Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill (Seventh sitting)
Rob Marris Excerpts(7 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Hayes
That is an excellent point. The hon. Gentleman and other members of the Committee probably know that I am passionate about disabled access, having been the co-chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on disability for many years. I always say that Jack Ashley was the real chairman—I was there only as his assistant, really. Disabled access is something that the Department takes seriously, and the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones), who has responsibility for access, has done immensely good work on it. I recently held a cross-party meeting with him and others about precisely that matter. The hon. Member for Middlesbrough makes his point forcefully, and he can be sure that it will certainly be part of our considerations as we move forward.
I was coming to the exciting news about the areas that will benefit from the extra investment in charge points for taxis. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield will be delighted to know that Birmingham will receive £2.9 million for that purpose, and the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West will be delighted to learn that Wolverhampton will receive nearly half a million pounds—£478,000. The hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford will want to know that London will receive £5.2 million. I know my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire, who is not in his place, will be excited to find out that Yorkshire will receive £1.98 million. My Parliamentary Private Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury, will want to know that Oxford will receive £370,000. The Scottish National party spokesperson, the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey, will want to know that Scotland has not been forgotten, because half a million pounds will make its way from here to there in the form of support for the city of Dundee. Other areas to benefit are Coventry, Nottingham, Cambridge and Slough.
We are determined to create an electric charging infrastructure that is suitable and appropriate to need. It will be dedicated to taxis, which we see as a critical element—I do not want to exaggerate—in delivering the change that I think we all seek and wish for.
Rob Marris (Wolverhampton South West) (Lab)
Wolverhampton is very grateful for that money. The council tells me it will install 24 charging points in the next three years. Can the Minister try to encourage quicker take-up than that?
Richard Burden
The Minister should not have tempted him. He will be working hard on it.
Richard Burden
My hon. Friend says he will take a leaf out of the Minister’s book. Although it will not be on the record of this Committee, it might end up on the face of the Bill.
Labour Members feel strongly about this issue. I am grateful to the Minister for his assurance that he is thinking about it and is engaging with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and with the Automotive Council to see what role they might play in developing such accreditation. We are still keen to see something about it in the Bill if possible. I accept that the new clause, as it stands, may not be exactly the right way to do so, but we would still like something in the Bill. We will think about it before Report, and I ask the Minister to do so as well. If there is consensus about doing something along these lines, let us put it in the Bill. For now, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the clause.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 8
Consultation on the collection and use of data from automated and electric vehicles
“The Secretary of State must consult with such persons as the Secretary of State considers appropriate on the collection and use of data from automated and electric vehicles. The consultation must address—
(a) who is responsible for collecting data from automated and electric vehicles and from any associated charging or network infrastructure used by such vehicles,
(b) how the data is shared between different parties, and
(c) any limitations on the use of such data.”—(Andy McDonald.)
This new clause would require the Government to consult on how that data should be handled, who should own the data and what it should be used for.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Drew Hendry
It is an interesting question that I cannot answer, for obvious reasons. It underlines the fact that because this is a big issue there needs to be a serious piece of work undertaken on data alone to decide who is allowed to access the data in future.
Rob Marris
The new clause calls for consultation. I must say, with appropriate humility, that had the Labour Government accepted my amendment to road traffic legislation in, I think, 2006, this measure would already be on the statute book. I tabled an amendment on vehicle data recording devices. Black boxes in other jurisdictions around the world since—again from memory—about 2002-03 have been used for such purposes. For example, when a road traffic collision occurs, the vehicle’s black box—the vehicle data recording device—in many vehicles will tell us the speed of the vehicle 10 seconds, five seconds or one minute before the impact, so that we can have an indication as to whether the alleged tortfeasor was in fact speeding.
We need something, but I would speak in support of new clause 8 rather than the concept put forward by the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire that he hoped to move in new clause 2, the difference being that new clause 8 seeks consultation, not regulations now. We need consultation on these tricky devices because of the reasons put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough, and also because of what the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire said about the adultery clause, as it were, or the freedom of information clause, because there are technical aspects concerning who possesses and who owns the information. Generally, the owner of a vehicle with a vehicle data recording device can be said to possess the information in the black box. However, without specialist equipment and technology from the manufacturer, the owner cannot access that information to disclose it to anybody else, whether under freedom of information or whatever. I hope that the Minister will look carefully at consultation on these issues.
Mr Hayes
I am minded to be quite brief on this new clause. I am clear that none of the contributors has sought to illaqueate the Government in an unhelpful or disputatious way. The clarity of the argument that has been advanced seems persuasive. It is absolutely right that, as our transport networks become increasingly digital, the collection and sharing of data becomes a more vital element in those developments. Of course, that includes data from electric vehicles as well as connected and automated vehicles.
We will have to consider carefully who owns the data and on what basis they are exchanged. The balance between public good and private interest here is equally clear and we will need to consult widely on that. To do so would be beneficial and necessary to engage the industry, as we have up until now, to understand both the pace and character of those developments.
We have throughout our work, as the Committee has heard, been engaged in just such consultation. The automated vehicle insurance clauses in the Bill came as a result of careful consideration, following the kind of consultation recommended by the hon. Member for Middlesbrough and others. We have a set of good consultation principles, which will underpin all we do as we move forward, but I think I can go further than that. I do commit to exactly the sort of consultation that the hon. Gentleman has called for. As we progress with these matters, we will engage with the House on the outcomes of that consultation. More than that, we will consult colleagues here. The House will have its own part to play in the discussion about how these matters develop.
For the record, I should point out that freedom of information applies only to the public sector, whereas data protection laws apply to all. I hope that provides some assurance to my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire. He is right to say that there is a potential risk to security unless we get this right, a point the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey also made in his contribution. Yes, we are going to consult. Yes, we know that this is important. Yes, we will come back to the House during that process of consultation. I give that absolute guarantee now, which will be supported in writing, if the hon. Member for Middlesbrough wishes, because it is the right thing to do.
Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill (Sixth sitting)
Rob Marris Excerpts(7 years, 8 months ago)
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Richard Burden
I thank the Minister for that response and for his kind words. He has responded to our debates in a thoroughly statesmanlike and quick-witted way—rarely have I seen such a well-timed point of order as I saw this morning, when I managed to get myself stuck in an electric vehicle when I should have been piloting an aircraft. He has also approached the Bill with a great degree of confidence in his position, which has allowed him to compromise. That is an important sign of confidence and strength. He knows that compromising and giving assurances when they are requested, and when they are appropriate, do not weaken his position, and I thank him for that.
He is absolutely right about our three-pronged approach to the Bill: seeking dialogue and consultation, the right kind of scrutiny and a willingness to review. Given what he said about the amendment, he has demonstrated that he is prepared to apply those three prongs in future.
Rob Marris (Wolverhampton South West) (Lab)
On the three-pronged approach, can I say that on the Labour Benches we do support Trident?
Richard Burden
I am waiting for an intervention from the Scottish National party. The Minister has made some good points. I hope he will put that assurance in writing. It is easy for us to hear that and to read it in Hansard, but if he puts it in a letter to members of the Committee, it will be in the public domain, which would be helpful. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 19 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 20
Provision of information
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Rob Marris
I have just a brief question for the Minister. The explanatory notes say that the provisions relate to
“European airlines that have an air service operator’s licence from another EU Member State”.
That is in paragraph 66 at the bottom of page 12. It comes back to the issue I raised earlier about Brexit. The context for part of clause 20 seems to be the relationship we currently have with the European Union, but which we are unlikely to have in another 105 weeks. I am seeking reassurance that, under clause 20, we are not constitutionally locking ourselves into something that will not be part of our constitution in 105 weeks’ time.
Rob Marris
The amendment is designed to foster consultation and more information. Paragraph 72 on page 13 of the explanatory notes refers to authorised testing facilities—ATFs—which are privately owned sites where most but not all of the testing goes on. As the Minister may know, I have a personal interest in this, having worked for three years as a bus driver, driving these sorts of vehicles. Paragraph 72 says:
“To complete the move from Secretary of State owned vehicle testing sites (i.e. DVSA sites) to private sector owned sites, the other specialist testing schemes conducted by the DVSA will be moved into an ATF type arrangement”.
The provision relocates site testing from DVSA facilities to ATF facilities, and refers to “other specialist testing schemes”. Will the Minister say what those schemes are?
Secondly, the amendment would amend proposed new section 65B(5) which deals with designation and says:
“(5) A designation under this section—
(a) is made by giving notice in writing to the person in charge of the premises designated;”
Will the Secretary of State be giving notice to himself under that provision on DVSA sites?
Rob Marris
I take my hon. Friend’s point: it is a bit far-fetched, but far-fetched things do happen. When I annotated the Bill for myself, in clause 22(1)(a) after “he or she” I put “without good reason”. I think that would cover the kind of scenario my hon. Friend is talking about.
Christian Matheson
My hon. Friend is a parliamentary Mr Loophole, not in the sense that he exploits loopholes, but in that he spots them for the rest of us. It may sound like a far-fetched scenario, but the purpose of the Committee is to go through the Bill in detail and to establish scenarios that might happen. Perhaps the Minister will take up my hon. Friend’s suggestion. I am worried because I do not want our police, whose important job might involve using laser equipment, to be undermined.
The Chair
The discussion of these amendments has been quite broad, so I do not intend to take a separate clause stand part debate. If any Members wish to speak on stand part, they should say so now.
Rob Marris
I want to make a minor point to the Minister about the wording. Line 41 in clause 22(2) states:
“It is a defence for a person charged with an offence under this section”.
Why do we need the words “charged with an offence”? Surely one often gives the defence before one is charged. It might happen afterwards, but it could also happen before they are charged, so it is kind of circular. We do not need that wording. It does not add anything but it subtracts, so I suggest to the Minister—I know he likes his wording to be exact—that the words “charged with an offence” be removed.
I repeat what I said in my intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester. I think that clause 22(1)(a) should read, “he or she without good reason”, to give flexibility. Scenarios that we cannot yet envisage could develop. Besides the scenario mentioned by my hon. Friend, there might be another good reason, such as traffic control technology, so we should have that flexibility.
Mr Hayes
This has been an interesting, short debate on an important subject. The Government are responding to a threat by legislating. It is not yet clear how extensive the threat is, but it is certainly serious and probably growing. A small number of people have been convicted thus far under existing legislation.
I draw the Committee’s attention to the existing powers, which deal in part with the concern of my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe about aircraft. It is already illegal to cause risk or endanger safety or life in respect of aircraft. The existing legislation allows the forces of law to apprehend anyone who does that by whatever means, including through the use of the technology under discussion. However, the Government clearly feel that we need to go further, which is why we are introducing the new provisions.
Before I move to the substance, the semantics matter and I will consider the points made by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West. Those would be small, technical drafting changes, and I will make further inquiries about whether they are necessary. My inclination is that his second suggestion is probably not necessary, but I will look at both of them. He is always diligent and assiduous in concentrating on such matters, and that deserves a reasoned and reasonable response.
On the business of taxiing, I want to be clear that the wording of the proposed legislation mirrors that in the Air Navigation Order 2016, which includes taxiing. The reference to
“a vehicle being in the course of a journey”
includes taxiing aircraft because that is part of the course of its journey. We are advised that the application of the provisions would not be in doubt.
Rob Marris
I am grateful because my point marries with his. May I suggest that at the end of subsection 5(a), the final word “flight” is replaced with “movement”? Then we would not need the other stuff. The subsection would cover not only passengers disembarking after waiting on the apron and being moved on but the aircraft being moved into a hangar.
If someone shone a laser at a pilot driving an aircraft on the tarmac, that very big vehicle could do a lot of damage to other people, even if all the passengers had disembarked and there was only one pilot on board. It is not simply a matter of the passengers getting off; aircraft taxi into hangars and so on. If the Minister changed “flight” to “movement” and junked the rest, I think he would be all right.
Mr Hayes
Yes. I do not want to examine this matter exhaustively. Those are all well-made points. Our desire is to ensure that, whatever we do, the provision works in concert with existing law, is fit for purpose, does what it is supposed to and takes account of a range of eventualities in which mischievous or, more worryingly, seriously malevolent activity may take place. I will think about the exact semantics and speak to parliamentary draftsmen. I hope hon. Members will bear with me while I do so.
