Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill (Seventh sitting)

Andrew Selous Excerpts

Thursday 23rd March 2017 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Hayes]

The work that we do will need to be conducted with the same kind of rigour and vigour that I bring to all of my work. As the hon. Gentleman knows, I like to drive my team hard in the Department for Transport, and I am always prepared to listen to the advice of Members from across the House. He has made his point very effectively.

What I did yesterday is again relevant to the amendment and our considerations, because the new factory being opened in Coventry will build the electric taxis that will populate this city and others in the coming years. It is the first brand-new car plant to be built in Britain for more than a decade, the first dedicated electric vehicle manufacturing facility in the UK and the first major Chinese investment in UK automotive manufacturing, bringing with it many new jobs. It is an exciting development that I am proud to be part of, which is why I was out of the House yesterday.

Before we adjourned on Tuesday, several hon. Members raised the issue of liquid petroleum gas. The Government are already taking a number of steps to support gaseous fuels through the renewable transport fuel obligation, the low-emission bus scheme, the low-emission freight and logistics trial and the clean bus technology fund to name a few. Projects funded via the Government’s £8 million clean vehicle technology fund include the conversion of more than 60 black cabs from diesel to LPG in, again, Birmingham. This is the neat idea that was advocated by my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire. When complete, the project will provide valuable information about the costs and benefits of retrofitting black cabs with LPG. My hon. Friend made the powerful point that this is about what we do with the existing fleet as well as with the new cabs that are required.

More widely, my officials are currently analysing the environmental impacts of different fuels, including LPG, in different vehicles. We are grateful for the data that the industry provided to feed that work. We shall use that analysis to inform our approach to alternative fuels across Government, including in respect of future decisions about fuel duty, of course. That was mentioned, but as Members will know, any fiscal matters are beyond my scope.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I should have mentioned on Tuesday that I drive an LPG car. Will the Minister say a little bit about what the Government will do in relation to the current constraints on the LPG market? We do not have any vans made with warrantee, which is a barrier to take-up at the moment, particularly for fleet purchases. There is also the issue of the fuel duty escalator, which he might want to mention to the Chancellor in the run-up to the autumn Budget, so that we can get this interim solution to help us to meet our critical air quality targets.

[Mr Hayes]

I will deal with those points, for the sake of interest and glamour, in reverse order. I dealt with the second matter that my hon. Friend raised—perhaps rather too briefly for his taste, but none the less definitively—in my final remarks a moment ago when I said that all such matters are beyond my ken. Of course, others—no doubt including him, with his usual assiduity—will make precisely that argument to the Chancellor as he goes about his considerations.

On the first point, however, we can perhaps do more. Warrantees in these terms are important, and I have given that some consideration. People want to know that if retrofits take place, it will not detrimentally affect their vehicle or have a deleterious effect of any kind, and that the retrofit itself will be something of which they can be sure. I take the point. I will take it away and certainly want to say more about that during the passage of the Bill, perhaps between now and Report. As ever, my hon. Friend makes a helpful contribution to our considerations. I was about to conclude, but I can see my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire eyeing me, with the possibility that he is about to add further expertise to our considerations.

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We tabled the new clause because we have been told that article 50 could be triggered within a matter not of months, but of days—or, at most, weeks—so these matters need to be resolved now and we need to see the direction of travel now. We should take the opportunity to ensure that the Bill includes a commitment to retaining access to the key partnerships that we need for our aviation industry, for holidaymakers and for business generally.

[Andrew Selous]

I will not detain the Committee for long, but on the role of the European Aviation Safety Agency, I want to go back briefly to laser threats, which are covered in clause 22. During Tuesday’s sitting, the Minister said that if he had time he would try to discuss with the Secretary of State the next day—yesterday—whether we might regulate the sale of very high-powered lasers for legitimate uses. I remind the Committee that the written evidence submitted by the British Airline Pilots Association states that

“figures from the Civil Aviation Authority…show that in 2016 there were 1,258 reported lasers attacks in the UK against UK-registered aircraft”

and that that is

“likely a drastic under-reporting.”

That is three or four reported laser attacks every day. Given the events of yesterday, we should always be mindful of prevention. The new offence created by clause 22 is welcome, but I have to confess to being slightly sceptical about whether it will be adequate, because I am worried about the police’s ability to detect and really get on top of this growing problem, which could have catastrophic consequences.

[Drew Hendry]

I will try not to repeat too many of the comments made by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield, but I agree with his analysis. The European Aviation Safety Agency plays a crucial role in excluding from European airspace and European airports any aircraft that originate from countries or companies that have a poor safety record. It safeguards the security and wellbeing of people across the continent. Given the importance of that role, the Government need to clarify whether the UK will retain full participation in the agency.

