Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill (Seventh sitting)

Debate between Karl Turner and Clive Efford

Committee Debate: 7th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 16th November 2017 Public Bill Committees

[Clive Efford]

The Minister is in an extremely generous mood this morning. I am reassured by his comments that he will take these matters on board and consult on them in the future. There are some important issues here, but I am satisfied by what he has said, so I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 16

Sharing of data to resolve liability disputes

“(1) Where an accident occurs under sections 2, 3 or 4, the insurer and other interested parties have the right to acquire data from the automated vehicle for the purpose of determining the extent of liability.

(2) The Secretary of State must set out in regulations a system for handling and sharing data generated in respect of accidents involving automated vehicles.

(3) These regulations must make provision for—

(a) the format and content of the data recorded by automated vehicles,

(b) identifying who is responsible for data collection,

(c) identifying which interested parties have the right to acquire data from the automated vehicle,

(d) how such data may be acquired by the insurer and other interested parties, and

(e) any limitation that should be placed on how that data can be shared or used.

(4) Prior to making regulations under this section, the Secretary of State must consult with such persons as the Secretary of State considers appropriate.

(5) Where a statutory instrument contains the first regulations made under this section, the instrument may not be made unless a draft of it has been laid before Parliament and approved by a resolution of each House.

(6) A statutory instrument containing regulations under this section, that is not the first such instrument made under this section, is subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.”—(Karl Turner.)

This new clause would ensure that insurers and other interested parties have access to automated vehicle data for the purpose of resolving disputes on the extent of liability where an accident has occurred. This clause would give the Secretary of State power to make regulations on how such data should be handled and shared.

Brought up, and read the First time.

[Karl Turner]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

The new clause will ensure that insurers and other interested parties have access to automated vehicle data for the purpose of resolving disputes on the extent of liability when an accident event has occurred. The clause will give the Secretary of State the power to make regulations on how such data should be handled and shared.

An automated vehicle is likely to produce huge amounts of data on such things as car location, traffic information, weather information, its route, passenger information and even the parcels that it carries, if used commercially by a courier. Clearly, there are huge advantages to vehicles producing that data when resolving disputes on the extent of liability—for example, increasing the speed and quality of decisions. The data will be a valuable source of information for the insurer and other interested parties.

There are risks. The information gathered by the vehicles might be sensitive; information that needs to be kept private could be damaging if placed in the wrong hands. It is important that the Government ensure that the gathered data is secure, private and accessed only by relevant authorised parties.

Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill (Third sitting)

Debate between Karl Turner and Clive Efford

Committee Debate: 3rd sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 2nd November 2017 Public Bill Committees

[Karl Turner]

It is always an absolute pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I am grateful for the opportunity to speak to the Bill generally and to the amendments tabled in my name, to which I will come shortly.

This is an exciting opportunity for the Committee to speak about the potential to liberate many people currently excluded from access to rural transport. The Bill also provides opportunities to improve personal transport arrangements, as well as air quality, which is crucial given the dire state of the environment and its impact on health. I begin by thanking the Minister personally for his collegiate approach to the Bill, and for his co-operation and assistance in the preparation for this sitting. He even allowed my staff access to his officials. It is genuinely appreciated.

Amendment 1 would improve the Bill, and I know that the Minister is intent on improving it. It would require the Government to consult on and publish criteria for the definition of “automated vehicles” that the Secretary of State will use. As the Committee can see, clause 1 as currently drafted puts the onus on the Secretary of State to define, in his or her opinion, what constitutes an automated vehicle, without having to consult the sector. In my view, the Bill would be vastly improved by a requirement to consult on and publish the criteria by which “automated vehicles” will be defined.

Secondly, the amendment would prevent the Secretary of State from changing the criteria without consulting vehicle manufacturers, insurers and other such persons as the Secretary of State considers appropriate. We ask for that consultation and publication of the criteria because it is crucial that manufacturers, vehicle owners and insurers know them, whether they are making, buying, warning about or insuring an automated vehicle, and whether the scope of the legislation applies to their vehicle. In the evidence session, the insurance industry welcomed the Government taking on the responsibility of saying what is an automated vehicle, but we are still concerned that the Bill as drafted leaves the Secretary of State with total discretion on what is an automated vehicle. We therefore tabled the amendment to provide greater clarity and to help the Government by ensuring that the relevant persons and organisations will be sufficiently involved, to inform the Secretary of State’s list of automated vehicles.

The Opposition believe that the additional clarity provided by the amendment would help to create a more reassuring environment and to encourage the development and uptake of automated vehicles. As I said, the amendment would also prevent the Secretary of State from changing the criteria without further consultation, and guarantee that the criteria used will be up to date and as practical as possible in a very fast-moving sector. We have rehearsed these matters previously so I do not want keep the Committee on this point for too long.