This is a new area of work, though it builds on good existing practice. I have mentioned the legislation, the navigation orders and so on, and the Aviation Security Act 1982, to which I referred when I spoke about the existing offence of any person unlawfully or intentionally endangering the safety of an aircraft in flight. By the way, I remind my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe that the penalty under that Act is life imprisonment. It is, of course, a very serious offence, for the very reasons that several hon. Members have offered. Its consequences could be dire. All crime is serious and violent crime more so, but this could be a crime of catastrophic proportions. It is important, therefore, that we give it serious attention and concentrated and diligent scrutiny, which this Committee has.
Let me now speak about the amendments. I can tell by the way they are written and have been spoken to that they are designed to improve the legislation. I do not think there is any doubt about that. We all understand that this matter requires the Government’s and Parliament’s attention.
Amendment 25 creates two freestanding offences. First, it would make the act of shining or pointing a laser at a vehicle an offence in itself. Secondly, its subsection 1(b) would bring into the scope of the clause a new offence of shining a laser at fixed installations, such as traffic control towers. The effect of amendment 25 would be that prosecutors did not need to prove that the person in control of the vehicle had been dazzled or distracted; it would make the act of pointing or shining a laser at a vehicle an offence in itself.
I offer this not to be excessively critical but to be analytical about the amendment. The amendment might inadvertently capture the directing of lasers at driverless vehicles, such as with automated light meter systems. In such a circumstance, it would be difficult to prove harm because the person would not physically be at the controls of the vehicle. A further effect would be that the amendment captured those who did not seek to cause harm. I qualify that by echoing what the hon. Member for City of Chester said—I have rarely known him contribute to a Committee of this House without doing so sensibly. It is hard to imagine a circumstance in which someone would shine a laser at a vehicle without at least mischievous intent. That is why I chose the word that he used. Whether they would be intending to do harm is, from a legal perspective, a slightly different matter but, as he suggested, it is certainly fair to say that they would not be there to do good.
I can understand why the amendment has been tabled, but I want to emphasise that, in introducing this provision, we are mindful of the need for clarity in terms of enforcement. To some degree, we are breaking new ground—albeit on a base of good legislative foundations—and I want to be confident that we could enforce the measure. There can be no room for anything that is not tightly drawn or carefully directed.
Mr Hayes
If we imagine that someone is using a laser to attract attention in a way that is not designed to be malevolent, it is not inconceivable that, if we drew up the legislation in a broad way, they might be captured by its scope. There has to be proof of malevolence at the heart of what we do. That is why the proposals are—
Rob Marris
The Minister is overlooking the concept of recklessness. It is not simply malevolence; it can be recklessness—reckless endangerment. One has to take that into account.
Mr Hayes
That is true, but the example I gave of someone trying to attract attention in distress would be neither malevolent nor reckless. One thinks of laser flares, for example, which could be used for both reckless and malevolent purposes but are not designed for that, any more than a handheld laser is. We are not in the business of creating legislation that could be misapplied, or the enforcement of which was compromised by the breadth of definition.
Rob Marris
May I ask the Minister briefly to give us a bit of an explanation of schedule 5, because I cannot see it in the explanatory notes—maybe I have overlooked it—and it runs to nine pages, covering various things such as limitation periods, which are rather important? Can he briefly talk through the nine pages of schedule 5, which of course come under clause 24?
Mr Hayes
Why be brief? The Bill introduces a new framework for the Transport Act 2000 governing the new licensing regime for regulation of the provision of air traffic services. Without making the “minor and consequential amendments” detailed in part 2 of the schedule, we would not have a coherent new licensing regime.
With one exception, all the consequential and minor amendments are made to provisions of the Transport Act 2000. Most of the amendments amend the Act to ensure that the nomenclature is aligned and compatible with the new legislative framework. A couple of the amendments introduce specific aspects of parallel modern licensing frameworks, for example to ensure that the regulations can make anti-avoidance provision in the event that there are attempts by a regulating entity to avoid proper oversight. Part 2 of schedule 5 also amends a single provision in the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013, to ensure that the Competition and Markets Authority can properly determine appeals against civil aviation authorities’ licence modification decisions.
Without making these minor and consequential amendments, we would not have a coherent limitation regime in effect across Great Britain, for example, regarding automated vehicle accidents. Inserting provisions into the Limitation Act 1980 provide a clear new time limit on actions regarding automated vehicle accidents. Automated vehicles bring together two existing limitation regimes: product liability and personal injury. Although the measures do nothing to change those regimes, they could potentially conflict with each other or cause confusion where automated vehicle accidents are concerned. The amendments will avoid uncertainty arising from the difference between the existing limitation periods relating to product liability and personal injury.
Rob Marris
The Minister is much more expert than me, but the way I read it, it seems that the wording of schedule 5 means that the existing personal injury limitation periods take precedence over the consumer product liability limitation periods. There is a clash and it has to be resolved one way or the other. My understanding is that schedule 5 resolves it in favour of the personal injury limitation period, rather than product liability. Will the Minister confirm that, or perhaps tell me that I am misunderstanding it?
Mr Hayes
I think that that is right. If it is not, I will correct that in writing. That is how I read it too. I will double-check and if that is not the case, I will correct that point subsequently.
Similar changes are being made to the Prescription and Limitation (Scotland) Act 1973 to take account of specific limitation powers in Scottish law, calibrating the measures across Great Britain. Schedule 5 will also insert provisions into the Road Traffic Act 1988, which extends the compulsory motor insurance requirements for third party risk to cover automated vehicles. That will include the disengaged driver, where the accident takes place when the vehicle is in automated mode. Without that change, our new liability framework could not function properly.
With that brief, but I hope sufficient, explanation of the first and second parts of schedule 5, I hope we can move on with alacrity and in the spirit that has prevailed so far.
Question put and agreed to.
Schedule 5 accordingly agreed to.
Clause 25 to 27 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Rob Marris
On new clause 3, am I right in deducing from what the Minister has said—he will correct me if I am wrong—that, broadly, Her Majesty’s Government are keen to encourage the uptake of electric vehicles, whether hydrogen-electric, pure electric, automated electric or whatever, and that they will publish some pointers as to how they anticipate making the market, pushing it in that direction and encouraging market developments in that direction?
