argue against crisp definitions? We do not yet know what will happen. Maybe we can evolve a system where the ordinary car we use at home can switch into fully automated mode for, say, travelling around the railways, and then when it is not part of a railway, it will come off. Sometimes it is a car and at other times it is a rail vehicle. If we are to take a lead in this industry, we will need to continuously shape and reshape definitions. We do not want to be hamstrung by what we can think of now. I agree that we ought to share definitions around the world, but they ought to be based on technology as it evolves. It ought to be fast moving. We ought to equip ourselves with legislation which can move as the industry moves.

The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, asked me whether there would be capacity constraints. No, there would not be; if you transfer to rubber wheels, you can manage much higher traffic densities because you do not have the braking distance problems, and you can fit with the current level of autonomous safety. I am not saying that one could manage high-speed lines, but Southern rail is all low-speed. The fast services on the London to Brighton line manage 45 miles per hour. If, with autonomous vehicles, you are managing to go 70 or 80 miles per hour, just by doing that you are doubling the capacity. Therefore there are no capacity constraints on using these routes for autonomous vehicles. It will probably be managed by Network Rail because you need the consistency, predictability and safety constraints that go with rail services. However, we are talking about much smaller vehicles and different technology—about providing a basis for the whole of autonomous vehicle technology to evolve. Under those circumstances, you have to move definitions to keep up with the technology.

Level 3, as I read the definition, seems to provide a pretty good base: there are times when the vehicle can be autonomous but then it gets to a point where it says: “Hang on, I can’t be autonomous here, I need the driver to take back control”. That seems to be the sort of technology you might well try to put on a rail service so that, without having to get to levels 4 and 5, you can provide room for individual vehicles to travel on the service and provide the connections that people want beyond a railway station. We do not know yet; we have not got there. We have to allow the Government the breadth of definition that will allow us to experiment and to lead the field.

[Baroness Randerson]

The noble Lord talks about looking at the future and says we have not got there. With all due respect, we have got there. I have been in a driverless car—technologically, they exist. They are being trialled in parts of this country and indeed across the world. However, the noble Lord is right that we are crystal ball gazing over exactly how they will be used. In what circumstances will we use them? Will we all own our own little pod or will we summon up a pod to collect us and take us to work, or whatever, whenever we wish it? There is a great deal of debate here; undoubtedly the initiative has already been taken by taxi companies, for example, in this area.

However, I return briefly to Amendment 1 and the points made about definitions. I am not slavishly devoted to levels 3, 4 and 5—or 4 and 5. If the Minister says this has been rejected, that is contrary to what I was told, but I am happy to go with what has now been accepted. The definition needs to be precise enough for this not to end up in a lot of court cases. I say that because the whole of this part of the Bill is about insurance; we all know that insurance is always mired in legal definitions, so the Government need to be on firm ground. Having said all that, I am happy to withdraw my amendment.

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[Lord Borwick]

The point is well made. It is an immensely complicated industry and, effectively, prohibiting adaptions would send it backwards.

On the issue of maintenance of these vehicles, there is a host of health and safety regulations which should cover many of the points raised. It is indeed extraordinarily dangerous to start dealing with high-voltage DC cables on the inside if you are not trained to do so. However, because of my interest in electrical vehicles in the past, I have gone through the training, the basic lesson of which is to stay as far away from it as you possibly can. It is extraordinarily dangerous, and I entirely support the training of people as proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, if we imagine a future with a lot of autonomous vehicles around, one of the things that such a vehicle needs to do is predict how other autonomous vehicles will react in particular circumstances—that is, if faced with a sudden unexpected obstacle, the priority will be to veer to the left, say. That knowledge can come only on the basis of a shared understanding of the software that each of them has and of the capabilities in terms of awareness of the local picture and the wider picture that are built into the vehicle. To allow those things to be tampered with by back-street garages and amateur electricians seems to me to go against the whole advantage of moving towards autonomy. Therefore I very much support what the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, is aiming at. I think we need really clear control of the quality of maintenance.