I have had the opportunity to look at Hansard; in the Committee for the Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill, the Minister promised to go away, think about it and amend the Bill appropriately to tighten the definition, but that does not seem to have happened. I do not mean to criticise the Minister personally, but the Government have had six months to think about that. The only change that I can see is in clause 1(b) but that is just semantic. We intend to press the amendment to a Division.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship once again, Sir Edward. I have had a number of informal chats with the Minister as we have bumped into each other while wandering around the House. I appreciate his approach to the Bill. My amendments are genuinely to try to probe the area, which I find fascinating, of the interaction between artificial intelligence and human behaviour. Nowhere more than in our transport systems will this become more prevalent over the coming years. My amendments are to probe the areas where I think that that comes into sharp focus.

When we boil it down, we are legislating for vehicles that are driven by computer software, as we heard in the evidence. We heard from the witnesses on Tuesday that we are legislating exclusively for tier 4 and tier 5 of the five tiers. The tiers start with driver-assisted systems such as braking, steering and parking, through to automated vehicles that can switch between being driven by a human and by software at tier 3, which overlaps into tier 4, and to tier 5, which is purely automated vehicles. The legislation really challenges us as legislators, because by simplifying the insurance system we are being asked to enable our roads to become laboratories to sharpen that technology. We heard clearly in the evidence that there were different attitudes to what is taking place. When asked about tier 5 technology, Mr Wong, from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, said:

“As to when those level 5 vehicles without steering wheels are capable of performing end-to-end journeys—from my house in the village to my office in the city—that is anybody’s guess. That will probably be some time in the 2030s. It is quite complex.”––[Official Report, Automated and Electric Vehicles Public Bill Committee, 31 October 2017; c. 43, Q98.]

However, we then heard from Mr Boland of Five AI, who told us that automated vehicles would be on our roads in 2019, albeit in an experimental fashion.

This is a big challenge for us. We need to consider the software in great detail, and the Secretary of State needs to be given the power to set and oversee certain standards. Mr Wong referred to the report written by the Ethics Commission on Automated Driving for the German Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure. I am a bit of an anorak, so I have started reading that report, although I have not got through all of it in the last 48 hours. It makes fascinating reading. The commission’s approach is that the technology is there to improve safety, whereas our attitude seems to be that it is a technological advance to help industry, and that improving safety and social inclusion will be a by-product a long way down the line.

The operation of the software raises some ethical issues. I asked the witnesses about how the software would perform and take decisions when an accident is imminent. For instance, imagine a four-year-old toddler walking in front of a vehicle that cannot stop to prevent a collision. To the left is oncoming traffic, with the risk of a head-on collision; to the right are perfectly innocent bystanders on the pavement or at the bus stop—those are the vehicle’s options. Mr Wong noted that this was the “classic trolley problem” referred to in the German ethics commission’s report. The commission’s conclusion was that it is simple to make a decision when the choice is between property damage and human injury, but when the choice is between different types of injury to different road users or innocent pedestrians who are not part of the scenario, we move into a completely new area of morals and ethics. We have to be prepared for that; these situations will take place on our streets, and we need to legislate for them. We should give ourselves the opportunity to oversee this software before it is allowed on the streets. Amendment 8 would give the Secretary of State power over the software’s approval, and new clause 11 would set out the approval criteria.

Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Karl Turner and Clive Efford

Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 31st October 2017 Public Bill Committees

[Karl Turner]

Q I have one really quick question on safety. What are the safety implications for blind pedestrians, runners and people of that nature?

Stan Boland: Safety is the start and finish of whether we can bring these cars on to the streets. A huge amount of attention will be focused on making these vehicles safe, in our case, for use in urban environments, where we will have all sorts of obstacles and agents with all sorts of different behaviours. That really centres on having systems that are able to perceive what is in the scene accurately in 360° and three dimensions and classify what those objects are.

This also talks to predicting what will happen next. We actually have to predict human behaviour, and we have to learn what those behaviours might be ahead of time. Our vehicles will certainly have to be state of the art for perception, but they will also have to be very good at predicting human behaviours. In the case where we identify an object and can tell, just like a human can, that this person, cyclist or whatever it turns out to be has a certain type of behaviour, we will have learnt those ahead of time, and if we are not sure, we will have to propagate that uncertainty through our software and slow down.

The behaviour of these vehicles will be slightly different to that of human drivers, but it will be possible to attain the levels of human safety, and in the long term surpass them, by applying technology. Our systems can pay attention in 360° all the time, and that makes it a bit different to human drivers.

[Clive Efford]

Q What will be the limit of the speed that your vehicles can travel at in an urban area?