Mr Hayes
I spoke about that yesterday at one of the House’s all-party groups, and as I said, I am happy to orate further on demand. If there is popular demand for me to perform more regularly, I would be remiss not to rise to that. That seems to have been the message broadcast from the Committee—I see nodding heads around the Committee—so it is important that I set out the context of what the Government intend. In essence, Government can do three things. We can bring legislation forward, and that is what we are doing. We can promote and stimulate the market through spending money, and we have done that—I could consider that at exhaustive length but it would tire the Committee if I did—and we can make the argument. I want to go a bit further than that, which is why I mentioned the further research we intend to do. As I said, steps can be taken without the rather limiting, dictatorial approach that I know is feared, and understandably so, by my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford.
On new clause 8, our transport networks are becoming increasingly digital—
Mr Hayes
Sorry. On new clause 3, it is important that the Government take a strategic approach, as has been said, on the take-up of low-emission vehicles. Hon. Members will know that the Government have published a series of documents, including “Driving the Future Today” in 2013, but much has changed since then. For instance, about 10 times as many ultra low emission vehicles were registered in 2016 as in 2013. While the aims of the 2013 strategy remain relevant, we are considering how our approach needs to change in the light of developments in the sector and beyond.
In addition, I am able to announce that we plan to publish an updated strategy for promoting the uptake of ultra low emission vehicles and that we will do so, as the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield requests, within 12 months. As I said, I will set out some of our thinking before Report. We will continue to consult the sector and be informed by its thinking, because the investment it is making in this technology is considerable. I will also be informed by the Committee’s observations about further changes that can be made to the infrastructure. The Bill does important things in that respect, but relevant comments have been made about on-street charging. We need to think carefully about how we can take the emphasis in the Bill to the next stage of development, and we will continue to do that in policy. As hon. Members know, I am keen to explore the issue of design, but I think I have made that point fairly clearly already.
Rob Marris
Will the publication that the Minister has just generously promised encompass aspects of air pollution?
Mr Hayes
As a separate matter, I am personally associated—“associated” is a rather slight way of putting it, actually—with the production of the Government’s new air quality plan. We have committed as a Government to produce that plan by the summer and will present a draft very shortly—this spring. I work with Ministers from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs alarmingly regularly. Indeed, I said the other day to the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey), that I see her more often than my family. It is important that that plan is consistent with our strategy for promoting ultra low emission vehicles. It must be—they are an important part of achieving what we seek, which is that, by 2050, all vehicles are low-emission vehicles, with a consequent effect on emissions and air quality. New clause 4 deals with air quality anyway, so I have no doubt that we will debate that at greater length.
I do not want to go too much further at this juncture, except to say that the money we are spending on electric vehicles needs to be emphasised. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield raised this, so I want to be crystal clear. During this Parliament, we will invest well over £600 million to support low-emission vehicles. That includes subsidising the purchase of new vehicles by consumers; £80 million for subsidising the cost of the charging infrastructure, with grants of £500 off the cost of home installation and similar support for charge points on streets and in workplaces; £150 million to support the adoption of the cleanest buses and taxis, and more than £100 million to fund research and development of new zero-emission technologies, building on the UK’s well-regarded scientific and automotive sectors. That is on top of the £270 million industrial strategy fund that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield referred to, some of which will support the development, design and manufacture of the batteries that will power the next generation of electric vehicles. That adds up to a comprehensive package of measures—as comprehensive as almost any Government’s—but I accept that money alone is not enough, and I do not say that it is. Advocacy and legislation matter, too, which is why we introduced the Bill.
I think that that probably is enough—[Interruption.] I think it is. I do not want to disappoint any of my admirers—[Hon. Members: “Name them!”] There are some on this side of the Committee, too; I want to be absolutely clear about that. I think we are on the same page.
Richard Burden
In many ways, I think that is what we are getting at. Throughout Committee we have emphasised the importance of consulting stakeholders, and listening to and involving them. The corporate sector, particularly in the automotive industry, is central to that. Automotive is one of those areas in which partnership between Government and industry has been at its most successful. The Automotive Council, established by the previous Labour Government—but I am pleased to say continued by the coalition and this Government—has been held up as a beacon for a non-bureaucratic way to bring Government and industry together to lay out where we want to go and the kind of road map needed to get there.
Rob Marris
On where we want to go and a road map to get there, Conservative Governments in the 1950s laid the groundwork for our motorway network in the United Kingdom—built by the state to a plan.
Richard Burden
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Whether those Conservative Governments got everything right about the motorway network in everyone’s point of view, who knows, but his point is well made.
I will not labour the point at this stage, because there is a consensus among most Committee members about what is required. The Minister has said that he will bring forward a strategy, updating the previous one and joining up the dots in Government so that we can know how the legislative road may best be taken, how we can best stimulate the market for electric and other low and zero-emission vehicles and how we can make a case for that step change in personal mobility that we have the chance to achieve in not too many years. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 4
Air pollution and vehicle technology
‘The Secretary of State must, within 12 months, lay a report before Parliament setting out a strategy for using vehicle technologies, including electric vehicles, to contribute to meeting Government ambitions relating to air pollution and the UK’s climate change obligations.’—(Richard Burden.)
This new clause would require the Secretary of State to bring forward a strategy for using vehicle technology to address the issue of air pollution in the UK.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill (Fifth sitting)
Rob Marris Excerpts(7 years, 8 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Rob Marris (Wolverhampton South West) (Lab)
My hon. Friend will be interested to know that I had a great discussion last night with the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy), who drives a Nissan LEAF. He showed me an app on his phone that not only can tell him the current state of charge of his vehicle, which is parked up in Stafford, but—should he so desire—can turn on the heating in it while he is sitting in the Members’ Tea Room. Unfortunately, when we have apps like that, there are great opportunities for hacking.
Richard Burden
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That example from the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) makes the point very clearly: there is huge potential to communicate with vehicles—for people who own or rent them, but equally for people who we would not want to be able to communicate with them.
