Lord Tunnicliffe debates involving the Department for Transport during the 2019 Parliament

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Automated Vehicles Bill [HL]
Lords Chamber

Committee stage: Part 1 & Committee stage

Renewable Transport Fuel Obligations (Amendment) Order 2024

Lord Tunnicliffe Excerpts
Tuesday 26th March 2024

(2 days, 14 hours ago)

Grand Committee
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That seems to me a major misjudgment. This is being treated as a cost-benefit analysis item for the Treasury, but it has huge implications. By giving this permission, there is the possibility of dealing with a large part of municipal waste problems, and that, surely, is of significance to the public sector. So I think the Government have not looked broadly enough at the impact and potential of this statutory instrument.
Lord Tunnicliffe Portrait Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
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My Lords, I thank the Minister for his presentation of this statutory instrument. It is not an instrument that I have got on with very well. I decided to try to understand it, and that has absorbed a great deal of my time. As I tried to understand it, my old history teacher’s test came to mind: “You don’t understand it until you can explain it in your own words”. So I shall explain what I think it means, in my own words, and see whether the Minister agrees.

At one level, this is an elaborate and benign waste-management exercise. Let us look at the two comparisons here. A renewable transport fuel comes from taking CO2 out of the atmosphere and turning it into fuel using those wonderful devices called “plants”. We then turn the energy captured in those plants into fuel and burn it in vehicle engines and so forth, which releases the energy and the CO2 back into the atmosphere. The impact of the CO2 is neutral: in other words, the plants’ photosynthesis activity captures energy, essentially from the sun, and that energy is turned into fuel and then released.

A recycled carbon fuel takes carbon from beneath the earth, in the form of oil or carbon or whatever, and in this case turns it into something useful such as plastic, which then becomes waste. It is then, in this process, turned into fuel. That means, essentially, that it is burned. Energy is released and the CO2 is released into the atmosphere. The impact of CO2 is adverse, in the sense that carbon is taken from its fossil source and put into the atmosphere, which is a bad thing.

It is only if the feedstocks are not burned wastefully, through incineration or whatever, that there is a net benign effect: only if very strict controls are applied to the feedstock to make sure that it is inevitable that the feedstock is turned into free CO2, left to incineration et cetera—or it goes into landfill, which once again is an adverse outcome. Therefore, properly controlled, this policy is benign and has our support. So the Minister can stop his concerns; we are not going to try to vote this down, first because it is benign and, secondly, because we do not want a constitutional crisis.

Moving on, I have a few questions about this order. The emphasis in the literature seems to be on aviation fuel. Can the Minister give us some feel on the extent to which it will be a significant contribution to aviation fuel or where else it would be used in any significant amount? Indeed, will it be significant in any non-aviation applications? Next, is there an international dimension here in terms of the UK creating this instrument, which will stop the development of international agreements on this way of handling waste? Finally, is it within this instrument’s power for the Government to withdraw it, because it needs to meet two tests? The first is on the strict control of the feedstock while the second is about whether the financial incentives contained in the order actually work. If it is impossible to get a set of financial incentives that work, can the Government withdraw the instrument and its impact?

Lord Davies of Gower Portrait Lord Davies of Gower (Con)
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My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their consideration of this order. I will now attempt to respond to the specific points that they made.

Let me start by saying that the RTFO includes a range of strict eligibility criteria to ensure that all fuels supplied are sustainable and provide a minimum level of greenhouse gas savings. Although RCFs are a fossil fuel, and therefore emit fossil carbon when combusted, their carbon savings are determined by comparison to the counterfactual end-of-life fate of the waste feedstock. For instance, black binbag waste uses an assumption that the waste would otherwise be incinerated in an energy-from-waste plant and calculates the benefit seen by diverting that waste into fuel production. This still needs to provide an emissions saving of 50% compared to simply using fossil diesel.

Different counterfactuals can be considered, depending on the specific waste feedstock. This ensures that the use of these fuels delivers effective greenhouse gas savings. Converting residual non-recyclable waste plastic into recycled carbon fuels can encourage a more effective use of our waste, as it can achieve greater energy recovery than disposing of the waste via conventional means.

Any recycled fuel produced from plastics will have to meet the same fuel standards as all other fuels to gain support from the RTFO. We are aware that pyrolysis oil, which is an initial stage of chemical waste recycling, can be used as a fuel for some applications and can have negative air quality issues associated with its use. However, such fuel would not be eligible under the RTFO order proposed here, as it does not meet the relevant fuel standards outlined in the order. Pyrolysis oil created during RCF production would need to be further refined into a diesel fuel that complies with existing fuel standards to receive RTFO support. We are not aware of any evidence to suggest that this would alter the air quality performance of the final fuel compared to regular diesel.

I will now address one or two of the points that were made. The noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, made a couple of points; in particular, he talked about nuclear-derived fuels. I can tell him that we received the primary powers required to support nuclear-derived fuels under the RTFO following Royal Assent of the Energy Act 2023. We continue to consider the inclusion of nuclear-derived fuels in the RTFO. We have confirmed that the forthcoming mandate for sustainable aviation fuels will support nuclear-derived fuels; it is on track to come into force on 1 January 2025.

On the issue of cross-departmental working, DESNZ, the DfT and the Treasury are absolutely aware of the need for it and are making great efforts to work together in order to take it forward.

Avanti Trains

Lord Tunnicliffe Excerpts
Tuesday 27th February 2024

(1 month ago)

Lords Chamber
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Lord Davies of Gower Portrait Lord Davies of Gower (Con)
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I will certainly have a look at that.

Lord Tunnicliffe Portrait Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
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My Lords, I commend my noble friend Lord Snape for his tenacious pursuit of Avanti’s inferior performance. However, it is not just Avanti; Govia Thameslink regularly fails two-thirds of its performance measures. The industry is in a mess. Why do His Majesty’s Government not initiate legislation, already in draft, to create Great British Railways; or even better, call a general election and hand over this mess to a properly mandated Government?

Lord Davies of Gower Portrait Lord Davies of Gower (Con)
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The noble Lord asks about the Govia Thameslink Railway service. The new service quality regime was introduced in 2023, and the targets set for that period were drawn from the best available information at that time. We have been able to review and evaluate the outcomes of a standard set in 2022-23, with new levels for 2023-24. The department regularly discusses and reviews performance with Govia Thameslink Railway, and its service quality regime results have improved year on year. We will continue to hold it to account to deliver further improvements for passengers.

Lord Ranger of Northwood Portrait Lord Ranger of Northwood (Con)
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My Lords, I echo the thanks to my noble friend the Minister and his team for all the work they have done on the Bill. I also echo the thoughts that this is just one Bill. We are on a journey with this technology and these vehicles, and where it will be going.

I would like to address some of the comments that have been made from all sides of the House, because I hear the fear, worry and concern, as technology takes a giant leap forward. We worry about the implications for the world as we see it now. However, the world changes and adjusts. I understand the questions the noble Baroness had about data, its ownership, its power and the responsibility. When we launched the Oyster card in London in 2003, the first time data would be captured en masse—tracking peoples’ individual movements—I remember similar challenges being made as to what we would do with it.

We have come a long way in 20-plus years. We understand a lot more about the power of data and how it can be used for the benefit of people, as much as the challenge there is to keep it safe. I hope that will be echoed in the usage of data with these vehicles.

Additionally, I hear the voice of my noble friend Lord Moylan. We worked together many a year ago at TfL, bringing in implementations. Back then, there was a significant challenge to another change we were implementing. We were told pedestrians would be vulnerable; we were told accessibility would be reduced; we were told safety would be jeopardised. What was the change we were bringing in? It was bicycles: the cycle hire scheme for London. There are always challenges to bringing in new schemes. They are always seen as having many problems on safety and security, and vulnerabilities. As I say, this is in the context of the world as we see it, not maybe as we can amend it and make it better.

