Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

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

[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.