I can see what the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, is aiming at in removing “or adapted”; we do not allow people to adapt Boeing 747s in a random sort of way. They might do it to trial things and have a bit of their own airspace to wander around in while they are doing it, but we should be really cautious in allowing widespread adaptation. Every adaptation introduces another complication that every other autonomous vehicle would have to be aware of. Adaptation should be confined to test areas and test tracks, and what appears on the public scene should be a well-understood, well-documented vehicle—and not too many different kinds, please.

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, I will first address Amendment 3, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, regarding the removal of “or adapted” from Clause 1(1). It may be that in the future vehicles could be adapted to be capable of driving themselves safely. It could also be the case that some future vehicles are designed to be ready for full automation at some point after their sale but not yet fully capable.

I do understand the concern around this, as we have not yet seen such vehicles in the marketplace, but, given that we cannot predict how these vehicles will evolve, it is important to ensure that we do not prematurely preclude such technology—or, as the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig of Radley, put it, slam the door on potential innovation. Happily, it would not be up to the Secretary of State or, indeed, the Department for Transport, to decide whether an adapted vehicle was safe. Whether it was a vehicle adapted by an enthusiast in their back yard, or with a software update from Tesla, it would be subject to the same type of approval process before it could be legally used on our roads. So I can reassure noble Lords that a vehicle with any such adaptation would be on the Clause 1 list—and therefore have insurance, and be on our roads legally—only if the adaptation was considered safe.

On Amendment 29, the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, is of course absolutely right to be concerned that automated vehicles meet appropriate safety standards and that the inspection, repair and maintenance of an automated vehicle is done in an authorised way. Motorists with these new vehicles will clearly expect the same level of knowledge and customer service they have come to expect for conventional vehicles. However, we believe that at this stage it is too early to develop a full training, licensing, and accreditation scheme for automated vehicles, or to legislate on how automated vehicles are inspected, maintained and repaired.

As I have said, the Bill is focused on ensuring a sensible insurance regime, and we do not believe that it is the right time to legislate further on maintenance in the manner outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, given that the UNECE harmonised technical safety standards have not yet been agreed for these vehicles. As I said in debate on previous groups, these conversations around safety standards are ongoing, with the UK actively participating in these important discussions.

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[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.

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, as I mentioned in the debate on the first group of amendments, the scope of the Bill applies only to highly and fully automated vehicles; that is, vehicles for which, when driving themselves, there is no monitoring or controlling role required of the driver. I appreciate my noble friend’s efforts to clarify the language in the Bill in this series of amendments. I will try to help with the definitions, although, as the noble Lord, Lord Rees, said, these terms are highly subjective.

On Amendment 4, it is anticipated that the first automated vehicles to reach the UK market will be able to be used in automated mode only in specific circumstances or situations. These could include instances where vehicles have been geo-fenced, and are therefore able to operate only in specific, defined areas, or systems that would operate only on motorways and other high-speed roads, or indeed in the way my noble friend Lord Lucas described earlier. These vehicles may not be capable of driving safely in all situations, so we believe it is essential that the wording,

“in … some circumstances or situations”,

remains within the Bill so that such vehicles can get on the Secretary of State’s list and get insurance.

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[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 10. This amendment follows on nicely from Amendment 29 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe. We had a useful discussion on that. The noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, made an excellent case for why we need a properly organised maintenance regime. My noble friend the Minister agreed and said that we would commit to legislate in due course. Why do we not legislate now? When we legislate for something such as a maintenance regime in a fast-moving area—as this will continue to be—we give the Government powers to create one under regulations. We do not specify it or try to pin it down with a lot of detail, because it is too fast-moving an area, too new and too unknown.