This is the journey. There will be more Bills, and we will scrutinise further the use-cases and the opportunities that this technology will bring, for the benefit of designing the future with safety in mind, I hope.

Lord Tunnicliffe Portrait Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
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My Lords, I thank the Minister and his team for their co-operation on the Bill. I thank my co-spokesman, my noble friend Lord Liddle, and Grace Wright, our researcher.

When I wrote these few lines down, I was full of unbridled optimism for the Bill—but I had better come back a bit. I am sorry that the concerns of the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, have not been satisfied; they were good and proper concerns, but I am sure that they will be properly considered.

Proceedings on the Bill have been very much the House of Lords at its best, and that was very much facilitated by the Minister. Like the Lib Dems, we had several meetings with him, and issues were generally treated on their merits. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, is not more reassured by the changes we made to the safety standard. I believe that the safety standard that is now in the Bill is a good one that regulators will be able to work with and that is robust enough to stand up to enterprises with a great deal of money. I, for one at least, say that we have a better Bill of which this House can be proud.

Baroness Randerson Portrait Baroness Randerson (LD)
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My Lords, following on from the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, I remind the House that I raised national security and people hacking into the system at Second Reading. Group 5 today deals with data protection issues; careful control of data is one way in which to make it more difficult for outside forces to hack into it. However, if you present a complete picture of every road and road sign in Britain to people who are able to drive around the UK, then you are opening a very big picture to the world. There will be people who want to take advantage of that in a way which could be hugely damaging.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, for his amendments. We had a vigorous debate in Committee about issues of safety. I do not know whether the definition produced in government Amendment 3 is absolutely the last word on the topic, but the Government have moved a long way. I thank the Minister for that amendment, which is an advance and improvement on the original. As the noble Lord, Lord Borwick, said, we need to take into account issues associated with international definitions. Government Amendment 7 is also important as a step forward, because it gives this House an important role at a key point when that statement of safety principles is issued.

The Minister will be pleased to know that I took his advice and went to visit Wayve in King’s Cross. Wayve is a local company which is developing a driverless car—an automated vehicle. I went for quite a long drive around the streets of King’s Cross and can report that I found it surprisingly relaxing. I did not expect to be relaxed but I was. I mention this because one key point was made to me during that drive, as we overtook a cyclist very carefully. The key point was that these cars will always be programmed to drive legally; that is a great deal better than you and me as, from time to time, we lapse from the highest standards. Some people out there drive in a way which does not follow the law—they wilfully drive too fast or inconsiderately, and so on.

Another point was made to me, because during that drive, first, we had a very indecisive elderly lady wondering whether she was going to cross at a zebra crossing and, secondly, we had that cyclist. Of course, those users are always going to be there, because even when we have totally driverless cars, which will be decades on, we are still going to have human nature intervening, so this is a very complex issue.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, for his contribution. I also thank the Minister for the steps forward that we have made in improving the definition and the role of this House in the statement of safety principles.

Lord Tunnicliffe Portrait Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
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My Lords, I think this group has two subgroups. There is the subgroup of amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Davies, and my noble friend Lord Berkeley’s subgroup. I am afraid to tell my noble friend that we will support the Davies subgroup and not the Berkeley subgroup.

There are many reasons for this, ending with a very pragmatic one. First, the proposals from the noble Lord, Lord Davies, are structurally sound as they separate the roles of Clause 1 and Clause 2. Clause 1, as it will stand after these amendments, in essence says, among other things, that there shall be a safety standard. The clause is headed “Basic concepts”. Clause 2 attempts to address what that safety standard shall be.

We believe that government Amendment 3 is right. It is a very sound definition of “safe enough”. It is built around the well-crafted concept of

“careful and competent human drivers”.

It is today’s standard at its best. It is today’s standard after, as is set out in the commissioners’ report, eliminating the distracted, the drowsy, the drunk, the drugged and the disqualified. It is a high standard but not an infinite standard. It recognises that there has to be a limitation, otherwise the whole pursuit of a standard that is not defined becomes impossible.

It passes what I consider to be the death test. One of these vehicles is going to kill somebody. It is inevitable; the sheer volume of events will mean that something will go wrong. It is at that moment that you have to be able to respond to public opinion, have a standard that is easy for people to understand and defend it. I know this because I have been in that position when running a railway. The 1974 Act that applies to railways demands a standard: that the risk is as low as reasonably practical. It is one of the most brilliant pieces of legislation ever passed. Its impact on safety in this country has been enormous. Its impact on construction and railways, and its crossover impact on nuclear, have served this country well. I believe that this standard, which involves being as safe as a careful and competent driver, is the natural equivalent.

I also note that the law commissions produced three answers. Since they took three years or something to come to these three answers, it seems a pretty good idea to pick one of them. They were options A, B and C. Option C is, in my view, clearly rejected by these amendments. That option was to be

“overall, safer than the average human driver”.

The average human driver includes this wonderful list of distracted, drowsy, drunk, drugged and disqualified drivers. The world is a better place for eliminating them. Option B was

“as safe as a human driver who does not cause a fault accident”.

That is so ill defined that even the law commissions gave up on it. Option A is this one:

“as safe as a competent and careful human driver”.

It passes that test in a way that, when the experts set about turning this into regulations, I believe it will be feasible for them to achieve.

We also support government Amendment 7, which is a compromise. It ensures that Parliament—the importance of Parliament is very much brought out in the supporting documentation—has a positive involvement with the initial statement of safety principles. It also assures us that there will be a negative involvement with subsequent revisions. That is a balance, and we can support that.

I am afraid that government Amendments 3 and 7 have a rather unique advantage that we should not ignore: the name on them is the Minister’s, that of the noble Lord, Lord Davies. But, with the greatest respect to him, if you rub out “Lord Davies” and look under that name, you see “His Majesty’s Government”. Their majority in the other place means that these two amendments will become law—a piece of law that will guide this industry well.

I turn to an issue that is not so directly involved but needs to be there to tidy things up: the principles relating to equality and fairness. What does this mean in this environment? This too is set out in the law commissions’ report. In essence it means that an autonomous vehicle does not come at the expense of any particular group of road users. The policy scoping notes say:

“Government is likely to include a safety principle relating to equality and fairness”.


That is not there at the moment, but I am delighted to be advised by the Minister that this will be changed from “likely to include” to “will include”. This emphasis is particularly important for pedestrians, who must not be sacrificed to achieve the introduction of automated vehicles.

Lord Hampton Portrait Lord Hampton (CB)
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My Lords, I will speak in support of Amendments 1 and 4 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley. We dealt with safety a lot in Committee, and it is paramount. This is the most important part of the Bill. I became an enthusiast about automated vehicles because I turned up to a briefing. Most people you talk to are ambivalent at best, and there is a sort of dystopian “Blade Runner” worry about faceless terminator drones.

Safety needs to be beyond reproach when bad things happen. As the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, said, bad things will happen—deaths will happen. We need to be able to face people and say that we did the best we possibly could. The noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, said this needs to be easy to understand and define; that is absolutely right, but it needs to be equivalent to, or better than, a driver who does the best in a driving test. That does not sound too high to me.

