Oral Answers to Questions
Richard Burden Excerpts(7 years, 7 months ago)
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Chris Grayling
As I said a moment ago, the Government are focused on ensuring that we have the best possible arrangements across the transport sector. We have regular discussions with the Scottish Government on a wide variety of issues. What I will say—I think this is good news for all us—is that the UK flag is increasing in size again, which we all welcome.
Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)
The Prime Minister told the House yesterday that she will “deliver certainty” to UK businesses about their position post-Brexit, but without agreement on the principles behind cabotage, trucking companies are already warning that new customer checks will gridlock roads leading to the channel ports. UK-based airlines are already warning that they may need to relocate their bases across the channel if the UK falls out of the common aviation area. Just how and when are Ministers going to deliver the certainty that those companies need now, rather than a ministerial aspiration that everything is going to be all right on the night?
Chris Grayling
Of course, this is not simply about UK companies, because the vast majority of haulage-based cabotage that takes place in the United Kingdom is undertaken by international hauliers operating in the UK, so they themselves have a vested interested in ensuring that their politicians work with us to make sure that we have the best possible arrangements for the future. That is what we will do, and I am confident that other European Governments will want to do the same.
Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill (Seventh sitting)
Richard Burden Excerpts(7 years, 7 months ago)
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Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)
May I start by completely associating myself and Opposition Members with the Minister’s opening remarks? There was no doubt that yesterday’s attack was an attack on the kind of things that our deliberations represent; he was right to mention that.
If you will indulge me, Mr Gray, I want to say something as a Birmingham Member of Parliament. Last night the library of Birmingham was lit up with the colours of red, white and blue, as a mark of respect to PC Keith Palmer, and indeed all the victims of yesterday’s atrocity. It was also a gesture of solidarity with us and the values we represent in this place. I have no doubt that there will be those who will try to seek to use yesterday’s events as a way of dividing people, but I am equally in no doubt that those colours lit up on Birmingham library yesterday spoke for my city of Birmingham. That is what spoke for the people of Birmingham, irrespective of their colour and whatever faith they may or may not have. Thank you for allowing me to say that, Mr Gray.
I was very pleased that the Minister was in the West Midlands yesterday. He is right that decarbonising taxis and ensuring clean taxis will play a vital role in crafting a strategy that can tackle the air quality crisis facing our towns and cities. I welcome the investment he has announced today. It is also welcome to hear that the strategy that we seek in the new clause, to try to determine how stimulating greater uptake of low-emission vehicles can contribute to an overall air quality strategy, will come forward within 12 months. I would ask him to approach that with some dispatch, because he will know that the air quality strategy that the Government are charged with producing, to avoid the infraction proceedings that Britain is on course to incur, needs to come forward well within those 12 months. I hope that the contribution that low-emission vehicles will make to improving air quality will be laid out as quickly as possible.
The hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire made the good point that when we look at the contributions to be made to improving air quality, we must talk about low-emission, ultra low emission and zero-emission vehicles. There is a massive role for conventionally charged electric vehicles—that has occupied most of our discussions in the Committee—but there will also be a role for hydrogen-electric vehicles and other hydrogen vehicles. He is right that, on the way to getting there, intermediate technologies such as LPG have a role to play. It is important that that is reflected in public policy and the fiscal arrangements adopted. That is a good point that the Committee is grateful for.
As ever, the Minister has got what the Opposition have been saying. He has guaranteed that the kind of strategy we seek will be brought forward. We look forward to that, and when it is brought forward we will give it the scrutiny that it will no doubt deserve, as I am sure the Minister would want us to do. With that, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 6
Licensing and accreditation scheme for technicians working on automated and electric vehicles
“(1) The Secretary of State must by regulations establish a scheme for the licensing and accreditation of technicians working on automated and electric vehicles.
(2) The scheme must include details of—
(a) which professional body will operate the licensing and accreditation of technicians,
(b) how the licensing and accreditation scheme will operate,
(c) a minimum level of training for technicians working on automated and electric vehicles, and
(d) how a list of accredited individuals will be prepared and kept up-to-date.
(3) In this section “working on automated and electric vehicles” includes isolating, inspecting, repairing and maintaining vehicles that are listed under section 1 of this Act.”—(Richard Burden.)
This new clause would require the Government to bring forward regulations for technicians working on automated and electric vehicles in order to ensure they are properly trained, accredited and licensed to carry out that work. This would be regulated by a professional body who would operate a licensing scheme for those technicians.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Richard Burden
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
We know that the automotive industry relies on hundreds of thousands of individuals in a range of roles to support work on and to maintain vehicles, and it will continue to do so in the future, but as technology develops, so too must the skills of those working on vehicles. We have already heard that the automotive industry faces a skills gap, and as technology develops that gap could widen.
The Bill as it stands does not address that worsening skills gap. We could soon face a gaping hole in the support structures needed for ultra low emission vehicles and for connected and autonomous vehicles, including automated vehicles. The Government need to have a laser-like focus on building our skills base, as people across the automotive industry have told us time and again, not only for electric and automated vehicles but for other car technologies too. That means we need a skills base in automotive research, development and manufacturing, as well as for technicians working on vehicles, so that we can boost job prospects and personal development for the hundreds of thousands of livelihoods linked to this industry.
All that is much needed and important, but the new clause goes deeper than that. It asks whether it is not time for the proper accreditation of qualifications for maintaining and servicing this new generation of sophisticated vehicles. I think the evidence indicates that it certainly is.
I declare an interest as a fellow of the Institute of the Motor Industry. It has shown that 81% of independent garages find it difficult to recruit technicians with the skills and competences they need to undertake work on the kind of technologically advanced vehicles that we have been talking about. It thinks that of the 180,000 technicians in the UK, only about 2,000 are qualified to work on electric vehicles, all of whom are employed in manufacturer dealerships.
Sir Greg Knight
Does not the hon. Gentleman’s new clause have three defects—it is bureaucratic, costly and unnecessary? Does he agree that, if a licensing system of the kind he is envisaging were brought in, the customer would have to pay for it through higher bills? Why would one need a licensed, accredited mechanic if one just wanted a lightbulb or a tyre changing?
Richard Burden
The short answer to the right hon. Gentleman’s questions is: no, no and no. The new clause would not require a licensed technician to check the tyres or change a lightbulb. That is why it asks the Government to bring forward regulations for the kind of accreditation scheme that would be brought in. I also do not believe it would lead to a high cost—in fact, quite the reverse, for reasons I will come on to talk about.
The main thing is that there is a high risk if untrained technicians attempting to work on these kinds of vehicle. I make no bones about this: it could put lives at risk. The battery pack on an electric vehicle carries up to 600 V. If someone needs certification—it used to be called CORGI certification—to repair a gas boiler, is it too much to say that they need some kind of accreditation or qualification to work on future vehicles? Even electricians conducting electrical work in our homes have to be licensed to do so. That is for households that typically run on 240 V AC. For EVs, we are talking about 600 V, and sometimes more. This is about the safety of the vehicles themselves, the people who work on them, those who drive them and other road users around them.
The new clause’s main purpose is safety, but it is not just about that. It is also about enhancing skills, providing mobility and progression for technicians, and giving market certainty about safety standards. I think it could have a wider impact on issues such as insurance uptake and viability. That is the answer to the right hon. Gentleman’s question. I think that if it is not addressed, the skills shortages could result in higher repair and insurance costs. In some ways, that is already happening. There are already concerns about the insurance costs of some electric vehicles and ultra low emission vehicles. Some insurance charges for EVs are estimated to be as much as 50% higher than their petrol and diesel equivalents. That is because of the assessment made of the nature of the technologies involved.
We believe, as do a number of stakeholders, that the Government should consider introducing an accreditation scheme for technicians who will work on those future vehicles. They have to look at the details of that and at how it can avoid the kind of unintended consequences that the right hon. Gentleman mentioned. If the Government introduce a scheme, they will be promoting safety and supporting the growth of the new generation of vehicles, in the way that we all want to see.
Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)
May I, too, associate myself with the remarks made by the Minister? We share the view that acts of violence such as those we witnessed yesterday must never deter us from our duties in this Parliament. We also share the gratitude and appreciation for those who seek to protect us in discharging our duties here.
I rise to support the new clause. It is important to consider safety, not just for vehicle users, but for those who work on them. Clearly, that should be of the utmost importance. It is also important for another reason: to provide reassurance and underpin safety for consumers. We want to encourage further uptake of these vehicles and ensure that people have confidence in them. Prospective owners need a degree of trust and security that the vehicles will be safe, secure and not liable to faults or malfunctions. Having accredited technicians will help to alleviate those issues greatly and will build consumer trust with approved regulated training.
It is important to look at opportunities for people to gain the skills we need. I particularly ask the Minister to look at measures that might encourage girls and young women into the sector to take advantage of new opportunities. As a result of the UK leaving the EU, it is more important than ever to have the protections and regulations in place to make sure that safety measures are covered. We support the new clause for those reasons.
Richard Burden
The Minister is right about the prospect of a situation in which the only place that people can find trained and qualified technicians to work on the new generation of vehicles is in manufacturers’ dealerships, often in urban centres. That is the scenario that we could face unless we do something along the lines of the new clause. The same kind of thing is happening now: the 2,000 qualified technicians I spoke about are all in manufacturers’ dealerships. The Minister is right that we need to determine how we can spread and deepen the skills base.
My hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South West has decided that if there is to be an accreditation and licensing scheme, it should have a title just as catchy as CORGI—which is no longer used; it is now called Gas Safe. He came up with “Member of the National Generic Register of Electric Vehicle Licensees”, which comes out as MONGREL. My hon. Friend has many talents, but I gently put it to him that working out the names and acronyms for accreditation for a skill set and array of qualifications in occupations that we want to promote is probably not his strong suit.
Richard Burden
The Minister should not have tempted him. He will be working hard on it.
Richard Burden
My hon. Friend says he will take a leaf out of the Minister’s book. Although it will not be on the record of this Committee, it might end up on the face of the Bill.
Labour Members feel strongly about this issue. I am grateful to the Minister for his assurance that he is thinking about it and is engaging with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and with the Automotive Council to see what role they might play in developing such accreditation. We are still keen to see something about it in the Bill if possible. I accept that the new clause, as it stands, may not be exactly the right way to do so, but we would still like something in the Bill. We will think about it before Report, and I ask the Minister to do so as well. If there is consensus about doing something along these lines, let us put it in the Bill. For now, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the clause.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 8
Consultation on the collection and use of data from automated and electric vehicles
“The Secretary of State must consult with such persons as the Secretary of State considers appropriate on the collection and use of data from automated and electric vehicles. The consultation must address—
(a) who is responsible for collecting data from automated and electric vehicles and from any associated charging or network infrastructure used by such vehicles,
(b) how the data is shared between different parties, and
(c) any limitations on the use of such data.”—(Andy McDonald.)
This new clause would require the Government to consult on how that data should be handled, who should own the data and what it should be used for.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Andy McDonald
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
I associate myself with the remarks made by colleagues on the events of the past 24 hours. It is a delight to be here going about our proper parliamentary business; we are all delighted to be getting on with that.
Automated vehicles are likely to produce huge amounts of data on such things as car location, traffic information, maps or footage of surrounding areas, details of accidents, weather information and the car’s route, as well as information about passengers or indeed parcels inside the vehicle. Information associated with the charging of electric vehicles will inform Government policy on the legislation and infrastructure needed to support and encourage the uptake of electric and automated vehicles. The data will be a valuable resource.
There are many advantages to gathering such information. For example, if a car is self-driving and makes a mistake, the information gathered by the vehicle can be used to prevent other cars on the road and future generations of cars from making the same mistake. Information about accidents can better inform how we design our roads, and information about traffic could lead us to reconfiguring our towns and cities in order to reduce congestion and improve air quality. However, there are risks as well, as some of the information gathered by the car might be sensitive. Information about a car’s history could make identifiable a person’s place of work, who their friends are and what they have been doing, which is information that people may wish to keep private and which could be damaging in the wrong hands. Therefore, it is important that the Government ensure that the gathered data are secure, private and open, if we are to best take advantage of the new technologies.
That is not going to be an easy task, and the new clause recognises that it is important that the Secretary of State consults widely on it. That is why the new clause is tabled in these terms. It would require that the Secretary of State consults appropriate persons on the collection and use of data from automated electric vehicles, that the consultation addresses who is responsible for collecting the data from such vehicles and from any associated charging or network infrastructure used by such vehicles, how the data are shared between different parties and any limitations on the use of such data. I trust that the Minister is supportive of the intention behind the new clause and I look forward to his comments on whether it is acceptable to the Government.
Andy McDonald
I am grateful to the Minister for his acceptance of what we are trying to achieve. In response to the comments from the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire, we live in a world of equal opportunities, so we should point out that husbands are also capable of committing adultery and could be on the receiving end of such fishing expeditions.
The Minister has committed to the consultation we have called for, is happy to put that in writing and will come back to the House. I am grateful for his approach to our proposed new clause, which I do not need to press. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 11
Membership of European Aviation Safety Agency
“Within three months of this Bill receiving Royal Assent the Government must publish a report setting out its preferred option on the future of the UK’s membership of the European Aviation Safety Agency.”—(Richard Burden.)
This new clause requires the Government to set out its position on UK membership of the European Aviation Safety Agency after leaving the European Union.
Brought up, and read the First time.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
New clause 12—Single European Skies Movement Research project—
“Within three months of this Bill receiving Royal Assent the Government must publish a report setting out its position on the Single European Skies Air Traffic Movement Research (SESAR) project.”
This new clause will require the Government to set out its position on the Single European Skies Air Traffic Movement Research project (SESAR) after leaving the European Union.
New clause 13—Membership of the European Common Aviation Area—
“Within three months of this Bill receiving Royal Assent the Government must publish a report setting out its preferred option on the future of the UK’s membership of the European Common Aviation Area.”
This new clause requires the Government to set out its position on UK membership of the European Common Aviation Area (ECAA) and maintaining current access with the EU and third party countries after the UK leaves the EU.
Richard Burden
We are back to aviation, Mr Gray, with the three proposed new clauses. They are all about trying to find the means to end some of the uncertainty that exiting the European Union will bring to the aviation sector. Our aviation sector is the largest in Europe and the third largest in the world. It is worth in excess of £50 billion to GDP, it supports a million jobs, and it secures for the Treasury some £9 billion-worth of taxation each year.
What happens to aviation will be absolutely critical from day one of any life outside the European Union. However, before we arrive at that destination, we must recognise—this is what the new clauses deal with—that there are a number of partnerships that will need to be confirmed not after we leave the EU, but as soon as possible after article 50 is triggered.
The new clauses would give the Government the opportunity to express in detail their preferred options for three key partnerships that are integral to civil aviation, safety and the aerospace industry, as well as to inbound and outbound UK business travellers and holidaymakers. I will go through each of the three partners, to put on the record their importance and to explain why the Government should consider accepting these new clauses.
First, there is the European Aviation Safety Agency, which is the chief certification authority on the safety of aircraft products. It is the steer for research and development, for action on the environment, and for new markets, such as drones, which I will talk about in a little while. As a member of EASA, the UK benefits from having a seat at the table, helping to develop one set of regulations for the whole of Europe. EASA also develops bilateral agreements with key markets, including the USA and Canada. Retaining our membership of EASA and remaining part of its framework must therefore be a top priority. It has been put forward as a considerable priority by large parts of the aviation sector, including the Airport Operators Association, the ADS Group, which represents aerospace, defence, security and space companies, and Airlines UK.
Not seeking to retain that membership would be costly and time-consuming, and it would also put huge pressure on the CAA, because our membership of EASA, which the CAA feeds into, is hugely beneficial, and not only to ourselves but to our European partners. The UK has valuable expertise and our staff are integral to shaping and developing the practical solutions that do as much to guarantee aviation safety in Estonia and Lithuania as in the UK and Ireland.
On new clause 12, which concerns the second partnership to which I am referring, it is important that the Government make clear their goals and their preferred future relationship with the Single European Sky programme and other airspace partnerships. Airspace management matters, particularly for improving capacity and protecting the environment. Capacity and efficiency have already been improved through the Single European Sky programme, but we need to know whether it will be part of the Government’s negotiating process after they trigger article 50. Will the functional air blocs, such as the UK and Ireland, be retained?
We have already talked, earlier in our consideration of the Bill, about the changes to NATS and how the licensing modification procedure and the appeal process will be streamlined. That is with the expectation that SESAR—Single European Sky Air Traffic Movement Research—will bring forward many changes in practice. However, we need to know whether those SESAR arrangements will continue to apply. I hope that the Minister will reflect on that when considering these new clauses.
Finally, new clause 13 seeks to report on whether we expect to be part of the single aviation market after Brexit. As the Minister and his Department will know, aviation is in many ways distinct from other areas of the economy. We must realise that clarifying these three relationships has to be a precondition before the UK negotiates on other aspects relating to trade and market access. We currently rely on the single aviation market for airlines to operate inside the EU without restrictions on capacity, frequency or pricing. The single aviation market is also the basis for many global agreements, spanning no fewer than 155 countries. If we leave the European economic area as well as the EU, we could no longer be part of the single aviation market and we could lose access to those external air service agreements.
The worst possible scenario, as I am sure the Committee agrees, would be simply to fall back on the World Trade Organisation. That would be the worst of all worlds for aviation, because aviation agreements are not covered within the scope of the WTO. If we are talking about aviation, the Prime Minister’s mantra that “no deal is better than a bad deal” with the EU means nothing; it says nothing about the agreements that we will need, whatever happens, about how aircraft fly and how we manage our skies.
Mr Hayes
We have had an interesting debate. I might describe the contribution of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield—this is, by the way, meant without hostility or even implicit criticism—as more of an exhortation, recommendation or perhaps even plea than a speech in support of a new clause. I understand why he makes it, as it is perhaps something that I might do were I in his shoes. He will, equally, understand that it is impossible for me to prejudge the negotiations that will take place.
The hon. Gentleman has put his view, and it is a measured one, mindful of the fact that planes and boats are by their nature pan-national, transnational or international, that they know no national boundaries, and that agreements developed over time have reflected that. As I have said, his case is an exhortation from a position that may well be shared by many across this continent and others.
As you probably know, Mr Gray—in your case there is no question of “probably”—I am never terribly inspired by the common conceptual preoccupations of this age. By and large I find them fairly unappealing, and so I am always a bit doubtful about certainty, having always rather preferred uncertainty. I am still holding out for an opaque, hard-to-access and exclusive world, really—largely because love is all those things, is it not?
I appreciate, however, that in some areas of life and work certainty matters, and the case that the hon. Gentleman made for it is entirely understandable. I cannot give him more than that today. To do so would be to, as I said, prejudge a negotiation that is taking place a long way above my pay grade and of which our future relationship with all aspects of the EU aviation sector is bound to be part. It would therefore not be appropriate for me to reveal our tactics in that regard.
However, I will say this—I hope it is sufficient—above and beyond what I have already said about respecting the hon. Gentleman’s position. The Government recognise the crucial economic role of the aviation sector, as demonstrated by various actions we have taken over time, not unlike actions taken by other Governments of other colours. We will seek, in this regard as in all others, the best possible outcome for the UK from those negotiations. The hon. Gentleman, and indeed other hon. Gentlemen, have made their case; they have it on the record, and I have no doubt that their contribution, like many others, will inform our thinking in those negotiations.
Richard Burden
The Minister has said, perfectly properly, that the ramifications of the new clauses go well above his pay grade and will involve negotiations in which I am sure he will play an important part, but which will involve many other Members. I accept that. It may well not be appropriate, because of those restraints and restrictions, to vote on the new clause in Committee.
However, the essential case remains that the future of our membership of the aviation partnerships that we have referred to has to be tackled, and it has to be tackled soon. The new clauses provide a mechanism through which it could be tackled. Even though I will not press the new clause to a vote, we may well wish to return to it before the Bill completes its passage. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 14
Safe use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in the UK
“(1) The Secretary of State must bring forward regulations on the safe use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in the UK within six months of the Bill receiving Royal Assent.
(2) The regulations may include, but are not limited to, measures which—
(a) require all new UAVs sold in the UK to have inbuilt geofencing,
(b) establish the Civil Aviation Authority, as UAV regulator, to be the official authority on approving—permitting exemption—of “restricted areas” applied to geofencing, and
(c) establish the formulation of a registration system—considering exemptions for members of model aircraft organisations.
(3) In subsection (1) an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) refers to an aircraft without a human pilot on board with a weight of no more than 20kg without its fuel but including any articles or equipment installed in or attached to the aircraft at the commencement of its flight, and whose flight is controlled either autonomously or under the remote control of a pilot on the ground or in another vehicle.
(4) In subsection (2)(a) geofencing refers to the use of GPS or radio frequency technology to create a virtual geographic boundary, enabling software to trigger a response when a mobile device enters or leaves a particular area.”—(Richard Burden.)
This new clause instructs the Government to bring forward regulation on the safe use of UAVs in the UK, which could include: mandatory geofencing, and establishing a responsibility for the CAA as existing UAV regulator to approve restricted areas.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Richard Burden
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
The new clause instructs the Government to bring forward regulations within six months of the Bill receiving Royal Assent on the safe use of unmanned aerial vehicles—that is the technical term, but most of us know them as drones.
When the Government announced in the Queen’s Speech last year their intention to bring forward a modern transport Bill, it seemed to all of us that drones and the regulation of drones would be a key part of that Bill. When the Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill was published, many eyebrows were raised at what seemed to many to be a missed opportunity for the UK to get in place a more robust regulatory framework for drones that will equip us for the future.
I say that because the drone market offers huge promise and potential for growth. That was recognised by the other place’s European Union Committee in a thorough report in 2015. Back then, there were already hundreds of companies—mainly small and medium-sized enterprises—using drones in photography, film, land surveying, building inspection, crop analysis and a number of other areas. A PricewaterhouseCoopers report in May last year estimated that the drone market may boom to more than £100 billion.
Richard Burden
The hon. Member for Wycombe rightly cautioned us to be wary of over-regulation. What is needed is appropriate regulation to ensure both safety and the right regulatory framework to promote and liberate the kind of innovation that drones offer. He was right to give that warning, but I do not think the new clause would have over-regulated; rather, it would have regulated appropriately.
I am grateful for the Minister’s response and I thank him for the very helpful briefing that his officials gave us about the work done on drones so far. There is useful work going on, but I would express a bit of frustration about the timescale. We have been asking for action on this for a considerable time.
The Government launched a good consultation, with a comprehensive consultation document that asked some pertinent questions, but everybody expected this to be an area that the Bill would cover. Frankly, the timing of the consultation and the Bill were matters entirely in the control of Government. Through the fault of no one other than Government, those two things are now out of sync. We cannot put anything in the Bill because the consultation has not finished, but by the time the consultation has finished and its recommendations come out, we will have missed the opportunity to do anything about it in the Bill, if that were felt appropriate.
Richard Burden
I am grateful to the Minister. My wording was sloppy. I am aware that the consultation has finished, but we do not yet have the response to the consultation and its conclusions. Those are the kinds of things we should have had to inform our deliberations on the Bill. We are facing a delay.
I take in good faith the Minister’s assurance that the recommendations that the Government will make in response to the consultation will come forward with as much dispatch as possible. I would simply say that we did not need to be here with that dislocation in the timetable. We are where we are, and on that basis I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 16
Review of Part 1
“(1) By September 2019, the Secretary of State must lay a report before Parliament assessing the effectiveness of the system for defining and insuring automated vehicles introduced by Part 1 of this Act.
(2) The report must consider—
(a) the impact on the insurance industry,
(b) the impact on the cost of insurance premiums for automated vehicles,
(c) the impact on the uptake of automated vehicles, and
(d) the levels of disagreement between manufacturers and insurers on liability.”—(Andy McDonald.)
This new clause would require the Government to lay a report before Parliament assessing the effectiveness and impact of the system introduced in Part 1.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Richard Burden
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
We are back to automated vehicles again. In our previous sitting, the Minister absolutely understood and articulated the theme of our amendments and new clauses to part 1, which is that there has to be adequate consultation, scrutiny and willingness to review. The Minister has said on several occasions that he is prepared to have all those things, which we welcome. That is why the new clause makes sense. It is about the third of those objectives: a review. It asks for a report to look at the Bill’s
“impact on the insurance industry…impact on the cost of insurance premiums for automated vehicles…impact on the uptake of automated vehicles, and…the levels of disagreement between manufacturers and insurers on liability.”
