Automated Vehicles Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Moylan and Baroness Randerson

3rd reading
Monday 19th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

I briefly congratulate my noble friend the Minister on bringing this useful, modest and largely technical Bill to its completion. The Government have expressed optimism that the arrival of automated vehicles in large numbers on our roads is going to have no effect whatever on how the rest of the road system and other road users operate. It is the principle on which the Bill is based but, to me, it seems to be credible only in the somewhat artificial reality of your Lordships’ House.

My noble friend the Minister and his department still need to address a worry many of us have. He has stated that nothing will change—that facilities for pedestrians, for example, will not be affected—with the arrival of these vehicles, but it is clear that is not wholly credible. The people who have invested in automated vehicles will find that pedestrians and other road users are obstacles to the rollout of their plans, and they will then turn up at the ministry and say, “We have spent all this money, so now you have to do something to make it work for us”. At that point, officials will roll over, Ministers will wave their hands and the money will decide what the policy is. All of this will happen without a parliamentary debate considering the effect of the vehicles and what they mean for road users, especially in urban environments. I hope my noble friend the Minister will find an opportunity to allow us, and the public, a debate about what the vision of our cities is when automated vehicles are operating in large numbers as the Bill makes provision for.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, in line with the usual courtesies of the House, I thank the Minister and his team, all of whom were exceptionally helpful and willing to give their time and expertise in some useful meetings with myself and my Liberal Democrat colleagues. I also thank my noble friends Lady Brinton and Lady Bowles, supported by Sarah Pughe in our Whips’ office, for their work. Finally, I thank noble Lords across the House: there was exceptional co-operation in improving the Bill, and one of the outcomes was the amendment of the Minister which clarified the statement of safety principles.

The Bill was a logical progression from 2018, and I would predict that this second Bill will be followed, I am sure, by a third Bill to try and get this right. There are still unanswered questions, and I will briefly list them. There needs to be a fresh look at the legislative framework affecting delivery vehicles that are already on our streets. Those who operate them are concerned about lacunas in the legislation.

We are also particularly concerned about the issue of disabled access, which is where my noble friend Lady Brinton worked closely with the noble Lord, Lord Holmes. As the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, said,

“the promise of automated vehicles is accessible mobility for all”.— [Official Report, 6/2/24; col. 1585]

It is, therefore, deeply disappointing that the concept of disabled access—from the physical space of the vehicle to the software that drives it—is not to be built in from the start. It always costs more to adapt things later, and I believe this is yet another missed opportunity.

Finally, it is a great pity that the vote on the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, was lost so narrowly. It was just the kind of thing an advisory council could provide a sense of direction on. I hope the Minister will reflect on the need for certainty on the future structure of appropriate bodies to provide advice and regulation.

We remain concerned, in particular, about data protection in respect of the Bill, which is predicated on a future conglomeration of personal and commercial data, and data associated with the security of the state. It will come together in an unprecedented way. It would enable a massive intrusion of personal privacy, but in its entirety would offer massive power to a malign foreign power or even to a clever, meddling, individual hacker. Although it is well intentioned, the Bill hardly starts to tackle the dangers of that accumulation of data.

Having said all that, I thank the Minister again for his co-operation, assistance and leadership on the Bill.

Pedicabs (London) Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Moylan and Baroness Randerson

Monday 11th December 2023 Grand Committee

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, my contribution to this group of amendments is in having given notice of my intention to oppose the Question that Clause 6 stand part of the Bill. In doing so, I take a contrary view to that of all the amendments about how this issue should be dealt with. All the amendments have a centralising thrust, whereas my thrust is for decentralisation. In one aspect, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, that these regulations need to be used to improve the services provided by pedicabs and not to kill them off entirely. We need to use this opportunity to turn the negative into a positive so that they enhance rather than damage the tourism offer in London.

I tabled my notice of intention to oppose Clause 6 standing part of the Bill to probe why the scrutiny of regulations made by Transport for London is to be undertaken by Parliament and not the London Assembly. The legal situation in England is that, outside London, pedicabs can be licensed as taxis. Taxi and PHV licensing is undertaken across England by 262 lower-tier and unitary authorities of a vast range of sizes. The taxi legislation therefore gives licensing authorities significant discretion in vehicle requirements. A taxi driver must be deemed fit and proper to hold a licence, must have held a car driving licence for the last 12 months and must not be disqualified on immigration grounds, which is covered by the right-to-work check.