Amendment 4 mentions “significantly” improving road safety. The noble Lord, Lord Borwick, said that we should expect all autonomous vehicles to be better than human drivers, but what if they are not? We need to hold them to account. This would make the whole thing easier to sell to a sceptical public, as opposed to the government amendment. I am not a lawyer, but I do not see why trying to make things significantly better would deter players from joining the market. The industry will spend money on this only when it sees a momentum shift in public opinion, which is why safety is so important and why these amendments are so important.

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Baroness Randerson Portrait Baroness Randerson (LD)
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My Lords, I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Borwick, because I think he underestimates the market that will be created. I do not for one minute think that EU countries with high social standards, for example, or the United States of America, will not have a reasonably sized market of people who are elderly and disabled, and that there will not be a demand for vehicles of this sort. The vehicles will be created, and the market will be there as well as here. We are talking about enlarging the market. Instead of diminishing the market, so that it is only for people who are physically able-bodied, we are enlarging it to include a lot of other people, who will be very dependent on vehicles of this sort.

We are gazing into the future. It will not be fundamental if we get some aspects of this wrong, because we will be able to put it right in future legislation. But if we get this aspect of the Bill wrong, it will prove very costly to change course on the design of vehicles, which will have been conceived and built the wrong way. We will then face costs of adjustment as well as huge social costs, because we will have a generation of people who are stuck at home rather than being able to use vehicles as they should be able to.

Lord Tunnicliffe Portrait Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
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My Lords, I will not take up the House’s time. We have nothing to add to this debate, although it has been very interesting. I have to deliver our judgment, which is that we are pretty sympathetic to this group. Much will depend on what the Minister says, and the extent to which he is able to give assurances may cause our view to change, but we are broadly sympathetic and will listen carefully to the response of the noble Lord, Lord Holmes.

Lord Davies of Gower Portrait Lord Davies of Gower (Con)
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I thank noble Lords for their contributions to this debate, particularly those who joined me for a detailed discussion following Committee.

The Government want all parts of society, including those with disabilities, to be able to reap the benefits of self-driving technology; I see no disagreement between us on that point. The question at hand is not one of ambition but rather the most appropriate form and timing of intervention.

It bears repeating that we are all dealing with an industry in its infancy. It is not clear what kinds of services will ultimately come forward, and therefore what kind of accessibility provisions are appropriate. What is clear, however, is that if we try to compensate for that uncertainty with unnecessarily broad requirements, the greatest risk is that the industry simply does not develop at all.

If we want self-driving technology to serve the needs of disabled people, we must have a viable self-driving industry in the first place. That is why we have anchored our approach in the recommendations put forward by the law commissions. Their central conclusion on this issue was that our focus should be on gathering evidence and gaining experience. On their recommendation we have built reporting on accessibility into the new passenger permit scheme and have committed to using this learning to develop national accessibility standards for permits. Although we will do so in a more flexible, non-statutory form, it is on their recommendation that we are establishing an accessibility advisory panel to inform that process. We will of course also draw on the deep and hugely valuable expertise of our existing statutory Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee.

Alongside this, the Government will continue to support the development of accessible self-driving vehicle designs. This investment has already helped five separate projects to deploy accessible vehicles, and there will be further opportunities as part of our £150 million CAM pathfinder fund, announced last year.

Beginning with Amendment 8, the authorisation process exists to ensure that self-driving vehicles operate safely. It is not designed to regulate the physical construction of vehicles. Indeed, as my noble friend Lord Borwick points out, most developers are currently working to incorporate self-driving systems into existing, mass-produced models, not creating new vehicles from scratch.

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Lord Tunnicliffe Portrait Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
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My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Berkeley for raising these issues. I am afraid that my consideration of these things comes to the conclusion that it is a mess. There are various bodies in the Department for Transport that have various responsibilities in various other forms of transport. There is the road safety investigation branch; I cannot for the life of me see why we are going to have a road safety investigation branch. If we are, I am not quite clear in my mind how that will add value. Some clarification from the Minister would be welcome. We probably need a sensible internal review in the Department for Transport to see to what extent we need all these bodies or whether they have sufficient common themes to be brought together, thereby bringing together the expertise. All in all, I think this is a challenge for the Government, and I hope they rise to it.

Lord Davies of Gower Portrait Lord Davies of Gower (Con)
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I am very grateful to the noble Lord for taking the time to meet me yesterday to discuss these issues in more detail. I absolutely agree with him on the importance of independent input into the system, and I have already touched on where the Government see these key functions lying. As the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, mentioned, this is central to the purpose of the independent statutory inspectors, whose role is established in Part 3, Chapter 2 of the Bill. They will have complete independence and all the necessary powers to investigate incidents involving self-driving vehicles and make public recommendations to improve the safety of the system. They are functionally the same as their marine, air and rail equivalents. All these bodies are part of the department, but nonetheless maintain their independence.

Separately, the Government will continue to be held to account in Parliament on their administration of the self-driving system—both at the Dispatch Box and by the Transport Select Committee. Indeed, government Amendment 7 will enable even greater scrutiny in this House of the first iteration of our statement of safety principles. Finally, we will continue to receive independent advice from our expert advisory panel, featuring representatives from the RAC Foundation, the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee, and a selection of academics and engineers.

I will begin with Amendments 12 to 17, which look to change the role and purpose of the statutory inspectors to cover vehicle technologies that were never designed to meet the self-driving test. Our focus in this piece of legislation is on delivering the recommendations of the law commissions. Recommendation 32 of their report specifically calls for independent incident investigation to form part of the self-driving vehicle safety framework.

Our view is therefore that the inspectors’ role should be focused explicitly on incidents involving self-driving vehicles. This will require specific skills and expertise, and close working with the other arms of the self-driving safety framework. I recognise the noble Lord’s desire to see the remit expanded. While I fear that we disagree on that point, I assure him that the Bill permits flexibility to make sure that edge cases are not excluded. For example, the inspectors’ powers extend to vehicles that have at any point been authorised as self-driving, including those that, for whatever reason, have had their authorisation revoked or otherwise called into question. Further, provided an incident involves at least one self-driving vehicle, inspectors will be able to investigate all vehicles involved, self-driving or otherwise.

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Amendments 9A and 9B look to establish a potential role for the ORR in providing advice to the Secretary of State in support of the general monitoring duty in Clause 38. Given its focus on motorways and major A roads in England, the ORR is not currently set up to monitor safety performance across the whole road network or the whole of Great Britain. Adding the duties suggested in the amendment would be a significant expansion of its remit. In its existing monitoring remit, the ORR will already need to consider the impact of self-driving vehicles on the safety performance of the strategic road network. We therefore do not consider the amendment to be necessary. Once again, I am grateful to the noble Lord for sharing his expertise on these points and hope that my explanation offers sufficient clarification of the position.
Lord Tunnicliffe Portrait Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
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Before the Minister sits down, will he do me a personal favour and put me out of my agony? What has happened to the road safety investigation branch?

Lord Davies of Gower Portrait Lord Davies of Gower (Con)
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I am not sure that I completely understand, so I am unable to give an answer. As far as I understand, it still exists.

Lord Tunnicliffe Portrait Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
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It does not exist.

Lord Berkeley Portrait Lord Berkeley (Lab)
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My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lords who have taken part in this short debate and for the support I have received from many colleagues. My noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe hit the nail on the head when he said that because so many different organisations are getting involved in this, it might be confusing. I will leave aside the road safety investigation branch he just mentioned.

There is benefit in reflecting on what everybody has said today. I hope the Minister will be prepared for some of us to meet him in the near future—although probably not before Third Reading—to look at the overall structure, taking into account the words I used earlier: impartiality, independence, transparency and assurance. I am not trying to suggest that any of the existing activities being done very well by the department should be taken over, but it might be very useful to have something independent for a venture as new as this. For the moment, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Pedicabs (London) Bill [HL]

Lord Tunnicliffe Excerpts
Lord Davies of Gower Portrait Lord Davies of Gower (Con)
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My Lords, this final group of amendments covers the process for regulations made under the Bill. Amendment 3 places responsibility for making pedicab regulations solely with Transport for London, meaning that pedicab regulations will no longer be subject to any form of parliamentary procedure.