The only way we can ever legislate for something such as an Amendment 29 regime is by giving the Government the ability to create regulations. I do not see any reason why we cannot do that now. When the Government get to the point where they consider a maintenance regime is needed, there could be other primary legislation in the queue. It may take a year or two to get a slot, a year to get the Bill through Parliament, and then there is the whole process of producing and consulting on the draft regulations. It may take the Government two or three years to get to the point where they have a maintenance regime in place. If we give them the power in this Bill to create a maintenance regime if and when they think it is needed, the whole process will be much shorter.

This is an industry where we ought to be caring enough about the economy and the future of this country to be giving the Government a lot of flexibility in what they do. If we get to the point of autonomous vehicles being on our roads, we can anticipate that we will need to say something about their ability to deal with level crossings. I do not think that we would ever try to deal with that sort of thing in primary legislation. If we are going to give the Government that sort of power in secondary legislation, why not do it now?

It is absolutely clear that we are going to have to deal extensively with the way in which data is handled and shared. Again, whenever we choose to legislate, it will be in a fast-moving, fast-changing, unpredictable set of circumstances. We will give the Government reasonably broad powers to keep updating the regulations without primary legislation being required at each turn. I believe that we can frame those regulations now.

We are going to have to produce regulations that restrict the ability of autonomous vehicles to drive in particular ways in particular circumstances. Those will keep changing as the capabilities of autonomous vehicles improve, as our experience of them improves, and as the way in which we as a society choose to deal with them improves. We are never going to try to deal with that sort of thing through primary legislation. Let us make this a fast-moving, adaptable Government, in a crucial area for the economy, by giving them the power now. We know that we want up-to-date software. We have already covered that today. Let us give the Government the ability to make sure that that is the case.

We know that we have to provide for human/autonomous changeover. It is unclear what that will look like. It will continue to change and adapt as technology moves. Let us give the Government the power now to deal with those things. When we look at our practice in this House, we know that we are not going to pin the Government down with primary legislation. We know that we are going to give them a sensible set of powers to create secondary legislation. There is nothing we need to know more than we do now in order to draft the required legislation. I hope that the Government will take these powers voluntarily—but, if not, I think we should be prepared to insist that they have them. The Government will then be much more responsive to the needs of the economy in terms of pushing this forward and putting ourselves into a position where international companies choose to do part of their autonomous vehicle development here because the environment is right and adaptable.

I understand—and one can judge from the admirable brevity of the Minister’s replies—that this is not in current contemplation by the department. That is why we may need to insist on an amendment or two. In conversations between Committee and Report, I hope that we may be able to agree what such an amendment might look like. We must put ourselves in a position where we are seen internationally not as an environment where change is slow and difficult because it requires primary legislation but rather as one which is quick and adaptable because we have already made the necessary provisions.

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[Baroness Sugg]

Under the construction UNECE regulations, which are how we deal with conventional vehicles, we are able to introduce regulations, which is a potential future for automated vehicles. We have asked the Law Commission to do a far-reaching review on our regulatory framework for automated vehicles. That is designed to promote the safe development and use of automated vehicles, identify areas in the law that may be barriers to the use of automated vehicles, and propose potential solutions. One of those barriers was that we did not have an insurance framework, and those vehicles could not be insured. That is the purpose of the Bill. We are working with the Law Commission to understand where we need to make further primary or secondary legislation. As and when appropriate, the Government will come forward with legislative and regulatory proposals, and will absolutely consult on the detail.

I turn to the role of the insurer and my noble friend Lord Lucas’s Amendment 22. It is the policy intent of the Bill that it mirrors existing processes as closely as possible without making complex legislative changes to the existing framework. A vehicle is insured if there is in force, in relation to the use of the vehicle on a road or other public place in Great Britain, a policy of insurance that satisfies the conditions in Section 145 of the Road Traffic Act 1988. It is the contractual obligation of the insured person to provide accurate information to the insurer. Failure to do so may result in the policy being voided.

