Automated Vehicles Bill [Lords]

Debate between Mark Harper and Greg Knight

2nd reading
Tuesday 5th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

I will come on to that in my speech, but I will answer the hon. Gentleman’s specific questions. From the point of view of any person needing to make a claim, the insurer will be liable whether the vehicle is in self-driving mode or the user is in charge. What happens subsequently, regarding whether the manufacturer, the software provider or whoever has to pony up the money, is a matter for the insurer to argue about with them. That will not impact the victim, who will be paid by the insurer.

On the hon. Gentleman’s important point about data, we discussed this last week when I met a roundtable of those involved in the industry, including road safety campaigners and those in the insurance industry. The Bill will ensure that the data can be shared, and the insurance industry is keen for that to happen so that it can properly price the risk. I will say more about this when I talk about the safety framework, but there is a real opportunity here because most road traffic collisions are caused at least in part by human error. The track record of self-driving vehicles shows that this is an opportunity to improve road safety, which is important not just for those who use vehicles but for other road users. There is a balance to strike here. We need to capture that benefit but also ensure that we do not leave anyone exposed without protection, as the hon. Gentleman rightly set out.

[Sir Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)]

On the point the Secretary of State has just been discussing, presumably the details of all journeys undertaken by automated vehicles will be recorded. Where will that data be stored, and who will have access to it? Could someone access that information for non-driving reasons—for example, someone involved in divorce proceedings or an employer in an employment tribunal?

[Mr Harper]

My right hon. Friend should note that data for these purposes will be protected in the usual way. Data has to be used for the purposes for which it was gathered. There are legal processes for who has access to it, as well as those we will set out specifically for driving purposes. The other things he mentioned will be governed by the usual laws that govern the use of data. I do not want to dwell on those specifics, but they are already covered by existing data protection legislation for the devices that people have in vehicles to monitor their progress or for mobile phones.

I would like to start with safety. Anyone stepping into a self-driving vehicle will reasonably ask: “Can this car consistently drive safety? Will the law protect me if there is an accident? Is the manufacturer regulated and can they be held to account?” Under this legislation, the answer to each of those questions will be yes. The Bill has been built on a bedrock of safety, protecting not just the driver inside the car but road users outside the vehicle.

As I mentioned in answer to the hon. Member for Easington (Grahame Morris), I chaired a roundtable with road safety groups last week and explained how we are holding self-driving vehicles to a higher safety standard than the average human driver, guided by principles we will soon consult on; how these vehicles must meet rigorous technical requirements before rolling off production lines and being authorised for our roads; and how we will tackle misleading marketing, with new offences for companies that seek to blur the line between true self-driving and driver assistance.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Harper]

One of the things we will have in place is a duty of candour. We will also set up a regulatory process with investigations of every self-driving vehicle involved in an incident. Importantly, manufacturers will be legally obliged to have that duty of candour to disclose the information, so that these issues can be got to the bottom of. The hon. Member raises a specific case that I will not comment on, and there will no doubt be learnings from that case, but the regulatory approach we are setting up will deal with the issue he just raised.

[Sir Greg Knight]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Harper]

Let me make a bit of progress; I want to try to get to a conclusion, because others wish to speak, but I will try to get back to my right hon. Friend in a sec.

In 2019, Google’s Waymo made the UK its first European engineering hub for self-driving technologies. Bosch and ZF, among others, are investing in the UK, drawn by our highly skilled workforce. CAM Testbed UK, a unique cluster of five facilities between London and the west midlands, has received £200 million of Government and industry funding, and we have put £66 million into scaling up self-driving mobility ideas, from buses in Scotland to HGVs in Sunderland, with a further £150 million announced as part of our advanced manufacturing plan. We do not want to lose momentum, and we want to make sure that we push the industry to realise the full benefits of this technology. I hope that the Bill brings certainty to investors, clarity to manufacturers, confidence to the public and demonstrates Britain’s strongest commitment yet to a self-driving future. Before I conclude, I will take an intervention from my right hon. Friend.

[Sir Greg Knight]

The Secretary of State has been generous in giving way. Just to clarify the point, there could be circumstances where a vehicle is in fully auto mode, but the owner bears some responsibility. For example, if an automated vehicle is on full auto and is involved in an accident, but it is then discovered that all the tyres are without tread, surely in those circumstances the owner would bear some blame.

[Mr Harper]

I set out at the beginning that in circumstances where a user is in charge—where they are not purely a passenger with a company providing a taxi or private hire service—and the vehicle is in self-driving mode, the manufacturer or software provider is responsible for the conduct of the vehicle, but the user in charge is responsible for such things as the physical condition of the vehicle and the tyres, and they retain that responsibility. The balance of which of those things caused the accident will be determined in exactly the same way as currently.

