Automated Vehicles Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Naseby and Lord Moylan

3rd reading
Monday 19th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, I will make a short speech, conditioned by my being a former pilot with experience of Boeing, probably the most sophisticated company in the world on unmanned aircraft. The net result so far has been that 346 people died recently, although, thankfully, nobody died in the Alaska experience. Given that situation, although this Bill is supposedly about safety on the roads, we need to take great care; I recognise that we need a framework here, but I hope my noble friend will listen to what the noble Lord suggested earlier in the debate and have the Office of Rail and Road help oversee this Bill as it is implemented in relation to vehicles on the road.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

I briefly congratulate my noble friend the Minister on bringing this useful, modest and largely technical Bill to its completion. The Government have expressed optimism that the arrival of automated vehicles in large numbers on our roads is going to have no effect whatever on how the rest of the road system and other road users operate. It is the principle on which the Bill is based but, to me, it seems to be credible only in the somewhat artificial reality of your Lordships’ House.

My noble friend the Minister and his department still need to address a worry many of us have. He has stated that nothing will change—that facilities for pedestrians, for example, will not be affected—with the arrival of these vehicles, but it is clear that is not wholly credible. The people who have invested in automated vehicles will find that pedestrians and other road users are obstacles to the rollout of their plans, and they will then turn up at the ministry and say, “We have spent all this money, so now you have to do something to make it work for us”. At that point, officials will roll over, Ministers will wave their hands and the money will decide what the policy is. All of this will happen without a parliamentary debate considering the effect of the vehicles and what they mean for road users, especially in urban environments. I hope my noble friend the Minister will find an opportunity to allow us, and the public, a debate about what the vision of our cities is when automated vehicles are operating in large numbers as the Bill makes provision for.

Rail Ticket Offices

Debate between Lord Naseby and Lord Moylan

Wednesday 12th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, is my noble friend aware that—

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords—

United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Debate between Lord Naseby and Lord Moylan

Consideration of Commons amendments & Ping Pong (Hansard) & Ping Pong (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 9th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

This is very much how I read the clauses, but if noble Lords generally feel that I have got the wrong bit of the Bill, then I shall subside at that point.

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, the news that my noble friend from the Front Bench gave us this afternoon is encouraging. Clearly, discussions have been taking place and issues have evolved from them. I do not think that any of us in your Lordships’ House expected every single one of the agreements necessarily to be in a state to be written in and accepted in toto. To hear that 30 agreements have been agreed in broad principle is very encouraging news.

As someone who had a commercial life before coming into the political world, I wonder sometimes whether all your Lordships really understand. A chief executive—such as I was for a division of Reckitt and Colman Group—needs to know, as a certainty, what is happening. They cannot call in the company lawyer and say, “Well, it’s no good, George, you telling me on the one hand this and on the other hand that.” They have spent 15 months producing a new product—or whatever it may be. I sat as MP for an industrial town, Northampton, and I know the industrialists there. I spoke to them on Zoom only yesterday morning, and they are deeply concerned. I then read that the reason why the Commons have disagreed with our Amendments 1, 19 and 34 is

“Because they will create legal uncertainty, which will be disruptive to business.”


I also reflect that I had the privilege—as some of my noble friends in the Chamber did—of being in the other place. They are elected by the people. They have close contact with industry and commerce. When I am told, in writing, that it will be disruptive to business and that is why these Motions A and A1 are before us, I accept it. We have done our part. We are a Chamber that asks people to reflect. We have done that bit and we have done it well. The time comes, at a certain point, when you have to decide one way or the other. In my judgment, Her Majesty’s Government have got it right at this point.