Noble Lords will be aware that this marks a shift in the Government’s approach. The Government have listened to, and reflected on, the points raised at Second Reading and in Grand Committee, and reached the conclusion that these powers should rest with Transport for London. The Government have reached this view for several important reasons. First, it is consistent with the position for taxi and private hire vehicle licensing in the capital, where Transport for London has demonstrable experience of operating effective licensing regimes. Secondly, the Bill’s provisions extend to Greater London only, addressing the legal anomaly that has meant that London’s pedicab industry has been unregulated. The Bill presents a solution to a London-centric issue. Thirdly and finally, the relative size of the pedicab industry in London is an important factor. Estimates suggest that pedicab numbers range from 200 up to 900 in peak season. This is a significantly smaller industry than London’s taxi and PHV industries, where there are over 100,000 licensed vehicles and over 120,000 licensed drivers. Therefore, this amendment offers a proportionate approach.

While I am confident that this amendment is supported by the majority of your Lordships, I am aware that there may be some noble Lords concerned that Transport for London would seize this opportunity to remove all pedicabs from London’s streets, or to impose draconian restrictions that all but ban these vehicles. I reiterate that I do not—

Lord Tunnicliffe Portrait Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
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I apologise for jumping in on this point but it is very important. The Minister said that the generation of regulations would be solely the responsibility of Transport for London, which is exactly where we seek to be. In preparing for this debate I looked through the Bill, and all the Minister’s amendment does—I say “all” but it may be enough, in which case I will be delighted—is to take a subsection out of Clause 6. Can I be assured that that subsection’s deletion effectively removes any DfT input to the creation of regulations other than the amendment that goes with it to introduce guidance?

Lord Davies of Gower Portrait Lord Davies of Gower (Con)
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Yes, that is my understanding of the amendment and is correct.

Although I am confident that this amendment is supported by the majority of your Lordships, as I said, I am aware that some noble Lords may be concerned that Transport for London would seize this opportunity to remove all pedicabs from London’s streets or to impose draconian restrictions. However, I reiterate that I do not understand this to be TfL’s intention and, furthermore, it is highly unlikely that pedicab regulations could be used to do this.

However, this moves me to Amendment 4, which gives the Secretary of State the option of issuing statutory guidance to Transport for London relating to how functions under pedicab regulations are exercised. The amendment specifies that statutory guidance may cover how functions are exercised so as to protect children and vulnerable adults from harm. This amendment intends to strike a balance with the removal of parliamentary procedure for secondary legislation made under the Bill. The Government remain aware this will be a newly regulated industry, and this amendment will give the Secretary of State the option of influencing the shape of the London pedicab regime.

Transport for London or any person authorised by it to carry out functions under pedicab regulations on its behalf will need to have regard to guidance issued by the Secretary of State. This provides a level of oversight which I hope provides assurance to any noble Lords with concerns. Further to this, Clause 1(3) requires TfL to conduct a consultation prior to making pedicab regulations.

I hope this demonstrates that the Government have listened, and that these amendments are viewed by your Lordships as a thoughtful way forward, one which will best enable Transport for London to commence work on bringing forward its regulatory regime. I beg to move.

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Lord Tunnicliffe Portrait Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
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My Lords, I first thank the Minister, as others have done, for the amount of time he has taken on this Bill. Our central concern was that this is a London problem, and we created TfL to look after London’s problems. Now, I am in favour of TfL—somewhat biasedly, because I helped create it—but it has lived up to our expectations and has done a good job over the 23 years of its existence. It is very much the right organisation to do this task.

I thank the Minister for his Amendment 3, which he assures me will give TfL sole responsibility for developing regulations. I do take the point about why subsections (1), (3) and (4) are being retained, but I am sure it is all right because I have faith in the wonderful drafting powers of his team. If, upon consideration, they become a concern, I am sure that a government amendment will be tabled at Third Reading to amend any conflicts between the different parts. I hope he will give that consideration, if his team do advise him that there is a conflict.

Having said that I am in favour of Transport for London doing this task, I grudgingly accept that some of the concerns about TfL getting carried away and banning everything in sight, and making people bankrupt by charging them utterly unreasonable fees et cetera, do make a case for Amendment 4. Therefore, I recognise that that is the trade-off between the important position to take throughout the parliamentary process, while making sure there is a potential for government to create guidance that TfL has to have regard to. The balance between the two amendments, from our point of view, is acceptable.

The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, has produced Amendment 5, which is drafted very much in the terms of many of her amendments, in the sense that it is motherhood. I am actually in favour of motherhood; it helps the world go round, and it says a series of sensible things. But the problem with putting something in legislation is whether it says all the things that should be said, or whether, conversely, it contradicts things that might be wanted. I am afraid I cannot support her. I do not think it is her intention to press the amendment, but I do commend it as a questionnaire for the Minister, to clarify the Government’s position on the points raised.

Lord Davies of Gower Portrait Lord Davies of Gower (Con)
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My Lords, I once again thank your Lordships for their careful consideration of the Bill. I have outlined the purpose of the Government’s amendments in this group, and will now address Amendment 5, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson.

I first reiterate the Government’s objective in bringing forward this Bill. The purpose is to provide Transport for London with the tools it needs to regulate London’s pedicabs so that journeys and vehicles are safer and fairer. This means addressing both the safety-related and traffic-related concerns, and tackling the antisocial and nuisance behaviour of certain pedicab operators and drivers.

Amendment 5, which attempts to set objectives to which the Secretary of State must have regard when issuing statutory guidance, shares the Government’s objectives. However, this has been tabled in response to the Government’s Amendment 4, which provides the Secretary of State with the option of issuing statutory guidance to Transport for London relating to the exercise of its functions and the pedicab regulations. This provides clear parameters for the scope of any statutory guidance and therefore Amendment 5 is not necessary, as the matters it covers are addressed by provisions in the Bill. In addition, I note that prescribing in detail what the Secretary of State must consider when issuing guidance could have the effect of inadvertently excluding from the scope of the guidance matters which have not been specifically listed. For this reason, a general approach is considered preferable.

I will highlight some of the relevant provisions in the Bill. Clause 2(5) covers fares, including what fares may be charged and how passengers are notified of these. Clause 2(6) covers a wide range of issues relating to the operation of London’s pedicabs. This includes safety, the quality and roadworthiness of pedicabs, the working conditions of drivers and their conduct. Clause 2(7) gives Transport for London the power to place limitations on where and when pedicabs can operate, and Transport for London has already confirmed it will need to give proper consideration to the matter of pedicab ranks, taking into account the needs of pedicab drivers, passengers and other road users. Clause 3 sets out the enforcement mechanisms available to Transport for London and includes details of penalties.

A couple of points were raised by noble Lords. The noble Lord, Lord Storey, talked about identification of the pedicabs. That really will be a matter for Transport for London, however it intends to license them. I can think of various ways it could do it; I am sure he could as well but it will be a matter for Transport for London. On the point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, regarding the need to consult, that is written into the Bill, most certainly, and I feel quite sure that cycling organisations will be included in that. I think that more or less covers everything apart from the point from the noble Lord, Lord Borwick. On that, we can confirm that this is solely Transport for London’s responsibility.