In conclusion, as I think the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) set out, self-driving vehicles will provoke excitement from some and nerves from others, but for most of us, it is a combination of the two. Clearly it is an opportunity, but there are some risks. I know that first-hand, not only having visited California-based Waymo and ridden in one of its self-driving vehicles, but having done a journey from my departmental office to this House in a self-driving vehicle designed by the British company Wayve. It was interesting, as it went expertly through busy streets and responded quickly to things. It was a rainy day and a lot of people were darting in and out of the traffic—probably not sensibly—but the car responded safely. I realised the enormous potential of this technology, not just as a growing economic sector, but for a future where transport is safer, more convenient and more accessible. This Bill is a crucial step towards that future, and I take great pleasure in commending it to the House.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mark Harper and Greg Knight

Thursday 14th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Mark Harper)]

This Government recognise that most journeys in this country are made by car, and that is why we are providing comprehensive support for motorists through our plan for drivers, which includes a package of measures to improve traffic flow, and also through the £8.3 billion investment in road resurfacing. That historic investment in road condition will benefit all road users, as we have set out in earlier answers.

[Sir Greg Knight]

Despite the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister saying that the war against the motorist is over, is he aware that many Labour local authorities have not got the message, with unwanted low-traffic neighbourhoods in place, unjustified 20 mph speed limits being proposed and traffic lights phased deliberately to delay traffic flows, causing added pollution? Will he consider giving advice to local authorities that they should do all they can to improve traffic flows and not disrupt them because of some misguided dogma against the motorist?

[Mr Harper]

My right hon. Friend is right: we are pro-driver, but also pro- public transport and pro-active travel, and those things are about giving people better choices and making sure that councils do not deliver anti-driver traffic management measures. The network management duty requires local authorities to manage their roads as efficiently as possible for the benefit of all road users, including drivers, which some of them forget from time to time. We have also announced new funding totalling £40 million specifically for improvements to traffic lights to keep local roads moving, including deploying machine learning and artificial intelligence to optimise traffic flow to get cars moving.

Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill

Debate between Mark Harper and Greg Knight

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 1st December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sir Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the longer this boundary review is delayed without being implemented, the greater the unfairness becomes, particularly with regard to rural seats, which, in the main, have seen a large increase in population?

[Mr Harper]

My right hon. Friend makes a good point. We are not carrying out this process at a massively fast pace, and the boundary changes should have come into force some time ago, but there was an unholy alliance between the official Opposition and the Liberal Democrats. I do not see any Liberal Democrats here today, which is surprising, because they are normally fascinated beyond all bounds of reasonableness with constitutional matters. As this Bill is of a constitutional nature, I am amazed that there is not a single Liberal Democrat here to debate it. I worked closely with them in the coalition Government—

Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill

Debate between Mark Harper and Greg Knight

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 18th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

I had moved on to dealing with the specific points in the Bill, Madam Deputy Speaker. Let me just tackle the last couple of points made by the hon. Member for North West Durham before I conclude my remarks.

[Sir Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Harper]

I will, but I shall make this the last intervention so that I can follow your injunction, Madam Deputy Speaker.

[Sir Greg Knight]

Before my right hon. Friend reaches the end of his introductory remarks, may I ask whether he agrees that it would help us to assess the weight of Members’ contributions if, at the outset, they informed the House of the current size of their electorates and whether or not they were facing a boundary change?

[Mr Harper]

That is a good point. There are dramatic differences among the numbers of constituents we all represent, with the same level of resources—and, as I said earlier, a further factor that was not reflected in the Act is that Ministers and Members of the House of Commons are not really responsible for much of the domestic legislation in parts of the United Kingdom where government has been devolved, because that is taken care of by the devolved Administrations.

Let me finally deal with the central point made by the hon. Lady. She said—and I have no reason to doubt her integrity in this regard—that she wanted to enable the boundary commissioners to conduct the review and to hit the target date of 2018 so that we could have new constituencies, according to her rules, before the 2020 election. Let us assume that the commissioners will use the December 2017 registers, and let us accept the argument—advanced very clearly by the hon. Lady and a number of other Members—that the issue is of interest to our constituents, and that the public hearings and public consultation for which the existing legislation provides will therefore take place, given that the hon. Lady does not wish to alter those provisions. That process will take 24 weeks. Effectively, the hon. Lady is giving the boundary commissioners 17 weeks in which to draw up initial proposals from the 2017 registers, engage in the consultation, listen to all the responses, come up with revised proposals, run another set of consultations, listen to any proposals for change in those, and then present final proposals in a matter of a few weeks. I do not think that that is credible. I do not know whether the hon. Lady has had any discussions with the four boundary commissions about whether it is in any way doable, but I do not think it is.

I served as the Minister responsible for these matters. I looked into the resourcing of boundary commissions, and had conversations with their secretariats about the work that was involved. I think that what is really at work here is a set of changes that would, in practice—my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch put his finger on it—make a boundary review before the next general election impossible. This is a repetition of what the Labour party, along with the Liberal Democrats, did in the last Parliament. The aim is to push things out so that we can have a general election in 2020 based on boundaries that are 20 years out of date, on the basis of registers that do not effectively include people over the last two decades. I think that that would be an outrage.

I hope that the Bill is not given a Second Reading, but if it is, we shall want to amend many parts of this wide-ranging legislation in Committee to ensure that it does not make progress in its current form. If it were to do so, we would be ensuring that voters were not equally represented and their voices were not equally heard. I think that this is a very retrograde and bad Bill.