I understand that there is concern that we are proposing an insurance framework before we have agreed the safety standards, and before we are sure how we will regulate for those, but as I said, the Bill is designed to enable insurers to begin developing new insurance products, in response to a request from the insurance industry. We want those insurance products to be developed now so that it will encourage further investment and research in automated vehicles in the country—something I am sure noble Lords are in favour of.

I hope that these words have assured noble Lords that there will be comprehensive safety standards, which will be informed by consultation, to ensure that only automated vehicles that can be used safely will be placed on the list. Again, I am afraid, as the Bill is solely considering a list in relation to the insurance framework and not these safety standards at this stage, I hope the noble Lord feels able to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, before the noble Lord deals with his amendment, may I say that I am sad that I was right that the Government are determined to keep the Bill within its current scope? They are missing considerable opportunities in regard to my noble friend’s description of what the Bill would do: enable the insurance industry to develop new products, and enable us in this aspect to be ahead of the game and part of the international conversation. She talks about the advantage of legislating now, but the Government will not legislate now in other areas where they could simply and where I think the House would be inclined to give them quite wide powers to get on in this area. I am disappointed that the Government are taking this action. If I find opportunities beyond today to do something about it, I look forward to taking them.

[Lord Tunnicliffe]

I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. I shall study the Minister’s response with great care, and I look forward to possible contacts between now and Report, and will decide whether to table further amendments then. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

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[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.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, as we deal with a set of amendments dealing with handover, it is perhaps appropriate to give my noble friend a break, and I move over from the passenger seat. However, I assure the Committee that my noble friend remains in control.

The transferring of control of an automated vehicle between a human driver and the automated vehicle’s system will be an important factor in ascertaining how a vehicle safely and appropriately operates on UK roads. Straightaway I reassure the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, who spoke to his Amendment 21, that of course we recognise the need to put in place a proper regulatory framework to ensure both the safe deployment and safe use of automated vehicles—I will say a bit more about that in a moment.

It is likely that the first automated vehicles to reach the market will be able to be used in automated mode only in specific circumstances or situations, with vehicles capable of full automation arriving further into the future. My noble friend Lady Sugg said a little more about that when we debated Amendment 4. For example, she said that these circumstances could refer to vehicles that have been geo-fenced—able to operate only in a very specific, defined area—or to systems that would operate only on motorways and other high-speed roads. It is likely that these vehicles will be designed to allow handover only in these very specific circumstances: for example, from the driver to the vehicle when the vehicle enters that geo-fenced area, and from the vehicle to the driver when it leaves, in a safe manner and when appropriate to do so.

It is anticipated that the relevant international regulations at UNECE level will reflect these limited use cases and handover process. It is possible that these regulations will contain requirements for the vehicle to be able to detect where it is so that the system cannot be used in other situations. These standards and regulations will be likely to form the basis of the type approval process which automated vehicles, like conventional vehicles today, must pass to be sold for safe use on UK roads or in other public places. They would then be covered by Clause 1.

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—I repeat what we have said before during this debate—global regulations for automated vehicles have not yet been decided, and so it is not clear what changes in our domestic framework would be needed at the present time. It would be premature to ask for primary powers in a Bill that is just about automated vehicle insurance without more detailed knowledge of the ultimate design standards to which these vehicles will be held, or without knowing the outcome of the Law Commission review of the existing legal framework —which, again, my noble friend mentioned.

As regards handover of the driving to an automated vehicle, my noble friend Lord Borwick has proposed a different test from that in the Bill: that the handover must not be “avoidable and unreasonable”. These two words would be applied conjunctively by the courts, and the result would be that a person could be found to be negligent only provided “avoidability” and “unreasonableness” were both shown to be present. The Bill’s test makes for a lower threshold on the insurer by placing a stricter burden on the driver not to hand over in situations when it would be inappropriate to do so. While the technological and wider regulatory framework here is still very new and developing, it would be prudent to set a strict standard and relax it if appropriate once more is known. Therefore, in the Government’s view, the original text of the Bill should stand.