East Coast Main Line

Lord Tunnicliffe Excerpts
Wednesday 24th January 2024

(2 months ago)

Lords Chamber
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Lord Davies of Gower Portrait Lord Davies of Gower (Con)
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I hear what my noble friend says. I will certainly take it back and have a look at it.

Lord Tunnicliffe Portrait Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
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My Lords, the Minister implies that the 2024 timetable is more or less complete. That would have involved seven railway operators, Network Rail and the DfT achieving a consensus. Such a consensus would have had winners and losers. Who made the decision as to who would be the losers?

Lord Davies of Gower Portrait Lord Davies of Gower (Con)
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With great respect to the noble Lord, I am not too sure that I understand his question. Perhaps we can have a look at it later.

Private Crossings (Signs and Barriers) Regulations 2023

Lord Tunnicliffe Excerpts
Wednesday 17th January 2024

(2 months, 1 week ago)

Lords Chamber
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Baroness Browning Portrait Baroness Browning (Con)
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My Lords, I apologise to the House and the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley: I was a little late for the beginning of his opening remarks, although I did hear most of what he had to say.

I just want to say to my noble friend that on my journey to the House each week, I travel through the beautiful New Forest in Hampshire. This is the Weymouth to Waterloo line, so we travel at quite a speed. Across the section that covers the New Forest, there are crossings for pedestrians and for horse riders. As we approach a crossing, at a reasonable distance, the train driver is always required to sound the whistle. Would my noble friend consider whether that could be the answer for heritage railways—that the drivers of trains travelling at a much slower speed than the Weymouth to Waterloo train should sound the whistle? It seems to me that, if this has been satisfactory for so many years on a fast main line with South Western Railway, surely it would be adequate for heritage railways.

Lord Tunnicliffe Portrait Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
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My Lords, our Front-Bench team on transport has grown dramatically over the past six months, from one to two. From time to time, my new partner—my noble friend Lord Liddle—and I have agreed on who should take business on a case-by-case basis. I thought that I would do the magnificent thing and offer to take this one. Little did I know how foolish that would turn out to be.

The essence of my noble friend Lord Berkeley’s regret Motion is that he is basically saying, “Here’s all this stuff that defines what this should be, but it’s going to involve costs”. It is not self-evident from the regulations that it will but, as you go into this, it becomes clear that, largely speaking, it will. I managed to knock together some paperwork this morning with the help of my friend Google and I have looked into this. As one who has done thousands of statutory instruments, I know that the first thing to do is not read the regulations, because they are almost impossible to read—so you go to the Explanatory Memorandum. However, in this case the EM came to the knowledge of the splendid Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee; it did a full job on these regulations, including extracting from the department a set of answers to its questions, which created much more information.

One thing that comes out of this is the fact that there is no impact assessment, because it will be below £5 million in any single year, et cetera. When one reads the appendix, one realises that the creation of this document makes doing it mandatory, even though the statutory instrument itself does not say so. I thought, “Well, I’m not going to be able to oppose this instrument”. I mean, no Labour person could stand up and criticise the Government for spending more money on railway safety—and I am sure that, deep down, it makes sense. Sadly, that sense has eluded me. The immediate questions that come up are these: why are we doing this? What is the hazard? What problems are we seeing? Our attention is drawn to two accidents: RAIB report 12/2018 and RAIB report 07/2016.

I fought my way through the labyrinth and found these reports. They were remarkably unconvincing on signage solving all the problems. I then went to the appendix, which has a really interesting table of data. If I am reading it correctly, there has been one fatality in the last five years. I know that one fatality is important but, given the hazards on the railway, this is a very low-risk environment. Having read the document with more care, I see that it is all down to a risk assessment.

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On enforcement, the Office of Rail and Road will advise if signs are safe, but there will be no enforcement mechanism as such. The noble Lord, Lord Snape, raised an issue regarding the duties of the Office of Rail and Road. Perhaps I could respond to him in due course in writing on that. On his point about future deaths, I cannot project such a thing, but we hope that the new and proper signage will help to prevent deaths. I can say that during the period 2017 to 2022, there were 1,508 near misses at user-worked crossings.
Lord Tunnicliffe Portrait Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
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The essence of my point is that, superficially, this burden offends the rule that the railways claim to take through the ORR that safety improvements are not necessary if their cost is grossly disproportionate to the benefit. If it is above £5 million you would have to set that down on a piece of paper. Would the Minister mind setting out on a piece of paper, and sharing it with all who have spoken, how the department came to the conclusion that the benefits are greater than the cost and that the cost is not grossly disproportionate to the benefit? It is a simple idea that saves the railways spending lots and lots of unnecessary money. It is a very sensible idea and it is recorded; eventually you find it in their rules. The sum should have been done.

Lord Davies of Gower Portrait Lord Davies of Gower (Con)
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My Lords, we could discuss this for ever and a day: the cost of a life. To me, one life saved, at whatever cost, is a life saved. That is particularly important.

Lord Tunnicliffe Portrait Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
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I am sorry, but safety legislation, in virtually every area, does not take that view. We do not talk about it very much, but the ability to spend money on safety is almost infinite. There has to be a point where you say “Enough is enough”—otherwise, transport and virtually all activity involving risk would grind to a halt. You have to take a sensible, proportionate view, which British safety legislation does. The very sound Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 does not require risk to be eliminated; it requires it to be reduced to as low as reasonably practicable, and a court has ruled that that test includes cost.

Lord Davies of Gower Portrait Lord Davies of Gower (Con)
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I am afraid we will have to agree to disagree on that point at this stage. I now have to conclude—

Automated Vehicles Bill [HL]

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Lord Lucas Portrait Lord Lucas (Con)
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My Lords, I very much hope that the Government will look at Amendment 25, in the context not only of this Bill but of whether the MoT test needs updating anyway in these respects. More and more aspects of automation are coming into cars. We heard last time how cars can be frightened of bags blowing in the road or reluctant to change lanes when asked as a result of automated features; doubtless, more will come in. Such features are having a noticeable effect on the way that a car behaves on the road. We ought to test to make sure that they are operating properly. I do not see any trace of that in the MoT as it is. We should be aware of the need to move.

Lord Tunnicliffe Portrait Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
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My Lords, I will speak briefly to each of the amendments in this group, a lot of which have what I call a “motherhood” characteristic. In other words, they are self-evidently sensible things to do; the debate is whether these ideas are properly caught by the language or whether, indeed, they need to be on the face of the Bill. Therefore, I would like the Minister to try to answer in two ways: first, whether he essentially disagrees with the concept in the amendment and, secondly, if he agrees with it, why we should not have it in the Bill.

I start with Amendment 25; I believe Amendment 59 is consequential to it. This is an entirely reasonable amendment. It is difficult to believe that the standards expected and the areas considered will be identical—or even largely identical—to the present MoT regime, and therefore I think a review is entirely sensible.

Similarly, my noble friend Lord Berkeley has made a good point in Amendment 37A—and, as I read it, Amendment 57A is consequential—that the Office of Rail and Road could make a singular contribution. The ORR’s problem is that it has the responsibilities of a railway inspectorate on the one hand and, potentially, of a road inspectorate with particular reference to this area. The problem, particularly on the railways, is that there is often not enough business to keep such teams properly employed. The skills required are very similar. It could be a merger of two teams or learning from each other—there are all sorts of things that one can think of when it comes to drawing the rail and road people into the way that the various investigatory and rule-setting powers would work. As I said, Amendment 57A is consequential.