Those are all things that we have talked about. In our first sitting we spent a good deal of time exploring those issues, and we were aware that we did not yet have all the answers. The Opposition have therefore asked for consultation before measures are introduced, which the Minister has agreed to.
We are giving the Bill as much scrutiny now as we possibly can, but even after it is passed we still will not have all the answers. We still will not know the impact on the insurance industry, precisely what will happen to premiums, or whether the Bill’s provisions for sorting out the insurance market in the way that it needs to be sorted out will be adequate to give people the confidence to buy automated vehicles. That is all the new clause says: be prepared to look at the Bill again after a reasonable period to see whether it is working. If it is, great—we can all pat ourselves on the back—but if it needs to be changed in some way, the new clause would give us the opportunity. I hope that the Minister will feel able to accept the new clause, not only because of the Opposition’s arguments, but because of his own acknowledgment of the need for review, following consultation and scrutiny.
Mr Hayes
Understandably, the hon. Gentleman calls once again for the approach that he has recommended throughout our deliberations; it is a measured and cautious approach that takes account of the dynamism of the changes we have discussed, and that recommends that the Government be mindful of that dynamism and repeatedly—one might say continually—reconsider what steps must be taken.
As the hon. Gentleman kindly said, I have previously mentioned our agile, step-by-step approach to regulatory reform in response to automated vehicles. Where the evidence base for change exists, we will act to safely remove barriers to use, so that the public and business can benefit from the technology. Each of those steps, taken through primary and secondary legislation or guidance, will be subject to a process of scrutiny and ongoing review, and they will be preceded by the kind of consultation that we have enjoyed and continue to enjoy in anticipation of the Bill, for example in relation to drones.
I entirely identify with the purpose of the new clause. It is critical that we—not only the Government, but Parliament—recognise that in this rapidly changing area, which has widespread public interest, we need to move forward on the basis of the measured approach that the hon. Gentleman recommends.
I have a long list of things that I have committed to do. I could read it out, Mr Gray, but I fear that it might tire you, delay the Committee unduly and do nothing to further persuade the hon. Gentleman that I share his opinion about these matters. However, having asked my team to produce it, it would seem harsh if we did not turn it into a piece of written work in a form suitable to be sent to the Committee.
We spoke about the development of standards in respect of skills in these developing technologies. We spoke about the regulatory regime and the need to adapt it in respect of automated vehicles. The continuing evaluation of fitness for purpose, for example of the insurance products that are the inevitable consequence of the catalyst provided by the Bill, we will need to consider in the round. The roll-out of electric vehicle infrastructure is something that we need to look at afresh as technology changes. That ongoing process of engagement and review is absolutely necessary. I wholly and entirely commit the Government to it in the areas of legislation and regulation associated with the Bill. In doing so, I hope that the hon. Gentleman, in eager and excited anticipation of my letter setting that out in detail, will see fit to withdraw the new clause.
Richard Burden
I am grateful for that response. Who could ask for more than a commitment that is whole and entire? The Minister has said, with regard to the purpose of the proposed new clause, that he will write in suitable form to the Committee to set out the Government’s commitment to meet those objectives.
Without in any way undermining our welcome of that commitment, I still do not see why there is reluctance to put the matter in the Bill. I detect that the Committee is drawing to its denouement, and no one will applaud me for delaying that unnecessarily. However, this is a matter that may need to be referred to before the Bill completes its passage. Although I absolutely accept the Minister’s assurances, I am not still convinced why this should not be in the Bill. For now, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
Bill to be reported, without amendment.
Mr Hayes
On a point of order, Mr Gray. As we conclude our work on the Bill, I would personally like to thank you and your fellow Chairman, the Committee Clerks, all those who have informed us, kept us secure, delivered messages to us and recorded our words for posterity in the Official Report, for their work and service.
I also wish to thank all the members of the Committee. Committees vary in their tone and character, but I think that this Committee has been what I would describe as a gilravage. For those not familiar with that word, gilravage is a merry meeting with noise, but without injury to anyone. That is precisely what we have had: a gilravage.
Governments sometimes like to pretend that they have all the answers. All but those who are blinded by self-aggrandisement know that no Government have all the answers because no Government know all the questions. This Committee on this subject has allowed us to be reminded of that fact, as we have improved our ideas, thoughts and the condition of the Bill, through really good debate.
I must end with a quote. I think that I have done Burke and Chesterton to death during the course of my consideration of the amendments and my responses to them, so I have picked something inspired by my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire, who I know is a great admirer of this late gentleman: it is Ronald Reagan. That will not cause celebration in all parts of the Committee. None the less, hon. Members will perhaps remember one of Reagan’s most famous quotes:
“With our eyes fixed on the future, but recognising the realities of today, we will achieve our destiny to be as a shining city on a hill for all mankind to see.”
The Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill will certainly be the UK’s opportunity to pave the way towards a world-leading future. Looking to that future, but mindful of the realities of the day, it will place this country at the forefront of this technology, so to shine not just in our cities, but across our kingdom.
Aviation Security
Richard Burden Excerpts(7 years, 7 months ago)
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Chris Grayling
I can give my right hon. Friend a categorical assurance that we are already in dialogue with the countries and that we will take great care to ensure that we do everything we can to help at the other end, in their airports. We already co-operate closely. To be absolutely clear, this is not a question of singling out countries; we would never embark on such a process. The decisions are taken purely and simply on the basis of what we believe the risks are and where we believe we need to take steps to protect United Kingdom citizens. It is no more and no less than that.
Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)
Safety must, of course, be the top priority, but there really are still too many loose ends. Do the Government have evidence that the security risk to flights from the countries listed by the Secretary of State is greater than the risk from flights from other countries? If not, why are flights from these countries alone being targeted for action? Why have the UK and the USA apparently reached different conclusions—I assume, from the same intelligence—about the countries from which in-cabin electronics present the greatest risk, or are the differences between the two lists about something other than intelligence?
If the presence of electronics on aircraft flying from the countries listed is the security threat Ministers believe it to be, why are there no restrictions on electronics in the hold baggage from those countries? What thought has been given to people carrying electronics on board who change planes in countries not affected by the measures? What liaison has there been with the countries listed, with countries not listed and with airlines, all of whose confidence and co-operation will be crucial to the effectiveness or otherwise of the measures? What action is the Secretary of State taking to ensure that passengers get the clearest information possible about what they are and are not allowed to take on board to ensure that delays to journeys are minimised?
As I said at the outset, safety has to be our top priority, but there really are too many loose ends. If there really are clear security grounds for the restrictions, the Secretary of State has to be clearer about what those grounds are, otherwise the UK and US Governments will remain open to the suspicion that they are unreasonably singling out particular countries in the middle east and north Africa, rather than properly thinking through which precautions can actually keep flights safe from terrorism, wherever the aircraft fly from.
Chris Grayling
I take a little bit of issue with that last point. The Labour party was in power for 13 years, and the hon. Gentleman’s Front-Bench predecessors well understood that there are things that we cannot set out in public that lie behind the decisions we take in the interests of passengers. That has not changed throughout all the years in which each of our parties has been in office. I understand his desire for information, but the reality is that there is an evolving security threat to aircraft, and we take decisions as and when we believe it is necessary to do so to protect our citizens. I am very clear that this is nothing to do with singling out countries or destinations. The decisions we take are based purely and simply on an evolving security threat, and on what we believe is the right way to protect United Kingdom citizens. The United States Administration will take decisions about how they believe they should best protect their citizens. We do not always have to take exactly the same decisions on behalf of both our countries. We have done what we think is right for the United Kingdom.
The hon. Gentleman raised a couple of other points, including transfer passengers. The rules will apply to transfer passengers. As is normally the case now, transfer passengers will go through a further central security check and will be subject to the same at-gate checks. If they have a laptop, tablet, or large or oversized phone with them, it will be placed in the aircraft’s hold. The individual airlines are working, with our support, on providing the best possible information to passengers, as will the Foreign Office and various Government agencies that can play a role, but our first and foremost priority in response to an evolving security threat is to ensure that we provide the best possible protection for our citizens.
Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill (Sixth sitting)
Richard Burden Excerpts(7 years, 7 months ago)
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Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)
Welcome back to the Chair, Ms Ryan. When we adjourned for lunch this morning, we were concluding discussion about the possible impact of Brexit on the clause relating to ATOL— air travel organisers’ licence—and its relationship with the package travel directive 2015. The simple fact is that we do not know how Brexit will affect the issues covered by the clause. We do know that ATOL will still be here and that ATOL protection will be extended wherever holidays from companies established in the UK are sold abroad. We do not know how sales into the UK to UK holidaymakers by companies that are established in other EU member states will work.
We do not know precisely how that is going to work before Brexit, because they will be covered by the insolvency and other equivalent ATOL regulations that apply in that member state, but at least there will be the overarching framework of the package travel directive that we will be part of. After Brexit, who knows what will be the case? It may not be a problem, but we simply do not know.
That is why it is really important that, as part of the Brexit discussion, the UK Government look at this issue and try to look forward to what will happen to our relationship with the package travel directive. That could affect many thousands of UK holidaymakers. That is why it is important that the whole operation of ATOL and parallel protection regimes, with which we may or may not have a relationship such as the package travel directive, are reviewed properly at an appropriate time after the Bill is enacted.
Our amendment was inferior in some of the timescales it envisaged to that, so I am prepared to withdraw the amendment, but I am grateful to the Minister for his assurance that there will be a proper review of these regulations. With that, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 18 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 19
Air Travel Trust
Richard Burden
I beg to move amendment 23, in clause 19, page 14, line 5, after “unless” insert “a full impact assessment and consultation is published and a”
This amendment requires the Government to undertake a full impact assessment and consultation before bringing forward regulations to create any new air travel trusts through an affirmative resolution.
The clause relates to the Air Travel Trust, which is the legal vehicle that holds the money that is then used to refund consumers under ATOL protection. It would give the Secretary of State the power to define separate trust arrangements to reflect different market models, prefiguring some of the changes in the holiday package market, referred to by the Minister.
Amendment 23, following a theme, would require the Government to undertake a full and proper review and public consultation before bringing in any of the changes that would be enabled under the powers in clause 19.
Unlike clause 18, as discussed with the previous amendment, clause 19 does not seem directly relevant to harmonising EU and UK regulations. Instead, it is a dormant power that the Government will hold in order to make considerable changes to ATOL, in particular to the Air Travel Trust. That is where Brexit perhaps does come in, because were such changes to happen, they would most likely be in the event of leaving the European Union.
During one of our evidence sessions, we heard from Richard Moriarty of the CAA, a trustee of the current Air Travel Trust. He recognised the possible merit of separating up the trust to reflect variations of products and changes in the market, so I do not rule out further reforms having potential merit. The point is that we are simply not there yet, and I think it would be wrong of the Government to use this Bill as a way of giving themselves the power to make wholesale changes without due consultation. Granted, the Minister has made it clear in a letter to the shadow Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough, that changes will be made only by affirmative resolution—I welcome that—but the Bill still does not allow for any further consultation as part of the measure.
The impact assessment that the Government have undertaken for the Bill explicitly states that it
“does not consider proposals for ATOL reform, beyond what is required in”
the package travel directive. It would therefore be rather inappropriate for Ministers to go beyond that without providing assurances at this stage that proper consultation and scrutiny will take place if they are minded to go beyond the changes currently envisaged.
During the evidence session, Mr Moriarty of the CAA said that he hoped that the Government would
“follow the practice that they have followed today”—
I think he meant through the Bill—
“consult with” regulators,
“consult the industry, do the impact assessment, and so on.”––[Official Report, Vehicle Technology and Aviation Public Bill Committee, 14 March 2017; c. 65, Q150.]
This amendment is purely saying that. It is fair and reasonable and guarantees scrutiny of further changes that may come down the track in relation to ATOL protection.
Richard Burden
I thank the Minister for that response and for his kind words. He has responded to our debates in a thoroughly statesmanlike and quick-witted way—rarely have I seen such a well-timed point of order as I saw this morning, when I managed to get myself stuck in an electric vehicle when I should have been piloting an aircraft. He has also approached the Bill with a great degree of confidence in his position, which has allowed him to compromise. That is an important sign of confidence and strength. He knows that compromising and giving assurances when they are requested, and when they are appropriate, do not weaken his position, and I thank him for that.
He is absolutely right about our three-pronged approach to the Bill: seeking dialogue and consultation, the right kind of scrutiny and a willingness to review. Given what he said about the amendment, he has demonstrated that he is prepared to apply those three prongs in future.
Rob Marris (Wolverhampton South West) (Lab)
On the three-pronged approach, can I say that on the Labour Benches we do support Trident?
Richard Burden
I am waiting for an intervention from the Scottish National party. The Minister has made some good points. I hope he will put that assurance in writing. It is easy for us to hear that and to read it in Hansard, but if he puts it in a letter to members of the Committee, it will be in the public domain, which would be helpful. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 19 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 20
Provision of information
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Rob Marris
I have just a brief question for the Minister. The explanatory notes say that the provisions relate to
“European airlines that have an air service operator’s licence from another EU Member State”.
That is in paragraph 66 at the bottom of page 12. It comes back to the issue I raised earlier about Brexit. The context for part of clause 20 seems to be the relationship we currently have with the European Union, but which we are unlikely to have in another 105 weeks. I am seeking reassurance that, under clause 20, we are not constitutionally locking ourselves into something that will not be part of our constitution in 105 weeks’ time.
The Chair
There is no need, Mr Baker, because there is only one question before the Committee at a time.
Clause 23
Courses offered as alternative to prosecution: fees etc
Richard Burden
I beg to move amendment 28, in clause 23, page 18, line 22, at end insert—
“(6A) The Secretary of State must collect and publish quarterly statistics relating to fixed penalty notices and diversionary courses, including—
(a) the number of persons issued with a fixed penalty notice after attending a diversionary course,
(b) a breakdown of the number of persons under subsection 6A(a) by police and crime commissioner geographical area.
(6B) The Secretary of State must publish a review into the diversionary courses in place of the issuance of fixed penalty notices, which includes—
(a) effectiveness in improving driver education,
(b) impact on road safety and incidents.”
This amendment requires the Government to collect and publish statistics about reoffending rates for persons issued with fixed penalty notices after a diversionary course and to review the impact and effectiveness of diversionary courses in place of fixed penalty notices.
We now come to yet another subject area in the Bill, which is that of courses offered as an alternative to prosecution. The clause makes a change to the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988 that would provide the legal basis for policing bodies to charge a fee to a person who enrols on a course offered in England and Wales in relation to a fixed penalty notice.
The amendment seeks to achieve two reasonable things. First, it would require the Government to collect and publish statistics about reoffending rates for persons issued with fixed penalty notices after a diversionary course. The second purpose is to review the impact and effectiveness of diversionary courses in place of fixed penalty notices.
I start from the premise that all members of the Committee, the Government, the police, the crime commissioners and all chief constables want our roads to be as safe as possible. We have some of the safest roads in the world, but as the Transport Committee and road safety campaigners—unanimously—and the Labour party will recognise, progress has stalled rather worryingly since 2010. The latest rolling figures show that there has been no reduction in total road deaths and a 2% increase in serious casualties in the past 12 months alone.
Clause 23 is simply a technical change that will clarify existing practices of policing bodies charging a fee to a person who enrols on a course offered in England and Wales as an alternative to a fixed penalty notice. The amendment does not waste the opportunity critically to consider the effectiveness of diversionary courses and fixed penalty notices within the context of our stalled progress on road safety. By publishing reoffending rates statistics by police and crime commissioner area, we will be able to see for ourselves the effectiveness of different practices across different regions. That would in no way encroach on the operational independence of any police force but would allow a route to finding best practice. It would also go some way to help the second aspect of our amendment, which would require the Government to review the effectiveness of diversionary courses.
It is imperative that there is some founded basis on which to establish whether these courses are worth while and, if so, how much. I recall that at a recent Westminster Hall debate on road traffic law enforcement, the Minister’s transport colleague, the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones) assured us that fixed penalty notices are
“an effective way to proceed.”—[Official Report, 23 February 2017; Vol. 621, c. 493WH.]
However, a subsequent written answer, which I received from the same hon. Gentleman, made two very interesting points. First, he clarified that the Department for Transport has
“no record of how many participants have since reoffended”.
That is, since taking such a course. Secondly, the answer went on to say that the Department is commissioning research with the Road Safety Trust to
“look at a number of aspects of the speed awareness course, including the impact of the courses on reoffending rates”.
Can we assume from that written answer that collection of such statistics will start promptly? Does the Minister know whether the collection of those data has started? Otherwise, what is the value for taxpayers of commissioning research when we simply do not know the reoffending rates for people who have been on diversionary courses, nor whether the rate at which drivers involved in serious road incidents attended a course?
I will end my argument by accepting that collecting such data would by no means be a silver bullet to kick-start the stalled progress that has been made towards safer roads. The Government could take on board our call to reinstate national road safety targets, which coincidentally were scrapped at the same time as road safety stagnation. Perhaps that could be considered at a later stage of the Bill.
The Government might also want to heed the warnings about the capacity we have these days to enforce our laws effectively. According to the response to my written question on 1 February, official figures show that since 2010 the number of police officers outside the Met who have road policing functions has fallen from 5,337 to 3,436. That is a cut of around a third. If forces do not have the resources to do their job effectively, all too often it is the road traffic policing that falls off the end of the list of priorities. As the Institute of Advanced Motorists has summarised perfectly, falling levels of enforcement risk developing a culture in which being caught is seen as a matter of bad luck rather than of bad driving.
If we want to return year-on-year falls in road casualties, it would be worth while approving the amendment today, so that we can have a clearer evidence base on which to make decisions about how far fixed penalty notices or diversionary courses should be used. We also need to consider what more can be done on the enforcement of our existing laws, so that we can ensure that the Bill exploits the opportunities it has to improve the situation, rather than waste them.
Mr Hayes
It will come as no surprise to the Committee to hear that I have always believed that what we imagine is more important than what we know, for it is in our dreams that we create. For those reasons, I am inclined to a largely emotional view of the world, but there are matters that require an evidential approach of the kind the hon. Gentleman recommends, and this is one of them. It is important that we evaluate the effectiveness of these courses. The case was made by the hon. Member for Middlesbrough on Second Reading, and the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield has repeated that case today. I have exciting news for them both and for the whole Committee. I will refer to my notes in a moment, but I do not want to be constrained by them too much.
The Department, in conjunction with the Road Safety Trust, has commissioned an evaluation of national speed awareness courses. As the hon. Gentleman will know, this is only one of several courses offered, but it covers about 85% of those who offend. The evaluation methodology will be suitable for the future evaluation of other schemes. Because the hon. Gentleman will ask me, I will tell him in advance that the research is examining course impact, including reoffending and reconviction rates and collisions. That will therefore provide analysis of the data requested in new subsection (6A) of the amendment. In fact, the amendment suggests a one-off basis, but I want to do this on a continuing basis. I expect the final report to be presented to the project board no later than the end of this year.
The project board overseeing the work includes representatives from the Department for Transport, the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, the Road Safety Trust, the National Police Chiefs’ Council, the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety and the RAC Foundation. The project team has worked hard to ensure that appropriate and rigorous data processing arrangements are in place to enable data transfer between the police, the DVLA and Ipsos MORI, which is the organisation we have commissioned to do the work with those organisations.
So the data reflect the proper enquiries of members of the Committee, including Opposition Members, about how we test the effectiveness of these approaches, and, as a result, negate the need for proposed subsection (6B). On proposed subsection (6A), I agree with the underlying premise that we should be as open as possible in publishing statistics about public sector activity. There is always a balance to be struck between the publication of such material and the administrative and bureaucratic burden placed on agencies, including the police and associated bodies, because the task of recording the issue of a fixed penalty notice to someone who has previously attended a diversionary course will fall to the police.
Although figures on fixed penalty notices are already collected and published by the Home Office, data on diversionary course attendance are not. Precisely because forces divert people away from the criminal justice system, data on course attendance are compiled and published by UKROEd Ltd, the organisation that approves and co-ordinates course delivery. It is thus not clear how we will be able to satisfy the requirements of the proposed amendment without increasing the burden of data collection.
We have also at the present time not considered whether the police’s current IT systems will be able to capture and record the information being requested. Further work will need to be done to determine whether that can be done and how much it would cost. I further note that the Home Office currently publishes police powers and procedures statistics that include data on fixed penalty notices annually. Proposed subsection (6A) calls for quarterly statistics, which would place us in the odd position of publishing quarterly details on a subset of offenders who had previously taken a course and only publishing annually the overarching group of those issued with a fixed penalty notice. I know that is not the intention of the amendment, but that would be its effect.
So the addition of subsection (6A) would, as explained, have an unspecified and so far uncalculated cost effect on the police. It would require recording a great deal more information, and its publication in the form proposed in the amendment would create—I accept that this is not its intent—an anomaly. Therefore, given that we have committed to evaluating the effectiveness of courses, and that we are concerned about the detail of subsection (6A), I do not think that it would be unreasonable to ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw the amendment.
I want to go further than that, however, because I have some doubt anyway about the business of maintaining in perpetuity a database of people who have been on the courses. Many people who receive a fixed penalty notice go on a course, and there would be questions to be asked about whether those data should then remain on record in perpetuity. That would be a very significant step to take and not one that I think would be universally welcomed. There are some data protection issues that we would need to explore at some length were we to go down that road.
Drew Hendry
It is very important to remind people of road safety and the consequences of driving behaviour, so we welcome the approach to alternatives. I am delighted by the fact that the Minister has confirmed that he will bring forward assessments and reviews of the effectiveness of those alternative measures. It is important to have evidence to prove their effectiveness or otherwise so that everyone can learn from the process and benefit from improved road safety in order to save lives. In that context, will the Minister consider existing evidence that road safety would be increased and lives would be saved by lowering the drink-driving limit, as has happened in Scotland? As part of his further discussions on road safety, will he consider introducing that revised limit in England?
Richard Burden
I hope that I can set the Minister’s mind at rest about the collection and holding of data. The data that I am referring to is anonymised; it is not data that will identify individuals. I am grateful for his comments about proposed subsection (6B) and the commissioning of research in conjunction with a number of road safety bodies. That is not new, because his colleague the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones), confirmed in an answer to me that research would be done on the effectiveness of diversionary courses, including reoffending rates.
The nagging question for me is: how do we reach any conclusion on the effectiveness of diversionary courses on reoffending rates unless we collect the data on those rates? I simply do not see how that research can be done to achieve any results unless those data are collected. If the proposal created an administrative burden on police forces, and I do not believe that it would be hugely onerous, it would be in terms of the collection of the data rather than their publication. We need to know how good those courses are at stopping people from reoffending and thereby getting fixed penalty notices. To me, that is a basic requirement of the information required to assess the effectiveness of diversionary courses. That is the purpose of the amendment. It is a simple request, and for that reason I want to press the amendment to a vote.
Mr Hayes
Let me make one final attempt to persuade the hon. Gentleman that we are in the same place on this matter. I am grateful for his assurance about anonymised data, but it is hard to know how we could analyse data until course and penalty data had been married up, and of course the fixed penalty will precede the course. I entirely agree with him about the measure of effectiveness, which is why we have commissioned the work. Of course that is right, and I am very surprised that it was not done before, because such diversion courses have been going for a very long time, as he will know. It seems absolutely sensible that we should check whether they are having an effect; it would be odd not to do so. We will therefore do that, and people can tell from what I said earlier that it is a thorough and studious piece of work, engaging organisations of a range of types, all of which have both expertise to bring to bear and an interest in these matters.
I do not think that there is much difference between us here. It may well be that the research necessarily samples data in the way that research into this kind of thing does. That is quite different from routinely collecting the data, in a way that proposed subsection (6A) would necessitate. I understand the principle and the intent, but the collection of these data on a routine basis with systems that may not yet be capable of marrying all the material together, and at an uncertain cost, is not something that I could commit to now, and I am not sure that the hon. Gentleman would do so if he was standing in my shoes.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Richard Burden
I beg to move, That the clause be read a second time.