Stan Boland: We are kind of hoping that we can operate at normal driving speeds. To be able to do that, it is important that we can predict behaviours. We cannot have a system that is collision-avoidance only, because that would result in frozen robots all over the city and would make congestion worse. What we humans do is anticipate human action. We actually run more than one world in our heads, and are constantly looking to see whether that world is turning into reality or some other world is going to happen. That allows us to merge on to full lanes of traffic, for instance. We cannot just have a system that is collision-avoidance only, because we would make traffic worse. The idea is that we are operating in normal streets with normal road signs at normal road speeds and obtaining and exceeding human levels of safety.

Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill

Debate between Karl Turner and Clive Efford

2nd reading: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Monday 23rd October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)]

I start by putting on the record my sincere thanks to the Minister—and I do not say that entirely for the benefit of his family in the Gallery; he always co-operates with the Opposition. We greatly welcome his collegiate approach, and we share his objective of making this the best Bill it can be as it passes through the House. We would, however, have liked more time between First Reading and today for Members properly to scrutinise the Bill. It is true that some of these issues were rehearsed during our debates on the Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill, but we have new Members since the election, and they should have been given more opportunity to scrutinise the Bill. I accept, though, that that is not the Minister’s doing but another symbol of the Government’s weakness in having to push their non-contentious Bills to the fore.

We broadly support the Bill but have some concerns about the impact of some of its measures. We will press the Government on those and table appropriate amendments in Committee, but the Bill is crucial and we wish to support it. Part 1 deals with automated vehicles and insurance. Ultra-low emission and autonomous vehicles will play an important role in our country’s transport in the years to come, so it is right that the Government seek to address some of the issues relating to them. Last year, the UK automotive industry added £18.9 billion in value to the UK economy and supported 169,000 people directly in manufacturing and 814,000 across the industry and throughout the supply chains. Forecasters have estimated that the overall benefits of ULEVs and autonomous vehicles will be in the region of £51 billion a year and that they could create an additional 320,000 jobs. In the light of Brexit, supporting this industry will be vital to the future of our economy.

The uptake of ULEVs will also play an important role in tackling the air quality crisis, which reportedly leads to 50,000 premature deaths each year and hundreds of thousands of cases of respiratory illnesses. It is an air quality crisis that is choking many of our towns and cities but which the Government have failed properly to address. Labour in government would do better and—it is fair to mention, given the Mayor of London’s announcement on toxic vehicle charges today—does do better. These vehicles will also be vital to the UK meeting its climate change objectives, for which the Government currently lack a clear plan.

It is vital that we introduce the legislation needed to facilitate and encourage investment, innovation and the uptake of vehicles of this kind, but if that is to be possible, a definition of autonomous vehicles will be necessary. At present, there is no clear distinction in UK policy, standards and legislation between advanced driver assistance systems and fully automated driving technology. The Bill requires the Secretary of State to prepare, keep up to date and publish a list of all motor vehicles to be used on roads in Great Britain that are deemed to be capable of safely driving themselves without having to be monitored by an individual for some or part of a journey, and the definition of an automated vehicle will be a vehicle that is included in the list drawn up by the Secretary of State. We are concerned that this gives the Secretary of State the power to define what is and is not an automated vehicle. There is clearly a need for collaboration between the Government, manufacturers, insurers and consumers to develop a viable and practical system of classification to identify whether a vehicle should be deemed “automated” or “autonomous”.

The dividing lines between automated and autonomous vehicles are not always completely clear. The Government must give more details of the plans to classify vehicles as automated, and consult widely on the definition and criteria for adding to the list of AVs in the Bill. In Committee, we will press for that to be subject to secondary legislation. Resolving the issue of how automated vehicles can be insured is also essential if they are to become a feature on our roads, and we support the Government’s action to ensure that vehicles’ insurance policies facilitate that in the future.

We are, however, concerned about the potential cost to policyholders, and the contention over liability between manufacturers and insurers. It is imperative that, in the event of a technological failure in an AV, it is easy for consumers to establish quickly where liability rests, and to make a claim as appropriate. At present, insurance law in the United Kingdom is driver-centric: drivers must have insurance in order to provide compensation for third parties for personal injury or property damage. The Government intend to emphasise that if there is an insurance event, the compensation route for the individual is still within the motor insurance framework rather than through a product liability framework of a manufacturer.

[Clive Efford]

May I pursue the issue of insurance policies and who will be liable? In the event of a collision between a human-driven vehicle and a vehicle that is being driven by its computer technology, will the insurance company assume, given that 95% of accidents are due to human error, that the computer is right and the human is wrong and is therefore at fault?

[Karl Turner]

That is a salient point. I understand that responsibility for the fully automated vehicle would rest with the manufacturer.