Amendment 14 relates to charge point cyber-security. Clause 12 contains a range of non-exhaustive specifications that a charge point must comply with, and it appears that that will involve a large amount of data being transmitted from the charge point. Measures are therefore needed to ensure that charge points and the data they process are protected against attempts at hacking. I think that is what the Government are getting at in subsection 2(e), but I ask the Minister to clarify whether that provision also covers cyber-security and the risk of hacking. I also invite him to clarify who the information that clause 12 refers to is to be shared with, and where.
New clause 7 is more broadly focused on the cyber-security of automated and electric vehicles themselves. The Bill does not seem to touch on that, but it will be a significant barrier that will need to be addressed if these vehicles are to be deemed safe, secure and reliable. The example that my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South West gave illustrates that point absolutely.
Richard Burden
The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The nature of hacking is that it can come from anywhere if someone knows how to do it. As he says, that can be the individual spotty youth in a bedroom, but hacking can also be done for commercial purposes, which is equally a risk. That is why manufacturers invest millions of pounds putting systems in place to protect future vehicles from being hacked.
That is welcome, but the Government must also play a role, particularly if we are seeking to encourage development and uptake of such vehicles in the UK. Cars will also be particularly vulnerable when serviced. Somebody put it to me the other day that the nature of the information systems in our vehicles are becoming such that taking them to be serviced is a little like taking a laptop to be serviced and handing it over with all its passwords. We need safeguards. It is not beyond the realms of possibility that if those safeguards are not in place, information could be uploaded to or downloaded from an electric or automated vehicle being serviced that would allow hackers to obtain information or, perhaps worse, control safety-critical elements of the vehicle’s function.
In the case of an automated vehicle, the obvious risk is when driving. In extreme scenarios, people could find themselves going somewhere they do not want to go, travelling at a speed they do not want to travel at or, in the most dangerous case, not stopping when they need to stop. I would welcome an indication from the Minister whether his Department has discussed the issue, and what the assessed risk was of those vehicles being hacked. Furthermore, in line with new clause 7, I ask him to consult the industry on what steps might need to be taken to address that risk and whether Government action will be necessary as part of that.
Rob Marris
My hon. Friend may be aware that there has already been a case in the United States in which a vehicle with high-level electronics—not a driverless vehicle, but a vehicle for sale on the road; I cannot remember the make—was hacked as part of a process, to show that an existing vehicle could be taken over through its electronics. It is already possible with vehicles that require drivers.
Richard Burden
I was not aware of that precise case, but my hon. Friend makes an important point. Once a vehicle generates that kind of data and information, it is always possible for it to be accessed and used in a whole range of quarters. It could be used for commercial purposes, as the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire said, if a firm wants to know the individual’s driving habits and target them for marketing or other purposes. It could be used for malicious purposes, potentially causing harm to the driver or occupants of the vehicle. It could be used accidentally, to return to the example of spotty youths in their bedrooms, for something seen to be a bit of a laugh that could have severe and dangerous consequences. The technology and skills are out there now.
The point I am making in the amendment, and in particular in the new clause, is that once we move to the much more rapid expansion of uptake that we want for electric and automated vehicles, the scale of the risk becomes much greater. That is why it is important.
Rob Marris
It has just come back to me that the vehicle involved in the American experiment was a Jeep, and that it happened in July 2015, so it was quite some while ago. That case involved benign hacking to show that it could be done, but it demonstrates to us all the dangers if we do not have the kind of protection that new clause 7 would provide.
Richard Burden
My hon. Friend is right. It indicates that when we come to a decision later on new clause 7, it will be important for all Committee members to consider it seriously. This is not something that should divide us along party lines; it is something that we should all be concerned about. We have more issues and questions about some aspects of clause 12, but as the amendments relating to most of them have been grouped under clause 15, I will leave it there for now and keep the Minister and other hon. Members in suspense.
Mr Hayes
Actually, it means all of them, but it would be helpful for the Committee if I set that out separately. We could describe in greater detail some of the work that I have set out, including the development of core principles, the establishment of a dialogue and international work. I am more than happy to set that all out in detail and assure hon. Members that it is significant. It is right that the hon. Gentleman should seek greater clarity and I will happily provide it before the Committee ends its consideration of the Bill.
Rob Marris
When the Minister sets that out, will he also set out details relating to intra-national co-operation—I am sure he is doing this, but he has not mentioned it—including discussions with the Government in Northern Ireland, to which the Bill does not apply, and with the Republic of Ireland? If charging points in Northern Ireland are to mirror those in Great Britain, it would be helpful if those Hayes hook-ups could also have common currency with the Republic of Ireland, with which we share a land border.
Mr Hayes
That is an interesting point. I would not yet want to say how much we can establish uniformity of charging points across countries, for I would not want to suggest in Committee or elsewhere that a driver could be absolutely certain that, wherever he travelled in the world, he would find a Hayes hook—I just dropped the “up”, by the way.
It would be ideal if we could at least establish a set of principles that extended to the distance that people would be likely to travel. That is the reason for the United Nations standards and the international work that I have described. We have to get a good, well-established and well-founded connection between Government and industry. We then have to work, as I have said, pan-nationally.
I emphasise again that this is very much aligned with cyber-security, which is a high priority for both the Government and the nation. That is why we established a national security strategy, and the new National Cyber Security Centre is engaged in all of the work that I have set out.
The hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield made a point about the electric charging infrastructure and so far I have talked largely about vehicles. The clause makes it clear that smart charge points must be secure against hacking, because the cyber-risk is not just to the vehicle or the data, but to the charge points themselves, so they also need to be safe and secure. Paragraph 39 of the explanatory notes explicitly mentions that the charge point will need to be resilient against cyber-attack.
The hon. Gentleman is right to say that the security is vital and, as the amendment suggests, consultation will be necessary. I am very happy to set out for him in writing the work we have already done to engage with various partners. I am also happy to tell him that that consultation will be ongoing; perhaps I can confirm that now, because essentially that is the information sought by the amendment.