We are back to electric vehicles. I am sure the new clause will find agreement on both sides of the Committee for what it is trying to get at, because we all want to increase the uptake of electric vehicles—and, indeed, zero-carbon and ultra low emission vehicles generally. To me, it is important that the Government have a strategy to encourage that uptake across the board, but it must go further than what is in the Bill. That is important not only to future-proof our economy and society but to assure the industry and consumers that investing in that new generation of vehicles is the right thing to do. We must make electric vehicles and other low-emission vehicles more widely available and affordable to kick-start a shift in thinking about car ownership and, perhaps most importantly, to address the air quality crisis that is choking towns and cities in the UK, with all the public health implications that it involves. I will come on to that issue in the next few minutes.
Kit Malthouse
I am slightly confused. Is the hon. Gentleman attempting to legislate for what is essentially a political decision? [Interruption.] It is for the Government to decide to have a strategy, but he is attempting to legislate for that decision, which is surely within the Minister’s ambit. I am confused. This is presumably, as far as I can see, a political decision.
Richard Burden
Call me old-fashioned, Ms Ryan, but I do not think it is the job of anyone other than Parliament to make that decision. If a political decision is a decision based on what Members of the legislature, in their judgment, think is the right thing to do, there is nothing wrong with that.
The Chair
May I just say that the new clause would not have been selected if it were not in order for the Committee to be debating it?
Richard Burden
Thank you, Ms Ryan.
If the hon. Member for North West Hampshire is suggesting that we should not encourage the uptake of such vehicles, he is entitled to that view, although it is not one that I share. Throughout our debates on the Bill so far, there has been consensus across the Committee that, whatever else we do, encouraging the uptake of electric vehicles should be part of the picture.
Kit Malthouse
I completely understand what the hon. Gentleman is saying, and I agree. I am a convert to electric vehicles—hydrogen electric vehicles, as it happens. I just think it is for Ministers to put out a strategy, and they take their chances with the House if they do or do not.
On a point of order, Ms Ryan—forgive my legislative inexperience—as I understand it, under the Standing Orders, amendments and new clauses have to satisfy the notion that they are not vague, and I find this very vague. It does not lay out what form the strategy should be in—is it one side of A4? It does not say what the sanction is if the Minister does not do it. There is all sorts of vagueness in it. We are making the law of the land, but it seems to be bound up in the idea that we are legislating for what is essentially a political decision.
The Chair
The Chair’s selection is final. If the Chair rules the new clause or amendment in order, it is in order.
Richard Burden
I would certainly defer to your judgment about the fact that the new clause is in order, Ms Ryan.
May I take the hon. Member for North West Hampshire back to something he himself said, which is that he thinks that bringing forward strategies is the job of Ministers? I agree, and that is exactly what the new clause says: it asks Ministers to bring forward a strategy for encouraging the uptake of electric vehicles. The reason we are suggesting that is that the Bill, as it stands, deals with one element of the picture, which is the question of the charging infrastructure. That is important, but it is only one element of a larger picture. As the Government impact assessment says, it is part one of a rolling programme of reform. In future waves, they will need to expand the infrastructure beyond the scope even of what is in the Bill. That is why we have been talking a lot about how we can future-proof it. They will also need to address barriers to uptake and concerns and uncertainties of the kind that we discussed in the evidence session, such as capital cost, residual values and battery ranges; encourage more active procurement of ultra low emission vehicles, including electric vehicles, by public authorities; and introduce an active industrial policy to ensure that the UK is in pole position to develop and make electric vehicles in the future.
I have to say that the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy’s Green Paper, “Building our Industrial Strategy”, is a good document. There are some very worthwhile things in it, including proposals for meeting the challenge of increasing our involvement in the research, development, commercialisation and manufacture of these vehicles. I absolutely welcome all that, but the point of the new clause is that the relationship between that industrial strategy and the transport strategy that the Bill is concerned with needs to be much clearer. We also need to assess all the existing and potential incentives for consumers and business. The Government regularly reference those, but—this has come up several times in debates—it is difficult to reconcile what they say about the importance of consumer incentives with their cuts to grants, plug-in vehicles and so on.
Home charging is a logical and important place to start but, as we have heard, in urban areas, which are potentially one of the most fruitful markets for electric vehicles, that is not always simple or practical. We need some innovative thinking and new ideas to encourage and incentivise uptake. I am sure the Minister is brimming with them—we know that it is only a matter of time before the Hayes hook-ups hit our streets. We need to consider the kinds of issues that Quentin Willson urged us to look at when he gave evidence: wireless on-street charging, possibly using street lamps, and exploring other options in urban areas where private parking areas are simply not widely available. It is also important to address how the charging infrastructure can be extended to places such as supermarkets, shopping parks and workplaces, where there is natural dwell time and less inconvenience for electric owners charging their vehicles.
It is important that the Government are seen to be leading the way on electric vehicles. I broadly welcome the actions of the Minister and the Government and the keenness that the Minister has brought to the subject in our deliberations. Like him, we all want to ensure that the UK is one of the world leaders in manufacturing and supporting infrastructure for electric vehicles, but we also want it to be a leader in their uptake, moving towards a new transport system and a different contribution to our economy. That all goes well beyond the Bill, but it is important that the different strands of Government thinking on industrial strategy and transport strategy are brought together.
The new clause would encourage and require the Government to think ahead, and think creatively, about putting a strategy in place to confront the inhibitors of uptake and gear the UK towards a new economy and a new kind of transport system. As I have acknowledged, the Government’s aim is to address the inhibitors to widespread uptake of EVs, but the Bill’s focus is narrow. It addresses only the charging infrastructure and the information available, not the wider challenges that I referred to—capital cost, wider infrastructure, residual value, battery technology and so on. I think the Minister recognises that—he has said that this is step one on a journey of many steps—but I would like him to assure us today that the Bill will kick-start an active and innovative Government strategy to make EVs and other ultra low emission and zero-emission vehicles the go-to vehicles for the UK. He is well versed in overcoming the barriers to uptake, but we need to know how he and the Department for Transport will confront them.
Alan Brown
Following on from the comments of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield, I agree that we hope that the Government will set out a strategy to kick-start the roll-out of electric vehicles. Whether a report about the uptake of vehicles is a political decision is, I think, semantics. All Government decisions are political in one way or another. A Government make a political decision and then implement policy, and that is a political decision and then policy making by that Government at that moment in time. Any subsequent Government can change the legislation to suit their politics, their decisions or their changes in policy. So this might be a political decision or it might not be, but it is about implementing policy.
Clearly, the Government support the roll-out of electric vehicles. Part 2 of the Bill is about the electric charging network, so why would they invest in such a network and have provisions in the Bill to extend it if they were not going fully to support the roll-out of electric vehicles? I would, therefore, welcome a report. The Government have a 2020 target of 1.6 million electric vehicles and we are 1.5 million short at this moment. I would welcome, therefore, seeing how the Government think they will achieve that target.
Recently, there have been cuts in the grants available for purchasing electric vehicles, for hybrid vehicles and for home charging, so some of the political or policy decisions have been contrary to increasing the uptake of the vehicles. Therefore, it would be good if the Government came back with a report that clearly outlined how they were going to increase uptake of electric vehicles and meet their 2020 target and the long-term 2050 target. We have heard on Second Reading and in our Committee sittings that other countries are much further ahead in increasing the uptake of electric vehicles, so I would like to think that a Government report could look at what those countries are doing and incorporate that into their strategy as part of a look ahead. Coming back with a report has merits, and would allow everyone to see the clear direction from the Government.
Mr Hayes
As a separate matter, I am personally associated—“associated” is a rather slight way of putting it, actually—with the production of the Government’s new air quality plan. We have committed as a Government to produce that plan by the summer and will present a draft very shortly—this spring. I work with Ministers from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs alarmingly regularly. Indeed, I said the other day to the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey), that I see her more often than my family. It is important that that plan is consistent with our strategy for promoting ultra low emission vehicles. It must be—they are an important part of achieving what we seek, which is that, by 2050, all vehicles are low-emission vehicles, with a consequent effect on emissions and air quality. New clause 4 deals with air quality anyway, so I have no doubt that we will debate that at greater length.
I do not want to go too much further at this juncture, except to say that the money we are spending on electric vehicles needs to be emphasised. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield raised this, so I want to be crystal clear. During this Parliament, we will invest well over £600 million to support low-emission vehicles. That includes subsidising the purchase of new vehicles by consumers; £80 million for subsidising the cost of the charging infrastructure, with grants of £500 off the cost of home installation and similar support for charge points on streets and in workplaces; £150 million to support the adoption of the cleanest buses and taxis, and more than £100 million to fund research and development of new zero-emission technologies, building on the UK’s well-regarded scientific and automotive sectors. That is on top of the £270 million industrial strategy fund that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield referred to, some of which will support the development, design and manufacture of the batteries that will power the next generation of electric vehicles. That adds up to a comprehensive package of measures—as comprehensive as almost any Government’s—but I accept that money alone is not enough, and I do not say that it is. Advocacy and legislation matter, too, which is why we introduced the Bill.
I think that that probably is enough—[Interruption.] I think it is. I do not want to disappoint any of my admirers—[Hon. Members: “Name them!”] There are some on this side of the Committee, too; I want to be absolutely clear about that. I think we are on the same page.
Richard Burden
I thank the Minister for his really positive response. He gets what we are talking about. We are dealing with a potential revolution in our relationship with personal mobility—in the way we think about cars and how they connect with one other and with us. Are we moving into an era where we have not so much vehicles with information systems attached, but information systems with vehicles attached? That presents profound challenges for us, but also profound opportunities. That is why we suggest in the new clause—I am really pleased that the Minister said the Government would do this—that there needs to be strategic thinking, not only by the Government, who have responsibility for developing those ideas, but by all of us, about how we rise to those challenges.
Christian Matheson
Does my hon. Friend share my view that that might not be about prescribing for the industry what steps it needs to take, but about ensuring that all parts of Government are aware of what their role might be as the sector develops?
Richard Burden
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We are talking about joining the dots within Government to ensure that those three elements—the Minister got it right about where the three elements of Government crystallise—can be put to best effect. Part of that is legislative, whether that is primary legislation or the regulations that we have debated a great deal in Committee.
Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)
Given that the Minister has conceded that there will be a strategy, may I urge the hon. Gentleman to do as little strategising as possible and perhaps to include corporates as much as possible? My experience of watching Governments strategise, whether in the military or the civilian field, is to see what is charmingly known as a cluster emerge from the ideas of Whitehall and get thrust on corporations and individuals who then have to untangle whatever came out. I urge him as much possible in our process to act simply as a receptacle of ideas, rather than as a preacher of doctrine.
Richard Burden
In many ways, I think that is what we are getting at. Throughout Committee we have emphasised the importance of consulting stakeholders, and listening to and involving them. The corporate sector, particularly in the automotive industry, is central to that. Automotive is one of those areas in which partnership between Government and industry has been at its most successful. The Automotive Council, established by the previous Labour Government—but I am pleased to say continued by the coalition and this Government—has been held up as a beacon for a non-bureaucratic way to bring Government and industry together to lay out where we want to go and the kind of road map needed to get there.
Rob Marris
On where we want to go and a road map to get there, Conservative Governments in the 1950s laid the groundwork for our motorway network in the United Kingdom—built by the state to a plan.
Richard Burden
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Whether those Conservative Governments got everything right about the motorway network in everyone’s point of view, who knows, but his point is well made.
I will not labour the point at this stage, because there is a consensus among most Committee members about what is required. The Minister has said that he will bring forward a strategy, updating the previous one and joining up the dots in Government so that we can know how the legislative road may best be taken, how we can best stimulate the market for electric and other low and zero-emission vehicles and how we can make a case for that step change in personal mobility that we have the chance to achieve in not too many years. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 4
Air pollution and vehicle technology
‘The Secretary of State must, within 12 months, lay a report before Parliament setting out a strategy for using vehicle technologies, including electric vehicles, to contribute to meeting Government ambitions relating to air pollution and the UK’s climate change obligations.’—(Richard Burden.)
This new clause would require the Secretary of State to bring forward a strategy for using vehicle technology to address the issue of air pollution in the UK.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Richard Burden
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
I am asking for another strategy—I am absolutely on a roll—and it is on the very issue that we began to talk about in relation to the previous new clause. This one goes by a name that is very popular among Opposition Members in that it is new clause 4. It is, however, on a matter that is really serious. Air pollution and air quality have often been perceived as matters for the future, but they are matters for the here and now. While this Bill indirectly addresses the issue of air quality, I would like to press the Minister to be a little more explicit on how it can contribute to tackling the air quality challenge.
I cannot help but feel that the Government have missed an opportunity in this Bill to be more proactive and perhaps a bit more innovative in confronting one of the biggest issues facing our country. Air quality is nothing short of a crisis, and air pollution is choking our towns and cities. It is a widely recognised public health issue; it contributes to approximately 40,000 premature deaths in the UK every year. We also know that it is affecting people’s daily lives, particularly the lives of those with lung conditions and other respiratory conditions, and we know that unless we take action things will not get better on their own. Brixton Road in south London breached annual air pollution limits for 2017 just five days into the new year.
The Minister will not need reminding that the Government are under pressure to produce—at the third attempt—a revamped air quality plan next month, after a High Court judge described their previous two plans as wholly inadequate. The Minister has talked about the meetings he has already had with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to produce that plan, but at the moment it appears that we are dangerously on course to fail to meet not only the standard that has been set for us on air quality but our own renewable fuels target.
I am not being unreasonable about the difficulties and challenges that exist in confronting these kinds of issues; I am simply stating the facts. Currently, we are failing to meet the air quality challenge that faces us. Clean air should not be a privilege; it is a right. Reducing harmful emissions must be a priority for public health, the environment and for future generations, and the Government have a central role to play in rising to that challenge.
The scale of this issue is great and dealing with it will require ambitious, innovative thinking. Decarbonisation of vehicles is widely seen as a critical component in helping the UK to meet its own obligations and targets. That is why the electrification of transport is vital, in any equation, for achieving the 2050 targets. Electric vehicles themselves, whether they are “conventionally” electrically powered or powered through hydrogen, are obviously an important part of that process.
However, it is not only decarbonisation of vehicles that matters but decarbonisation more generally—of industry, the economy and society. That means not just patting ourselves on the back because we are encouraging the uptake of electric vehicles. If that is not backed up by further change, the switch to electric vehicles could end up shifting emissions elsewhere to power plants, rather than getting rid of the emissions.
This process is not just about cars. Most of our discussions in this Committee, including in our evidence sessions, have focused on private cars, but equal if not more attention needs to be paid to commercial vehicles—HGVs, vans and buses. There are also great opportunities with buses and taxis; we should ensure that public procurement is geared towards stimulating the uptake of zero-emission vehicles.
The transition towards a low-carbon, low-emission and sustainable future is a journey in itself, but the Government can do a lot more on that journey. That is why this new clause would require the Government to place the Bill within a broader strategy for using electric vehicles and other ultra low emission vehicles, in order to address the crisis we face.
The Minister knows, from what we have said so far, that we welcome the Government’s action on this Bill and the spirit with which that action has been taken. However, he also knows that the Bill must be about more than that. He says he has talked to his colleagues in other Government Departments about the air quality plan, and we hope within the next month to see an ambitious plan for confronting the air quality crisis. For now, without giving too much away about what that plan will involve, will the Minister at least give us an indication of what further action the Government will be taking to tackle the air quality crisis and how they will seek to use the emerging markets for electric vehicles and for ultra low emission vehicles more generally as part of that strategy?
Drew Hendry
We support the new clause. A lot more needs to be done to encourage the uptake of electric and low-emission vehicles. So far, the contribution that has been made by alternative vehicles to reductions in carbon and CO2 emissions is inadequate; 1.2% of vehicles are ULEVs at the moment. Any kind of increase in that has to be more substantial than we have seen over recent years. It is essential that there is a proper update and that the Government are required to bring forward a strategy to ensure that these vehicles make a serious contribution to improving air quality.
Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill (Fifth sitting)
Richard Burden Excerpts(7 years, 7 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Chair
Welcome back to the Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill Committee. We resume line-by-line consideration of the Bill, which seems to have made very good progress last week under the chairmanship of the right hon. Member for Enfield North (Joan Ryan).
Clause 12
Smart charge points
Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)
I beg to move amendment 14, in clause 12, page 7, line 38, after “security” insert “and provide safeguards against hacking”.
This amendment clarifies that smart charge points must have measures in place to safeguard against the risk of being hacked.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to consider new clause 7—Cyber Security and hacking of automated and electric vehicles—
“The Secretary of State must, within the next 12 months, consult with such persons as the Secretary of State considers appropriate on what steps will be required for the effective cyber security of automated and electric vehicles to protect those vehicles against hacking.”
This new clause would require the Government to consult on the risks of automated and electric vehicles being hacked and to ensure that measures are in place to address this.
Richard Burden
Before speaking to the amendment, may I thank the Minister for his latest letter about the Bill, which, as ever, is very helpful?
Clause 12 is quite broad. It allows the Government to impose requirements and specifications for charge points. We know from the policy scoping notes that the Government circulated last week that they do not yet know quite what regulations they want to introduce, but that the Bill will give them the power to introduce those regulations via the negative procedure. For the reasons we discussed last week, I do not expect Ministers to know, right now, all the regulations that they will need to introduce, but I question whether the negative procedure is appropriate. I will address that point in more detail when we debate further amendments today.
Amendment 14 and new clause 7 address cyber-security and hacking. Any element of data, digital infrastructure or digital function is incredibly valuable and increasingly involves a risk of being hacked, as we know. The data, infrastructure and digital function behind the charging infrastructure and its interface with electric and automated vehicles are no different. We need to address cyber-security and data protection in relation not only to charging, but to the electric and automated vehicles themselves.
Rob Marris (Wolverhampton South West) (Lab)
My hon. Friend will be interested to know that I had a great discussion last night with the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy), who drives a Nissan LEAF. He showed me an app on his phone that not only can tell him the current state of charge of his vehicle, which is parked up in Stafford, but—should he so desire—can turn on the heating in it while he is sitting in the Members’ Tea Room. Unfortunately, when we have apps like that, there are great opportunities for hacking.
Richard Burden
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That example from the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) makes the point very clearly: there is huge potential to communicate with vehicles—for people who own or rent them, but equally for people who we would not want to be able to communicate with them.
Amendment 14 relates to charge point cyber-security. Clause 12 contains a range of non-exhaustive specifications that a charge point must comply with, and it appears that that will involve a large amount of data being transmitted from the charge point. Measures are therefore needed to ensure that charge points and the data they process are protected against attempts at hacking. I think that is what the Government are getting at in subsection 2(e), but I ask the Minister to clarify whether that provision also covers cyber-security and the risk of hacking. I also invite him to clarify who the information that clause 12 refers to is to be shared with, and where.
New clause 7 is more broadly focused on the cyber-security of automated and electric vehicles themselves. The Bill does not seem to touch on that, but it will be a significant barrier that will need to be addressed if these vehicles are to be deemed safe, secure and reliable. The example that my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South West gave illustrates that point absolutely.
Sir Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)
When we talk about hacking, we tend to visualise a spotty youth on a computer in a bedroom, but it can also mean commercial hacking. The company that has provided the charging point may want the data of people who use its facility.
Richard Burden
The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The nature of hacking is that it can come from anywhere if someone knows how to do it. As he says, that can be the individual spotty youth in a bedroom, but hacking can also be done for commercial purposes, which is equally a risk. That is why manufacturers invest millions of pounds putting systems in place to protect future vehicles from being hacked.
That is welcome, but the Government must also play a role, particularly if we are seeking to encourage development and uptake of such vehicles in the UK. Cars will also be particularly vulnerable when serviced. Somebody put it to me the other day that the nature of the information systems in our vehicles are becoming such that taking them to be serviced is a little like taking a laptop to be serviced and handing it over with all its passwords. We need safeguards. It is not beyond the realms of possibility that if those safeguards are not in place, information could be uploaded to or downloaded from an electric or automated vehicle being serviced that would allow hackers to obtain information or, perhaps worse, control safety-critical elements of the vehicle’s function.
In the case of an automated vehicle, the obvious risk is when driving. In extreme scenarios, people could find themselves going somewhere they do not want to go, travelling at a speed they do not want to travel at or, in the most dangerous case, not stopping when they need to stop. I would welcome an indication from the Minister whether his Department has discussed the issue, and what the assessed risk was of those vehicles being hacked. Furthermore, in line with new clause 7, I ask him to consult the industry on what steps might need to be taken to address that risk and whether Government action will be necessary as part of that.
Rob Marris
My hon. Friend may be aware that there has already been a case in the United States in which a vehicle with high-level electronics—not a driverless vehicle, but a vehicle for sale on the road; I cannot remember the make—was hacked as part of a process, to show that an existing vehicle could be taken over through its electronics. It is already possible with vehicles that require drivers.
Richard Burden
I was not aware of that precise case, but my hon. Friend makes an important point. Once a vehicle generates that kind of data and information, it is always possible for it to be accessed and used in a whole range of quarters. It could be used for commercial purposes, as the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire said, if a firm wants to know the individual’s driving habits and target them for marketing or other purposes. It could be used for malicious purposes, potentially causing harm to the driver or occupants of the vehicle. It could be used accidentally, to return to the example of spotty youths in their bedrooms, for something seen to be a bit of a laugh that could have severe and dangerous consequences. The technology and skills are out there now.
The point I am making in the amendment, and in particular in the new clause, is that once we move to the much more rapid expansion of uptake that we want for electric and automated vehicles, the scale of the risk becomes much greater. That is why it is important.
Rob Marris
It has just come back to me that the vehicle involved in the American experiment was a Jeep, and that it happened in July 2015, so it was quite some while ago. That case involved benign hacking to show that it could be done, but it demonstrates to us all the dangers if we do not have the kind of protection that new clause 7 would provide.
Richard Burden
My hon. Friend is right. It indicates that when we come to a decision later on new clause 7, it will be important for all Committee members to consider it seriously. This is not something that should divide us along party lines; it is something that we should all be concerned about. We have more issues and questions about some aspects of clause 12, but as the amendments relating to most of them have been grouped under clause 15, I will leave it there for now and keep the Minister and other hon. Members in suspense.
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
I want to make a few brief points. Cyber-security is clearly a huge issue in this day and age, so we should consider it as we go forward. We need to think about where the endgame is for us: it is the 2050 target of all vehicles on the road being low-emission. That is partly predicated on the roll-out of the smart charge point grid and the use of electric vehicles. If we are looking towards that 2050 horizon, we need to take as many steps as we can to ensure that there is a practical roll-out and a safe mechanism. This and neighbouring clauses are about certain roles, responsibilities and liabilities, so making the owners and suppliers of charge points responsible for their security, and setting out regulations that define that safety and security, makes sense. For that combination of simple reasons, I support the amendment and the new clause.
Richard Burden
Before the previous intervention, the Minister was talking about the consultations that he is already undertaking with the industry, in particular discussions towards setting up a list of principles to govern cyber-security. Will he give a little more detail about who he is consulting? He referred to the industry: does that mean the manufacturers of vehicles or of charge points, or does it mean the broader industry beyond the automotive sector?
Mr Hayes
Actually, it means all of them, but it would be helpful for the Committee if I set that out separately. We could describe in greater detail some of the work that I have set out, including the development of core principles, the establishment of a dialogue and international work. I am more than happy to set that all out in detail and assure hon. Members that it is significant. It is right that the hon. Gentleman should seek greater clarity and I will happily provide it before the Committee ends its consideration of the Bill.
Mr Hayes
Yes, absolutely: regulations will be made, as appropriate and at the right time. That was a perfectly fair question.
With that, I invite the Committee to reject the amendment. Better still, I invite the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield to withdraw it, so that we are not obliged to reject it. I do so having given commitments that I will follow through on as soon as possible.
Richard Burden
I am grateful to the Minister for his comments. On the issue of process and the powers that Ministers will take, I fully accept his point that they are not yet in a position to know the exact regulations for which they will want those powers. We will discuss that issue of process when we consider the next group of amendments. Nevertheless, I accept what he has said, namely that powers are necessary and that regulations cannot yet be drafted.
I am also grateful to the Minister for the commitments that he has given today, first to the publication of the principles on which cyber-security will be addressed—that is really important—and, secondly, to consultation of the kind envisaged by the amendment and new clause 7, and, thirdly, to making the laying of regulations a mandatory issue, not simply a discretionary issue.