My noble friend Lord Liddle has three amendments in this group. I shall speak particularly to Amendments 40 and 41. I did not find these the easiest to read because the whole problem of taking a statement and then adapting it to a new meaning is not without its hazards. I will quote the appropriate subsections from Clause 61. Subsection (1) says:

“The main purpose of the role of inspector is that of identifying, improving understanding of, and reducing the risks of harm arising from the use of authorised automated vehicles on roads in Great Britain”.


That is then conditioned by subsection (2):

“It is no part of that purpose to establish blame or liability on the part of any person in relation to a particular incident”.


That is a no-fault environment in which many people would agree you get a better result out of the inspection of events. However, we feel that we need to take that further. Amendment 40 would add, at the end of the wording in subsection (2),

“unless the investigation concludes that a failure in the technology of an automated vehicle is at fault”.

That would give it a specific requirement to bring out and invite the inspector to say, “It was the technology that caused this accident”. We think it important that they are able to specify that the technology was at fault.

Clause 68(1) says:

“An inspector must report any findings of an investigation to the Secretary of State”.


In a sense, that implies that this is pretty routine stuff and it only needs to go to the Secretary of State. We believe that because of the complexity, and the obvious desire of the people who have looked at this at some length that parliamentarians should be involved with the evolution of this, there should be a caveat to that. Amendment 41 proposes to add

“who must lay this report before Parliament should the investigation find a technological failure of an automated vehicle to be the cause, or one of the causes, of an incident”.

So the situation would be that the Secretary of State received all reports where the technology had not been found at fault, but where the technology had been found at fault, that would be reported to Parliament.

In Amendment 55E, the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, has asked for a workforce strategy. This is classic. The whole of the UK, frankly, calls for a workforce strategy, and over and over again you see decisions being made without regard to the workforce capability. There is a good case for this particular role, but the Government should grasp the proper use of workforce strategies in managing our society. We think of the problems of doing something as being about physical things, such as factories, but over and over again it is the limitation of skills. Any activity is as much about the skill of the people working with it—it is particularly interesting to look at this in the military—as it is about the kit they are using to deliver it. We should be thinking more and more in these terms. I do not know whether this is one of the launch areas, but bringing it up in the Bill was a good thing.

Finally, Amendment 56A from my noble friend Lord Liddle, as stated in the explanatory statement, is

“to probe the difference between ‘automated,’ ‘autonomous,’ ‘autonomously’ and ‘self-driving’”.

There is an unwritten rule that, when writing standards, you never use synonyms. The moment you use synonyms you ask people to start trying to define the difference. If you have a good, simple concept, it should have one label in any regulation. It makes the writing very boring, because there is so much repetition, but it makes it unambiguous. I am afraid that this document is somewhat ambiguous because of the various terms that it uses for the same concept.

Lord Davies of Gower Portrait Lord Davies of Gower (Con)
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My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their contributions. The amendments in this group concern the day-to-day operation of the regulatory framework.

Amendment 40, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, refers specifically to incidents in which the technology of a self-driving vehicle is at fault. In such a situation, it would be for the in-use regulatory scheme to determine whether regulatory sanctions were appropriate. Criminal penalties would also apply if the authorised self-driving entity had failed to disclose relevant safety information. Separately, a statutory inspector may also conduct an independent safety investigation. The statutory inspector is then responsible for publicly reporting on safety lessons and making recommendations for improvement. These reports would include the failure in vehicle technology and any other causation factors.

The amendment therefore confuses the role of a statutory inspector with that of the in-use regulatory scheme and the police. In doing so, it inadvertently contravenes a long-standing fundamental principle in incident investigation: learning, not blaming. In developing the inspector role, we have been guided by international standards, best practice and precedent, including that established by our own exceptional existing transport accident investigation branches. All three of these branches conduct no-blame investigations.

I have similar concerns that his Amendment 41 also risks departing from established precedent in safety investigation. An inspector must be able to report neutrally and factually without being influenced, directly or indirectly, by any person or organisation. Historically, this has extended even to Parliament. Indeed, none of the reports published by the existing air, maritime, and rail accident investigation branches are required to be laid before Parliament. However, I am happy to reassure the noble Lord that it is absolutely the Government’s intention to make all the inspector’s reports, findings and associated recommendations publicly available on GOV.UK, as is the case for the existing branches.

I confirm that specific testing for self-driving vehicles will be considered for inclusion in the MoT. Naturally, this will need to be an evolutionary process, developed in line with the introduction of the technology. The MoT will continue to play an important role in ensuring the ongoing maintenance and roadworthiness of the vehicle. However, we will not depend on it to ensure that self-driving vehicles drive safely. Authorisation places the obligation on the authorised self-driving entity to ensure that its vehicles continue to satisfy the self-driving test. The Bill grants powers to set requirements, secure information and issue sanctions as necessary to ensure that this is done. The review proposed in Amendments 25 and 59 could therefore unnecessarily delay the implementation of Bill.

On the noble Baroness’s specific question, in the event of an authorised self-driving entity ceasing trading, safety must be the priority. It would not be right for a vehicle to drive itself without someone taking responsibility for how it behaves. Given that this market is still emerging, there is much that we do not know about future ownership models and what consumer protections will therefore be needed. However, I can confirm that the important issue of the handling of ASDEs’ insolvency will be considered, following consultation, as part of establishing financial and good-repute requirements for authorisation.

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Lord Borwick Portrait Lord Borwick (Con)
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I understand the point that the noble Baroness makes.

Lord Tunnicliffe Portrait Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
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My Lords, first, I am very sympathetic to the whole problem of access. Secondly, I recognise it is very complex and defer to the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, in the detailed knowledge that they display in these two amendments.

Broadly speaking, I would like to see these amendments encapsulated in the Bill. The key question, however—which I invite both the noble Lord and noble Baroness to answer—is whether the two concepts contained in these amendments are mutually compatible or are in any way in conflict. If they are not, I support the general direction of these amendments and hope that there is recognition of the latest point made by the noble Baroness: you can expect a much more optimal solution if you adopt a clear direction on this difficult issue at the start, rather than trying to bolt it on afterwards.

Baroness Randerson Portrait Baroness Randerson (LD)
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My Lords, I will take up the last point made by the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe. You have to start on the right footing immediately. One theme that has run through the amendments to this Bill is that those of us putting forward probing amendments are not doing so in the spirit of wanting to delay anything. I would argue that the purpose of these amendments—the detail may not be ideal; but this is the probing stage—is so integral to getting it right that you must accept that there might be a delay.

This whole project could be seriously delayed by bad publicity, adverse reporting and so on. If one in four people are looking to this brave new world of public transport, which was going to open things up for people with disabilities, and they discover that they cannot get on the new buses or into the new taxis, that will be the sort of really bad publicity that will set this revolution back by a considerable period of time.

I add one little example to those already provided by my noble friend Lady Brinton. I have 30% of normal hearing. I have found a number of times that the requirement to have both audio and visual announcements is not carried out in practice: they either have one or the other. An audio announcement on its own is no use to me at all. It shuts bus journeys off to me in areas where I am not familiar with the stops and layout of the town. If we apply that principle to people in wheelchairs and people with serious sight loss, large parts of the huge potential benefits of this new technology will be unavailable to an increasingly large section of the population. With an older population, this percentage will only get bigger.

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

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

Automated Vehicles Bill [HL]

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Lord Tunnicliffe Portrait Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
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The noble Lord has assured us that this is a probing amendment, and I am convinced he is not expecting many answers from me. I give way to the Minister.

Lord Davies of Gower Portrait Lord Davies of Gower (Con)
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I am grateful to my noble friend for tabling these amendments and for sharing his perspectives on these issues. I will begin by briefly addressing his point about public understanding and properly communicating what he refers to as the “look and feel” of a world with self-driving vehicles.

