Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill

Kit Malthouse Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Carry-over motion: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Monday 6th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Neil Parish]

My hon. Friend raises a very interesting point, to which I have given much thought. I think that in the real world we have to accept that the highest levels of pollution that prove to be most detrimental to people’s health are mainly in inner-city areas. The electricity will have to be produced somewhere, and unless it is going to be done entirely through green technology—we will move towards that in the longer term—it will cause some pollution. We have to accept that to reduce inner-city NOx levels, there might need to be a little bit of pollution across the country. We cannot allow individuals to suffer from the high levels of nitrogen oxide that are currently in the inner cities. I have to accept that there will be some pollution somewhere else; otherwise, we will not be able to reduce the levels of pollution in our inner cities.

This is why charging points for electric vehicles are so important. It is not just this Bill that is relevant, because there may be something in the Chancellor’s speech later this week. If we are to have any sort of scrappage scheme through which people could convert to electric vehicles, we need to try to target it towards our inner cities in particular, because the need to reduce pollution is at its greatest there. We can use hybrid vehicles and other types to bring us to the cities; when we are in the inner city, we will need not only electric cars but electric taxis, and we shall need to convert many of our lorries perhaps to liquid petroleum gas or something that will reduce the current levels of NOx.

Unless we do something really serious to deal with pollution in the inner city, the Government are going to be in the dock and DEFRA will sit in the dock. It is possible to reduce a little of the nitric oxide that comes from farming, but it is not so easy to cure the problem in the inner city. That has to be done mainly through transport measures and perhaps by local government.

I had better move on to the Bill’s clauses, Mr Deputy Speaker; otherwise, you will get agitated with me for going beyond what the Bill contains. I shall speak mainly to clauses 8 to 15, which deal with electric vehicle charging. I shall outline the benefits of electric vehicles in the specific clauses in order to incentivise their use. Electric vehicles are on the verge of a massive expansion in the UK, and the potential benefits are enormous, as many Members have said this evening. However, the figure for new registrations in this country is less than 2%. The figure in Norway is some 25%, so we have a little way to go, although I am sure that, in the safe hands of the Minister, it will happen overnight.

Electric vehicles mean better air quality. Toxic gases from combustion engines are linked to more than 40,000 deaths in the UK, and road transport is responsible for about 80% of nitric oxide in our inner-city hotspots. A move away from combustion engines and towards electric vehicles would cut levels of nitric oxide in the air, and would reduce the number of early deaths. British motorists currently face some of the highest fuel prices in Europe, but an electric vehicle that achieves 3 miles per kWh can cost about 4p per mile. Ultimately, that really will encourage people to buy electric cars. The AA has estimated that they are about five times cheaper to run than the average petrol car. The Chancellor may miss a little bit of fuel tax, but I think that, in terms of air quality, this is a step in the right direction. Transport produces higher carbon emissions than any other UK sector, including power generation. Moving vehicles from carbon to electric will help the UK to slash its carbon emissions further, especially as renewable energy is rapidly rising in the UK.

How can we boost electric vehicles? Although the market has grown rapidly in recent years, ultra-low emission vehicles still account for only 1.2% of new car registrations in Britain. The Government’s own research shows that one in five Britons has considered buying an electric vehicle, but the biggest barrier to uptake is the lack of availability of charging points and the lack of knowledge of where to find them. I am glad that the Bill seeks to deal with those problems.

[Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

I agree with my hon. Friend about the lack of availability of charging points, but may I also ask him to join me in urging the Minister to start this project at home, on the parliamentary estate? We have only two charging points, which means that those of us who have plug-in electric cars often have to compete for a space, or cannot find one.

[Neil Parish]

That is a very good point. We should lead by example in the House, and if more of us have electric cars, we shall need more electric charging points. I look forward to hearing the Minister respond to my hon. Friend’s point—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Baker]

Not only are they autonomous, but I would argue that they are even more dangerous for that very reason. However, that is by the bye and perhaps a diversion from the Bill.

As I said, I am a self-declared petrol head, but we have nothing to fear from electric vehicles. If anyone wants to check my YouTube channel, they will find a review of the Agility Saietta R electric motorcycle—a vehicle with excellent torque—and that brings me on to the idea of charging. It is not a market failure that there is diversity in the marketplace. Competition is not a failure but the way by which we make progress, so I encourage the Government not to stamp out competition and experimentation as we make progress with this new technology and in this new market.

[Kit Malthouse]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government should also encourage competing technologies? One issue with electric vehicles is the method of power storage and, historically, the Government and this House have put a huge amount of effort, resources and subsidy into the battery, and little comparative resource into hydrogen, as a store of power. The fuel cell is the technology of the future, and the battery is possibly a temporary technology like the fax machine. The Government should be allowing such competition, too.

[Mr Baker]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right and makes a good point. As an idea, the fuel cell’s time is still to come. He makes a wise intervention.

On the substance of the Bill, I exercise my pedantry as an Oxford-educated software engineer—not something I have been able to do recently—by saying that in clause 4, on accidents resulting from unauthorised alterations or failure to update software, subsection (1)(a) addresses

“alterations to the vehicle’s operating system”.

If there is one group of people more pedantic than software engineers, it is lawyers and courts. Should an accident arise because of a failure to update software, that definition would be tested in court.

Underneath the operating system is firmware in non-volatile memory within hardware. The operating system is loaded on to volatile memory, and on top of that is application software. A self-driven or autonomous car will probably run on that application software. If it were to be tested in court, I fear we might find problems if the Bill, as enacted, talks about a vehicle’s operating system.

I encourage the Government to consult specialists in the industry, rather than only taking the advice of an out-of-date software engineer, but it is important that the Bill uses the right terminology to ensure that the right software is updated and that, therefore, the law meets its intended purpose of ensuring that people are insured and that liability falls where it should when there has been a failure to update software.