I get the impression that the Minister feels passionately about this issue; I think we transported him back for a moment to his previous job as the Minister with responsibility for cyber-security. I have absolutely no doubt that he takes the matter seriously. On the basis of what he has said, I will not press the amendment to a vote. We will reflect on what he has said and on whether to withdraw the new clause when we come to consider it, but for now, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 12 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 13 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 14
Exceptions
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Sir Greg Knight
Mr Gray, I know that you are more interested in horses than in brake horses. I always find the Minister intriguing, but I find what he is proposing in this clause particularly intriguing. In subsection (3), he is asking the Committee to agree that regulations may exempt a person or public charging point specified in the Bill. Can he give the Committee an example of the circumstances in which he envisages an exemption being applied?
Mr Hayes
I am always delighted to hear from my right hon. Friend on such matters. It might be helpful for me to set out the purpose of clause 14 and, in doing so, address the specific point that he made.
The purpose of the clause is, first, to provide the power to make exceptions to the obligation set out in the regulations and, secondly, to provide a safeguard against situations in which the requirements set out in the regulations flowing from the powers in the Bill have unintended consequences. These include where the regulations risk placing unreasonable requirements on businesses in order to comply, or where technological innovation advances in ways that could not have been anticipated at the time of drafting the regulations. Those are some of the reasons why the clause was drafted in this form.
The effect is to give the Secretary of State the ability to decide that the obligations contained in the regulations made under the Bill do not apply in particular or given circumstances. To ensure transparency, the Secretary of State will be required to publish any determination made using the powers. Being a veteran in all such legislative matters, my right hon. Friend will understand that the purpose of that is to ensure that the clause is used consistently and in a way that is open to scrutiny.
My right hon. Friend asked me about the types of situation in which the power might be used. They include where it would be unreasonable for a person to comply due to their particular circumstances—a good example would be a remote service station with very limited access to grid infrastructure—and where the aims of the regulation may be achieved by means that do not necessarily meet the exact requirements of the regulation—for example, where smart functionality is delivered through an innovation that could not have been anticipated at the point when the regulations were drafted.
Those are two areas where exceptions might be applied of the kind that I have described. Although, I am confident that I have satisfied my right hon. Friend with that assurance; maybe I have not, but that is for him to judge. At least, I hope that he will now understand the purpose of the clause as drafted.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 14 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 15
Regulations
Richard Burden
I beg to move amendment 15, in clause 15, page 9, line 1, leave out from “consult” to end and insert—
“(a) the National Grid,
(b) large fuel retailers and service area operators as defined under section 10, and
(c) any other such persons as the Secretary of State considers appropriate.”
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to consult specifically with the National Grid, large fuel retailers and service area operators before introducing regulations.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 16, in clause 15, page 9, leave out line 14.
This amendment makes the first regulations made under section 12 subject to an affirmative resolution.
New clause 5—Review of regulations in Part 2—
“(1) Within 12 months, and once in each 12 month period thereafter, the Secretary of State must lay a report before Parliament on the regulations made using powers granted in Part 2 of this Act.
(2) The report must consider—
(a) the effectiveness of the regulations,
(b) the impact the regulations are having on public charge point operators,
(c) the impact the regulations are having on fuel retailers,
(d) the impact the regulations are having on the National Grid, and
(e) how the regulations are impacting on the uptake of electric vehicles.”
This new clause would require the Secretary of State to lay a report before Parliament each year assessing the effectiveness and impact of the regulations in Part 2.
Richard Burden
The theme of the amendments and the new clause is consistent with the themes of so many of the amendments we have moved, in that it requires the Government to consult widely before regulations are implemented. One significant area that our proposals would deal with is the impact that the expansion of charging points may have on the national grid, which the Bill barely addresses, although it is mentioned in the policy scoping notes that were circulated last week. It occupied a good amount of discussion in the evidence sessions last week.
Mr Hayes
What an interesting short debate. Amendments 15 and 16 and new clause 5 deal with consultation on and approval and assessment of new regulations made under the powers. One might say that that theme has underpinned the approach taken by the Opposition in the Committee so far. It is a theme with which I have considerable sympathy—indeed, were I in their place I think I would make the same argument. When Governments take powers that by necessity are unspecified—in this case, for the very reasons that I and the hon. Gentleman have articulated—it is important that they are checked by a commitment to consult and consider properly before, during and after their application. That, essentially, is the argument that the hon. Gentleman has made.
Amendment 15 would require the Secretary of State to consult with National Grid and large fuel retailers before making regulations. G. K. Chesterton said:
“To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it.”
The powers that are given in the Bill confer on the Government a right to do things, but we need to ensure that we are right in doing them. I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman that it will be important to consult a wide range of stakeholders in relation to making regulations under the powers, including those we are discussing.
That gives me the opportunity to say a word or two about the contribution of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West, which, I have to say, I anticipated. He raised these matters, as he described, in the evidence sessions—I have the Hansard report before me. There is an appropriate range of questions to be posed about the impact of charging on the grid, which is why we heard from those we did in those evidence sessions. Without wishing to exhaustively repeat what was said, it might be instructive to draw attention to Mr Marcus Stewart’s remarks:
“By applying smart charging, you can accommodate a lot of electrical vehicles without necessarily having to increase that overall total capacity at a total system level. If you have clusters of demand at a local level, you would expect there to be local reinforcement to accommodate that—fast charging, for example, can provide heavy loads at certain points on a system, but you would connect that to a slightly higher voltage tier to ensure sufficient capacity. The system has the capability to deal with it if the type of charging is smart.”
Then he said—[Interruption.] Mr Gray, I could tell you were beginning to tire of my exhaustive account of the evidence. Mr Stewart then said:
“The provisions put forward in the Bill make total sense to us.”––[Official Report, Vehicle Technology and Aviation Public Bill Committee, 14 March 2017; c. 24, Q46.]
They make total sense to me too, because it is absolutely essential that we continue to consult for the reasons offered in the evidence sessions and highlighted by my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire, who drew attention to the fact that a great deal of this will be about the co-operation leading to demand management, which will smooth demand and by so doing change assumptions about supply.
The Committee has to some extent enabled me to recall my time as a Minister in the Home Office and as the Minister for Energy. When I was the Minister for Energy I became convinced that demand management was a vital tool for ensuring that there was adequate capacity to meet changing patterns of demand. I suspect that successive Governments have put too little emphasis on energy demand management. The debate about energy has usually been about different kinds of supply, by volume and kind, but Governments should think more creatively about demand management. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield mentioned the charging mechanisms that allow for that and, as I said in the evidence sessions, there is some history of using charging and tariffs creatively, but we could do a lot more in that respect. The Bill will catalyse fresh thinking. If we can change the orthodoxy about where and how people charge their vehicles, and rapid and smart charging is central to that change, as Mr Stewart described, we can look forward with confidence to the group responding in the way he suggested it would. It will require that challenge to the orthodoxy and that degree of creativity and imagination about how we can incentivise and encourage certain kinds of behavioural change.
One of the things the House of Lords Select Committee recommended when looking at automated vehicles, which could be applied to this part of the Bill as well, was a greater emphasis on behavioural change and our analysis of what people might do as a result of the new technology’s availability. We need to put more emphasis on that and my Department will do so. We are engaged in work with the academic sector and with others to test the behavioural changes that may ensue from these quite radical alterations to what people drive, how they drive and where they drive. The lesson we have learned in recent years is that economists should have spent more time thinking about behaviour and less time thinking about statistics. We will not make that mistake this time around. We will think about behavioural changes, including the way people charge their vehicles and the impact that has on the grid.
As the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield said, we have included in the Bill, in clause 15(3), a broad obligation to the relevant parties, which definitely includes the stakeholders he mentions in the amendment. It would therefore not be appropriate to start specifying exactly which organisation should be consulted at this stage. I said earlier that I am committed to consultation, and I will reinforce that in writing to this Committee, as well as saying it now.
Amendment 16 would require regulations made under clause 12 relating to smart charge points to be approved under the affirmative procedure. As I am sure you, Mr Gray, and the members of the Committee are aware, I am a great believer in Parliament having the opportunity to debate secondary legislation when necessary, but there is good reason for having regulations made under clause 12 using the negative procedure. I will explain why.
The electric vehicle charge point market is innovative and fast-growing, which may require the Government to intervene quickly if the market does not develop as we expect. Moreover, these provisions will be largely about the technical functionality of smart charge points, shaped by consultation and engagement with industry experts, with whom we already have strong and broad requirements to consult. In summary, I do not anticipate any further debate on the principles, so it could be regulated for as a matter of technical detail. If there were a fundamental change to the principles associated with the Bill, it would be perfectly reasonable for us to come back to the House, but I do not anticipate that happening.
New clause 5 relates to the post-regulatory review. The argument is made that we should look at these matters periodically. Part 2 of the Bill will give rise to secondary legislation, so let me assure the Committee of the value I place on reviewing the effectiveness and impact of all regulations. The essence of the argument used by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield is correct: we will need to look at these matters and review them regularly, for the reason that I have given. I do not think that one can make an argument that this is a highly dynamic area of work and then claim simultaneously that we are not going to review it or consider it closely. He is right to make the case.
Section 28 of the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015 already places a duty on a Minister of the Crown to make provision for a review when making secondary legislation—the hon. Gentleman will know that well, but I have a copy should any Member want to look at that. So yes, we should review, and that is already in law. I do not think it needs to be in the Bill. I hope hon. Members will be reassured that I will fulfil the existing duties in relation to secondary legislation, that I will consult widely and thoroughly before any regulation, and that the approach to its publishing and scrutiny set out in clause 15 is proportionate.
I am back to where I began. It is right that the Government show that the application of the regulations and powers is proportionate, necessary and fit for purpose—that it responds to the dynamism that I have described. That absolute assurance is the reason that I am asking the hon. Gentleman to withdraw his amendment.
Richard Burden
As the Minister identified, the amendments and new clause cover three areas. The first is consultation. Amendment 15 would try to ensure the right level of consultation on the pressure on the grid. Amendment 16 deals with the nature of the parliamentary scrutiny of any regulations that come from that, or from other consultation; that is the second area. The third is the willingness to review and to make sure, in a dynamic situation, that we have got this right as time goes forward—and to be prepared to change where that proves necessary.
We have had a particularly interesting debate on amendment 15, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South West for his contribution. If the expansion of electric vehicles takes place on the scale that we want it to, we are potentially dealing with major pressures on the grid. There is the nightmare scenario that my hon. Friend talked about, but it does not have to be that nightmare. There is also potential for demand management, which the Minister has talked about. There is the potential for using electric vehicles as repositories for power that can be fed back into the grid—a point made by Quentin Willson in our evidence session.
As yet, we do not know what the right mechanism will be to try to ensure that there is not the pressure on the grid that could lead to the nightmare scenario. It could be regulation; it could be market mechanisms; it could—and I suspect it will—be a combination of the two, but we are not yet in a position to know what is right. That is why consultation with all the relevant stakeholders is absolutely necessary. We felt it was important to put that in the Bill. I am grateful to the Minister for his assurance that the Government are seized of that, and his agreement to write to members of the Committee with more details of how he envisages that consultation taking place.
Mr Hayes
I am following the hon. Gentleman’s argument closely. There is an additional point: the more places that people can charge for more of the time, the more intrinsic—or implicit, if we like—the smoothing of demand will be. In a sense, if we concentrate charging, we risk the kind of spikes that he described, so as part of the Bill, there is a beneficial effect on demand of the kind that I have set out.
Richard Burden
What the Minister has said is right. To be absolutely clear, I think that the opportunities presented by the expansion of the use of electric vehicles and the move towards a zero-emission, low-carbon future in personal mobility far outweigh the risks, but there are risks, and it is right that we address them in our scrutiny of the Bill.
Rob Marris
I sense that my hon. Friend is considering whether it would be appropriate, in the interests of democracy and accountability, to press amendment 16 to a vote. May I suggest that he might like to consider the position between now and Report, rather than dealing with the issue today?
Richard Burden
My hon. Friend makes a good point. Clearly, there is a great deal for us all to consider between now and Report. The Minister put forward various issues and said he would consider various issues and get back to us. My hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South West may be right that the precise wording of the amendment is not as good as it should be, but the Minister has not convinced me of the merit of the argument that regulations should be introduced by means of the negative procedure. I will not press the amendment to a vote now, but I give the Minister notice that we wish to return to this issue. I hope that, as the Bill continues its progress, he will reflect on that. Perhaps by the time we get to Report, his position will have changed, and we could look at having the affirmative procedure.
New clause 5 is about review, and I am pleased by what the Minister said about it. He was absolutely clear that Ministers have to be prepared to reassess, review and change if necessary. I welcome that assurance. Again, in the same spirit in which we have approached these matters elsewhere, I do not intend to press the new clause to a vote.
I simply say to the Minister that we have shown ourselves to be very reasonable in withdrawing our amendments. He, in turn, has shown himself to be very reasonable in the clarifications and assurances he has given to the Committee, but sometimes it is important to put things in the Bill. Some people do spend hours poring over Committee debates, but the law will be what is in the Bill, and sometimes we need to be clear in the Bill exactly what we are saying. That is why we tabled the new clause. I hope the Minister will reflect, before Report, on whether some kind of review mechanism could be put up in lights in the Bill. I certainly hope that he will consider the point about the affirmative procedure in relation to amendment 16. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 15 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Mr Hayes
On a point of order, Mr Gray. I have listened to what has been said and, for clarity and the record, I reinforce that I will write to the Committee on a range of the matters that we have spoken about this morning. I will oblige my civil servants—I know they like me being strict with them—to produce that letter as a matter of urgency, so the Committee can consider it before our next sitting. I hope that it will be, to use the hon. Gentleman’s term, expressed in the spirit that has underpinned our scrutiny thus far.
The Chair
The Minister is most courteous and considerate, and he has kept the Committee as informed as he possibly can, but he will understand that that is not, of course, a point of order, grateful though we are to him for it.
Clause 16
Licensed air traffic services: modifying the licence and related appeals
Richard Burden
I beg to move amendment 30, in clause 16, page 11, line 31, at end insert—
“(5) Within five years of this Act receiving Royal Assent, the Secretary of State must conduct a review of the process for appealing against modification of licence conditions.”
This amendment requires the Secretary of State to review the modification appeals process within five years.
I apologise for my tardiness, Mr Gray. My head was still in electric vehicle mode. I was sitting in a car when I should have been boarding the aircraft. I have now got myself on to the runway and am in civil aviation mode for part 3 of the Bill. The amendment would require the Secretary of State to review the appeals process for the licence changes within five years of them taking effect.
There is a great deal of support from industry stakeholders, including the Civil Aviation Authority and NATS, for the modification and modernisation of the licence regime that we are talking about today. During the evidence session, we heard that these proposals are similar to measures in place for Heathrow and Gatwick, and that the changes envisaged by this Bill would be welcome and helpful to both the Civil Aviation Authority as the regulator and NATS as the operator. We Labour Members accept that.
The basis of this amendment and the review we are calling for is that in the evidence session, when I asked the Civil Aviation Authority about the frequency of new appeals, the answer we received was that nobody really knows yet what the impacts of these changes will be. Indeed, in its impact assessment, the Department has forecast between 16 and 36 possible modifications of varying significance relating to issues around price controls, financial resilience and service continuity. It concedes that, in the example of service continuity, historically, there have never been any modifications to the licence. The impact assessment recognises that the assumptions on the number of appeals are highly uncertain in one section, but then notes that changes brought about by the new pan-European single European sky air space reform could lead to a number of major changes for NATS in the coming years. Despite the uncertainty of the impact, the Government’s impact assessment says that there will be a post-implementation plan in the form of a “light touch”—their words—review of the new arrangements after five years and a full review after 10. That is welcome, but nowhere does the Bill reference that commitment.
I want to make it clear that we do not oppose any of the bases that the Government have put forward for the need to make changes to the licence modification regime, but with such uncertainty about what changes they are going to make, how many modifications may be sought and what their impact should be, we think that a scheduled review after a period of time would make rational sense.
In the Committee’s evidence session, the Civil Aviation Authority agreed that it would make sense to review the powers that had been introduced. I would welcome the Government’s looking sympathetically at the amendment and reassuring us that the kind of review that we seek, which the impact assessment assumes will take place anyway, will be taken on board by Ministers.
Mr Hayes
We now move to a very different and equally important part of the Bill. The proposal is a relatively small but significant change to the arrangements to which the hon. Gentleman drew our attention. He mentioned the importance of reviewing regulations. Again, we fully agree with that sentiment. It is the practice of the Government to review regulations, and I hope that is reflected in how we develop the regulatory changes that we are making in the Bill. Licence qualifications are not a regular occurrence, and appeals against licence qualifications are rarer still. For example, in the four years since the establishment of a similar review for airport licences, there have been no appeals. It is therefore unlikely that there will be enough appeals in five years to warrant a meaningful review of the process.
I am sympathetic to the idea of a review, but I am not sure that the amendment’s five-year timescale is appropriate. I also think that the scope of the review is defined too narrowly to warrant a meaningful evaluation of the changes to the regulatory regime. I am arguing for a review of a more fundamental kind over a longer period. These changes reflect the broad direction of travel as successive Governments have learned lessons on how best to regulate monopoly industries, to ensure a focus on safety, efficiency and efficacy. Any review that we conduct must consider the effectiveness of the licensing framework as a whole, looking at the impact on its customers and the lessons learned in other sectors. I hope to be able to provide assurance that the framework for regulating our air traffic control provider will be reviewed through such a review process, which will encompass all aspects of the regulatory regime, as appropriate at the time, and not just the appeals process, given what I said about appeals being rare in the past and likely to be so in the future.
The hon. Gentleman is right that we will need to look at this when it is changed. We should do so comprehensively over a meaningful time period. The post-implementation review will be carried out with the corporation review of the entire licensing framework, rather than specific aspects of it. With that assurance, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will withdraw his amendment.
Richard Burden
The basis of this part of the Bill and the clause that the amendment relates to is uncontentious. At the moment, if the Civil Aviation Authority wishes to review NATS’s licence and there is an objection by NATS, there is a potentially long and complicated process with reference to the Competition and Markets Authority to try to unscramble it. The basis of the clause is right in saying that the Civil Aviation Authority should have much clearer powers to suggest a modification, and NATS should have the right to appeal. It is a simple change and it makes sense. NATS agrees with it and the CAA thinks it is a sensible change. There is not a big difference between the parties in Committee on that.
Richard Burden
I beg to move amendment 29, page 22, line 17, schedule 1, at end insert—
“(3A) An owner or manager whose interests are materially affected under subsection (2)(c) may be defined by regulations made by the Secretary of State following consultation on and publication of the criteria used to determine whether such persons are deemed materially affected.”
This amendment would require the Government to clarify what other persons or parties they intend to permit to appeal, who are not directly affected by licence modifications but may be considered materially affected.
The amendment is not only about the procedure by which NATS as the operator can appeal against proposed licence modifications by the CAA, but about who else will be in a position to appeal. The Bill refers to the Secretary of State’s power to give “prescribed aerodromes” a right of appeal. The amendment would give the Secretary of State power to prescribe proper scrutiny. We recognise that one of the benefits of the changes in the appeals process is the value of bringing in other parties to appeal, including owners or operators of aircraft, such as airlines. The extension to parties financially affected is clear, but what is less transparent is the permissions to parties materially affected by licence changes and the right of the Secretary of State to prescribe which operators can appeal on that basis.
The question we really want to ask the Minister is this: why is it necessary for the Secretary of State to have such power, other than to risk excluding some parties who may have reasonable grounds to lodge an appeal? Surely the Government could leave that to the Competition and Markets Authority.
Otherwise, if the Government are to decide, it is only fair that they should publish the criteria that they intend to use to prescribe who else will have the right to appeal against license modification, and to define who is materially affected by any such modifications, so that we can be assured that the power the Government are taking for themselves will be exercised reasonably.
Mr Hayes
Edmund Burke said that:
“Good order is the foundation of all things.”
The hon. Gentleman seeks in his amendment to ensure that the arrangements in the Bill are properly ordered, and that the powers are exercised through the proper channel. The effect of the amendment, as he describes it, would in part be to duplicate the proposed power to define through regulation which airports are considered to be materially affected by a licence condition, and to oblige us to consult on exercising the power. Once again, I assure him that such consultation is already standard practice and will continue to be so.
Like the hon. Gentleman, I think that there is little difference between us; this is a matter of exploring the application of a change introduced by the Bill that we all think is necessary. I am grateful to him, therefore, for the amendment, which provides me with an opportunity to clarify the Government’s intent in relation to aerodromes being able to raise appeals against licence modifications.
For absolute clarity, there are five airports at which the licence holder serves as a monopoly provider, in the particularly complex airspace in the south of England. As the purpose of the licence is to provide economic regulation, it is appropriate for those five airports to have access to the appeals mechanism provided in the schedule. Therefore, the Government intend that the regulations introduced under the power will list the five relevant airports, as the licence itself does. I would expect the regulation to remain in line with the licence in that respect.
Our approach has been determined through consultation prior to the Bill—the hon. Gentleman will be familiar with that consultation. As I said, it is certainly standard practice to consult when the Government make regulations of this kind, and I would expect to do so if anything were to change that approach in future. The consultation was clear, as he implied, that the change is a necessary improvement to existing licensing practice. The five airports—for the record, they are Heathrow, Gatwick, London City, Luton and Stansted—are particular for the reasons that I have given. Elsewhere, the service is provided commercially either by NATS or another company, or in-house by the airports themselves. The complexity of the airspace requires no further explanation —it is self-evident.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned the Competition and Markets Authority. In addition to the Government’s role, that authority, which is the body that will determine appeals under this regime, must determine on a case-by-case basis whether the materially affected test has been met by a complainant, even if eligible to raise an appeal. The Government should therefore not seek to duplicate that role by further defining “materially affected”. We can rely on that body in the way he described. The changes in relation to those five particular places are necessary and, the consultation suggests, desired. With that, I hope that he might withdraw his amendment.
Richard Burden
I am afraid the problem is that, if there is a danger of duplication, it is in the Bill, which gives the Secretary of State power to define a prescribed aerodrome—in other words, the power to define which airports or, indeed, other operators will or will not be able to appeal. Our nervousness is about what criteria will be used.
The Minister may be right that it would over-complicate things to ask Ministers to replicate the decisions that could come from the Competition and Markets Authority, and to define narrowly in advance what being materially affected means in relation to a licence modification. However, I am not sure that it is unreasonable to say that, if the Government are going to take the power that the Bill gives them to prescribe who can and who cannot appeal in particular cases before we get to those cases, they should publish the kinds of criteria that they will use when making those decisions. That is what the amendment tries to get at.
I do not insist that amending the Bill is the only way of achieving that, but I hope the Minister will be able to reassure us by accepting that it is reasonable for us to ask the Government to publish at least the criteria they will use to decide which airports or other operators they prescribe and which they do not prescribe, without at this stage asking them to identify those airports or other operators.
Mr Hayes
The hon. Gentleman, being an experienced Member of the House, knows how to provoke an intervention, and he has done just that. The Bill and regulations will define who is eligible. We are clear about that. The CMA will apply the test. As he said, those are separate functions, but I am inclined to agree with him that it is not unreasonable to make clear the criteria that he describes. I will think about how we can do it, but it is not necessary to do it in the Bill. He would not expect us to do that anyway, of course. I will reflect not on how we can establish the criteria, but on how we make them known. That seems perfectly reasonable, and I will go away and think about it.
Richard Burden
I am grateful to the Minister for that entirely spontaneous intervention. As ever, he has been very helpful. He has grasped what I was getting at. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Schedule 1 agreed to.
Schedule 2 agreed to.
Clause 17 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedules 3 and 4 agreed to.
Clause 18
Air travel organisers’ licences
Richard Burden
I beg to move amendment 22, in clause 18, page 13, line 20, at end insert—
“(4) The Government must publish a review within one year of this Act receiving Royal Assent the impact on UK consumers using EU-based companies affected by changes to consumer protection introduced by this section.”
This amendment requires the Government to regularly review the impact of the new regulation to ensure that it is working and not adversely affecting UK consumers using EU-based companies.
We moved from cars to licence modifications for NATS and its relationship with the Civil Aviation Authority, and we now move seamlessly to the air travel organisers’ licence. Essentially, the clause will update ATOL to ensure that it is harmonised with the 2015 EU package travel directive. As with other parts of the Bill, many of the changes that this part of the Bill envisages will be covered in regulations, but broadly it will extend ATOL to a wider range of holidays and protect more consumers.