The amendment compels us to consult. I am happy to commit to consulting, because it is critical that we consult people. We will continue to work with the security community, industry and other partners. However, I will go further, because I have been cogitating, as one does on one’s feet when one is capable of multi-tasking, as I know members of this Committee are capable of doing. I think we should publish and set out clearly the cyber-security principles of the connected and automated vehicle ecosystem that we will develop in collaboration with the security agencies in the coming months. I will make that commitment here. In addition to the commitment to consultation, it is important that we establish those principles very early. They will send a significant signal as to why and how this issue matters.
We will also take the additional powers that we need, as appropriate. The hon. Gentleman has said that that is implicit in the Bill, but I do not think it is right to take them yet. I would rather set out both the process by which we intend to consult and the principles, and then take the powers, as set against the principles at the necessary time. That is largely because charge point technology and vehicle technology are evolving rapidly and I do not want to prejudge their development. There would be a risk of doing so if we accepted amendment 14. Therefore, it would be preferable to set out the security requirements in regulations, and to do so having had the consultation that I have described.
Rob Marris
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. Perhaps to save the stand part debate, Mr Gray, I will ask a brief question. The Minister says that security is vital and mentions the anticipated process. Clause 12 uses the word “may” in relation to regulations—it is permissive, not mandatory. Can he confirm that regulations will in fact be made?
Mr Hayes
Yes, absolutely: regulations will be made, as appropriate and at the right time. That was a perfectly fair question.
With that, I invite the Committee to reject the amendment. Better still, I invite the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield to withdraw it, so that we are not obliged to reject it. I do so having given commitments that I will follow through on as soon as possible.
Rob Marris
I rise to speak to amendment 15, particularly in respect of the National Grid. I remind the Committee of an exchange that I had with Marcus Stewart, National Grid’s head of energy insights, in our evidence session on Tuesday 14 March. His role, as he puts it,
“is looking out into the future to determine what the energy future will look like”.––[Official Report, Vehicle Technology and Aviation Public Bill Committee, 14 March 2017; c. 17, Q30.]
I had an illuminating exchange with him, which appears in column 24 in Hansard, about the amount of electricity that would be required—the electricity demand—if there were 1 million electric vehicles on the road. I stand to be corrected, but there are currently about 40 million vehicles on the road, including commercial fleets.
Mr Stewart said that having 1 million electric vehicles on the road and charging them with a 7 kW charger, which is a fairly standard charger, would require 7 GW of electricity demand. Hon. Members may know what that looks like, but, fortunately for me, he explained it:
“Total UK demand today is about 50 or 55 GW.”––[Official Report, Vehicle Technology and Aviation Public Bill Committee, 14 March 2017; c. 24, Q44.]
The demand of 7 GW that would be created by 1 million vehicles all charging at the same time is about one seventh of that—about 14%. He helpfully said that 7 GW of electricity generating capacity was roughly equivalent to
“two and a bit very large nuclear power stations.”––[Official Report, Vehicle Technology and Aviation Public Bill Committee, 14 March 2017; c. 24, Q43.]
Let us imagine that in 20 or 25 years’ time we get to the situation where half the UK vehicle fleet—20 million vehicles—are electric. If they are on 7 kW chargers and if the technology has not markedly changed—I realise that that is a very big “if”—the electricity drawdown if they all charged at once would be 140 GW. Today we are producing only 55 GW, so that could not happen. These are back-of-an-envelope figures, but if those 20 million vehicles sought to charge evenly throughout the day, that would mean just under 1 million vehicles charging every hour—say 6 GW an hour, which is 11% of current electricity production. In round terms, that is equivalent to two large nuclear reactors—and that assumes charging evenly throughout the day, which is unlikely to happen. Conversely, if we were so foolish as to allow a system to develop that allowed everyone to charge at once, that would require 140 GW, which is equivalent to 45 very large nuclear reactors, which come in at about £20 billion each. Clearly that would be unsustainable.
We need regulation—made in consultation with the National Grid, as amendment 15 says—to spread demand more evenly through the day and in the night when there is likely to be less industrial use, and to deal with the electricity generating capacity that we are likely to need. Working with National Grid, the Government need to forecast the take-up of electric vehicles, so that we know when that additional electricity capacity is likely to be needed. I would like some assurance from the Minister—I am sure he will be able to give it to the Committee with his usual fluency and competence—that the Government are seized of that, which the amendment would enable them to be by mandating in statute that National Grid should be a consultee. To me it is a frightening prospect that either we fry because CO2 emissions carry on as we continue with carbon-powered vehicles, or we have blackouts because too many people are plugging in their electric cars which they bought as an alternative to frying the planet. Neither is a happy prospect but, to cut that Gordian knot, it would help if we had regulation to even out during day and night the demand for electricity from electric vehicle owners and operators. It would also help if the Government gave some indication of their discussions with National Grid on extra electricity generating capacity.
Christian Matheson
The nightmare scenario that my hon. Friend is talking about is entirely plausible. Does he accept that our baseload electricity requirement at the moment would be hugely increased, in particular at night when I suspect most people would charge? That would have consequences for the way in which we manage the electricity system in this country.
Rob Marris
My hon. Friend is right. I am not an expert but, intuitively, I recognise that solar power generation is likely to be less efficacious at night, although I appreciate that the wind blows at night and that, if we continue with nuclear reactors, they produce electricity all the time. That is why electricity is cheaper at night through Economy 7.
Tom Tugendhat
I think we have spoken in Committee about the fact that some charging capability will also be fed back into the grid. The hon. Gentleman is very much describing a nightmare scenario, in much the same way as in the 1800s some of those Manchester cotton workers described the spinning jennys as a nightmare scenario. The truth is that technology evolves and human practice evolves with it, so I feel that he is being a little bleak for this stage of the Bill.
Rob Marris
The hon. Gentleman is quite right that technology develops. I made a caveat at the beginning of my remarks about how I was projecting a scenario 20 or 25 years down the road, but we have a responsibility as legislators to look at that, including all the uncertainties of course.
I think it was Quentin Willson who talked about people in the States using their Tesla cars as repositories of electricity and feeding it out, but said that electricity had to get into the car in the first place, so we had to be a little careful about some sort of perpetual motion machine approach. It is true that if consumers used solar panels during the day to charge their car and dumped the electricity at night when other people were charging their cars, that would be a helpful process for evening out demand. However, it is precisely the sort of thing, I hope encouraged by amendment 15, that Her Majesty’s Government would be working on with National Grid. Trying to forecast human behaviour bedevils all of us as politicians, but it behoves us all to try to do so.