To insert “or continue” into Clause 3, as proposed in Amendment 19, would in effect legislate for the possibility of the user having some residual role in the driving task after the handover to self-driving mode is completed. When a vehicle leaves a geo-fenced area or comes off the motorway, it is anticipated that there will be a safe handover back to the driver, and the details of this will be covered by international safety standards. However, my noble friend’s amendment does not fit with the Bill’s definition of an automated vehicle, because this requires no monitoring while the vehicle is driving itself. I hope this explanation reassures him that his amendment is not necessary.

While, as I have already said, I am sympathetic to the intent of the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, in Amendment 21, we think that we do not need these powers, as the definition of when it is appropriate for the vehicle to drive itself will be covered elsewhere in regulations. I hope that, given that assurance, the noble Lord will feel able not to press his amendment.

Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill

Lord Lucas Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 20th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I too welcome the Bill. I hope we will be able to persuade this House and the Government to strengthen it a bit because we need a Bill that is capable of dealing with standards, as many noble Lords have said, and we need to respond to emerging standards fast rather than having to wait for other Bills to come through, because we hope to be at the forefront of development in this area. We hope this is going to be one of our emerging industries. If we have to spend two years putting through primary legislation every time there is a new standard, we are very quickly going to fall off the wave front.

As many noble Lords have said, standards will be needed for how vehicles detect each other, how they react, how they resolve conflicts, how they communicate with each other and with the overall structure of what is going on, and indeed how they behave in particular circumstances—when they are not allowed to turn right, how fast they are allowed to go in built-up areas and how they deal with pedestrians and cyclists. This will all have to be covered by standards. Those standards will evolve over time, and we must be in a position to react fast to them. So I really hope the Government will allow us to add to the Bill some powers for them to make regulation in this area. I cannot see how a process of primary legislation is possibly going to allow us to succeed in this area.

As the Minister knows, I am a proponent of transforming our extensive slow rail network into a set of dedicated highways for autonomous vehicles, thinking of autonomous vehicles as standard passenger road vehicles. That, to my mind, has enormous advantages. First, it allows us to begin this transformation immediately because we are dealing with dedicated highways. There is no problem with pedestrians. There may be the odd cow—there certainly is round our part of the world—but generally, there are no manually driven vehicles, no pedestrians and nothing to obstruct the dedicated highway. We can use current vehicles, such as the Nissan Leaf, and current technology, or certainly that available by the time we get around to making the transformation.

It is a low-cost transformation, because essentially the roadbed is there and just requires some relatively inexpensive adaptation. The charging structure is there—it certainly is around us—the third rail is there and you can just use that, because no people are using these highways. Using current technology, you would get a service which was more reliable, because there would be lots of vehicles rather than the occasional train that breaks down, and much more convenient. It would be much easier to deal with things going wrong, because it is easy for a car to steer around a car which has stopped and there is plenty of extra space on a two line railway.

We as a nation would quickly get a very large population of autonomous vehicles—much larger than anything happening anywhere else in the world. We could upgrade their facilities as the technology became available, perhaps to allow them to be driven out of the stations and become manual vehicles, perhaps to allow them to trundle back very slowly to the station. You get a system that can evolve because it is big enough to afford to change, not a series of small experiments. We have tens of thousands of such vehicles, so it is much easier for us to make a big industry out of it and to have a voice in evolving it. It gets around all the problems mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours: you do not have to deal with them until you have the technology to do so. It would allow us, rather than to be trotting along behind the French, Japanese and, doubtless, the Chinese, to be at the forefront because we would provide the place where such vehicles could be used on a large scale.