UK travel companies, we are told, will be able to sell more seamlessly across Europe, as they will need to comply with protection based not in the country of sale but the country in which they are established. Those are the objectives that the Government seek to achieve. As with other parts of the Bill, there is no difference of principle between the Government and the Opposition on this matter. Indeed, it is a result of that package travel directive that it has been necessary to put such a provision in the Bill. However, we seek clarification on some issues, which is why I tabled amendment 22.
Alan Brown
I support the hon. Gentleman’s principle. The amendment states:
“The Government must publish a review within one year”
of Royal Assent, but the explanatory statement says that the Government must “regularly review the impact”. By stating only that there must be a review within one year, that is asking for only one review. As we move into the post-Brexit world, would a review after one year be appropriate? We may need to look at the wider consequences as we go forward.
Richard Burden
The hon. Gentleman is right that the amendment talks about a year, which is because we want to get that ball rolling. As with so many other things, the environment is changing—that is particularly the case in relation to Brexit. ATOL will still be there post-Brexit, although when we discuss the next group of amendments we may explore possible changes.
The package travel directive will no doubt still be there for the states that are still members of the European Union. What is uncertain at this stage is what the interface will be between those two things post-Brexit. The Government must address that. As I said, we ask them to get the ball rolling within a year of the Bill receiving Royal Assent, but the hon. Gentleman is right about the need for regular review, particularly in the light of Brexit.
Mr Hayes
There are many reasons to be proud to be British and to be subjects of the United Kingdom—I think all members of the Committee would agree with that. One of them is that we have done rather well in respect of protecting those who book holidays. The regime we have developed over a long time has afforded considerable protection to people who book holidays and then, through no fault of their own, find themselves in some difficulty. There is nothing worse than a much hoped for and anticipated holiday being spoilt by an eventuality over which one has no control.
However, it is important that we also recognise that the way in which people book holidays is changing. Essentially, the purpose of this part of the Bill, and the consultation that preceded it, is to bring the arrangements up to date, to take account of those different patterns of behaviour and those different business models. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield is right to probe these matters in the way he has, because although we have consulted widely—I will refer to the consultation in my response—we are making changes that will have an important impact; otherwise, we would not be making them. It is essential that we do so with care.
I fully support the purpose of the amendment. Indeed, the relative level of protection offered by European economic area-based companies was one of the concerns about which the Government sought views in the consultation. Our conclusion was similar to that expressed by John de Vial of ABTA in the evidence session. Members of the Committee will remember that he drew attention to the issues that we have begun to consider, namely that the changes proposed through the package travel directive will improve the position for UK consumers. That directive will raise the bar across the board, which he said
“can only be a good thing.”––[Official Report, Vehicle Technology and Aviation Public Bill Committee, 14 March 2017; c. 64, Q147.]
However, I fully agree with the sentiment of the hon. Gentleman’s amendment that we must keep the situation under review.
It is fortunate, therefore, that the current legislative framework already requires the Government to review the impact of any regulation made under the Bill within five years of its being laid. I mentioned earlier in our consideration the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015. It is one of the few Acts of Parliament that I did not take through Committee, and is notable for that fact alone. It is also an important protection of the kind sought by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield. That Act requires the Government to conduct and publish reviews of any secondary legislation.
Perhaps the Committee will allow me to say one or two more things about the consultation that we have conducted. Consultation documents are available to the Committee—both the consultation and the Government response; but I shall highlight one or two aspects of it. We held a number of workshops to seek views, and they were attended by a large number of insurers, airlines, online travel agents, credit card and transaction systems operators, accredited trade bodies and consumer groups. I shall not read out the list of consultees as it is very long, but it includes all the relevant people that one might expect, from consumer groups, business organisations, airlines, travel organisations and so on.
One of the key considerations was the protection, Europe-wide and beyond—worldwide—for travellers. Given the consultation, we asked questions of the kind that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield has put, and received the encouraging view from consultees that it was very important to move the scope of ATOL protection from a place of sale to a place of establishment. That is to reflect the change I have described in the way in which holidays are sold and, therefore, the way in which they are bought. It is important to update the regulations, which means continuing to review them in the way the hon. Gentleman set out. It may be that the change is a trend change, and the way people book holidays will continue to alter over time. I personally—rather like you, I suspect, Mr Gray, although I do not know—go along to my Co-op travel agent in Spalding and book my holiday by conventional means. I find that most satisfactory; but there are people who prefer a more modern approach to these things, and, while modernity is not always to be recommended, it is, however sadly I say it, a reality. As a Minister, I have to deal in reality, whereas in my private life I can indulge in all kinds of magic.
Moving quickly from magic to fact, we will continue to review things as the market develops, in precisely the way the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield has recommended to the Committee. It is worth noting that these changes will come into effect across Europe only from 1 July 2018, which, 12 months after Royal Assent, will mean that at most we will have seen only nine months for the changes to take effect. I doubt whether any significant volume of people will have bought holidays from EU-based companies over that time. Most companies will be very likely to stay within local arrangements that their consumers know, at least for the time being—because, of course, the reason I go along to the Co-operative travel agent is that I know and trust it, and most people who are booking holidays want that kind of reassurance.
Those who do, however, want to take advantage of flexibility, will be likely to take time to assess how the new arrangements bed down before they change their own practice. Given those uncertainties about pace and scale, which will of course only be added to by what we do not yet know about the outcome of Brexit negotiations, I suggest a flexible timetable for further review; five years seems appropriate, which is why the Government are legislating accordingly. That is also what we are currently in the process of for the 2012 changes, by the way, because we are now considering a set of changes that were obviously made in 2012.
Mr Hayes
Mr Gray, I will try to respond in certainly no more than seven minutes, and ideally in less time.
Consumers are clearly a priority for the Government. In December 2016 the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy chaired a roundtable of representatives of a range of consumer bodies, charities and academics to discuss, among other issues, the impact of EU exit on consumers. As I said at the outset of this short debate, British consumers enjoy strong protections, and there is an effective consumer regime to help them to get the best deal. Sometimes markets fail and competition is not strong and consumers suffer, and it is important that the Government do not hesitate to step in and strengthen competition and/or protect those affected. In that regard, there is absolute clarity in my mind about the purpose—and, by the way, the efficacy—of the Government. It has now become fashionable—once again, thank goodness—to recognise that Government can do good. That is something I have always known and believed, and it is now back in fashion, as are so many of my long-held views.
So why is the legislation needed? The new travel package directive, which was published in December 2015, was introduced to ensure that consumer protection kept pace with modern travel habits and the modern market. The UK Government will need to transpose it into UK law before 1 January 2018. Primary legislation is needed to amend the powers of the Civil Aviation Act 1982 to update the ATOL scheme and align it with changes to UK and EU regulations, but a perfectly reasonable question, as asked by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West, is: how is all that affected by Brexit?
Until the negotiations are complete we, of course, remain a member of the European Union. The new EU package travel directive was agreed, as I said, in 2015. The measures in the Bill will ensure that the ATOL regulations and the revised package travel regulations are properly aligned in the short term, but retain the ability to adapt the scheme when the UK leaves the EU. In any event, the Government believe that the changes brought about by the new directive will have a positive impact on UK businesses and consumers, raising consumer protection standards across the EEA. That view was reflected in the consultation, with the majority of correspondents believing that the proposals will allow greater harmonisation of protection against the European market, which will ultimately benefit the consumer and businesses. To put it bluntly, I think that this is an example of where something has been agreed across the European Union for good reason and with good purpose. Although I cannot anticipate the negotiations, my view is that incorporating the provisions into British law will provide a baseline of support, which we would hesitate in any way to undermine.
I hope that I have satisfied all members of the Committee about the Government’s absolute determination to protect the interests of the consumer and to make the regulations fit for purpose in the modern age.
Richard Burden
Although the Committee might be remembered for the term “The Hayes hook-up”, it certainly will not be remembered for referring to the Minister as “Skyscanner Hayes”.
The Minister has spotted the inadequacy in the amendment, regarding the request for a review after one year. The timeframe is out of kilter because of when the package travel directive comes in and the Bill receives Royal Assent. On that basis, I will not press the amendment to a vote, but there are still issues that the Government need to consider. I am grateful to the Minister for committing to a review of the provisions. I am pleased about that, but the fact is that none of us really knows what the impact of Brexit will be.
Car Insurance: Young People
Richard Burden Excerpts(7 years, 7 months ago)
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Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I add my congratulations to the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double), and I congratulate the Petitions Committee and the Transport Committee on their work in bringing the debate. I also congratulate all hon. Members on the contributions they have made.
The petition that gave rise to the debate raises so many important issues about the astronomical prices of car insurance premiums for 18 to 25-year-olds. Those premiums have been shooting up while wages have often stagnated for people in that age group and their overall cost of living has increased—a point made ably by the hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main).
The debate also takes place against a background of changes in the way many young people look at questions of their own personal mobility. The hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay mentioned driving being a “rite of passage”; I am not so sure that that is the case for all young people these days. Driving is one of a range of different options that they see for getting about, and looking at things in that way is not necessarily a bad thing; there are some journeys for which the use of a car is not the most appropriate. I guess that hefty insurance premiums are at least one of the factors that has encouraged some of those changes of attitude. That said, I am certainly not arguing that there is nothing to worry about.
As many hon. Members have said, the different options on how to get about are not equal everywhere; they are greater in urban areas than in rural ones. For many young people, access to a car is not only about the ability to have a social life—it can make the difference as to whether they can get to college or to a job. Indeed, if we look at the data map for this petition, we see that many of the 180,000 signatories were from outside major cities, with a particular concentration, interestingly, in the north-west of England. No doubt many of the signatories to the petition feel that they cannot overcome the huge barrier of big insurance premiums that prevents them from accessing a social life, employment and education.
The idea that it is easy to get about without a car in towns is sometimes overstated. It is often thought to be easiest in London. In many ways, that is true; many of us look with great envy at the state of public transport in the city. The way that buses are regulated and operate in London is something many of us aspire to. Who knows—if the Bus Services Bill finds its way through the House without amendment, we may get nearer to that situation. However, when the Petitions Committee and Transport Committee took oral evidence on this petition, they heard that many young people—even in London—feel they have to rely on cars to get to work. Some 22% of 17 to 34-year-olds travel to work in London by car and feel they need to do so.
It is right that we address this issue. The Petitions Committee and the Transport Committee heard some really interesting evidence from a whole range of quarters about the different ways in which it can be addressed. For example, the Wheels 2 Work scheme showed some really imaginative thinking about how young people’s personal mobility can be increased, often by the use of two-wheel transport—not simply bicycles, but electric bikes, motorcycles and scooters—as well as four-wheel transport. It is doing some imaginative work on that, to provide young people with access to that kind of mobility.
Jo Churchill
Although I agree with the hon. Gentleman and congratulate Wheels 2 Work on its excellent work, that project is quite sparse and gives wheels for only six months. One in six people say they need a car for an apprenticeship, which often lasts for two years, so the two things do not marry up. Although the project is good, it is not overly practical, particularly in rural areas.
Richard Burden
The hon. Lady is right. Indeed, one of the points that Wheels 2 Work made when it gave evidence was that if the project is going to make a major difference, it needs a lot more backing so that it can both offer longevity of access to transport and reach different corners of the country. I simply raised it to say that such schemes are part of the picture and are things we need to think about.
The issue of prohibitively high insurance premiums for cars remains. A number of hon. Members today made important points about how, whether or not a cap on insurance premiums is the right way to go—the majority who mentioned it came out against—there is a need, at the very least, for greater transparency in the insurance industry about the way premiums are put together, the calculations that lead to different kinds of premium across different classes of driver and the impact of insurance premium taxes. We need that greater transparency at a policy level, but perhaps insurance companies and brokers should also think about it at the individual level, so that individual car owners and drivers can find out why a premium shot up from one year to the next and what increased risk was identified at that time.
Be that as it may, the insurance industry will still come back to the point—it has come up several times today, and rightly so—that, statistically, young drivers are much more likely to be involved in road incidents than those over the age of 25. As we know, the statistics are particularly stark among young men. There is, in truth, no silver bullet to tackle that issue. It needs to be tackled on a whole range of fronts and looked at in a rounded-out way. That is why many of us have felt for some time that there needs to be a proper Green Paper on young drivers and their safety, looking at the options for the future.
If we go back to March 2013, the headline of a Department for Transport press release stated:
“Government to overhaul young driver rules in bid to improve safety and cut insurance costs: Green paper on improving the safety and reducing risks to young drivers launched.”
Four years later, we are still waiting to see that Green Paper to explore the options for improving the safety of newly qualified drivers. We have never seen the result of that launch. At the end of that year, pursuant to a question I asked, the then Secretary of State for Transport explained that his Department was still
“wrestling with how to make things safer while not unduly restricting the freedom of our young people…We are finding this a difficult balance, with passionate voices on both sides. We will issue a paper when we have considered this further.”—[Official Report, 18 December 2013; Vol. 572, c. 629W.]
Four years on, despite calls from road safety campaigners and the insurance industry, the Government appear to have stopped considering the issue, and there is still no sign of that Green Paper on young drivers. If the Government really wish to do something about this critical concern, one of the core issues with the cost of car insurance for 18 to 25-year-olds, I ask the Minister again: is there going to be a Green Paper on the safety of young drivers? If so, when can we expect to see it? If not, why not? It seems an obvious thing that the Government should be doing.
What kind of thing could the Green Paper address? Telematics or in-car black boxes have come up several times in the debate. They can enable insurers to assess real-time data on an individual’s driving behaviour and charge more accurate risk-based premiums. As we have heard, in some cases new drivers can see their premiums fall by a fifth or more as a result of telematics. Anything that can enable responsible young drivers to be charged fairer prices for their insurance and bring down the number of road incidents has to be a good thing.
Black boxes are not, of course, necessarily a cost-free option. Nick Moger, the founder and chairman of Marmalade, a car insurance company specifically targeting young and learner drivers, explained in his written evidence to the joint Petitions and Transport Committee inquiry that black boxes are currently subject to VAT, which pushes up costs for insurers and young drivers. The question must arise of whether it is appropriate to remove VAT on technology that can prevent or at least reduce road incidents and save lives.
[Mr Peter Bone in the Chair]
The other issue that comes up is of course that telematics can often be fitted most reliably to new cars—cars that young people are often unable to afford, unless, as the hon. Member for St Albans said, they have access to a well capitalised bank of mum and dad. Telematics as a solution, or at least as a contribution to a solution, to reduce insurance premiums is not necessarily one that is available equally to all new young drivers, so it could be part of the package but not the whole package.
This week, the Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill is in Committee; it had its Second Reading a couple of weeks ago. A number of us are serving on the Committee and looking at the Bill. The Bill itself looks at other things that could have a major impact by, we hope, reducing the number of young people involved in incidents on our roads, making our roads safer and perhaps reducing the cost of premiums. The Bill looks at how the insurance treatment of automated vehicles could change in the future. We already know that the use of technology to assist drivers can have a big impact in promoting road safety and reducing the risk of incidents. I am thinking of things such as autonomous emergency braking and so on. However, we are now looking to a future that not only involves those driver assistance mechanisms, but in which the ability to be in a car and travel from A to B may not depend even on having a driving licence in the form that we know it. The car itself—the vehicle itself—could be doing the driving for some or all of the journey. That has huge potential to improve safety, but again it is really important that the insurance consequences are got right. The Bill looks at how that can be done, and it is hoped that, if the Bill gets it right, that could contribute to falling insurance premiums as safety increases through automated vehicles. If we get it wrong, it could be another way of insurance premiums rising.
There are other things that a Green Paper could address if the Government produced one. The question of graduated licensing has come up again today. That involves looking at how and when new drivers or young new drivers can drive, having passed their test. There could be restrictions on the times of day when they could do so or on the number of passengers they could have in the car with them. It is not an easy question, and there are real concerns about what it could lead to, such as unreasonable curfews on young drivers. What if a graduated licensing scheme leads to a young driver being forbidden to travel at night and they work in a bar in a rural area? The wrong sort of graduated licensing scheme could restrict opportunities and be quite unfair.
Mrs Main
The hon. Gentleman is making some excellent points. My other concern about that proposal is this. We encourage people to car share, but if, for example, students were forced to drive their own cars individually instead of getting into a car with a group of other students to go off to college for lectures or whatever they were going to do, we would be increasing the number of cars on the road, which in areas such as mine is the last thing anyone wants.
Richard Burden
The hon. Lady is right: all aspects of graduated licensing need to be considered. A menu of different kinds of graduated licensing could be brought in. I will say this, though. Although it is right to be aware of the drawbacks of the different kinds, it is also the case that, in a number of other countries, the introduction of different forms of graduated licensing has promoted road safety and reduced the prevalence of new drivers and, in particular, young drivers being involved in incidents. That is why many safety organisations, the insurance industry and, indeed, research from the Government’s own Transport Research Laboratory have said that it needs to be considered seriously.
We are back to why we need a Green Paper. A Green Paper is just that. It is not a blueprint or a set of specific proposals; it is a discussion document that lays out the kinds of option that need to be looked at and the kinds of area where Government action may be necessary, and puts that out to consultation. Given that the insurance industry, road safety campaigners and so many others have been calling for this for years and given that the Government themselves felt in 2013 that producing a Green Paper was the right thing to do, I simply do not see why we are still waiting for one to be published.
On road safety, there have been important initiatives in relation to the practical driving test: the greater focus on independent driving, including the use of sat-nav, as well as time spent on high-speed roads other than motorways. Anything that allows examiners to make a better assessment of a candidate’s ability to drive on all types of road is important. All those things should be able to reduce the number of casualties and collisions on our roads.
The hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay was right in one of the first things he said: all too often, the driving test tests a driver’s ability to pass the test, rather than their ability to drive. That is why we can be much more imaginative about how the driving test is developed. Part of that goes back to whether graduated licensing could come into it. It also raises questions about whether speed awareness can be incorporated more into the process of learning to drive, and whether the concept of appropriate speed, as well as the concept of speed limits, could form part of it.
Of course, hon. Members have also been right to say that, beyond the question of the test itself and learning for the test, there can be all sorts of other initiatives in relation to early driving to promote the idea that, when a young person gets their provisional licence, that will not necessarily be the first time they have sat in the driving seat of a car and been able to get some experience. I was really interested to hear about the early drive courses that take place up in Duns and the involvement of John Cleland. It is interesting that they are taking place in Duns: Charterhall was of course the circuit where one of the most famous racing drivers of all time, Jim Clark, learned his craft. I am absolutely convinced that that kind of early drive course can help.
At the other end of the scale is the “Safe Drive Stay Alive” initiative talked about by the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Stuart Blair Donaldson), who speaks for the Scottish National party. I have seen the work of “Safe Drive Stay Alive” and the impact of the really graphic way in which it portrays what happens if we lose a loved one in a road incident—the impact that that can have on young people in schools. Again, it is right that we support something that can contribute to reducing the number of incidents.
This issue has to be tackled on so many different fronts. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman) was right to draw attention to the Transport Committee’s work on enforcement, because part of the picture is ensuring that the regulations that we have are properly enforced. It is very difficult to reconcile proper enforcement, on which the Transport Committee has done some really important work, with the cuts in the number of traffic police; they have been cut by about one third outside London. If we want to make our roads safer, part of that is about the way we train our drivers, part of it is about the way they are examined and part of it is about the technology available in motor vehicles, but a vital part of it is how we enforce the laws that are there. Frankly, the cuts we have seen in traffic policing are incompatible with that.
Another thing that is part of the equation and that we need to bear in mind is the question of road safety targets. If I am right that the strategy we need to employ to make our roads safer involves different agencies—examiners, local authorities, the police, the insurance industry and many others—is it not time that we have shared responsibility for making our roads safer? In other parts of the world and international bodies that we are part of, road safety targets are seen as something should be supported. We used to have road safety targets in this country until they were abolished by the coalition Government. They played an important role in focusing minds, and contributed indirectly to the fall in the number of people killed or seriously injured as recorded in the casualty statistics that we had in this country—those statistics are now sadly starting to level-off and there are worrying signs that they are starting to go in the other direction.
This has been a constructive debate and some important points have been made. There is no silver bullet. In conclusion, the elements that could help to address the issues we have talked about today are as follows. In the insurance industry, we could see far greater transparency at both policy level and the individual level. On the governmental level, it is time we had a Green Paper on young drivers so that Government can have a rounded look at what is required. That could, and should, include the potential of telematics and graduated driver licensing for improving safety on our roads and reducing incidents among young people. It is important that we get the Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill right to ensure that it leads to the reduction of premiums for automated vehicles, and not the opposite. It is important that we look imaginatively at improvements to the driving test and at ways of educating young drivers before they have their provisional licence and in post-test learning. We need to ensure that the right numbers of traffic police are there to enforce the laws we have, and it is time that we brought back road safety targets so that we can have a vision for zero being killed or seriously injured on our roads. Other countries have piloted and pioneered “Vision Zero” and there is no reason why we should not have it as well. Bringing in road safety targets is a direct way in which we can contribute to a strategy for achieving that vision.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Andrew Jones)
I thank and congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) for opening this debate on the important subject of the cost of car insurance for young people. I also thank all hon. Members for the very good debate we have had this afternoon.
I reassure hon. Members that we take the cost of car insurance for young people—indeed, for all motorists—very seriously. Ultimately, the issue is about road safety and recognising that many people lose their lives or are seriously injured on our roads each year and that behind each statistic there is a shattered life and a shattered family. This is not just about numbers, but about people.
I congratulate the original petitioner, Rhys Michael Parker, who described his own experience of finding motor insurance costly to obtain as a novice driver. I recognise that, like Mr Parker, many young people use their cars to access work, education, caring responsibilities or even just the fun of social activities.
I remember receiving my driving licence—that moment might be 33 years ago to the week for my hon. Friend, but it is almost 36 years ago to the week for me; I took a moment to work that out. Getting a driving licence is a fantastic moment of opportunity in someone’s life and that is why we are committed to bearing down on the cost of car insurance for young drivers. In order to do so, the Government have identified the root causes of high insurance premiums and they are addressing them, as I will discuss.
The first root cause is the alarming rate at which fraudulent, minor and exaggerated whiplash claims have increased in the UK. The scale of the problem is highlighted by the fact that 90% of recent personal injury claims relating to road traffic collisions were labelled as whiplash or soft tissue injuries to the neck and back. The magnitude of costs that insurers inherit from whiplash claims are then often passed on to their consumers through higher insurance premiums. To tackle the issue, we recently introduced the Prisons and Courts Bill to Parliament; it is having its Second Reading today and includes measures to cut fraudulent, minor and exaggerated whiplash claims. That will generate estimated savings to insurers of around £1 billion per year. In this debate, colleagues have said that savings are not always passed on. We expect insurers to fully pass those savings on to motorists through lower premiums. The point was well made by colleagues. I am pleased to inform the House that three leading insurers have already committed to do that.
I would now like to address another of the root causes: the high levels of risk associated with younger drivers. Colleagues have highlighted the well-known fact that younger drivers are over-represented in road collisions. Car drivers aged 17 to 24 are four times more likely to be killed or seriously injured compared with drivers aged 25 or over. That is a terrible statistic and we should not in any way be complacent about it. Higher levels of risk associated with younger drivers have resulted in higher insurance premiums. While we do have some of the safest roads in the world in the UK, we are determined to make them safer; addressing the cost of car insurance is one additional factor spurring everybody on.
I have been asked about a Green Paper, but frankly it has been overtaken by events. We have no intention of publishing a Green Paper because we published the British road safety statement in December 2015. It included proposals aimed at younger drivers—indeed, all drivers—for making our roads safer, such as improving the safety of young and novice drivers both before and after they take their test. It includes our intention to commission a £2 million research programme to test the effectiveness of a range of technological solutions and educational and behavioural measures, including telematics, to improve the safety of young and novice drivers. Those interventions will be designed with careful consideration of behavioural change.
It might be helpful if I explain a bit more about how telematics policies work and play an important role in helping young drivers to access lower insurance premiums. Telematics is a key part of the future and I strongly support the expansion of telematics products in the marketplace. Telematics devices allow information on driving styles and behaviours—such as speed, braking, acceleration and where and when the vehicle is being driven—to be monitored and considered alongside the traditional risk factors that insurance companies consider, such as the driver’s age, to set premiums that are more tailored to the risk of the driver than traditional motor insurance policies.
