Autonomous Vehicles

Lord Young of Norwood Green Excerpts

Thursday 16th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab)]

My Lords, I first congratulate the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Ashton, on his appointment. I am looking forward to his first contribution from the Dispatch Box. I am sure he is, too—or to its completion, no doubt.

I must confess that, despite my eclectic range of knowledge of often arcane issues, autonomous vehicles is not a subject that attracted my attention, other than a vague awareness that Google was conducting some trials, so I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Borwick, on securing this debate. As usual, you can rely on the Library briefing to give you excellent background knowledge on the latest government policy and what developments are taking place both in the UK and globally. I am reliably informed that there is no party policy on my side on this issue but, given the potential size of the market, encouraging innovative R&D that leads to successful applications in software, hardware and, we hope, UK manufacturing is essential.

I welcome the government initiatives. There are people who have speculated that they are not enough, but no doubt the Minister can enlighten us further. However, I welcome the £10 million in collaborative R&D projects, the £10 million competition for cities to host a driverless car trial, and the review of the legislative and regulatory framework for testing driverless cars. On the regulatory framework, I echo the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Borwick, when he said that we want regulation that enables rather than stifles. That is a tricky balancing act when we are trying to encourage both trust and confidence in this area.

There was a review of regulation which closed on 19 September. Will the Minister tell us when we can expect to see the results of the evidence given to the review and the Government’s response? I realise that it is not long since the end of the review but I would welcome further information.

I also welcome the £75 million fund to speed up development in green technologies for engines and the £1.5 million announced for the first driverless cars project to be tested in a UK city centre. The two-person pods, which we have already heard about from the noble Viscount, Lord Younger, will run on designated pathways in Milton Keynes city centre and should be a more interesting visitor attraction than the concrete cows. Milton Keynes is also the base for the transport systems Catapult, which has already been mentioned, to drive the UK’s global leadership in intelligent mobility—the efficient and cost-effective movement of people and goods. Can the Minister confirm that this world-class innovation centre is now open? Can we really claim that it has sufficient resources to ensure that it is a truly world-class innovation centre? How does it compare with similar projects in other countries, whether the USA, Germany, the Netherlands or China? We have heard from other noble Lords that there is a lot going on in other countries, with what seem to be much larger sums of money than what is being invested in this country. I would welcome further information.

It was also interesting to learn about Tomorrow’s Engineers Week, a campaign to promote the benefits of a career in engineering to young people across the country, particularly young women. I hope the Minister will endeavour to ensure that schools’ careers advisers tell their pupils about career potential in the automotive industry. We know that there is an awful lot of demand for engineering skills, and it is vital that we meet that demand. Apparently, the industry is expecting to recruit 7,600 apprentices and 1,700 graduates over the next five years. I welcome that potential and I hope that it can be met, but part of the challenge of meeting it is encouraging our young people—both boys and girls—who are currently in school that engineering is a really exciting industry and one that is well worth their attention. I do not think that it gets that attention in schools at the moment.

Before I conclude, I should like to make a few comments on the contributions to the debate. This has proved to be a really interesting subject, which perhaps many would not have expected, and the contributions have been wide-ranging. I have found it exceedingly interesting—something that I was not expecting until it became my task to respond to the debate. There was reference to the wide-ranging impact of autonomous vehicles on traffic management systems, and the noble Lord, Lord Borwick, talked about things such as freight labour costs, platoon driving, reduced fuel consumption and the notion of car ownership changing. One of the last points that he made—this interested me the most—concerned the potential benefits for disabled people. I must admit that that had not automatically come to my mind but there is obviously great potential there.

If I have a bit of scepticism, it is in relation to the idea that we are going to totally abolish drivers. We are so wedded to our cars. Can we really imagine all people giving up driving? Somehow, I doubt it. However, that is not to say that autonomous vehicles and the traffic management systems that will arise from them will not have a vital role to play.

As I expected, my noble friend Lord Giddens had done an enormous amount of research. I learnt more about the history of electric cars than I could ever have hoped to know. I do not have time to cover every point in his wide-ranging contribution but he is right when he tells us that there are gradations of adapted vehicles. We are already beginning to see technology influencing that. He talked about a transport revolution and traffic management in a digital traffic system. I think that he was right to question the level of investment and resources available. If the predictions being made in the House today are right—and I think that broadly speaking they are—about the impact of this technology on the potential for jobs to be created, we have to ask whether there has been as much investment as is needed, given the scale of the task.

I was also fascinated by the contribution of the noble Viscount, Lord Younger of Leckie. He talked about our developing a global centre of excellence. I echo that and, again, ask whether we have the ability to do this. We are one country among many trying to achieve this, and I would welcome the Minister’s comments. I was fascinated by the noble Viscount’s 2050 vision. Will it all take place? I think that he is right and that some of it will. He talked about the importance of sensors and he is right about that. I certainly like the idea of the roads being safer for cyclists. As somebody who entrusts my life on the roads to two wheels every day, I would welcome anything that can improve safety. If we can get sensors to recognise cyclists of all shapes and sizes, that will be no mean thing.

The noble Earl, Lord Erroll, introduced another dimension to this debate when he talked about this being part of the internet of things. He is absolutely right about that. He also talked about the importance of interoperability.

My noble friend Lord Giddens is right about the speed of change. If we look at internet development and the way that technology is developing there is one thing that we know—it is a lot faster than we ever thought in the past. Ideas are now being exchanged globally, so we have to recognise that that is the challenge.

We know that autonomous vehicles and holistic traffic systems have a vital contribution to make towards both road safety and the environment. We are on the cusp of a new era in transport with zero emission engines, autonomous vehicles and aerial vehicles in all shapes and sizes. We will probably never be alone without a drone looking at us in one way or another. The challenge, surely, is to ensure that we have the skills and the investment resources to achieve a significant share of this rapidly developing industry, and ensure that society as a whole will benefit from it. I look forward to the Minister’s contribution.