In previous debates, I have referred to The Great Self-Driving Exploration. This ground-breaking study was specifically designed to allow people from all walks of life to understand more about self-driving vehicles and to comment on whether they felt their introduction would be beneficial. This is just one example of the work we have been doing in this space.

Amendment 63 looks to require that a statement be made on the necessary changes to highways legislation that may arise from the use of self-driving vehicles. As I set out earlier this afternoon, the Bill does not require changes to our roads, nor are changes considered necessary for the safe deployment of self-driving vehicles. The Bill already sets out the legislative changes that we believe are necessary to enable their use. Local authorities are responsible for managing their road networks, and the existing legislative framework provides them with a wide range of powers to regulate traffic. It also places duties on them to ensure that they do so effectively, for the benefit of all road users. We believe that this existing framework is sufficient to enable them to regulate traffic, including self-driving vehicles, appropriately. Highways legislation is a complex area of law, covering a wide range of powers, duties and responsibilities. For many parts of the Bill, a statement of the kind proposed in the amendment would be irrelevant and would cause unnecessary delay in implementing the new regulatory framework.

My noble friend’s Amendment 62 calls for a consultation on updating the Manual for Streets to take into account the introduction of self-driving vehicles. As I have made clear, self-driving vehicles must adapt to our roads, not the other way round. We would therefore not expect significant changes to the Manual for Streets to be necessary. As was pointed out, the manual was first published in 2007 and updated in 2010. The department is working on bringing together and updating both manuals, which will be published in due course. I will ensure that my noble friend is updated on the progress of this.

Local authorities are responsible for the design and management of their roads, and for setting their own design standards. We have long encouraged them to use the principles in the Manual for Streets in doing so. The department produces a wide range of technical advice documents on aspects of street design and traffic management, of which the manual is just one. There is no statutory consultation requirement for the Manual for Streets, so imposing such a requirement in this case would be unnecessary. However, in line with good practice, key stakeholders have been involved in its development.

Tying the commencement of the Bill to the production of the manual would appear disproportionate, considering there is relatively little overlap between the two. It would therefore cause unnecessary delay in implementing the framework for self-driving vehicles. While I recognise that I may not have been able to provide my noble friend with all the answers that he was looking for, I hope that these explanations have none the less been helpful and go so some way to allowing him to withdraw his amendment.

Moved by
2: Clause 1, page 2, line 3, at end insert—
“(5A) For the purposes of subsection (5), an individual must be in the driving seat of the vehicle.”Member’s explanatory statement
This is to probe the meaning of individual in subsection (5).
Lord Tunnicliffe Portrait Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
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My Lords, I will also speak to the rest of the amendments in this group. I think someone suggested that this was the safety group; I agree and see it as pivotal to the Bill. Although we all support the idea of this being a vigorous and enthusiastic area of activity, it is not the role of this legislation to tell us how to do it. What is important is what we are seeking to achieve. I will in this group mostly be talking about how and what should be achieved rather more than how one achieves it.

First, Amendment 2 could not be more purely probing, because it reveals that neither my noble friend Lord Liddle nor I are able to understand the particular subsection that this refers to. The whole issue of whether there is a driver and what that driver does is complex. It is perfectly easy to understand the situation, and where the quality of design and management of the vehicle do not need human intervention under any circumstances. It is easy to understand a situation in which the level of intervention by the driver is not as comprehensive as in a conventional vehicle by the extent of automation. However, we have this difficult concept whereby for periods of an operation, the human being in the vehicle is a pure passenger and does not have to be alert to the environment. Then we envisage a situation in which that is no longer possible—there is in the legislation something about an interim period where the person is notified that they now have to become the driver. We have difficulty identifying the specifications as to where that person is—whether they should be in the driving seat. The concept of the driving seat needs clarifying—presumably there would be a concept called controls. I am sorry that we have not understood it but I should be grateful if the Minister could explain that, and I should be happy if he cannot do so now and can send a letter. I am sure that he has it right; it is just that we have been unable to understand it.

I now move, broadly speaking, into the safety part of the Bill. Amendments 3, 4, 5 and 7 say that the target should be safer than the target in the Bill. Do not lose sight of the fact that there is a target in the Bill, which is no worse than where we are now. In other words, the new vehicles being introduced to the fleet must be safer by 1% or 2%, or 70%; it is not defined. I share the enthusiasm to have the target safer than that, and I will come back to that.

Amendment 6 touches on an area that is referred to in many places in the paperwork and so on as diversity and equity. It is touched upon in the report from the law commissions. They say it better than I could, so I will quote paragraph 4.59 in the Law Commission and Scottish Law Commission’s report:

“Many consultees stressed to us that AVs should not cause greater risks to particular groups of road users, even if they were to save lives overall. During the course of this project, we have received responses from those representing vulnerable road users, including pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists and horse riders. They emphasised that AVs must be trained to be safe around all current road users: existing groups should not be subject to greater risks than they are now. We would expect this to be reflected within the published safety standard”.


That is an extremely important concept. It is, curiously enough, a concept we rarely follow in transport. We are usually willing to disadvantage part of our society for the greater benefit of the rest. We can have no greater example than that of HS2, but virtually any transport scheme or introduction of innovation will have winners and losers. This principle says there should be no losers. I should be interested as to the extent to which the Government accept the concept of no losers.

Amendment 7 touches on the wider issue of the importance of where can these vehicles operate and where do the rules relating to them operate? As far as I know, one has driverless vehicles called farm machinery these days—or they seem to be from the pictures on “Countryfile”, because people are reading Farmers Weekly and not looking where the harvester is going. There has to be a clear definition of where these rules apply. However, both issues need to be addressed.

I turn to the crucial issue of safety itself, which is in my Amendment 9. I did not find the structure of the Bill particularly convenient. I read the Bill the first time as saying in Clause 1 that there shall be a safety standard—it says other things as well but it introduces “safety” at some point—and that Clause 2 sets out what that standard should be. It is confusing, but we would like to particularly centre on my Amendment 9 on this issue. That works on the basis that you read Clause 1 to say there should be a standard, and you use Clause 2 as the mechanism by which you come to that standard. The whole issue of standard is discussed by the law commissions—I cannot get used to saying it in the plural but it was two commissions working together, the English and Scottish commissions. Their report at page 56, paragraph 4.10, sets out the three options as to what the standards should be:

“Option A: as safe as a competent and careful human driver; … Option B: as safe as a human driver who does not cause a fault accident; … Option C: overall, safer than the average human driver”.


One would have hoped that, after three rounds of consultation between November 2018 and March 2021, involving 350 meetings with individuals and organisations, and analysis of over 400 written responses, we would have an answer.

In fact, the answer is in paragraph 4.55, where, after three years’ consultation, it says:

“Ultimately, the decision over how safe an AV should be while it is driving itself depends on whether the remaining risks are acceptable to the public. This is essentially a political question, best taken by ministers. Ministers need to set a policy which can then be interpreted and applied by regulators with the support of experts, as part of the authorisation and monitoring processes”.


So it is down to Ministers, and I hope that by implication means politicians. Which are we going to pick? If you pick one of those standards, the rest is a matter of process. They might sound vague, but they are not that vague.

The most successful safety legislation in this country, the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, has a very simple objective: to reduce risk to as low as is reasonably practicable. In areas where it has been applied it has worked very well. It has had a tremendous impact on safety in construction, manufacture and so on. What is the golden objective that we should seek here?

We have option B, which was

“as safe as a human driver who does not cause a fault accident”.

I find that very difficult to interpret anyway. The Government in this Bill have chosen option C:

“overall, safer than the average human driver”.