We are seeing an increasing take-up of telematics. The technology is increasingly being chosen by young drivers as a way of ensuring that their premiums are lower. In March 2016, the British Insurance Brokers’ Association reported that there were 455,000 live telematics policies in the UK—up 40% in just two years. However, that needs to be put into the context of how many policies there are in the marketplace to show how much progress we need to make to encourage their wider use. We are not in any way complacent, but I recognise that young people benefit from telematics.
A number of organisations have lobbied me about the insurance premium tax rate exemption for young drivers with telematics policies. It is important to stress that IPT is a tax on the insurer, and there is no guarantee that it will be passed on to the customer. I also have to say that taxation is a matter for Treasury colleagues.
We are focusing our efforts on a number of other measures to ensure that younger people are fit and safe to drive. We encourage learners to do more on-road, pre-test practice and to practise in a wider range of conditions. As has been mentioned, we have recently consulted on allowing learner drivers on to motorways—with an approved driving instructor, of course—and we are analysing the results. That is very important given that people can go along at a low speed and then suddenly encounter what can be very difficult driving conditions. It can be pretty scary, although it is worth noting that the strategic road network in this country is the safest it has ever been.
We are ensuring that driving tests assess the skills needed for safe, independent driving and are raising standards across the driver and rider training industries. Importantly, we are looking at changing driving tests, which evolve continually. We have been trialling more free-flow driving and using fewer set pieces. Notwithstanding the parking issue that my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) mentioned, we are looking to remove some set pieces so that people have more understanding and experience of free-flow driving and are more road-savvy. That will include taking instructions from a sat-nav during the test. We are trying to make the test more reactive to current technology and the benefits that it can bring.
We are also looking to identify innovative applications, such as augmented and virtual reality, to improve drivers’ hazard perception—that is, the skills required to correctly assess a situation. That could mean using technology from the games industry to complement the existing on-road practice and the testing regime. We are always looking at finding ways to get people better prepared for the marvellous freedom ticket that is their licence.
Richard Burden
I agree that looking at ways in which the test can evolve and exposing the person taking the test to the greater range of experiences that they face when driving are important. However, could I take the Minister back to graduated licensing? A focus of the call for a Green Paper was that the pros and cons of graduated licensing need to be weighed up and a decision made. If the Minister has turned his face against the idea of a Green Paper, does that mean that the Government have completely rejected the possibility of looking at graduated driving licences, or are they still prepared to look at it, but want to do it differently?
Andrew Jones
We have been considering the idea of graduated driving licences but I am not inclined to support them, because we want to strike the right balance in respect of freedom for young drivers. As we have discussed, many people need their vehicles, particularly in rural areas; rather than imposing post-test restrictions on novice drivers, our efforts are all about improving driver training and testing so that people are better able to benefit from a driving licence.
I am not looking to introduce a graduated driving licence system in the UK. We have heard from colleagues how that might impact on people who live in darkness for part of the year as they perhaps seek to get to shift work early. All those factors have impacted on and led to our decision not to go down the route of a graduated driving licence.
Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill (Fourth sitting)
Richard Burden Excerpts(7 years, 7 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Hayes
Despite the overtures from my hon. Friend, the witnesses were singularly unenthusiastic about hydrogen, particularly Mr Willson. He said:
“I believe hydrogen is too far away yet to get consumers interested in or excited about it.”––[Official Report, Vehicle Technology and Aviation Public Bill Committee, 14 March 2017; c. 18, Q31.]
However, it is clearly not too far away to excite my hon. Friends the Member for North West Hampshire and for Wycombe, but they are at the apex of excitement at all times.
Mr Hayes
I will make a little progress and then give way to the hon. Gentleman.
I want to be clear that, in seeking the powers, the Government are mindful of the need to strike a balance between encouraging the development of the refuelling infrastructure for hydrogen fuel cells and electric vehicles while ensuring that any impacts on the market are managed properly. I want to emphasise that we are by no means unresponsive or unimpressed by the argument for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. I will personally ensure that the comments that have been made here and elsewhere—I am sure that the hon. Gentleman, who is an enthusiast for this too, will add to them in a moment—are taken fully into account as we take further steps to improve the infrastructure that the Bill is designed to reinforce.
Richard Burden
I think that one of the problems with the way the discussion was going a moment ago was about whether or not hydrogen conversions of petrol engines are the way to go. Surely the point about the amendment, which I think has merits, and this part of the Bill is the question of whether or not the Government should have the capacity to introduce regulations that would cover this area, or whether that capacity should be restricted to the kinds of propulsion systems currently set out in the Bill. From what the Minister said, can I take it that he is receptive to the argument that the Government should not be hemmed in by the technology and that perhaps between now and Report some form of words could be considered that would expand matters a little further?
Mr Hayes
As I enjoyed a very light and healthy lunch in between the two sittings of this Committee today, I was able to have a very brief informal conversation with Members of the Committee on exactly that subject. We discussed the risk of being “hemmed in”, as the hon. Gentleman put it, which is certainly not the Government’s intention.
I want to focus on ultra low emission and zero-emission mobility, of course, because that is very much in accord with the Government’s policy and strategy, but it is right that we do not close off technological options that have merit. With all technological change in its early stages—at its cusp, as it were—it is important to retain an open mind. I could give many examples from the technological changes that have occurred in my own lifetime of decisions that, if we took them now, would be rather different, because we were not sufficiently open-minded about the kinds of developments that the hon. Gentleman has described, so I am certainly open-minded. I do not want to close down options, but I am heavily focused on low and zero-emissions mobility. That is the formula that we will adopt.
On that basis, and with what I thought was a rather more enthusiastic welcome for my hon. Friend’s predilections and, may I say, prejudices—without meaning to sound in any way pejorative—I hope that the amendment will be withdrawn.
Mr Hayes
We had some debate about this in the evidence session. Clause 8 provides several definitions relating to the charging of electric vehicles. It gives a precise definition not only of “charge point”, as my hon. Friend said, but of “hydrogen refuelling point”, and it specifies what qualifies as a “public charging point”. This is so that the effect of the powers matches their intent and so that their intent is made clear to the public. Any other necessary definitions will be set out in secondary legislation, but we wanted to be clear about the framework. To answer his perfectly fair question, the definition of “charge point” covers both rapid and normal charge points.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 8 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 9
Public charging points: access and connection
Richard Burden
I beg to move amendment 12, in clause 9, page 6, line 33, at end insert—
“(4) The Secretary of State must consult charge point operators and vehicle manufacturers on the prescribed requirements for connecting components (before regulations under subsection 9(1b) are made).”
This amendment requires consultation with charge point operators and vehicle manufacturers on the requirements for connecting components for the charging of electric vehicles.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Ryan. I have a few words to say about the policy scoping notes that we have received. Most Committee members saw them for the first time today because they were circulated last night. They are helpful, particularly in relation to part 2, from clause 9 onward, and they address some of the issues that our amendments probe. It is reassuring to know that Ministers are thinking about those things, but I have to say that producing those notes last night, so that we saw them today for the first time as we were going into the first sitting of line-by-line scrutiny, was really not the right way to do things.
The Government’s sequencing and timing for this part of the Bill were wrong. They should have started with a consultation on the infrastructure issues that they were trying to address in order to create the infrastructure for the zero-emissions future that we all want. After that consultation, they should have scoped out the policy options that would lead to that outcome. Having reached consensus on those, they should have published a Bill with adequate safeguards in it, especially if a large part of that Bill involved powers to make secondary legislation down the track.
That is how it should have been done. Sadly, the Government have done it another way. They certainly started with a good consultation on what they described at the time as “Modern Transport”, but they then went from that consultation to a Bill that leaves a large number of questions unanswered, particularly in part 2. Then, in the middle of our discussion of that Bill, we see what should have been the second stage: the policy notes scoping out the policy options. The recurring theme of these notes—it is particularly relevant to this amendment and clause 9—is that Ministers are, perfectly reasonably, not sure what regulations they will need to introduce to achieve the objectives of the clause. The Government say in the policy notes that they will produce those regulations in draft before the Bill reaches the Lords, by summer.
Ministers have not made it easy for us to get the clarity that we need at Committee stage, so the theme of the amendments to this part of the Bill that we have tabled and will pursue is to press the Government, first, on the definition of the issues that the Bill is trying to address; secondly, on what criteria they will use in addressing them; thirdly, for clarity on whom they intend to consult on those issues; and fourthly, on how far they are prepared to review in the light of experience how the Bill’s provisions, when enacted, will operate in our rapidly changing environment. I hope that the Minister will be responsive as we pursue amendments on that theme.
On amendment 12, I am sure that we all agree that the market presents a significant opportunity for the UK to lead globally in encouraging uptake of electric vehicles. Making the most of that opportunity will require action in a number of areas; one is availability and interoperability of charging points. As we heard in the evidence sessions on Tuesday, there is some concern about differing design standards for charging points. The Government’s response to their “Modern Transport” consultation recorded that concern from several quarters, and those Committee members who own plug-in vehicles or have constituents who do will know how irritating the absence of common or universal standards is in the charging infrastructure and the specifications of different electric or plug-in vehicles.
In the response to the “Modern Transport” consultation, the Government advised us that the relevant measures will be covered by a European Union directive on the deployment of alternative fuels infrastructure, which should mandate a minimum common charging connection and socket outlet for relevant recharge points while allowing charge point manufacturers to include other connector types. Common European standards will still need to be implemented, and their delivery will rest heavily on manufacturers. That is what the Government are getting at in the regulations on connecting components in clause 9. We are not opposed in principle to the regulations or the use of secondary legislation to introduce them. The purpose of the amendment is to probe a little deeper to ensure that the Government consult properly and widely on the final form and implementation of those connecting components, specifically consulting recharge point operators and vehicle manufacturers.
My first question to the Minister is this: what discussions have taken place so far between Government, vehicle manufacturers and charge point operators? Secondly, what pan-European working groups are the Government engaging with to ensure that the solution there is shaped sooner rather than later? It is important to avoid a situation in which vehicles have a wide range of different connecting components, because they will have to be reflected on forecourts. A wide range of different connecting components will be impractical and create confusion on forecourts. It seems to me that the Government must also ensure, particularly with Brexit coming down the tracks, that regulatory divergence regarding those connecting components does not develop between the UK and the EU, and that consistency with the EU regulations and standards that are being and will be developed will be maintained. How will that be done?
That is all essential if the UK is to be the vehicle manufacturers’ location of choice for the development, testing and deployment of electric vehicles. It is important that the Government get the details right on the specification and harmonisation of connecting components. The other point to reflect on in relation to the amendment is what will happen to existing electric vehicles that do not yet have those common connectors that we hope will be on future vehicles. Do the Government intend that charge point operators should provide adapters for those vehicles as well?
The amendment and the others we have tabled are designed to find out a bit more about the criteria on which Ministers will make those kinds of decisions, how they will consult before making them and with whom. I hope the Minister will be able to address some of those issues and concerns.
Mr Hayes
I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s first contribution to the Committee. He and I have worked together in similar circumstances in the past to produce, I hope, effective legislation.
Let me deal with the hon. Gentleman’s opening remarks about the order in which the Government have gone about our business. He is right to draw attention to our consultation. I think the document is available to all members of the Committee, but I draw their attention to it once again. This is our response to the consultation, which is available from my Department and which deals with a number of issues that he raised. He is also right that after consulting we moved to legislate, but not without considerable dialogue with the industry. The communication that he requests is regular; I meet the industry on an extremely regular basis. I was with representatives of the industry yesterday evening, and I held a roundtable meeting with them on Tuesday before our witness session to discuss these and other issues, but we focused on the Bill.
Of course, automated vehicles’ electric charging infrastructure is a matter of real concern to manufacturers, because the absence of good infrastructure is a barrier to entry for many consumers; it is not the only challenge they face, but it is one of them. So our determination to put into place effective infrastructure is shared by manufacturers. It is an important means by which they will encourage more people to buy the electric cars they make. We also engage regularly—I would go so far as to say routinely—with the providers of charge points. I accept the hon. Gentleman’s point about the need to move to common standards. It is really important that we establish the certainty that comes from good standards.
The hon. Gentleman is also right to draw attention to the directive—I will start in a moment to deal with notes I have in front of me, rather than sharing my own views. That is the trouble, Ms Ryan—I am just one of those Ministers who says what he really believes. He is right to draw attention to that directive, and we are looking closely at how we should deal with it. We are working to consult on the transposition of the directive and the Bill measures in parallel. He sensibly points out that not to do so might imply a contradiction, so it is really significant that we ensure they are synergous. We will work on that final transposition of the directive as soon as possible. I commit now to informing Committee members as the Bill makes progress of our thinking on that synergy.
Mr Hayes
My hon. Friend is a great friend, was an outstanding Minister and is a valued colleague. I welcome his remarks.
I completely agree that we must consult a wide range of stakeholders with a view to making regulations. I said—the shadow Minister was enthusiastic about this—that as well as standardisation of connection, I would like there to be some standardisation of design. I think it is important that charge points are instantly recognisable. As people drive about, particularly in places they do not know, they should know what a charge point looks like. I am inclined to run a design competition to elicit something of beauty and efficacy. We will do that as a result of the conversations we have been having formally and informally.
I do not think it is right to specify which organisations should be consulted—this is where there may be a point of detailed difference between us. As we develop the regulations under the clause, there needs to be a wide consultation, but I would not want to be too specific about with whom and when. It is ongoing, and it needs to be wide-ranging. On that basis, I have a difference with the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield about the specifics of the amendment, but I absolutely assure him that the spirit of all he said is entirely consistent with my view on these matters. On that basis, I hope he will withdraw the amendment.
Richard Burden
As I said at the outset, the purpose of the amendment is to probe the Government’s intentions. I am grateful that the Minister acknowledged that the compatibility of charge points’ connections will be the making or the breaking of whether they incentivise the switch to plug-in vehicles. I am also pleased that he recognised that there is a European dimension here. Whatever happens on Brexit, we must not get a range of specifications for charge points, be they in motorway services areas or anywhere else in this country, that simply do not work on the continent of Europe, and vice versa. Those two things must be done in parallel.
Although the Minister did not specifically address this in his response—I am sure he will—I hope he will also take on board the point about the current specifications of connectors, before the kind of commonality that we all want has been achieved. We must ensure that public charge points are able to provide adapters or some other means to enable early adopters of electric and other plug-in vehicles to charge their vehicles, even when we have got to a much better situation of harmonised and compatible charging points.
Richard Burden
The Minister is nodding, and I am grateful to him for that. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 9 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 10
Large fuel retailers etc: provision of public charging points
Richard Burden
I beg to move amendment 11, in clause 10, page 7, line 2, at end insert—
“(2A) Regulations under subsection (1) must provide exemptions for retailers and operators in instances where adhering to such regulations would—
(a) require an expansion of land, or
(b) result in any other disproportionate costs for retailers and operators.”
This amendment ensures that there are exemptions for operators with limited forecourt space who are unable to accommodate public charging points without an expansion of land and that retailers and operators do not incur disproportionate costs for complying with regulations.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 13, in clause 10, page 7, line 4, at end insert—
“(4) The Secretary of State must publish, in draft, the criteria and definition of “large fuel retailers” and “service area operators” at least six months before regulations under subsection 10(3) are made.”
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to consult on and publish criteria to be used for the definitions of “large fuel retailers” and “service area operators”. This will make clear to the industry which kinds of companies are covered by these regulations.
Richard Burden
I will focus first on amendment 13. As it stands, the Bill allows the Government to impose requirements on what are described as “large fuel retailers” and “service area operators”; the problem is that Ministers have yet to define or outline the definitional criteria for what those actually are. It is a bit “Alice in Wonderland”—the requirements will apply to large fuel retailers and service area operators, and the definition of those is what the Government say they are.
The policy scoping notes say that “evolution of the market” and other factors mean that the Government are not yet in a position to apply the powers that they are taking in the Bill, and they may not even be in a position to start doing so for a year or two after Royal Assent. Paragraph 3.10 of the scoping notes says:
“It would not be appropriate to develop draft regulations before it had been decided to regulate”,
but on page 2, the notes say that Ministers will “produce draft regulations” relating to part 2 of the Bill before it reaches the Lords in the summer. There appears to be something of a contradiction in the Government’s logic. I know that this is a changing and emerging scene, but we need more clarity from the Government on when they will be in a position to produce draft regulations relating to this part of the Bill, who they will apply to and who they will consult. This relates to when they will actually apply the powers given to them by the regulations that they will bring in.
Amendment 13 goes some way towards trying to address that. It requires the Government to publish in draft the criteria for and definition of large fuel retailers and service area operators that they intend to use. In light of the policy scoping notes, arguably the amendment does not go far enough in asking for that clarity and those definitions. Will the Minister table amendments on Report to provide greater clarity on the sequencing of draft regulations, the application of powers and consultation, and on the timing of what the Government envisage?
In the meantime, it is worth pausing to consider some definitional points, as amendment 13 tries to do. What is a large fuel retailer? Going by the Government’s impact assessment, how large a fuel retailer is seems to be based on market share. That makes sense in a way, but I am not sure whether Ministers have missed a trick. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South West said on Tuesday, there could be a case for removing the word “fuel” altogether from the definition of a large retailer, so that the Bill could apply the mandating of the availability of charge points to a much larger operator.
We know from some of the evidence we heard on Tuesday that mandating charging infrastructure requirements on motorway services areas and the like is only one part of what needs to happen. Indeed, in the evidence sessions, one of the things that came over clearly to me is that getting the right incentives in place for home charging is just as important as anything that happens in motorway services areas. I therefore question whether the cuts that Ministers have made to the plug-in car grant and other consumer incentives are consistent with that objective.
It is also just as important to address how charging infrastructure can be expanded in supermarkets, shopping parks and workplaces. In the evidence session, Quentin Willson urged us to focus on how the UK can get ahead of the game in getting connectivity for wireless on-street charging in place. He also urged us to look at how street lamps can be converted into charging points. All those things seem to go well beyond the kind of charging infrastructure that the Bill envisages and covers.
When the Minister replies on this group of amendments, I hope he will give us some reassurance that the Government are looking at those kinds of initiatives, even if they are not covered by the Bill. If they are not to be covered by the Bill, who will be responsible for making those kinds of initiatives happen and come into being? Who will be charged with looking at whether we can have charging points up and down the country on lamp posts? When and how will they be charged with doing that? The Bill does not address those kinds of issues. Between now and Report, will the Minister reflect on whether something can be done? Perhaps something can be put into the Bill to at least start addressing some of the broader issues before it completes its passage.
In the meantime, it is worth putting on record that companies are concerned about what the Government taking the kind of powers conferred by the Bill will mean for them. These are much more immediate practical issues, but the Government’s impact assessment lays out the potentially significant cost to the operators affected by this part of the Bill, which could run into many millions of pounds.
That brings me on to amendment 11. As we heard on Tuesday, fuel retailers, particularly those with limited forecourt space, are worried that they simply will not be able to meet the requirements of the regulations that the Government bring in, particularly if—returning to the previous debate—they have to accommodate a variety of different charging and connecting points. Inevitably, some fuel retailers will not have the space to implement those changes without expanding the land they have available. The amendment would provide an exemption in such instances, when meeting the regulations would result in disproportionate costs to the retailer.
Alan Brown
With amendment 13, I agree that it makes sense to ask the Government to provide that absolute clarity, but how is “disproportionate costs” defined in amendment 11? One thing that struck me was that the people giving evidence were very reticent to install the charging points anyway. There is a risk that people would hide behind a definition of “disproportionate costs”. Is there any way that that could be firmed up?
Richard Burden
The hon. Gentleman is quite right. I will be clear: amendment 11 is worded to probe the Government’s intentions and to ask the Minister to provide greater clarity on these issues so that the operators of motorway and other service areas know a bit more about who is likely to be affected, what will be required of them and how much it will cost. The hon. Gentleman is right; what might be disproportionate to one operator will certainly not be to another.
Mr Hayes
Edmund Burke said,
“Early and provident fear is the mother of safety.”
Although I would not describe any of the comments as indicative of fear, it is certainly true that what I might describe as dutiful doubt and honest hesitation can be a helpful thing to Government when we are trying to navigate as yet uncharted waters, as one is bound to do in respect of this kind of legislation, given that it is about rapidly changing technology. So I am grateful for the tone that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield set in allowing us to explore these matters with that kind of dutiful and honest hesitation. We should hesitate, think and consider, and then act.
This is a very important debate. I have made clear and have been very open about my own determination to make sure that we have a spread of charge points, because we want electric vehicles to be as easy as possible to refuel as a petrol or diesel vehicle is now. That will require a wide spread of infrastructure to support many thousands more electric vehicles—indeed, ultimately tens of hundreds of thousands more. Similarly, we understand that regulation will not always be the right approach. Sometimes, a carrot is more important than a stick.
I hear what my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South, and indeed the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun, said about cost. There is an argument for Government support. I have nothing to announce today, but I hear what is said and I think that there is an argument for it, in particular to get the spread that I want—small village post offices, village shops and those sorts of places spring to mind.
Similarly, it is important that the larger petrol retailers that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield described are properly defined. I hear what he said and we will need to clarify that, too, during the passage of the Bill. He made a fair point, and I will do that. The Bill sets out the principle, but it seems to me that he is right that further definition is required. We are looking at that closely, as he will have assumed, and we are in discussion with the industry.
We are considering regulations to take account of a whole range of issues: the commercial viability of fuel retailers and their forecourts and service areas; the effect that mandatory electrical refuelling infrastructure would have; the space available, given total land taken by existing facilities; the capacity of the local electricity grid in the case of charge points—we spoke a little about that in the evidence session—and the existing or future proximity of electrical vehicle infrastructure within the proximity of the fuel retailer or service area. There may well be other factors as well, because the area is complex, so we are working closely with fuel retailers, service area operators and infrastructure providers to bring forward those necessary regulations.
The hon. Gentleman pointed out that clause 15(3) specifically commits the Secretary of State to consult with appropriate persons before making regulations under this part of the Bill. He asked for greater clarity about the timetable. I think that is fair. We could set out at least an indicative timetable. In this letter I am going to send to the Committee, which is growing ever more exciting and detailed, perhaps I will suggest how we might do that. Committee members will be waiting by their post boxes with eager anticipation.
Given that the powers to mandate provision of charge points and hydrogen are bold and ambitious, concentration would need to be thorough and wide-ranging. To some degree—again there is a slightly point of difference between us on this—that is why I do not want to be too particular about whom we consult. I am certainly happy to talk about the categories of people whom we might consult, but I do not want to narrow the discussion—if anything, rather the opposite. I want to have as wide-ranging a consultation as we can, for some of the reasons that I have already offered.
Following such consultation, regulations could come into force much earlier than the six months suggested in amendment 13. We can be more ambitious than that. For that reason, I urge the hon. Gentleman to withdraw that amendment, because we can do more and do it more quickly.
Richard Burden
I am grateful for the Minister’s clarification. I do not think that I have ever been accused of dutiful doubts and honest hesitation. Given that he reckoned that they were probably good qualities to have in relation to the Bill, I accept the description.
The amendments are trying to deal with two sets of concerns. The first is about the kind of operators that the Bill will mandate to provide charging infrastructure down the line through regulation. A range of practical issues relating to the definition of operators, such as forecourt capacity, cost and other things, need to be addressed. I am pleased that the Minister has committed to consult and introduce draft regulations on the matter as soon as possible. I assume, therefore, that he does not believe the policy scoping notes’ description in paragraph 3.10 that it will be difficult to do anything on that until towards the end of this decade necessarily needs to be the case. Perhaps it could be done a lot earlier. I am grateful for that ambition on the part of the Minister.
The second thing that the amendments are perhaps more implicitly trying to get at is those areas of infrastructure that the Bill does not address. What about home charging, lamp posts, on-street charging and wireless charging? Is there any ambition and framework by which we can try to ensure that the UK is ahead of the game in providing such infrastructure, just as much as ensuring whether WH Smith or the motorway service area on the M42 near where I live provide the necessary infrastructure?