One feature of that system, and possibly of automated vehicles generally, is that the vehicles would not be owned by individuals but by a much larger organisation—perhaps the railway. That has great advantages, because the whole business of ensuring that a vehicle is up to spec, has the latest software installed and all its parts are working would become the responsibility of a large-scale supplier, which could be made the person liable under the insurance policies if such things were not done. My computer keeps itself up to date with software, but most people let their software get out of date. The idea that all sorts of different versions of software would be trundling around the roads is a nightmare. I do not think that is possible. To make automated vehicles possible, we will need some form of common ownership. We ought to reflect that in the insurance clauses in the Bill. A problem that does not seem to be dealt with is the transfer of control from autonomous to manual. How does the autonomous vehicle, owned by some large corporation, know that the person who wishes to drive it manually is entitled to do so? I want to ensure that the data flows necessary to achieve that will be allowed under the Bill.

This is a Bill with great possibilities. I shall certainly propose amendments to widen the Government’s powers, so that they can take on board the sort of developments that I would like and have the powers that I think they will need to govern how vehicles are owned and how they operate on our roads. I suspect that the Government, and particularly the Department for Transport, have got used to seeing Southern Rail as an insoluble problem and a complete pain in the fundament—and certainly that is the way in which its passengers view it—but it is not. It is an enormous and wonderful opportunity, which we should seize, and I really hope that I can persuade the Government of that.

Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (Science and Technology Report)

Lord Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 20th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the committee for a very fine report, but I will devote my speech to an opportunity that I think the Government are missing: the creation of dedicated highways for autonomous vehicles.

We have in this country a great deal of slow rail. I live in the Southern region, where almost the entire network can be described as slow rail, with average speeds of around 50 mph from one end of the journey to the other. In such a network, we have a track which could easily be converted to a highway for autonomous vehicles and we have a power supply in the third rail, which, again, could easily be converted to a power supply for autonomous vehicles. If we have vehicles—probably just standard electric cars—travelling at 60 mph on a dedicated highway, and 10 mph when they are off that, when they are taking you home from the station, we have the technology to handle that. We do not have to worry about fast image processing because radar is good enough if you are going at 10 mph. It is what we all use for reversing. It picks up the problem soon enough for an automatic system to react if you are going slowly enough. On a dedicated highway, where there is no other traffic, and given the stability of modern cars at 60 mph, we have the technology to make that happen.

My journey from Eastbourne is slow. It has an average of 40 mph, even on the faster services. It is irregular and unreliable. It requires a vast subsidy. It has an enormous maintenance backlog. We do not have a good road service, either. The A27 is single lane for large parts of its length around us, and there are no funds available to change that. Changing the Coastway—the line that runs from Brighton to Ashford—to a dedicated highway for autonomous vehicles would make an enormous difference to all our lives in that part of the world. Noble Lords might think that Eastbourne is prosperous. It is not: it has one of the lowest rates of children with free school meals proceeding to university of any town in the country. Transport is a very big reason why it is like that. It is very cut off and isolated. But a dedicated highway would make a great deal of difference.

As a dedicated highway, the Coastway suddenly puts you in easy touch with Brighton and Ashford. Journey times on a dedicated highway are much shorter. You set off when you want. You do not have to get to the station 20 minutes early. It is a much more individual and, in effect, faster service. It is fail soft because it is easy for little vehicles to get round a problem—you do not have to close down the whole network for two hours because there is some problem at a point. It delivers you door to door. It would make an enormous difference to tourism and business generally, and it would create a lot of business in the north because that is where the vehicles would be made. To my mind, this is a big opportunity, just within the UK, to take a world lead in an area that we are supposed to be taking seriously.

It is the ideal solution for the Oxford-Cambridge route. Why, if you are travelling from Oxford to Cambridge, do you want to go by railway? You want to go from door to door. How do you do that? You do that with a dedicated autonomous vehicle highway. Then things work much better. In a city such as Cambridge, where the centre is occupied largely by old buildings and the new industrial estates are spread around it, you want something which easily gets you from the railway station out to where you want to go. If you are travelling in your own autonomous vehicle, you get there straightaway.

