Self-driving Vehicles: Disabled Passengers

Baroness Pidgeon Excerpts

Thursday 19th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is entirely right. One of the really good prospects here is the provision of public services to people in rural areas where buses, with the best will in the world and despite the Government’s ground-breaking bus legislation, will not serve every need of the community because of the sparse population. That community is also getting older and many people there cannot drive, so there is a real opportunity here for autonomous vehicles fulfilling the need for public services in a way that conventional buses and taxis really cannot.

I go back to the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, which is that we have to design in—as far as we can—facilities for disabled people among this. But we also, as the noble Lord opposite said, have to get going with this, because it is such an exciting future.

[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

My Lords, as well as the area of accessibility, what work have the Government carried out to determine liability in collisions involving self-drive vehicles as part of this pilot, given that human error will be removed from the equation?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is right: safety has to be the first priority here. There has been a great deal of work worldwide on this. Clearly, the primary consideration for the adoption of autonomous vehicles is safety, so that people are not endangered by new technology but assisted by it. I will write to her about the precise steps that the Government have taken in the UK on this, but it is of course being addressed on a worldwide basis.