Mr Hayes
Let me explore that a little, because it is another important point. I suppose it is yet another balance, and there are several aspects to the balance that we attempt to strike in the Bill. The balance in this respect is about how much we mandate, how much we encourage and how much we provide incentive in the end. I am looking at all those matters. Of course I have met the providers of on-street charge points. Some of this involves relations with other Government Departments because of planning issues, and some of it involves the competition on design that I mentioned. Yes, I do accept that certain matters are not in the Bill, but do not assume for a moment that they do not matter to us and that we are not doing something about them.
Richard Burden
I am pleased that the Minister is seized of those issues. On Report, will the Bill at least give a nod to the need to do something on those infrastructure matters?
Andrew Selous
I have listened carefully to the points that the hon. Gentleman has raised. Would he also consider adding to his useful list new housing and what regulations might be required in terms of charging points, as well as existing local authority car parks and other car parks, where there is great potential to expand the number of charging points?
Richard Burden
The hon. Gentleman makes a really good point, and it underlines that we are in an entirely different game. Until now, we have had a very narrow view of what the refuelling of a vehicle entails; it means going to a place called a service station, which might be down the road or on the motorway, where there are fuel pumps, and that is about it. What is proposed under the Bill is a complete change to that practice. Certainly, those conventional filling stations will still need to be there, but if we are truly to incentivise the big switch to zero-emission vehicles that we need to achieve, convenience of charging must be the watchword. Yes, that means the filling stations, but it also means the supermarket and the car park, and homes. The hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire is right that it also means looking at the planning requirements for new homes and the availability, or provision if necessary, of charge points is an important consideration.
I do not expect the Minister to be able to provide in the Bill every bit of detail on how that will be done, although I am sure that he would love to be able to do that. That will not be possible and the Bill will inevitably concentrate fairly narrowly on the idea of the filling station, but I hope that it will at least acknowledge that there is a broader agenda. As the Bill progresses, I hope that the Government will make it clear that although it may not cover those broader issues, they intend to do so. I hope that they will provide the timetable for doing so, outline how they will ensure liaison between the different Government Departments involved and identify the outside bodies that they intend to talk to. If that is the outcome, we could be dealing with something very exciting.
On the basis of the reassurances and commitments that the Minister has given, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Mr Hayes
A rapid charge point currently costs about £50,000 and a hydrogen refuelling installation is perhaps a little more. It is expected that hydrogen refuelling will be introduced more gradually, given that higher cost and the state of market development. However, as I think I said earlier, because of my even-handedness on this, I would not want to preclude that roll-out. The answer to the question about how those who have already installed them see the analysis of income is that I do not know what the cost-benefit analysis is, but if I can get more detail on that I will happily make it available to my hon. Friend and other members of the Committee. It is an interesting point that will inform our discussions.
I was very open earlier about the other kinds of provision. Although we do not want to mandate smaller businesses, those that are more remote and those that would find such a cost far too onerous, neither do we want to deprive them of the opportunity that having these facilities might provide. We want to ensure an even spread of charge point, so there is a good case for finding a mechanism that is not legislative to encourage and incentivise other kinds of place that could put in a recharging point. I see this as only a first step.
The compromise I can strike with the hon. Gentleman and others is to say that we are establishing a framework, and we are doing so because these are the places where people typically go now to fuel their vehicles. However, it is not an exclusive framework. As this policy area develops, we will look at means of encouraging and supporting the roll-out that he and I both want, including considerations of the kind that my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire raised. We are already in discussion with the Department for Communities and Local Government about this; as I said, there is a planning and housing issue, and on-street facilities will continue to be critical. Of course, many people will charge at home—they do now, and they will continue to do so—but it is important that we also have a really robust policy in place to increase considerably the number of places where people can charge their vehicles, and we will certainly do so. I assure hon. Members who contributed to this short debate that I am mindful of the desire to create what I described earlier as breadth as well as depth.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 10 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 11
Information about public charging points
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Richard Burden
Although we have tabled no amendments to clause 11, it is worth putting it on record that it is potentially one of the most important clauses in part 2 of the Bill. If we are to give more people the confidence they need to switch to plug-in vehicles, it is vital that they have an easy way, without having to work at it, of knowing not only where they can charge their vehicle but how much it will cost and how that compares with other charge points in the area. If they have a Nissan LEAF rather than a Tesla, they need to know that the charge point will charge it. Ensuring proper interoperability and transparency, particularly of pricing, is really important. Unusually, I do not think that we can add to what the Government have put in the clause, but I emphasise that it is really important.
Mr Hayes
I was driven in a Nissan LEAF yesterday, so I really do live the policy. The hon. Gentleman is right: as well as putting in place the broad infrastructure that I described, we need to provide information, and part 2 of the Bill will do precisely that. It will allow the Government to improve the provision of information on charge points for electric vehicles by requiring network operators to provide the information necessary to make locating and charging an electric car easy and hassle-free.
The way in which people obtain information has changed and will continue to change. In-car information is likely to be a feature of future developments. It is important that we set out the requirements now, so that motorists know, as a minimum, where charge points are located and can plan their journeys accordingly. As the hon. Gentleman said, the provision of information is probably as important as issues that we have spent longer discussing. The fact that he has not tabled any amendments implies that he agrees with us that the data on location, price and availability need to be accessible and open. That will also allow service operators to develop their products by giving motorists a complete picture, allowing them to plan their journeys with greater confidence. The market is moving in the right direction, and we are trying to support that in the Bill.
Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill (Third sitting)
Richard Burden Excerpts(7 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Hayes
The critical thing is that the definition we are trying to draw now, which is very much in line with our consultation with the insurers and the manufacturers, provides sufficient clarity to allow us to move forward and enable developments to continue, sure in the knowledge that the insurance framework will be much as it is now in terms of the protection it offers, which is what this part of the Bill deals with. The clarity that the Bill will bring does not for a moment obviate or try to anticipate technological changes of the kind that the hon. Member for Middlesbrough was flirting with in his intervention, but it provides enough of a baseline and a solid level of assurance for the technology to continue to develop.
Moving on to what the hon. Gentleman said, the only scope the Secretary of State will have to list a vehicle is whether or not it meets the definition that I set out—in other words, whether the vehicle has the capability of driving itself without human oversight or intervention for some or all of the journey. That is unlike driver assistance systems, however advanced, because automated vehicles do not require the driver to be involved in the driving process at all times. If a car does not meet that definition, it will not be included on the list.
That enables us to be very clear about the reason vehicles need to be on the list—namely, that the types of vehicle that are defined will not be covered by our current insurance framework and therefore need a new type of insurance product. We heard in the evidence sessions that the insurance industry is working on those products and is confident that they will be developed and will provide the guarantees of safety and security that we want for all drivers, but they will not be exactly like the insurance products that are out there now. They will deliver the same kind of safety, but they will not be the same products.
Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)
I am not sure that it is really quite as clear as the Minister says. The Bill states that the vehicle has to be capable, at least in some circumstances or situations, of safely driving itself without having to be monitored by an individual. If the insurance industry, the Minister and everybody else agrees that automated parking and autonomous emergency braking do not fall into that category, there is no problem, but people may disagree because the fact is that in those two modes the vehicle is capable of driving itself and does not require an intervention of any kind or monitoring by the individual. It is the same for lane control. We tabled the amendment because the criteria that need to be applied to the definition will probably change over time as the technology develops, so there will need to be ongoing dialogue about what should or should not be included in the definition. Does it not make sense to say that there should be ongoing consultation not on the list but on the criteria?
Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill (Second sitting)
Richard Burden Excerpts(7 years, 7 months ago)
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The Chair
Q 65 We will now hear oral evidence from the Institute of the Motor Industry, the Downstream Fuel Association and the Association of Convenience Stores. We have until 3 pm for this session. Could the witnesses please introduce themselves for the record, starting with Mr Woodall?
Edward Woodall: Good afternoon. I am Ed Woodall. I am head of policy and public affairs at the Association of Convenience Stores, which represents 33,500 local shops and 8,000 forecourt retailers across the UK.
Teresa Sayers: I am Teresa Sayers. I am the chief executive of the Downstream Fuel Association. We represent the non-refining companies and major supermarkets.
Steve Nash: I am Steve Nash. I am the chief executive of the Institute of the Motor Industry, which is the professional body for individuals working in the motor industry.
Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)
Q Welcome. I have two sets of questions. The first is probably principally to Mr Woodall and Ms Sayers, and the second is principally to Mr Nash. On the Bill’s provisions on electric charging points, I think it is fair to say that your two organisations have been rather more critical of what the Government are suggesting than a number of others. Can you outline why you think they are going in the wrong the direction with the provisions on charging infrastructure?
Teresa Sayers: First, we welcome the opportunity to comment on the Bill and work with the Government on looking at ways to build up the infrastructure for electric vehicles. I represent four major retailers, and my members already have some provision for electric charging points within their infrastructure.
We believe that the emphasis on petrol forecourts is wrong for a number of reasons, not least because the configuration of forecourts does not lend itself to allowing cars to be placed there for in excess of 20 to 30 minutes. We provide electric charging points, as I say, but they are exclusively in the car parks of our stores and at head offices. We are looking closely at how we can further develop provision along those lines, but we are very concerned about the emphasis on placing them in the forecourt.
Edward Woodall: Also, there is the question of how we define “large fuel retailer” in the Bill to determine whether a retailer has the capacity for electric vehicle charging points on their sites. That is quite a difficult task to deliver in regulation, because this is quite a diverse and different sector. That could take into account fuel volumes and number of sites, and it would also have to take into account size of sites, as Teresa was saying, in terms of having the space for people to charge their vehicles on the site.
I suppose there is also a concern about the desire of consumers to charge in those locations. The Government’s own evidence suggests that 95% of vehicle users currently charge at home; 26% then charge their vehicles in workplaces; and only 12% look to charge their vehicles in public spaces. Would they choose to do that on fuel sites? It is a question; I am not sure. Do the fuel sites have the capacity to deliver in this way? Only 11% of our members have seating areas in their forecourt sites, so what does someone do for the 30 minutes if there are rapid charging facilities on those sites?
There are other logistical issues around whether sites have the capacity to deliver that energy. Electric vehicle charging points will need a direct connection with the grid; obviously, that does not cover all sites across the board. So there is a real challenge in how you define in regulations a large fuel retail site, and whether it has capacity to deliver those services.
Richard Burden
Q The Bill refers to “large fuel retailers”. Evidence that we heard this morning rather suggested that what will make or break the expansion of electric charging infrastructure is much broader than motorway service areas. There was a lot of discussion about supermarkets, what to do around on-street parking and smart charging at home. I will press you a bit further on whether your reservations about the parts of the Bill relating to electric charging are concerns about Ministers being given regulation-making powers to mandate others to provide charging points to certain specifications. Or do you basically accept that principle, but think that the provisions are targeted wrongly in focusing on large fuel retailers?
Edward Woodall: The latter. I understand the principle and the objectives, but is it right to focus this purely on fuel sites, when the evidence suggests that consumers are perhaps not looking to go to those sites to charge their vehicles? There is also a concern about whether it matches up with what drivers will do while they are charging their vehicles. It makes sense to have charging points in an area where they might be going to the cinema or the shops, as opposed to having them on a forecourt site, which may not have the space or the retail capacity to deal with that issue.
We also put, in our submission, evidence about ways to incentivise other partners to use this system—for example, changes to the national planning policy framework might give more specific direction on where charging points should go, so that local plans could be informed by that, and capacity could be increased across the board.
Richard Burden
Q Can I come to Mr Nash on a different area? In the written evidence you provided, you put quite a lot of emphasis on the importance of training and accreditation for people working on these charging points and autonomous vehicles in the future. Could you say a little bit more about your concerns?
Steve Nash: Absolutely. I think it is worth understanding a little bit about our sector. Everybody knows we have a franchise sector, and we tend to talk about the independent sector, but that is a catch-all phrase. There are about 40,000 businesses in there, ranging from Halfords and Kwik Fit down to a man working on someone’s drive.
Right now, of all the technicians out there working on cars—there are just under 200,000 people we know of, but there are probably quite a few that we do not know of, because they do not necessarily belong to a trade body or anything else—only about 1% are qualified to work on high-voltage electrics. Let us make no mistake about this: you have to be licensed to work on domestic electrics, and I would venture to suggest that the electrics in an electric car are potentially more lethal than the mains. We are talking about direct current—more than enough to fry you—so you do have to be properly trained and know what you are doing. In this sense, a car is not a car, just because it looks like a car. These are the biggest technical changes we have seen for 100 years. This is not an evolution of old technology—this is new technology.
We know that the manufacturers will do what they need to do to ensure that their franchise dealers can cope. Most of them are already using our accreditation scheme to qualify people at different levels, including knowing what you should not do and how to disable the electrics to work on other non-high-voltage systems safely. The higher level is for working on the high-voltage systems.
If you really want these cars to proliferate, there are a couple of problems. One is that right now it can cost you up to 50% more to insure one of these cars, because the insurance industry is quite aware that there is a limited repair market out there. If your car has been in an accident, you need somebody who knows what they are doing to put the thing back together, and the industry is assuming a higher cost because there is a limited repair market. That will continue unless you find a way of engaging the wider market, and the wider market will not readily make that step because there is cost involved, so it becomes a chicken and egg situation.
As I said, there is a very real health and safety issue. You do not see it now, because there are 32 million cars on the road that do not have this technology, and there is plenty to go round in the service and repair market. There are cars that have been around for a while, such as the Toyota Prius models and so on, but we know from our own experience that a lot of the independent guys do not touch those—they pass them back to the dealers—because they do not need that work to make a living. However, as these cars proliferate—and that is everyone’s intention; if you look at the product plans that all of the manufacturers have at all the motor shows, it is all about plug-in hybrids and electric cars, so these cars will proliferate—if you want a competitive market for servicing these cars, you need the independent sector to engage.
To make that happen, first you need regulations to protect people’s safety, and secondly you have to consider using some of the large fund—I believe it is something like £600 million—that has been put aside to help move us in that direction. Some of that money should be directed towards a training fund to help the independents engage in the training that they need to work on the cars safely.
Richard Burden
Q Could you outline how it would work? In other words, how would the Government, or whoever, define the vehicles that would require licensed people to work on them, and what things they would need to work on? For example, some might say you should not have to be licensed in order to check the tyres; that is different from working on the electrics. There is potential for this to be a difficult area for definition.
Steve Nash: We have worked very closely with manufacturers to define three levels of accreditation. Level 2 says you can work safely on the passive systems of the car, so you are still going to have steering and suspension. I was going to say brakes, but actually a lot of these cars have regenerative brakes, so even that is potentially risky. The second level of accreditation is knowing how to switch off the high-level electronics and knowing what you should not touch, because there are certain systems on the car that have very high residual currents in them, even when the car is turned off.
Level 4 accreditation is for people who are properly trained to work on the high-voltage systems, which include the control systems and the battery packs. Working with manufacturers, we have refined that to understand that it covers the entirety of their own group of technicians working in their franchise.
The Chair
If Members wish to remove their jackets, that would be fine. Let us try to keep questions and answers crisp.
Richard Burden
I should declare an interest. I am an honorary fellow of the Institute of the Motor Industry. It is non-pecuniary, but I thought I had better put that on the record.
Mr Hayes
Q You know that the Bill attempts to strike a balance between, on the one hand, doing enough not to constrain future development—indeed, to facilitate it—and, on the other hand, trying to determine what the schedule describes as an “unknowable future”. Have we got that right, or should we have done more? I draw particular attention to the relationship between connection and automation and the issues of privacy and security of data. Should we do more now, or is it enough that we take powers to do things when we know more later?
Iain Forbes: It is a really important question. The advent of automated vehicle technology will in time require changes to different parts of our regulatory system. We have heard about some of those already today. The trick is to try to find ways of targeting the areas where we think action is necessary now in order to unblock barriers, or where we know technology is near to market. We need to make sure that we have the framework in place to enable the safe use of that technology.
To some extent it is a question that different people have different views on, but we certainly consulted last year with a range of different stakeholders on the areas where they thought action was necessary in order to ensure that the UK was doing the right things to set up a framework. The area in the Bill was the one that stakeholders highlighted as the one that was most important to act on first.
In time we will have to have further steps in the process of getting our regulatory framework ready. In doing so, I would hope to follow the same approach of identifying where the barriers are that need action now and which technologies are nearer to market. We need to make sure that we have the framework in place to enable those.
Richard Burden
Q Can I go back to the definition? At the start of the session you said that the thing you welcomed in the Bill was that it would define what an automated vehicle is by whether or not that vehicle was on the list produced by the Secretary of State. Do you think that creating a definition will be simple? Where would autonomous emergency braking come into that? A large number of vehicles might have autonomous emergency braking that one would not normally define as automated vehicles. Nevertheless, autonomous emergency braking, by its nature, will take control of the car and stop it whatever the driver is doing. So would the car fitted with autonomous emergency braking need to appear on that list, because it would
“in at least some circumstances or situations”
be capable of driving itself without having to be monitored by an individual? If it were included, are we saying that this new insurance product that the Bill brings into effect is essentially going to be the norm, not the exception, much more quickly than we thought?
Iain Forbes: Autonomous emergency braking is one of a suite of technologies sometimes referred to as advanced driver assistance systems. The Bill does not seek to set out a regime to manage those systems. It is about automated driving in vehicles where the driver can step out of the loop and does not need to be involved in monitoring the system. The difference between those systems and ADAS systems, as they are sometimes called, is that the driver always has to oversee what is going on in the vehicle. For those sorts of systems we anticipate the current regime being appropriate.
Richard Burden
Q Is the boundary between those two as exact as you say? In a sense, with autonomous emergency braking, the driver has to monitor it. Whether the driver is monitoring it or not, that technology will take control of the vehicle.
Iain Forbes: We anticipate the measures in the Bill interacting with other aspects of law, including type approval requirements for vehicles, which will be looking at how different systems should be approved for safe use on the roads in this country. There is a lot of technical work to do to understand what the particular approval regimes will be for different forms of technology, but we anticipate the higher levels of automation that we are targeting in the Bill being different and distinct in the way they are approved from the ABS system that you were talking about.
Richard Burden
Q What kind of consultation would you expect the Minister to go through before producing his or her list? At the moment, the Minister has complete discretion. There is nothing in the Bill that says he or she has to consult anywhere.
Iain Forbes: I would anticipate quite a lot of work at international level to set the regulatory framework and technical standards that will underpin the safety framework for approving these vehicles. When that happens, there will be a decision for Ministers to take about how they consult with stakeholders in the UK to make sure that people are comfortable with those definitions before they are transferred into UK law.
Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)
Q May I ask a couple of questions relating to the way that you have looked at the insurance? It seems to me that you are treating the concept of ownership as it is today, rather than as it is likely to become; transport is likely to become a service, rather than a commodity. Is that fair?
Iain Forbes: The policy aim of the Bill was to set up a framework that protected innocent victims of incidents relating to these vehicles in such a way that it felt similar to the current framework. We can have a framework around vehicle sale that is based on current patterns of ownership. In future that might change, as you say, in which case we would have to review the framework to make sure that we were making appropriate provision in law to allow people to operate the system safely.
Richard Burden
Q May I begin by exploring some of the Bill provisions relating to the relationship between the CAA and National Air Traffic Services? Perhaps we can come on to the issues relating to the air travel organisers’ licence after that. I understand that the proposed changes have been broadly welcomed by stakeholders. I am struggling to understand how significant they are. They change the procedure through which the CAA can modify regulations under which NATS operates. Do we have any sense of how many of them are likely to happen and how often? The impact assessment says that the scale of the issue with which we are dealing is highly uncertain. Can you give us any guidance on the scale of the changes?
Richard Moriarty: The changes are all aimed at modernising our regime. We change the licence periodically: perhaps once or twice every three or four years we introduce a raft of changes, which are mainly to do with the charges that NATS can pass on to airlines and the service standards that it needs to meet. Of course, all of that needs to be balanced, because we need to ensure that it can finance its businesses.
I think it is worth saying, in order to give you comfort, that these measures are almost precisely similar to measures that were passed in the Civil Aviation Act 2012 in relation to our regulation of airports such as Heathrow and Gatwick. My answer to your question is that they are very helpful and to be welcomed. They modernise what is now quite an outdated regime for NATS, and they put NATS on a very similar footing to other regulated entities.
In terms of NATS’s protection, it is important to say that nothing in these changes takes away our primary duty towards the safe system—safety. We also have a secondary duty to make sure that NATS cannot find it unduly difficult to finance its licence for activities. For those reasons, I strongly welcome these measures.
Richard Burden
Q Looking ahead to the next few years, for the moment we will be part of the single European sky framework. That, presumably, could bring a number of initiatives under it that would be relevant to the provisions in this Bill. Am I right about that? What could the impact of Brexit be on this area of the Bill?
Richard Moriarty: I fear I would be misleading you to be too precise about what some of those impacts would be, but one thing we have made clear in conversation with departmental colleagues is that we can regulate NATS successfully using our domestic legislation under the Transport Act 2000. This is one of the reasons why we are keen to modernise it in this way.
Richard Burden
Q So there should not be any impact at all?
Richard Moriarty: It is too early for me to say whether there would be an impact one way or the other. On the things we most care about—safety—NATS has been able to charge good prices to airlines and provide a good level of service. I am quite comfortable that the regime we would have in the UK based on the Transport Act 2000 would give us sufficient levers, particularly with these modernisation changes.
Richard Burden
Q The impact assessment, again, talks about the likelihood of there being what it describes as a “light-touch” review of these new arrangements after five years and “a full review” after 10. I must confess that I could not see reference to either of those in the Bill. What was your understanding of the review arrangements around these changes?
Richard Moriarty: I cannot speak to that specific review, but I think it makes sense to review the powers that have been introduced after the event. We have done that in other arenas, so it is something we would welcome. We can work with the Department on the timing of that.
Richard Burden
Q But the principle of a review after a period of time would be something—
Richard Moriarty: I do not have a problem with that.
Richard Burden
Q Can we move on to the ATOL questions within the Bill? Can you describe what the changes mean in practice for consumers and holidaymakers?
Richard Moriarty: First, it is worth saying that the changes in the Bill at the moment are enabling provisions, but they are to enable us to implement the package travel directive. There are a number of important and welcome developments from that which will be good for UK consumers. First, the directive makes it much clearer what the definition of a package is. This may seem self-evident to most people but an industry of loopholes has developed over the years. Having clarity on this is a good thing.
Secondly, the package travel directive puts a requirement on member states to have effective regimes in place for insolvency. This is a big step forward compared with where we are today. It is also worth saying—although John may have a better view on this—that this provides a growth opportunity for UK businesses as firms in this country will be able to sell their goods and services into Europe.
John de Vial: We certainly support that view. The provisions in this Bill are necessary and we have no concerns about them as enabling legislation. I agree with Richard’s subsequent points. UK companies can currently sell in other European markets but they are required to license separately and individually in each market to comply with its version and its implementation of the 1990 directive. If we have a regime with the directive to come, which the provisions lay the ground for, and our traders in the UK can use the ATOL system and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy arrangements to comply across Europe, that is a clear advantage for them trading across European member states.
Richard Burden
Q Are those companies covered by that protection because they are established in the UK?
John de Vial: By virtue of being established in the UK, you would be entitled to it.
Richard Burden
Q Looking at it the other way round, if there is a company that is established in another part of the European Union but sells into the UK, I understand that the package travel directive would say that the protections that it should offer would be those that would be applicable in that member state, rather than those that would be applicable in the UK.
John de Vial: Yes.
Richard Burden
Q Is there any potential downside to that? For any packages sold into the UK by companies established outside of the UK, could the protection be less than it is now?
John de Vial: Not less than it is now—we have that problem today. The current UK ATOL regulations and package travel regulations exempt companies that are compliant elsewhere. We have seen the problem in recent history. Our view is that, to the extent that this new directive is more robust and should raise the bar of implementation and enforcement in other member states, that can only be a good thing.
Richard Burden
Q Will it raise it to the level of ATOL protection?
John de Vial: No, I don’t believe it will. I think there are a number of aspects where the ATOL position is superior. The most obvious example is repatriation. The directive requires the costs of repatriation to be protected, so all member states should be doing that. The UK is not unique, but is one of a small number of member states, where organised repatriations—where the customer is, as it were, rescued—is the norm. We do have a superior system in the UK in that sense.