I do not understand why the Government are not investigating this, but I have talked to the department and indeed they are not investigating it. I very much hope that my noble friend will confirm that this is something they will at least take a look at and that they will do a relatively cheap pilot study on what it would take, what it would cost and where the technology is. I very much hope that that might involve a meeting with me at some stage.

Returning to the main subject, we have a Bill heading in our direction on this. My main interest in that Bill will be standards. I really do not want us to get into a situation where the autonomous vehicle business can be captured by an Uber or an Apple, a service provider or a hardware provider, by dominating standards. We have to take control of our own standards and make them open to make it easy for all sorts of people to compete in what will, at some stage I think, become the dominant mode of transport.

Space Industry Bill [HL]

Lord Lucas Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 16th October 2017 Lords Chamber

With this explanation of the licensing provisions in Clauses 3 and 4, I respectfully ask my noble friend to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I may have misheard, of course, but I did not hear my noble friend the Minister address my noble friend’s question about whether some other activities that should not need a licence might fall under the wording of the Bill because “spaceflight activities” can refer to activities associated with spaceflight rather than just launches. I hope I have understood my noble friend correctly.

[Lord Rosser]

I do not want to prevent an answer to the noble Lord’s question but if the Minister is going to reply to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, I want to come in afterwards.

Autonomous Road Vehicles

Lord Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 25th January 2017 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Lucas]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will commission a feasibility study to consider converting the entire Southern Rail network to a roadway for autonomous vehicles.

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

My Lords, we have no current plans to commission such a study. However, we are investing more than £100 million in research and development into connected and autonomous vehicles, and a further £100 million into testing infrastructure. We have commenced a programme of regulatory reforms that will keep pace with changes in technology as it comes to market. We continue to invest in our national rail infrastructure through transformative projects such as Thameslink and Crossrail to meet ever-increasing passenger demand.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend for the access he gave me to Department for Transport officials and contractors, and congratulate him on the progress being made by his autonomous vehicle projects. Does he agree that the successful pilot currently under way at Heathrow demonstrates the potential of autonomous vehicles to serve on a branch line such as Lewes to Seaford, and that if we demonstrate success on that line, the technology would suit the peripheral parts of the Southern network very well? If we succeed at that, we will be in a great position in an industry with worldwide applications, which is just what we are trying to with the industrial strategy.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, of course we welcome the cutting-edge nature of transport innovation in the rail sector. In particular my noble friend talked about the new systems and operations at Heathrow and the pods being used there. There are also other parts of the rail network such as the DLR and the new rolling stock from Siemens that will be coming on line on Thameslink. There will be a use of technology and autonomous vehicles in what I believe will be controlled environments. He mentioned further innovations on the wider network. We need to see how technology can be adapted on existing systems while recognising that the interface with the people who work in the rail sector is equally important, and look at how their skills can be adapted in line with the technologies we are now seeing across the system.

Infrastructure Bill [HL]

Lord Lucas Excerpts

Monday 9th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb]

I thank the noble Lord for his intervention. Fracking of course risks earth tremors and earthquakes and therefore water could be polluted very easily, so I would argue that his comments have no merit.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

Could the noble Baroness point me to any scientific research that supports what she is saying?

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb]

It is very close at hand if the noble Lord would like to look at it. I can give him any number of sources; I do not have them to hand at the moment but I would be delighted to give them to him afterwards. I am sure that Friends of the Earth and so on would be very pleased to send him a briefing on all this, as they have gone into it extensively.

Publishing Industry

Lord Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 6th February 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, I am a publisher but take a very bleak view of the future of publishing if Amazon goes unchecked—not that it will harm me, but it will kill most of the rest of the industry.

Amazon is an amoral monopsony in its growth phase. It is using extremely low margins to drive market share. It is using aggressive tax avoidance to afford those low margins. It is not just us that it does not pay tax to; it does not pay tax to anybody. It is being allowed by Governments to do this because it is seen as a nice, friendly company to consumers. Indeed, in the days when I shopped with Amazon, I found it a comfortable place to shop but it is coming to dominate the book industry. It is clear that it will soon have over half of all the book trade, physical and virtual. It is causing taxpaying businesses to die. One has just to look at what happened to HMV, which has died largely because of tax competition. A lot of that came from the likes of TheHut out of the Channel Islands but a good deal of it was mediated by Amazon. We now have nowhere to shop on a large scale. The internet retailers have control and the internet retailer that will have control above all is Amazon.

