Automated Vehicles Bill [Lords]

Debate between Anthony Browne and Matt Western

2nd reading
Tuesday 5th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Anthony Browne)]

I thank everyone who has contributed to this incredibly enjoyable debate. It is always enjoyable when there is a remarkable degree of consensus across the House. I note that Labour, the Scottish National party and the Liberal Democrats all support this legislation. There was a large degree of consensus on the various issues, with almost everyone who spoke agreeing that this legislation could and should lead to safer roads. We all want to reduce the number of accidents, injuries and deaths on the road.

Various Members from different parts of the country talked about the autonomous vehicle work going on in their constituencies: the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands) talked about CAVForth in Scotland; the Chair of the Transport Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart), talked about the work in Milton Keynes; and the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) talked about the benefits in Warwick. Various Members also mentioned Wayve in north London, and I know that companies in my constituency are working on this. Getting this industry right really is an example of levelling up. There was also a large degree of consensus that we need to make sure that this technology works for the benefit of vulnerable users. One of the major reasons for it is that it offers huge opportunities for people who are blind, frail and so on and cannot drive.

Lots of useful questions and points were raised. I spent a huge amount of time nodding in violent agreement with what Members from the various Opposition parties were saying, such was the consensus. Many of the points have been covered in the Bill, which I will go through in detail. Various Members mentioned the need for proper accident investigation. We completely agree on that, because it is vital that whenever a self-driving vehicle is involved in an accident, we need to know why the accident happened and whether, for example, it was a result of the software or the algorithm going wrong. We need to learn from any accidents. This is an evolution; we are not going to get the perfect result and this is going to evolve over the coming years and decades. The importance of accident investigation is why we provide in the Bill for an incident investigation function similar to those in other sectors, such as aviation, which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse). The Secretary of State will have the power to appoint independent accident investigators, who will find out the root cause and make sure that we all learn the lessons.

[Matt Western]

I just want to understand this better, because I might have missed something. Is that technology, in essence, like a black box that would be fitted within a vehicle, which those investigators could then access?

[Anthony Browne]

Absolutely, the accident investigators will have the power to get access to the software and technology so that we understand what went wrong. That is a crucial part of this; we need to understand technically what the cause of any accident is. That is very different from a police investigation into an accident, where they are trying to attribute blame to X, Y or Z but do not need to understand the root cause.

Let me turn to some of the most detailed comments. The shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh), said that the Opposition support this legislation. She talked about the importance of jobs and getting that aspect right. Most speakers talked about the benefits for jobs, with the self-driving sector creating as many as 38,000 new jobs by 2035. A range of new jobs will arise out of this, not just in the companies making self-driving technology, but with conductors on automated services, for example. She worried about the job losses that were coming, as did various other Opposition Members, but they are getting ahead of themselves; those sort of impacts will be a very long way down the line and this is an evolution in the coming years and decades. It is definitely worth thinking about the issue. The SNP spokesman, the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North, asked what will happen to jobs in 50 years’ time, but it is not the purpose of this Bill to deal with the situation in 50 years’ time.

Accessibility is clearly a major issue and we completely agree on it. The Government want to ensure that all parts of society, including people with disabilities, can reap the benefits of self-driving technology. That is why we have anchored our approach in the recommendations put forward by the Law Commissions in their inquiry. Their central conclusion was that our focus should be on gathering evidence and gaining experience, and making sure that this works for disabled people and vulnerable users. The Bill requires that the authority granting a passenger permit must consider how the service will lead to improvement in understanding accessibility. Service providers will then be required to publish regular reports on how they are meeting the needs of disabled and vulnerable users. We are also following the Law Commissions’ recommendation in establishing an accessibility advisory panel to inform the development of national accessibility standards. The Department for Transport already has a statutory disabled users advisory panel.

My hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South, the Chair of the Select Committee, raised a large number of points. He made comments about “careful and competent driver” being too weak as a definition. It is an ambition rather than a detail, and that takes us to the whole point about the statement of safety principles. The ambition of making sure that a driver is safe, careful and competent is in the Bill, but the detail of exactly what that means will come through in the statement of safety principles, on which we will consult widely.

The Secretary of State and I had a meeting with a wide range of user groups last week—road user groups, road safety groups and people from the Royal National Institute of Blind People were at the roundtable. We committed to working with them as we go forward on putting together that statement of safety principles. We have also committed in the Bill to consulting a range of different groups, including road user groups, and that could include trade unions. We would very much like to hear from them if they have contributions to make on the different aspects of safety that we will be sorting out. As this is an evolving technology, a lot of what is in the Bill is high level and quite a lot of statutory instruments will fall from it; it is necessary to be flexible. Consulting on developing those SIs will take until 2026, so there is a long time to get a lot of the details right.

My hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South also said that he wanted to make sure that drivers have the right level of skills and do not forget how to drive. People being deskilled is a long way off, but he asks the right question and the Government will keep under review whether we need to do anything on that. He also made the point about making sure that MOT tests are kept up to date. We have consulted on the future of those tests, and we will be monitoring that and making sure that they are kept up to date. Most Members, including my hon. Friend, raised the valid point about data and the insurance industry. Thatcham Research, which does the driving safety work for the insurance industry, was at the roundtable that we had last week, and we committed to working with them in the future. They need to know exactly what data they can get access to at the time of an accident. The powers for that are in the Bill. It will be critical to understand whether the vehicle was in self-driving mode at the time—the “no user in charge” mode—or whether a human was driving, as well as the cause of the accident. That point has been well made, but those issues are already addressed in the Bill.

Various hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South, talked about the need to take the public with us; I agree. It is good to debate the subject here and good that there is a political consensus. We will be doing lots of consultation on the subject going forward and will invite everyone’s input. The Government recently launched PAVE, Partners for Automated Vehicle Education. I launched the initiative at the RAC Club a couple of weeks ago and it is supported by the Government. It aims to educate the public about self-driving cars and promote debate about that transport revolution.

The spokesperson for the SNP, the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North, made many very good points. I am not usually in such agreement with the SNP on Government policy. We absolutely need to take the public with us. He asked whether it would be compulsory to have an autonomous vehicle, as he wants to carry on driving. I can confirm to the House that the Government have no plans to ban driving—not now, not ever. He will be entitled to carry on driving if he wishes. Self-driving cars are entirely voluntary.

The hon. Gentleman and other hon. Members raised points about international incidents, including problems with state-level rules in the US and problems that Cruise had in San Francisco. I agree that we need to learn lessons from all the international incidents and that we need strong, clear rules. The whole point of the legislation is to clearly define the legal and regulatory structure, so that we avoid the bad stuff and so that we can learn, improve the system and bring in changes as we need them.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Debate between Anthony Browne and Matt Western

Wednesday 15th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

Mr Deputy Speaker, you probably did not hear an interview I did with BBC Coventry and Warwickshire Radio back in 2021. I was talking about the pandemic. I said that inflation was something we should be concerned about and that it could potentially rise to 7%. I had been talking to local businesses, such as the Box Factory, Vitsoe and Picturesque picture frames, which were seeing huge rises in the price of glass, cardboard and so on.

Spin forward a couple of weeks and the then Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson), said on Sky News that people’s fears about inflation were unfounded. I am not sure where the then Prime Minister had his head at that time—whether it was in an ice bucket or in the sand—but his Chancellor should have pointed out to him what was going on. It was really clear to businesses in my constituency what was going on, and that was long before Russia’s illegal invasion. It was not just the fact that the price of gas was going to increase from that point, but we had no energy storage. It was rather like going into the pandemic when we had no personal protective equipment.