Some authorities, such as Herefordshire, York and South Lakeland, have policies that detail specific requirements for pedicabs, whereas other authorities state in their licensing policies that they do not license pedicabs. There have been complaints since 2006 about pedicabs in London, but all that time other local authorities have had the powers to deal with this and design and implement their own regulations. That is a satisfactory approach. As I said, there have been complaints over 20 years, but successive Governments have not considered this issue important enough to deal with or they have not had time in the parliamentary timetable to do so.

Now we have this Bill, which has broad support but is, in parliamentary terms, a bit of a sledgehammer to crack a nut. From the point of view of residents in London who complain long and hard about the noise, nuisance and danger of the current situation, regulation and control of pedicabs cannot come into force quickly enough. A single day of delay will annoy them. Why are the Government so intent on delaying things even more by ensuring that Parliament must approve Transport for London regulations?

Across the UK, local authorities consider issues of detail where local knowledge is essential. I would argue that Parliament is definitely not the place to decide the adequacy of regulations that might, for example, stipulate the location of cab ranks. We should not be sitting here saying that a cab rank should not be on this street corner but on another one. That is not the level of detail we should be going into. That sort of thing requires local knowledge and should be scrutinised by the GLA.

It is also essential that we do not clutter our timetable—the Government are always saying they do not have parliamentary time, particularly in relation to transport—with things that can be done better at a different level of government. I argue that Clause 6 should not be part of the Bill.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, in this exciting ideological divide I find myself, curiously, much on the same side as the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, rather than the side of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, or even the Government.

We have been here before. In 1514, we enacted a Bill to regulate the fares charged by water taxis on the Thames and it ran into exactly the same problem that the suggestion made by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, will run into, which was that there was nobody to enforce it. Who in the Department for Transport will turn up and enforce the regulations made by the DfT if TfL, which has an enforcement department, is cut out of it?

The Act of 1514 became, in effect, a nullity. Undeterred, Parliament returned to the subject in 1555 to have another go and this time more sensibly. We delegated the power of setting these fares and enforcing them, as far as river-borne traffic was concerned, to what were known as the rulers of what became the Company of Watermen and Lightermen. The regulation of horse-drawn traffic in London, including things like cabs and taxi meters, has—as far as I am aware, and until the creation of Transport for London under the GLA Act of 1999—always been the responsibility of the Metropolitan Police. Again, that is a local body and one well acquainted with enforcement.

Now, for the first time in at least half a millennium of legislation, we appear to have the notion from the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, that all regulation should be set by the Government and from the Government the not terribly dissimilar notion, as was pointed out by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, that while Transport for London should be allowed to draft, in effect, the statutory instruments and must submit them immediately—“immediately” is the word used—to the Secretary of State, the Secretary of State, with no time limit, requirement or obligation on him or her, then has to approve, amend, change or reject them. Why? What is the advantage to the Government or to the travelling passenger of doing this? Why are the Government not under the same obligation to act immediately, or at least within set time limits, in dealing with the SIs sent to them by Transport for London?

Professional Qualifications Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Moylan and Baroness Randerson

Committee stage
Monday 14th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, Amendment 32A, in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Garden, would require the appropriate national authority to consult with higher education institutions and other training providers before making regulations under this clause. I declare an interest as chancellor of Cardiff University.

I asked a Written Question, answered by the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, in which I asked Her Majesty’s Government

“why higher education institutions and other providers of training for professional qualifications are not listed as stakeholders affected in the impact assessment for the Professional Qualifications Bill; whether higher education institutions or others …were consulted on the proposals in that Bill, and … what plans they have to consult such providers in the future.”

The Answer stated:

“The proposals in the Bill do not affect the UK qualifications or experience required to practise a profession. The Government ran a Call for Evidence on the recognition of professional qualifications … between August 2020 and October 2020, which was open to anyone with an interest in professional qualifications”,


and that there were, among others,

“26 responses from educators who provide training and higher education institutions.”