Suppliers will then become dependent on the one retailer. It is clear where Amazon intends to go after that: it intends to take out the publishers. It is already doing that in the States, forming its own relationships with authors and publishing its own exclusive-to-Amazon books. At the end of the day, what need has a company with three-quarters of the book trade of independent publishers? It can do everything itself.

It will continue to use a wide range of predatory tactics to do that. Amazon trawls the web to make sure that it always offers the lowest price on anything. It compels suppliers to charge it less than they do anybody else, on pain of being dropped—either individual projects or entirely. It runs this thing called Amazon Marketplace, where little traders can go, but it knows everything that happens in that marketplace: all communications between a business and its customers, what is being sold and at what price. When it sees a good opportunity, it goes to the supplier and undercuts the trader.

If you use Amazon fulfilment, it will clean up your complaints file so that bad notices will not remain for others to see. If you do not use Amazon fulfilment, it will not. It provides a home for people who are breaching copyright by importing books from outside the appropriate area. It provides a home for people who are running VAT scams. In one way or another, if we do not do something as a Government to remove the tax bias that benefits it, to enforce our existing laws and to put it through the Competition Commission, we will find that we have been steamrollered by Amazon.

Enterprise Act 2002 (Part 8 Domestic Infringements) Order 2013

Lord Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 6th February 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

Did the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, wish to speak?

[Lord Lucas]

I was just sitting down.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

The noble Lord’s fluency in so many matters suggested that he wanted to make a contribution. I am sad that he will not do so.

We on this side welcome the regulations. They are a good step in a direction that many noble Lords will recognise has been a source of considerable annoyance and concern to consumers over many years. In that sense, I want to understand better the approach that the Minister is taking here. He quite rightly explained that there are requirements because of the European Union directive to move in this direction. In many senses today is interesting because the earlier order that we considered also relates to a European Union directive. The choice there was to do something at the latest possible moment whereas the choice here is to take forward the timing of the European Union directive and use it to solve a problem that is, as he said, a domestic rather than a European one. That aside, it is still a good decision.

Underneath this is a history that the Minister touched on but is worth recording. This comes from a civil complaint from Which? that was referred to the OFT, and the OFT generated the momentum behind this. Yes, it could have happened because of the European Union directive but there is sufficient pressure internally. That also shows that the measures brought forward under the previous Government to try to provide for more active consumer protection in this area have been successful. As a result of that, we are seeing these changes today.

In the impact statement, to which the Minister referred, the assertion is made that these drip-pricing approaches—you do not know the full cost of what you are buying online until you get to the final screen and suddenly some additional charges are put in—are, of course, a frustration and an annoyance. It is interesting, however, that the impact assessment is quite coy about whether it will be to the long-term benefit of consumers. It is effectively saying, if you read between the lines, that while the changes in the regulations and the consequences of what is being proposed mean that companies will not be allowed to add these additional charges, or drip charges, to the price that they are quoting and we will therefore be able to compare prices better and get more for our money, in fact, the money that is being taken out of the system through drip pricing will probably re-emerge as additional charges within the main cost. The impact assessment says that,

“the overall price level may fall; however this is considered unlikely”.

I wonder whether the Minister has any more information on that. I looked carefully through the impact assessment and I could not see much documentation about what will happen to prices. Does he think that my assertion is overstated or about right?

My final point is that the CRD—and the regulations implementing it—covers most retail sectors, but does not include some. Will the Minister please explain what is going to happen in areas which are not covered by the CRD or by these regulations? What measures are the Government considering to bring forward in future years to deal with those?