Sir Greg Knight
Does the hon. Gentleman accept that regulation is not the only way to deal with this? It can be dealt with by incentivised pricing. In the 1970s, many households were encouraged to have night storage heaters in their properties because such units took electricity when no one else wanted it and the consumer paid less for operating one.
Rob Marris
I entirely agree. Amendment 15 would give the Government a statutory duty to consult on such matters with National Grid. Assuming that the amendment is accepted, the result of such consultations might indeed be a market-led mechanism. I am not prejudging the outcome, but we need to face up to some facts. I am sure that the Minister will assure us that Her Majesty’s Government are not doing this, but for them simply to sit back and say that because of CO2 emissions and so on we want lots more people to be driving electric cars—with that already public policy, incentivised in purchase prices, with rebates and so on—and to assume that there will be sufficient electricity generation without actually talking to the National Grid about it, would be very foolish.
A regulatory solution may be required, or part of the solution may be regulatory and part not, but simply hoping, as some might do, that the market will sort it out is a triumph of hope over experience, given for example the vast cost of nuclear reactors and the very long lead time in building them. Nuclear reactors are not the only source of new electricity generation, and there will be technological developments as well, but we need to take that factor into account, and to think about it now.
Rob Marris
I sense that my hon. Friend is considering whether it would be appropriate, in the interests of democracy and accountability, to press amendment 16 to a vote. May I suggest that he might like to consider the position between now and Report, rather than dealing with the issue today?
Richard Burden
My hon. Friend makes a good point. Clearly, there is a great deal for us all to consider between now and Report. The Minister put forward various issues and said he would consider various issues and get back to us. My hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South West may be right that the precise wording of the amendment is not as good as it should be, but the Minister has not convinced me of the merit of the argument that regulations should be introduced by means of the negative procedure. I will not press the amendment to a vote now, but I give the Minister notice that we wish to return to this issue. I hope that, as the Bill continues its progress, he will reflect on that. Perhaps by the time we get to Report, his position will have changed, and we could look at having the affirmative procedure.
New clause 5 is about review, and I am pleased by what the Minister said about it. He was absolutely clear that Ministers have to be prepared to reassess, review and change if necessary. I welcome that assurance. Again, in the same spirit in which we have approached these matters elsewhere, I do not intend to press the new clause to a vote.
I simply say to the Minister that we have shown ourselves to be very reasonable in withdrawing our amendments. He, in turn, has shown himself to be very reasonable in the clarifications and assurances he has given to the Committee, but sometimes it is important to put things in the Bill. Some people do spend hours poring over Committee debates, but the law will be what is in the Bill, and sometimes we need to be clear in the Bill exactly what we are saying. That is why we tabled the new clause. I hope the Minister will reflect, before Report, on whether some kind of review mechanism could be put up in lights in the Bill. I certainly hope that he will consider the point about the affirmative procedure in relation to amendment 16. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 15 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Rob Marris
I am grateful for your indication that you might consider stand part remarks to go along with this, Mr Gray; the Minister, also with your permission, cast his remarks rather more widely. I have sympathy with the Minister when he does his private magic and pops along to the Co-op travel agency and trusts it. When I book my holidays, I book my rail tickets using a credit card; that is a debtor-creditor-supplier agreement of more than £100, so I am protected there. Since I do not fly, and have not flown for a decade, I do not do this ATOL stuff, but I understand, as does the Minister, that people live their lives differently and that many people fly.
He has given us some background, but I hope that the Minister will say a little bit more on the change from place of sale to place of establishment to which he referred. On internet sales more generally, we have a problem, for example, on tax measures, which I realise do not yet fall within the Minister’s remit. Companies such as Google book all of their sales in Dublin to avoid paying tax that they otherwise would were they to book their sales here. That may be happening with those offering travel arrangements—flights, accommodation and so on.
If he catches your eye, Mr Gray, I hope that the Minister will address this a little more widely on the Brexit issue. The package travel directive 2015 is due to come into force on 1 July 2018. In the light of recent legislation, it is within the Prime Minister’s gift, but on current indications, on 29 March 2019—nine months after that directive comes into force—the United Kingdom will no longer be a member of the European Union. In terms of some carry-over protection, a consumer booking a holiday in April 2019 for that summer or winter, for example, will need to know what their protection is, given that, at the point they take their holiday, we will no longer be in the European Union.
Paragraph 62 on page 12 of the explanatory notes, says:
“Once the Directive is in force, any business established in the United Kingdom and licensed under ATOL for sales within scope of the Directive, will no longer need to comply with the different insolvency protection rules of other EEA States”.
That suggests to me—I hope that the Minister can set my mind at rest on this—depending on what is in the great repeal Bill, that the directive will no longer be in force nine months after having come into force in the United Kingdom. We might, for example, be seeking to reassert our membership of the EEA, but it appears that clause 18 will see us stepping outside of that directive, therefore potentially leaving consumers with less protection than they might otherwise have. I appreciate that that is not the Minister’s or the Government’s intention, but in relation to clause 18 and the following clauses relating to flight providers, will he tell the Committee a little more about how he envisages continuing protection under ATOL and ATOL-like arrangements unfolding after the United Kingdom leaves the European Union, both in the case that we remain in or reassert our membership of the EEA and the case that we do not? What will the protection regime look like?
Mr Hayes
Mr Gray, I will try to respond in certainly no more than seven minutes, and ideally in less time.
Consumers are clearly a priority for the Government. In December 2016 the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy chaired a roundtable of representatives of a range of consumer bodies, charities and academics to discuss, among other issues, the impact of EU exit on consumers. As I said at the outset of this short debate, British consumers enjoy strong protections, and there is an effective consumer regime to help them to get the best deal. Sometimes markets fail and competition is not strong and consumers suffer, and it is important that the Government do not hesitate to step in and strengthen competition and/or protect those affected. In that regard, there is absolute clarity in my mind about the purpose—and, by the way, the efficacy—of the Government. It has now become fashionable—once again, thank goodness—to recognise that Government can do good. That is something I have always known and believed, and it is now back in fashion, as are so many of my long-held views.