That in my view means that there is no aspiration to improve road safety. It says that it must be greater than but the hard line, with people spending lots of money, doing the development and making the software and so on, would look for the hard point, and the hard point is that it merely has to be better than the average human driver.

As is pointed out elsewhere in the literature, the average human driver is not necessarily careful and may not be that competent. We are hopeful that the driving test makes sure that every driver is competent but, from our personal experience, are we sure that is universal? What is particularly important, which is brought out somewhere in the commission’s report, is that the average driver includes the

“distracted, drowsy, drunk … or disqualified”.

That is average—it includes all those people. There are the competent and careful human drivers, but that is but part of the universe out of which you take the average.

Therefore, I strongly recommend, as my amendment says, that we should go for the

“careful and competent human driver”.

That would be a significant improvement on today’s standards. It would be a real road safety improvement, and it would be capable of developing tests from that objective. Every proposal that the Government brought forward would be subject to that general test.

It also passes what I call the “toddler test”. We should not lose sight of the fact that these vehicles are going to kill people, not because they are intrinsically dangerous, but moving about on roads is dangerous. It is not very dangerous in the United Kingdom, thank God, but we want to improve it, and there will be deaths. When the first toddler dies by being run down by one of these vehicles, in this modern age you have to have a process about what you say to the mother. I believe that if you say that it would have occurred even with a careful and competent driver, you could at least say that it is not because of the automation. It is because it was a genuine accident, as far as there is such a concept to any extent.

I have knowledge of what it is like to kill people, because I ran a railway. It was quite a big railway, and it used to kill two or three people a year. It was actually a one in billion chance because we carried that many passengers, but you still have to be able to face the public, the television cameras and so on and say, “This is what we spent on it. This is how our safety plans work, and so on. These were our targets, and this is how we set about them”. I believe that that test

“competent and careful human driver”

is the right test, and we should put it in the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---
The same rationale applies to Amendment 9, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, which looks to incorporate the Government’s stated safety ambition into the Bill’s text. Naturally, I believe our ambition is the right one. As the noble Lord himself touched on, it is the highest of the three standards consulted on by the Law Commission. It gives a straightforward, publicly understandable indication of the level of safety that the Government are looking to achieve through the more formal mechanisms we are establishing in the Bill.
Lord Tunnicliffe Portrait Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
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I am not sure I heard the Minister. Did he say that, of the three tests that the Low Commission proposed, the Government’s test of “better than average” was the highest standard?

Lord Davies of Gower Portrait Lord Davies of Gower (Con)
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What I said was that, naturally, I believe our ambition is the right one. As the noble Lord himself touched on, it is the highest of the three standards consulted on by the Law Commission. It gives a straightforward—

Lord Tunnicliffe Portrait Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
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I am sorry to interrupt, but the Law Commission, in the next paragraphs, says that the “competent and careful driver” test is the highest standard, not the Government’s aspiration of at least on average. We can leave it for now, and the Minister can write to me with an apology, or I can write to him with an apology, if one of us is wrong.

Lord Davies of Gower Portrait Lord Davies of Gower (Con)
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With respect to the noble Lord, I think there is a misunderstanding here and he thinks that we have picked the average. Perhaps we can clarify that with him at a later date.

To continue, it gives a straightforward, publicly understandable indication of the level of safety that the Government are looking to achieve through the more formal mechanisms we are establishing in the Bill. However, to incorporate this language as proposed would, once again, override the principle established by the Law Commission—in other words, that the appropriate level of safety is ultimately determined by public acceptance of the risk, and that the safety standard should be set out in statutory guidance. That then allows the standard to be evolved as necessary on the basis of consultation.

I add that the wording of the amendment would appear to require a standard even higher than that of the safety ambition. While I know that this is well-intended, we must also be mindful of the risk of stifling genuine near-term safety improvements by setting an unnecessarily stringent target early on.

Amendment 12, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, looks to make the statement of safety principles subject to the affirmative procedure. While we acknowledge the arguments that he puts forward, it is the Government’s view that the Highway Code remains the most salient precedent for the safety principles. It follows that a negative procedure, comparable to that applied to the Highway Code, is most appropriate in this instance.

Turning to Amendment 8, the use of the phrase “significantly better” is, again, open to interpretation and risks introducing ambiguity. More pertinently, the second part of the amendment, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, looks to ensure that improvements in road safety apply to all road users. The noble Lord, Lord Liddle, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles of Berkhamsted, also look to explore a similar point in Amendments 6 and 7. I can confirm that, just as in the Highway Code, the current reference to road safety already applies to all road users. Similarly, it is established that “road” encompasses pavements and similar areas; road safety is therefore not strictly confined to incidents occurring on the carriageway itself.

On the specific comments from the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles of Berkhamsted, all vehicles subject to authorisation as self-driving vehicles must be intended or adapted for use on roads. Although private driveways are mostly out of scope, the authorisation can recognise use in places other than roads, as referenced in Clause 4(4). The use of vehicles on private land is covered by other legislation.

Returning to the issue of equality and fairness, I can confirm that it will of course be explicitly considered during the development of the statement of safety principles. The granting of self-driving authorisations will also be subject to the public sector equality duty, and we intend to make an assessment of fair outcomes part of the authorisation process. I believe that the remainder of Amendment 6 is already provided for by Clause 1, which specifies that the assessment of a vehicle against the self-driving test must refer to

“the location and circumstances of … intended travel”.

A further reference in Clause 2 is therefore unnecessary.

On Amendment 10, we already envisage that the statement of safety principles will reflect the simultaneous presence of both self-driving and conventional vehicles. Indeed, this is implicit in the requirement set out in Clause 1(3). However, we also wish to preserve flexibility for the principles to cover scenarios where only automated vehicles are present. The amendment would preclude that option.

On Amendment 2, in the spirit of the initial comments by the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, I begin by offering a brief clarification. His comments slightly confused the concepts of a no-user-in-charge vehicle and a user- in-charge vehicle. A no-user-in-charge vehicle can complete a whole journey in self-driving mode, and any human in the vehicle is merely a passenger; it will never need to hand back control. A user-in-charge vehicle can complete only part of a journey in self-driving mode, so a human will be expected to take control of the vehicle to complete the journey. The Bill requires that this person be in the vehicle and in a position to assume control; for virtually all current use cases, that will mean being in the driving seat. However, there may be some future use cases and designs—perhaps in larger vehicles, such as buses—where control could be exercised from multiple places within the vehicle.

The amendment, as drafted, would allow for human-controlled vehicles to be considered autonomous, provided that the human did not sit in the driving seat. One of the key concepts of the Bill is that liability should be transferred away from the human driver when a self-driving feature is engaged. It would clearly be inappropriate to do that in a situation where a human still exercised control over the vehicle, regardless of their physical location.

Finally, I will briefly address the question from the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, about drivers under the influence. The Bill is clear that the user-in-charge immunity does not extend to the condition of the driver. The person acting as the user in charge in a vehicle could therefore be prosecuted for being under the influence in the same way as a conventional driver. This makes sense, considering their responsibility to resume control if directed to. As I have said, when a no-user-in-charge vehicle is driving itself, everyone in the vehicle is considered simply a passenger. Just as for passengers in conventional vehicles, there is no requirement that those individuals be in a fit state to drive. On that basis, I respectfully hope that the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, will see fit to withdraw Amendment 2.

Lord Tunnicliffe Portrait Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
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I thank the Minister for his response. I shall read it with enormous care. Perhaps we will have to meet in order to achieve a common view. With that, all that formality requires is for me to beg leave to withdraw Amendment 2.

Amendment 2 withdrawn.