The open skies agreement created a number of freedoms for EU-registered airlines, which allowed them to have a base in one member state and to operate cabotage in another. As we have heard, airlines are now actively preparing to move operations. There is no guarantee at present that the UK would stay in the open skies agreement, and the outcome could have serious knock-on effects for the aviation industry in the UK, and in Scotland in particular. It is unclear at the moment what will happen when the UK leaves the EU, and the UK Government need to explain to us how things will work. Passengers and consumers, the aviation sector and the Government know that staying in the open skies agreement is right for the sector. The Government need to tell us their position, and how they will fight to ensure that we stay in.

Tourism is enormously important to the Scottish economy. In the UK aviation is vital to the economy as a whole and to business, and no more so than in tourism. In 2015, UK aviation transported 251 million passengers and contributed £1 billion a week to the UK economy. It supports 1 million jobs. There is a need to set out clear and transparent information about the future of aviation. Will the UK consider joining the European common aviation travel area, or are the Government going to go down the route of umpteen bilateral agreements? We simply do not know, and not knowing causes great uncertainty, which affects airlines’ business decisions about where they want to locate. Those are critical decisions for aviation and the people employed in the sector.

Businesses now openly say that they are having difficulty with their business plans; they are terrified that they will get no forward vision from the UK Government about how things will work in future, and that directly affects investment.

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[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

May I begin by thanking the Minister for the kind invitation he extended to me on Second Reading to respond to the consultation? I regret that it had closed by the time I picked it up on the Monday before the Bill Committee and that he will not receive a submission from me.

I want to make a couple of points. First, in general I dislike agreeing with Opposition Members, but when I look at their clause, I think it is a pretty good start. I particularly endorse the principle of mandatory geofencing. There are two principles that we should apply. The first is an absolute approach to excluding amateur-flown drones from airfields. It is fair to say that that could be easily done with geofencing of regions as directed by the CAA, so I am attracted to those first two parts of subsections (2)(a) and (2)(b).

I am wary of registration because of the cost of registering, particularly as some of the drones available are, really, tiny toys and it would be going too far to implement a registration system for such things. The other principle I want to raise relates to the idea of applying a scheme such as one might have with the autonomous cars we have been discussing, where basically we allow progress to be permissive, provided people take responsibility for their actions. The Government might consider what kind of insurance might be made available for drones, and then the combination of insurance and geofencing might be the right approach to ensuring that people can make best use of those items of equipment.

I am incredibly enthusiastic about drones. I do not own one, but I am enthusiastic about them. They can be used for precision farming, for instance, and can revolutionise the way in which various things are applied to crops and the way that crops are inspected with various cameras in various frequencies. Videos that I have found are available on YouTube. Also, I could swear I heard a drone fly down the railway line next to my house early one morning. That struck me as an indicator that the example I used on Second Reading is not the only one relevant to industry. My example was of the tiler who uses a drone to inspect roofs, because he would otherwise need to put up scaffolding at considerable expense. On the one hand, we can apply regulations for safety, which requires expense for householders and businesses; on the other, we must be cautious that we do not further exclude the solution to the regulatory problem by applying aircraft-style regulations to drones.

There is joy to be had in drones. This is not necessarily a dry subject. The photography that is possible with a drone is beautiful and artistic. I know that the Minister is a great fan of beauty and nature, so I hope he appreciates that if people wish to have a 360-degree aerial photo of their first wedding kiss, that is not something we should inadvertently prevent by over-regulating the use of drones.

Although I am substantively attracted to the idea of mandatory geofencing, with the CAA defining the boundaries—I certainly approve of that—I am also slightly concerned. We do not want to go ahead too soon and I would not support registration.

[Andrew Selous]

Having a very large Amazon logistics distribution centre in my constituency, I wondered whether my hon. Friend had given any thought to how in future logistics companies such as Amazon might use drones to wing even more quickly than they do at the moment those things that those of us who shop on the internet seek to buy all the time.

[Mr Baker]

My hon. Friend raises a very good point. Only the other day, I happened to be walking through the corridors of the House when I discovered the former Member Lembit Öpik with Starship Technologies and their small-wheeled delivery robot. If that was scaled up and people were put in it, that would be the future of motoring that we have been discussing—my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire shares my despair at that prospect.

My hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire is absolutely right. Why should we have slow, ground-based robots delivering things where people might trip over them and so on, when we could have unmanned aerial vehicles flying briskly through the air? Provided that they are safe and there are insurable risks, it is a jolly good idea that we should be able to innovate in those ways. I certainly endorse his point.

I have covered what I wished to say. I am genuinely excited about the prospects, in industry and agriculture and recreationally, that will arise from UAVs and drones. A few minutes spent by any Member on YouTube looking at what is possible with drones would cause them to share my enthusiasm. I very much hope that the Government, in considering the issues, will not over-regulate so that we lose the potential for joy and beauty that they will bring.