Spin forward 12 months and we had a new Prime Minister, a new Chancellor and the kamikaze Budget. Straight after that statement, the right hon. Member for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng) said, in answer to my question, that I was fearmongering when I said there would be a run on the pound. What happened next? The Bank of England was left to bail out this Conservative Government. In any other organisation, the directors would have been sacked long before this point of 13 years if the shareholders had been able to have their say.

Now we find ourselves on, I think, a fourth Chancellor. We hear that things are getting better versus last October. Well, one would hope that they are, given where we were. If we stand back and look at where we are, we have the lowest growth in the G7—even sanctioned Russia might be ahead of us now. The World Bank describes us as having the weakest economy. The medium-term forecast does not look good. Inflation is one of the highest in the G20. It is not rocket science how we seem to have got here.

There are some positives in the Budget. In particular, I applaud the idea of enterprise zones around universities. Those investment zones will be a very good thing and I would welcome more of them, because I believe they can be dynamos of a new economy. On the cost of living, I certainly welcome the extension of the energy price guarantee and parity on charges for prepayment meters with those who pay by direct debit. That is long overdue.

However, on the impact on real wages, we have heard that real household incomes will fall by 5.7% over the next two years, the worst performance since records began 60 years ago. Compare that to France, where the average French family will be 10% richer than those of us in the UK. In Germany, they will be 20% richer. Both are working approximately 20% less than us. That is the social scandal of our time. At the same time, mortgages in the wake of last year’s kamikaze budget have increased by, on average, £2,000 on a variable rate mortgage. Given the frozen income tax thresholds that the Chancellor previously announced, we have a £500 increase for those on the basic rate and a £1,000 increase for those on a higher rate.

I welcome some of the moves on childcare, but our proposals are a lot better. A nursery provider in my constituency texted me earlier to say that the funding equates to 26p per child per hour, and will not make a blind bit of difference. On pensions, I do not understand who will be the great beneficiary. What percentage of the population will benefit from going from £1.06 million to £1.8 million? It sounds like the super-wealthy in our society—a big win for the wealthiest, and perhaps more help for bankers but less for ordinary folk. It will do nothing to get retired consultants back into the NHS. It is too late.

[Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Matt Western]

I will not, because we are short of time. Corporation tax is rising to 25% from 19%. George Osborne told us that we had to reduce it from 29%, which would ensure increased revenues because people would be keener to pay it at a lower rate. That does not seem to have transpired. Let us compare that to France and the US, which have much higher levels than us today. How much tax revenue have we lost from corporation tax since 2014?

The lack of a coherent industrial strategy is striking. I want to focus on the automotive sector. We have just one small gigafactory in the UK, versus five in Germany and five more planned. Labour has gone on record to say that we want to build them. Those investment decisions are ebbing away from us. Ford has divested out of Dunton. Tesla had the opportunity to come to the UK but said that it would not because of Brexit. We need companies such as Northvolt and others to come and invest in the UK. Mike Hawes of SMMT said:

“There is little that enables the UK to compete with massive packages of support to power a green transition that are available elsewhere.”

Make UK echoes that. Our energy bills are approximately 100% higher than the average of those major European nations.

Small businesses have been ignored once again. The owner of a pub in Warwick has been in touch to say that he will have to close, because he cannot afford it. Another in Leamington has said, “That’s it. We’re going to close in April. There was just nothing for us.” The Federation of Small Businesses supports that, saying that it believes that all small businesses have been short-changed by the Budget—a point backed up by the chamber of commerce. I heard nothing for the self-employed, but maybe I am mistaken.

This has been another Budget with next to no mention of a proper coherent industrial strategy. We have heard a lot about potholes, but the Government cut £400 million from the highways maintenance pothole budget, and then they announce, miraculously, a £200 million budget today. It all seems a little Paul Daniels to me. Ordinary people and small businesses have been left short-changed by the Chancellor’s announcements. Somehow, the major promise from today’s Budget is a pensions bonanza for the very wealthy. Therein lies the truth of this Budget: it is for the very few.