The Answer continued:

“Officials have met representatives from Universities UK to discuss proposals in the Professional Qualifications Bill and will continue to pursue an active programme of stakeholder engagement.”


So, having told me in the Answer that this Bill has no impact on HEIs and other trainers, the Government went on to say that the HEIs and trainers identified themselves in the public consultation as being concerned by, or interested in, this Bill. Following that, the Government have been in discussion with Universities UK at least. Will the Minister clarify whether the Government have also spoken to other training providers, not just the representatives of universities?

I have had correspondence from Universities UK, which says that, although its contact with the Government has been fairly constructive so far, it would be helpful to require the Government to consult with higher education providers as they strike regulator recognition agreements, given the importance of these agreements to certain sections of higher education. The potential impact on onshore recruitment of EU students on relevant courses should be monitored. Clearly, that is of importance because if you are doing away with the EU-established system, there will be an impact on the number of EU students coming to this country, potentially some of them afresh as they will want to get their qualifications here, but also on the top-up courses that our HEIs provide. It also says that it would be helpful to have frequent consultation and analysis-sharing between the Government and higher education providers to help ensure that the Bill benefits the range of bilateral agreements that could increase recruitment to higher education, rather than have a detrimental effect.

It is not the case that this Bill does not affect HEIs. It affects the number of foreign students applying to the UK on top-up courses, and, crucially, what the HEIs and other training providers teach. Depending on what they teach, it affects who they employ and how many of them they employ, so this has a deep impact on them. I urge the Minister to consider this very reasonable amendment. The Government have recognised the legitimate role of higher education—I hope they have consulted other trainers as well—so what reason could they have for rejecting such a sensible and modest amendment?

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 55A is in my name. There are many excellent provisions in the Bill requiring regulators to share information. They are required to share information with regulators at home and abroad, and with people who wish to be qualified to practise in this country. However, there is nothing in the Bill which requires the sharing of information with people who are already practising the profession in this country. Indeed, there is nothing in the amendment spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, which touches on my point, although it would expand the requirement for information sharing.

It might be thought otiose to have such a requirement where a regulator is also a membership body, as it could be assumed that naturally it would communicate with its members, but a regulator is not always a membership body. I remind noble Lords that I said at Second Reading that I was an honorary fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects, and I am grateful to RIBA for discussions about this topic. RIBA is a membership organisation representing its profession, but it does not regulate the architectural profession. As noble Lords will know from other parts of the Bill, that is a function reserved by statute to the Architects Registration Board. Experience is that stand-alone statutory regulators do what is required of them by statute, and very little else. That is why a nudge is needed, and this amendment would achieve that.

This clause would allow professional practitioners to know what agreements regulators were pursuing, what mutual recognition agreements were in the pipeline, what progress had been made and the timeline for the agreement. It would also provide a clear path for professional practitioners to have their views on how agreements should be prioritised made known to the regulator. Remarkably, without this amendment, there is no statutory obligation on a regulator to have any communication with regulated professionals at all.

Why does it matter? To take the example of architects, British architects are known to lead the world. They work on major projects throughout the world, and they often work with our world-beating civil engineers on transport, infrastructure and other major projects. They earn a great deal of export earnings for us as a country, too. When they are doing this, they need to be able to send architects to work in other parts of the world. On occasion, they also need to be able to employ in this country architects who are from countries where a pipeline of work might be developing and have specialist knowledge of regulations—be they on planning or whatever—that apply in the country where the project is being delivered. They are very commercial architects—they have to be, because they operate in a harsh commercial world—so they look ahead. They see a pipeline of activity in a particular country that might be coming forward with new projects—airports, infrastructure, or whatever it might be. They want to be able to have some influence on their regulator about how mutual recognition agreements might be prioritised to facilitate capturing that work.

I have used architects as an example, but there are other professions that might find themselves in a similar situation, which would want to have that two-way flow with their regulator and which, not being a membership organisation, would need, in my view, the help of statute to ensure that that communication took place. This is so modest and commonsensical a suggestion that I hope my noble friend will be able to rise and simply say that he accepts it.