Richard Burden
Q A final couple of questions from me, and it is back to Brexit again. A lot of the changes in the Bill arise out of the package travel directive. From what you have said, some of our domestic ATOL protection is superior to what is in the package travel directive anyway, but are there any implications of Brexit for what this Bill brings in?
Richard Moriarty: Regardless of Brexit, this is a set of provisions that we would be supporting. It is worth remembering that 77% of UK consumers choose their holiday in Europe. As John suggested, the position around insolvency protection may not be all the way up to ATOL gold standard, but it will be a lot better, and enhanced by this package travel directive, than it is today. The former directive we fall back on is from the early ’90s, which predates the growth of the internet and people buying their holidays online.
John de Vial: I support that. It is also part of our job, with the ATOL brand and our brand as the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy’s approved body, to promote the merits of the schemes in the UK with UK businesses, where those exceed the European base level.
Richard Burden
Q The Bill provides for an air travel trust to be set up by the Secretary of State, but also leaves open the possibility that that could be split into a number of trusts if circumstances change. Could you tell us a bit about what that is all about and the kind of circumstances?
Richard Moriarty: If I may, I will declare an interest as a trustee of the current air travel trust. The consultations and discussions that the Department has had with the industry and consumer groups have suggested that the position around how people buy holidays could change. They are very keen to have some flexibility. Rather than have one trust hardwired into legislation, they want to give themselves some more flexibility. For instance, one example that has been talked about a lot is linked travel arrangements, where it is not quite a package, but is two transactions for hotel and travel that are very closely associated. In my view, it would be prudent and sensible for Government to have the flexibility to respond to that. It is my understanding that that is why they are taking the enabling provision at the current time. In implementing that, I hope that they will follow the practice that they have followed today: consult with us, consult the industry, do the impact assessment, and so on.
Richard Burden
Q I would be grateful if I could explore one other area with you briefly. One thing that raised a number of eyebrows when this Bill was published was the fact that it did not say anything about the regulation or safety of drones. How do you see the existing regulatory framework, and if we were going to look to improve that framework, who do you think should be responsible, for example, for bringing in geo-fencing?
Richard Moriarty: Drones are something that we are spending an enormous amount of time on—getting the balance right between effective regulation to prevent aviation-related risks and allowing this new technology and market to grow. There is an existing set of regulations for both commercial and public operators, but it is worth highlighting two important initiatives that we should all take stock of.
First, the Government are consulting on the future regulation of drones at the moment; we are working with them on that. Also, at the European level, the European Aviation Safety Agency, EASA, is doing some important work, which we hope it will publish in April and which may relate to international manufacturing standards, because things like geo-fencing, which effectively prevents drones flying into controlled space, are only really effective if that can be done through international manufacturing standards. That is one of the reasons why we are keen to see that EASA publication, which is mooted for April, before we decide next steps.
Mr Hayes
Q On the issue of penalties in respect of ATOL, you will know that this Bill attempts to amend the Transport Act 2000. In respect of section 225 of the Transport Act 2000, you will also know that there is a responsibility to prepare and publish a policy statement on the use of penalties. How do you envisage these penalties taking shape, and how will you ensure that their use is proportionate?
Richard Moriarty: The first thing I would say is that our having powers to introduce financial penalties for NATS brings us into line with the powers that we have for airports. It also brings us into line with other economic regulatory regimes in energy, water and telecoms, so it brings the regulation of NATS up to the modern standards of the other sectors.
We already have a published policy on how we would go about issuing a financial penalty for the airports. My starting position would be that the policy should be similar for NATS. Financial penalties are rare events in economic regulation: they do not come around too often, and there is a good reason for that. But they are a necessary part of the armoury, if you like, to drive the right behaviours and give a deterrent effect.
We would obviously have a graduated approach to enforcement. That would start off through informal means—conversations with the company, looking to it to put the issue right. If that had failed, we would move on to a more formal footing with them. I tend to think of financial penalties as a bit of a last resort but, as I said, it is important to have them there because it incentivises the right behaviours.
Richard Burden
Q Can I ask about rights in the Bill? The big change is that you make the modification and NATS has the right to appeal, as opposed to the co-determination model that we have at the moment. There is also a provision for other parties to appeal, including the owners or operators of aircraft that you consider appropriate and the owners or managers of prescribed aerodromes that you consider appropriate. I am struggling to work out who has got the right to appeal the modifications you make to NATS’s licence. What does prescribed aerodromes mean?
Richard Moriarty: The appeal mechanisms that are being introduced for NATS effectively replicate the same appeal mechanisms that we have for the regulated airports. For instance, an airline can appeal a determination that we make for Heathrow or Gatwick airport. There is an element of consistency across aviation in these provisions. Because NATS provides the London terminal airspace service, it also touches directly on some of the London airports—principally the large ones, but there may be some small London airports in it as well. It is right that the Government has a provision to name those airports, because they will be materially affected by certain decisions that we will take over the settlement that we reach with NATS.
The Chair
If there are no further questions from members of the Committee, I thank our witnesses for their evidence, and for their time and co-operation. It has been most helpful. Thank you very much. We are running a little ahead of schedule, so I propose to suspend the Committee until 4.10 pm, as the witnesses for the next panel have not yet arrived.
Richard Burden
Q Commander Bray, you mentioned that you have written looking for a defined power for stop and search relating to lasers.
Simon Bray: Yes.
Richard Burden
Q For that to work, would it need to be predicated on a redefinition of lasers in some way as an offensive weapon?
Simon Bray: Not necessarily, no, in support of this Act, if we had a power—it would be sparingly used—to search individuals for lasers that had been used for the purposes of the offence under clause 22.
Richard Burden
Q If lasers were going to be defined in some way as offensive weapons, would the kind of laser need to be defined more closely?
Simon Bray: If some of these lasers were to be classified as an offensive weapon as a matter of course, we could use existing legislation to stop and search for them in any event.
Richard Burden
Q But if there were to be a reclassification to make them offensive weapons, would that reclassification somehow need to define the strength of laser involved?
Simon Bray: Yes.
Richard Burden
Q At the moment, there is no need to do that because the action of pointing a laser, however strong it is, at a vehicle is the offence. Presumably, without reclassifying them as offensive weapons, if you got your power of stop and search, that would be because of suspicion that the laser would be used for—or had been used for—that purpose. But if you were simply going to say that the possession of a laser could be the possession of an offensive weapon, would that need to define the strength of the laser?
Simon Bray: You would have to have the definition of what is an offensive weapon clearly in the process of stopping and searching or when trying to work out whether it is of that type. You would not know unless you had the laser tested afterwards to see whether it met the criteria.
Richard Goodwin: I am trying to rack my brains about reasonable excuse and lawful excuse, which is in the current offensive weapons legislation—why someone in a park at 10 o’clock at night has a laser in their pocket. I am slightly reluctant to go down the route of power because that is difficult for an operational officer at the time to understand and define. Some lasers come in as one thing and then turn out, when they are tested, to be something completely different. For me it is more about what that person intends to do with any laser, rather than about some of the more high-powered ones.
Paul Watts: It is not necessarily the power that is causing the threat, but the dazzle and the distraction that we spoke about. That effect would come from a very large power range of lasers.
Tom Tugendhat
Q Given your point that the power is not entirely relevant because the dazzle is so important, can you talk about the other equipment that exists with lasers today? Surveyors use lasers, and presumably there is a risk, so they must be cautious about how they use them. Driverless vehicles are likely to use lasers in different ways and various autonomous measuring equipment is likely to use lasers. Can you talk about the dangers that they pose and how they might be mitigated?
Steve Landells: Public Health England says that lasers under about 20 milliwatts will not cause any eye damage—so, provided that they are not pointing up in the air, they are not going to dazzle and distract, and they will not cause eye damage if they happen to strike your eye. A normal blinking reaction will take into account a 20-milliwatt laser, but the problem is that the ones we are seeing now are 2,500 milliwatts or 4,000 milliwatts. They are the problem. Depending on the uses that they are put to—astronomers use them as well—and providing that they are at the lower end of the power range, if they are not being pointed in the air with driverless cars and things like that, maybe that is not an issue.
Andrew Selous
Q Are light displays a current issue for pilots?
Martin Drake: Generally speaking, no. The laser displays tend to be very broad beam—there is little collimation to the lasers. Displays tend to be licensed if they are close to airports, and we are usually told when they are there, so that is not really the issue. Paris has a laser that spins around the Eiffel tower, and Greenwich has one that goes up the Greenwich meridian at the moment. Those are not a problem to us at all. They tend to be low-level and pointed down across the heads of the crowd rather than up into the air.
One thing the measure would address is search and rescue. They have a thing called a laser flare, which has a fan of laser that, again, is not well collimated. The search and rescue aircraft can see those things for miles, so if someone is bobbing around in a little dinghy or is stuck on the top of a hill it is really useful. Obviously someone would not be intending to dazzle and distract—they would be intending to be rescued. I think there are legitimate uses that would be absolutely fine.
Steve Landells: Airliners tend to be going into a predictable place, whereas helicopter operators tend to operate in areas where you might not normally expect air traffic. It is probably not such a big issue for the airlines.
Simon Bray: But for people who, for example, have a laser and want to shine it on the clouds, the big question is whether they have exercised all due diligence and taken all reasonable precautions. That is going to be the crux of it at court.
Richard Burden
Q May I move on to another subject? In the previous panel I asked Mr Moriarty to comment on the fact that there is nothing in the Bill relating to the regulation of drones. It is an omission from the Bill that has been commented on in a number of quarters. Do the rest of you have any observations on whether the Bill could be usefully extended to say something about drone safety? If so, what?
Steve Landells: From BALPA’s point of view, we would like to see the Bill extended to include drones. The prime thing we would like to see is a mandatory registration process for drones. At the moment, anyone can buy a drone and fly it anywhere, and they do not have to take any responsibility for it. At the moment, if the police find a drone inside the environs of an airport or on the runway, they have no idea who that drone belongs to. We would really like to see a compulsory registration process.
Perhaps before first flight you would have to go online to get an unlock code. During that process we could get exposure to the rules and an online test for a drone operator. That would also mean that the operators would have an idea of what the rules were. A lot of the problems being caused by drones are through ignorance— 17 near-misses were reported between manned aircraft and drones last year—so we need to educate the people flying the drones that there are rules and regulations in place. It is a dangerous thing to do, and we think that a compulsory registration scheme would address a lot of the problems.
Simon Bray: We would not disagree with that. We are mindful that there need to be restrictions around particular locations, as there are currently. However, in the case of aircraft, it matters not hugely where you put in those restrictions; it is the whole bit about the flight paths in and out that we have concerns about.
Kit Malthouse
Q I have a couple of quick questions. I was slightly concerned about the definition of a vehicle. In the Bill it says that it means
“any thing used for travel by land, water or air”.
Do you think it might be sensible to extend that slightly to include vehicles that are not used for travel such as bulldozers and very tall cranes in the scope? Does a police horse used for travel count as a vehicle? If a police horse in a public order situation were to be dazzled by lasers, should it be included? The definition is quite specific, so do you feel it might benefit from being widened a little?
Simon Bray: I think it would be worth looking at. Things like police horses could be dealt with in different ways—cruelty to animals, assault of the police officers riding them and so on. It would be worth looking at that to ensure that the definition is suitably inclusive of some of the things you just mentioned.
Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill (First sitting)
Richard Burden Excerpts(7 years, 7 months ago)
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The Chair
Many thanks to all of you. We have quite a lot of business to get through, so may I ask that both questions and answers be relatively brief and coherent? Perhaps “coherent” is going too far, but they should be brief and to the point.
Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)
Q Welcome. The Bill was originally being talked about colloquially as the modern transport Bill—a Bill to look at the challenges facing particularly, but not exclusively, road transport in the decades to come. Parts 1 and 2— those dealing with road transport—focus on two main issues: the insurance liability of automated vehicles and the provision of electric charging infrastructure by big retailers. Do you think those are the right things for the Bill to cover, and are there things that should be in the Bill that are not included?
The Chair
Who wants to go first? Not everyone has to answer each question, so please do not feel that the whole panel has to answer.
Steve Gooding: We are pleased to see the inclusion of the provisions relating to autonomous driving insurance, an issue that needs to be gripped. We are also pleased to see that the Government are taking steps to do something about the rather confusing world of recharging electric vehicles—no doubt we will talk about that later. The RAC Foundation would have liked to have seen provisions relating to the creation of the roads fund—a Government commitment that the Chancellor mentioned and that was included in the Budget papers but that is not currently coming into statute. We also support the direction of travel on speed awareness courses and bringing more scrutiny to an area where some of us suspect a bit of an industry has grown up around a bright idea in a way that might have gone slightly too far.
David Williams: From an insurance perspective, we are very pleased to see the Bill. It is essential to have clarity, at this early stage, about the compensation process and about who is going to be responsible in the first instance, so that insurers and motor manufacturers can design their systems, business models and processes ready for it; so we are very pleased. Without that clarity, there is a danger that the public will lack confidence with regards to compensation being available when an autonomous vehicle is involved in an accident. Also, with road transport being a truly global element of our lives, it is good that the UK Government have come up with something at an early stage that hopefully will influence certainly Europe and maybe the US as well.
Denis Naberezhnykh: From TRL’s perspective, we are very supportive of the Bill as it stands, in particular the focus on electric vehicle consumers and users—that is very welcome. Taking steps towards introducing smart charging and managed charging is also very appropriate and timely. Given the forward-looking nature of the Bill, we would like to have seen more consideration for future technologies with regards to charging and vehicles themselves.
David Wong: The SMMT supports the principles underpinning the Bill, and we welcome its provisions. In particular, we think this is the right time for the Government to further encourage the take-up of ultra low emissions vehicles and pave the way towards the deployment of autonomous vehicles. This relates to the insurance framework that is set out in the Bill.
What we would like to see more of in the Bill is greater clarity—perhaps going forward in secondary legislation—particularly on smart charging of electric vehicles. In the area of connected and autonomous vehicles, certainly something on infrastructure and connectivity would have been marvellous, particularly with regards to deployment of connected vehicles.
Richard Burden
Q Thank you. That is very useful.
The Government’s target is that all new vehicles on the road should be ultra low emission vehicles—zero-emissions, in fact—by 2050. How far do you think this Bill will contribute to that target? On current trends, we are a long way off that target at the moment. What do you think are the other barriers to the take-up of ultra low emission vehicles, or we could also say—more broadly—connected vehicles? There is quite a crossover between those two agendas. How do you think these other barriers can be best overcome?
David Wong: Let me first deal with ultra low emission vehicles and electric vehicles. The Bill is a step in the right direction. Whether or not the targets are achieved depends on the extent to which we can solve what we call the three As. The first A is range anxiety; the second A is infrastructure accessibility; and the third A is vehicle affordability. Insofar as what the Bill is trying to do, it is crucial to address infrastructure issues, to support research and development and to provide continuing support for consumer incentives to create an enabling environment that will see a greater take-up of electric vehicles. If you look at range anxiety, a lot of it is due to the fact that technology has not evolved today to a point at which the electric vehicle can travel as far on a single charge as can a petrol or diesel vehicle. With greater research and development and Government support—not least in terms of, for example, battery technology—that may be an area that should be addressed for the future.
As for consumer incentives, this is particularly crucial in helping to address some of the issues regarding affordability, which is the second A. The technology itself is still very much in its infancy relative to other technologies, so we need to see continued support from the Government, as well as Government and industry working together closely on this.
The third A relates to infrastructure accessibility. From what we can see, this is a pivotal part of this Bill, and this, again, is a step in the right direction. Accessibility to infrastructure has been a key issue. It is the perception of most motorists that it is already not as convenient for people to charge an electric vehicle, which would take at least 30 minutes using a 43 to 50 kW rapid charger unit, compared to filling up a petrol or diesel vehicle at a petrol forecourt. We need to make it far easier for motorists to charge the vehicles. One of the things we need to do is to address the issue of interoperability of charge points. We are pleased to see that there is a provision for this in the Bill. When we consider the infrastructure from the perspective of the standardisation of multiple connectors and sockets that are available out there, it makes it confusing for motorists. We must not assume that every electric vehicle owner is a tech geek. We want to make electric vehicles as appealing as possible to the mass public. Standardisation is therefore important in making it easy for the average motorist to understand the plethora of technologies available.
The Chair
Thank you, Mr Wong. Could I appeal to all witnesses to do two things? The first thing is to be as brief as possible, as we have a lot of business to get through in an hour. Secondly, Mr Williams led the way in demonstrating how one can speak loudly and clearly. It may be my age and decrepitude, but please could you speak as loudly and clearly as you can?
Rob Marris
Q No, it is not that. I am saying that one way of doing it is regulation over the power supply and to say that you have got to make these incentives available for midnight charging. Should that be regulatory, to bring it about, or do you think the market will do that?
Marcus Stewart: I think the market will do that. Suppliers would look at the cost to them of securing more energy and they would look at the opportunities to trade that off against their portfolios. The market should provide that.
Richard Burden
Q Mr Evans in an earlier answer described the purpose of the Bill being to take reserve powers to allow stepping in to stimulate the right kind of infrastructure where the market does not provide it already. May I press you a little more on what that is, and on whether the Bill is hitting the right target? The stress within the Bill is on the provision of charging infrastructure by what it describes as “large fuel retailers.”
A lot of the discussion we have had so far has been about the importance of having rapid availability of charging points, and sometimes smart charging points, in a much more dispersed area than what might be described as large fuel retailers—typically, the motorway service areas. Is the emphasis on that right? If it is not the right emphasis, do those powers need to be applied more broadly? If those reserved powers are applied more broadly, what safeguards need to be in the Bill to ensure that unreasonable regulatory requirements are not put on a whole dispersed range of potential electricity suppliers?
Robert Evans: That is a good point. The powers that we are looking at are primarily around the provision of information to the user, the ability to have smart charging should you need it, and the interoperability. Those sorts of questions are dealt with in the Bill and are key topic areas for the industry. On the question of where infrastructure is located, supermarkets are an interesting one. We have a situation in which not everybody has off-street parking. When one comes to a place such as London, it is not practical to put charging all down London streets. Supermarkets become an extremely practical, pragmatic place for charging to be accessible, along with retail shopping centres, in a crowded city such as London. The consideration of that, along with motorway service areas, which is about allowing people to travel distances across the UK, are two strategic priorities. That is not to say that there are not other areas. The Government have provided incentives for the deployment of infrastructure in other locations and have obviously taken a view that maybe the market can deliver in those locations.
Quentin Willson: However, technology does exist that would allow you to charge at a street lamp post, although admittedly that could be for slow charging at night. For people who do not have parking within their house and have to rely on the street, this facility could be available on every single lamp post in the UK.
Andy McDonald
The whole discussion has been predicated on the basis of saving the planet. What about reducing emissions? In the context of automated vehicles and vehicles generally, it is all about their obsolescence, not about sustainability. Given that we have talked about the updating of automated vehicles and the relationship of manufacturers with the end user throughout the duration, are we missing a trick here? Though there is nothing in the Bill that requires software updates, necessarily there will be that relationship.
Should we not be thinking about a new way of using automated and electric vehicles across the piece? Should we be having people owning vehicles, or should we be making the offer for that relationship to be maintained so that it is a sustainable product that can be revisited? At the moment there is going to be an obligation to keep in touch with these automated vehicles for their lifetime. We heard in earlier evidence that there will come a point where that is cut off. Are we talking about an opportunity for a whole new way of using the services provided by an independent, personal mode of transport?
Quentin Willson: This is the big cycle of change now, like televisions, aeroplanes and the internet. We will see car ownership decline and will be buying or leasing vehicles as a service, not a product. The long-term vision is that this is going to be based largely on electricity and some on fuel cell, and that we will be calling driverless vehicles on our phones to come and collect us. They will then drive to our destinations in what is known as a green wav; they will be hooked up and connected to junctions, to the road system and to traffic lights. These zero-emission, automated, self-driving cars will drive in platoons and, it is hoped, eliminate congestion and pollution. That is the superordinate goal, which perhaps is as near as 2040. But it will always be powered by electricity. The whole structure of who owns what is changing. As we are seeing with consumer habits now, they are buying cars on personal contract plans; they do not own things anymore. That is what the long-term future looks like.
Richard Burden
Q To try to get a more rapid pace of development towards meeting the 2050 target, we have talked about infrastructure as part of that mix and about tackling anxiety—Quentin referred to that—and trying to ensure that consumers are not scared about electric vehicles, which can be good to drive. The third element is, in a sense, disincentives to drive anything other than ultra low or zero emissions vehicles through beefing up the MOT test and whatever.
The other thing is the carrot that goes with that stick. What are the right consumer incentives that could be put in place to encourage the take-up of electric vehicles? Let us face it: at the moment, they are pricey, so many buyers—certainly private buyers—will not be able to afford an electric or other ultra low emissions vehicle. What do you think about the changes there have been in Government policy on that, where measures such as the plug-in car grant have come down rather than gone up?
Quentin Willson: On pricing, the general consensus is that an electric car is probably double the price of a conventional car. That is not broadly the case. What we are not doing enough is incentivising and telling people about used electric cars. Your seven-month-old Nissan LEAF, which started with a list price of £25,000 after the grant, is now available for £13,000. All these electric cars are coming off company fleets and going into the market, and consumers do not realise that that is a really effective way of getting an EV at a low price. If you buy a Nissan LEAF or a Renault ZOE for £6,000, which is possible, that investment is paid back within three years in terms of fuel, maintenance and road tax. It is a really compelling proposition.
Richard Burden
Q Is that not a double-edged one? For the market in new electric vehicles to take off, the fleet market will be important to that, and one thing that will be important to it is some certainty over residual values. Therefore, the low residual values at the moment, which might be an incentive to the private car buyer, are a disincentive to the big take-up of new EVs by fleets. Is that fair?
Quentin Willson: But if we have volume, the manufacturers’ prices will come down, and they are coming down. If you look at a Mitsubishi Outlander plug-in hybrid electric vehicle compared with a diesel hybrid one, they are the same price. Residuals on things like Teslas and Renault ZOEs are quite good. The market is levelling off, and we will find that prices and residual values start to firm up. Price guides and the motor industry still do not value electric cars properly. We will see a strengthening of residuals as demand increases and a lowering of prices as manufacturers get their volume and their supply up.
Richard Burden
Q Perhaps you could answer a question about the idea of Government action on consumer incentives. Is there more that could be done? What should be the targets?
Quentin Willson: There are simple things like free on-street parking everywhere in the UK for electric vehicles, use of bus lanes and some form of priority. The Americans have had huge success with priority lanes for electric vehicles. We need to think about the stuff that you cannot buy, the things that give people an advantage in city centres if they drive an ultra low emission or electric vehicle.
Robert Evans: The other alternative is low emission zones, and we could do that. London’s low emission zone, followed by an ultra low emission zone, is the direction of travel that a lot of cities would like to take. They want to do it in a staged format, working to national guidance as to what constitutes the standards you would set for access, so that a motorist travelling in the UK can know whether they can gain access to the low emission zone and the ultra low emission zone as they move from city to city. That is a particularly important activity. It is not covered in the scope of this Bill as such, but low and ultra low emission zones are one of the key ways of incentivising the right kind of behaviour. The second-hand market is incredibly important, and it makes those vehicles more accessible.
Company car taxation is a particular favourite that helps to drive electric vehicles into a market where others would not. The lightbulb has gone on with fleets. Previously, they would operate a diesel-only policy. “You never got sacked for buying IBM,” was the traditional term, then, “You never got sacked for buying diesel,” and that has now switched. They can see that the motor industry is not going to support that in the long term and that they need to make a change. They are now embracing what they can see is the future that they need to have in their fleet.
Quentin Willson: Any benefits in kind that the Treasury can keep going must be kept going if possible. The plug-in grant has been really significant.
Tom Tugendhat
Q Forgive me; in relation to the cycles that we are talking about in introducing new technology, as you correctly identified, Quentin, the way we are going is towards transport as a service rather than as an item. If that is so, then presumably automatic vehicles will, rather like those vacuum cleaners you get in homes, be able to drive themselves to a car park somewhere, charge themselves up during the downtime and come back out again, at which point we are talking about investing an enormous amount of public money into an infrastructure system that will, within 20 years—you were referring to 2040—be redundant. That is quite a short timescale for large-scale infrastructure investment to be redundant.
Quentin Willson: But that infrastructure investment will also be used for this new breed of autonomous cars, because they will all be plug-in. They will all be electric.