Automated Vehicles Bill [HL]

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 10th January 2024 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Liddle]

11: Clause 2, page 2, line 19, leave out “such representative organisations as the Secretary of State thinks fit” and insert “representatives of road user groups and other groups whose safety or other interests may be affected by the application of the principles”
Member's explanatory statement
This is to probe consultation provisions.

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[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, the amendments I am speaking to are basically about the process of external scrutiny and oversight of what the department is doing. In the previous discussion, we had a perfect illustration of why this is necessary, because the Minister said, “No—you can’t put the critical issue of safety in the legislation. It’s got to be left to the department”. That is what he was saying. Is that what we want in the public interest? Does it satisfy the concerns that people have?

I speak as a supporter of automated vehicles, but I believe that if we do not exercise the highest standards of safety in their introduction, we will get a public backlash which will put all this back for years. I say to the Minister: if he is so adamant that he is not prepared to accept my noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe’s amendment on safety standards, how is it also logical for him to reject all the amendments in this group, which are designed to improve stakeholder involvement and ensure that there is the widest possible consensus about what changes are to be proposed?

All the amendments in this group that are in my name are basically on this theme. Again, it is not the detail of the wording that matters at this stage—I am sure there are errors and faults in that—but the principle. Are the Government prepared to accept the principle that there should be widespread stakeholder involvement in this evolving issue of what regulation is necessary? As we know, there will not be a sudden change to automated vehicles. It is going to be a long process of evolution and change, as I think one of the noble Baronesses here said. We are going to have hybridity for a long time, so we have to face these questions of how we adjust our regulation in the light of experience.

The first amendment I put down was on the business of the statement of safety principles. The Government, unless they accept my amendment, are not even prepared to recognise the point in their legislation that there should be representative consultation on what the safety standards should be before they table them. That seems to be fundamental, so I am moving that as Amendment 11 and then speaking to the others.

On Amendment 33, we have the case that there will be reports, but there is absolutely no provision that they will be laid before, and provide an opportunity for discussion in, Parliament. Is that not pretty fundamental?

Amendment 49—let me find this part of the Bill; I do not want to mislead the Committee—would come after Clause 93. Its principal proposal is for the establishment of an advisory council, which would bring together stakeholders and people who are relevant to this debate. At one end, it would include trade unions, because if you are talking about automated delivery vehicles and automated bus services—that may be one of the first areas where automated vehicles will be used fully—then you have to carry the representatives of working people with you. It is only right that trade unions and employers should be involved.

When we are talking about an advisory council, these things cannot just be driven by the industry and the producer interest. We have to look at the views of people such as cyclists. Cyclists are probably more at risk in a hybrid situation, alongside pedestrians, than any other group. The cycling association has thought about this quite hard and has quite sensible views, so I would like to think that the department was institutionally obliged to consult it and take its views into account.

That is the very valid point of this group of amendments. I would like to hear from the Minister why he cannot accept them, because it seems self-evident that if we are not prepared to put things in law which require high safety standards, then we will have to find some other mechanism by which the public can be reassured.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I want to make a brief intervention on this group of amendments. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, for raising the important issue of an advisory council. The disabled community talks about the importance of co-production right from the start to make sure that there is not consultation at the end when it is really too late to do things. I hope that the Minister will take that on board. The Government have finally begun to understand the importance of co-production with disabled people. You can never have just one representative and it is important to understand all the issues. But as the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, said, that also applies to other users, so an advisory council is going to have to cover a fairly broad range of interests. As the Minister reminds us continually during the course of the Bill, we are in new territory and design is inevitably going to have to change, so I hope that he will support these amendments.

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[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, I agree with what the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, said about the 10-second question. We need more explanation of that.

I would make three points. I did not detect in what the Minister said any great sympathy for the amendments that I have put down—for three reasons. First, the Government seem to want to minimise future parliamentary involvement in this question of what the safety standards are as well as involvement in being able to discuss reports on the progress of the rollout of automated vehicles. That is point one: Parliament should be involved, and there is no reason why that should not be in the Bill.

Secondly, with automated vehicles there are clear implications for existing, well-established industrial sectors—buses, lorries and delivery vehicles—where many people are employed. It may be that there will continue to be new jobs in these areas; that is generally the experience of technological change, and it may get rid of the labour shortages that exist in some of these areas. That may well be true, but why not try to take the trade unions with you, as well as the employers, when you discuss the regulation of these things? That seems to me to be self-evident.

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[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

I am grateful for the point that the noble Lord makes, but I come back to the point that the Government are very clear that we will consult representative organisations on the proposed use of the Bill’s powers before they come into force. The noble Lord seems to imply that these bodies are not onside. As I have said previously, we anticipate that we will bring in the views of academia, trade unions and other representative bodies, so I do not really accept what the noble Lord says.

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 11.

Amendment 11 withdrawn.