So why is the legislation needed? The new travel package directive, which was published in December 2015, was introduced to ensure that consumer protection kept pace with modern travel habits and the modern market. The UK Government will need to transpose it into UK law before 1 January 2018. Primary legislation is needed to amend the powers of the Civil Aviation Act 1982 to update the ATOL scheme and align it with changes to UK and EU regulations, but a perfectly reasonable question, as asked by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West, is: how is all that affected by Brexit?
Until the negotiations are complete we, of course, remain a member of the European Union. The new EU package travel directive was agreed, as I said, in 2015. The measures in the Bill will ensure that the ATOL regulations and the revised package travel regulations are properly aligned in the short term, but retain the ability to adapt the scheme when the UK leaves the EU. In any event, the Government believe that the changes brought about by the new directive will have a positive impact on UK businesses and consumers, raising consumer protection standards across the EEA. That view was reflected in the consultation, with the majority of correspondents believing that the proposals will allow greater harmonisation of protection against the European market, which will ultimately benefit the consumer and businesses. To put it bluntly, I think that this is an example of where something has been agreed across the European Union for good reason and with good purpose. Although I cannot anticipate the negotiations, my view is that incorporating the provisions into British law will provide a baseline of support, which we would hesitate in any way to undermine.
I hope that I have satisfied all members of the Committee about the Government’s absolute determination to protect the interests of the consumer and to make the regulations fit for purpose in the modern age.
Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill (Fourth sitting)
Rob Marris Excerpts(7 years, 8 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Andy McDonald
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Rob Marris (Wolverhampton South West) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Ryan. I have a couple of minor points for the Minister.
First, on line 5 of page 2, the first three words of subsection (1)(c) are “an insured person”. I tried to clarify this, I think with the Association of British Insurers, during our oral evidence session two days ago, but my understanding is that the insurance architecture for automated vehicles is changed by the Bill. Rather than the driver being covered by a policy of insurance, which is the existing situation, for an automated vehicle pursuant to clause 2 it will be the vehicle itself that is insured. Unlike now when negligence is alleged in a road traffic collision, the claim legally will be against the tortfeasor, the wrongdoer, not against the insurance company, although legislation from the 1930s enables the insurance company to step in at present. Under the Bill, were there to be legal proceedings, the person on the other side would be the insurance company directly, not, as now, indirectly, in lay terms.
If that is the case, there is no insured person on the scene, unless “person” in that context somehow means the insurance company as a legal person. The way the clause appears to be worded, the policy of insurance is carried not by the driver, the human being, but by the vehicle itself. In which case, if I am reading the Bill correctly, there is no insured person. I am hoping that the Minister will clarify that today or in writing to me later. I fully accept that he might say that I have misinterpreted it.
Secondly, on lines 19 and 20 of page 2, subsection (3) includes a definition of “damage”, but that definition does not include what used to be called special damages and have since 1998, I think, technically been called financial losses and expenses. For example, if someone is injured in a road traffic collision and loses pay at work as a result, that is liquidated damages, but it does not seem to be covered in the definition of damages in that subsection. That might be deliberate and might come in somewhere else, but I hope that the Minister will clarify the wording.
Andy McDonald
My hon. Friend makes a hugely important point about special damages. As he knows all too well, special damages in any given case could dwarf the compensation for pain, suffering and loss of amenity, so it is a hugely important point, which I want to support. I hope that the Minister can clarify it.
Rob Marris
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. For someone who has to have two years off work, is earning £50,000 a year and so on, that can be a loss of money. I fully concede to the Minister that I may have overlooked something, or it might be covered somewhere else or not need to be covered, but I would find it helpful were he able to explain to the Committee why special damages, as they used to be called, are not included in the clause. Will he also explain why we have “an insured person” in subsection (1)(c)?
Mr Hayes
Welcome to the Chair, Ms Ryan. We had a fairly lengthy discussion this morning about the early parts of the Bill, but in doing so we were able to establish context and purpose. Many hon. Members in all parts of the Committee made important points that I have listened to carefully. I will take them into further consideration as the Bill enjoys its passage.
At the very beginning of our consideration we set out the tone of this scrutiny. The Bill matters a great deal, but it is essentially a technical, not a partisan, measure, and not one that should give rise to unnecessary discord, disharmony or contumely. None the less, it is right that we get it right, as it is for all legislation, and so I want to say a word about clause 2.
Clause 2 details the liability of insurers where an accident is caused by an automated vehicle. Where an accident is caused by an automated vehicle when it is driving itself, the clause creates first instance liability on the insurer to compensate innocent victims.
The hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West has made a number of interventions already, and in each one, with a humility that personifies all of his contributions to this House, has suggested that he is finding his way through this, just as other members of the Committee are. He is right to say that the definition of damage that applies will be the definition established in the Road Traffic Act 1998 and so it is not necessary to do more here. He suggested that might be so and I can confirm that that is indeed the case.
The hon. Gentleman raised a second important issue about the character of the relationship between the driver and the vehicle. The point is that the driver has motor insurance. It is true that when someone has motor insurance, they designate a vehicle, but the driver will apply to an insurer to take out a policy in the same way that they do now. In respect of a claim, the difference that automation will make is that the insurer will then be in the business of determining subsequent liability. Of course, that will depend whether the car is being driven in automated mode or not, which is something we have all talked about both informally and formally in the Committee.
In a sense, that is immaterial to the hon. Gentleman’s question, because our absolute determination is to ensure that all the changes that are necessary as a result of the developments we are discussing are largely invisible and that, from the driver’s point of view and that of any other party that might suffer a loss as a result of an incident—a victim of an accident and so on and so forth—they are no worse off than they are now and at no greater risk, and that the driver, from the perspective of acquiring insurance, is in the same situation as they are now. So the issue of subsequent inquiries necessary to settle a claim is not dealt with in the Bill and, frankly, does not need to be, for that is in the end a matter for insurers. I think that clarifies the point, but if the hon. Gentleman wishes to intervene again, I am happy to give way.
Rob Marris
I understand the points that the Minister is making, but clause 2(1)(b) says, “the vehicle is insured”. It does not say a policy of insurance is in effect covering the person in charge of the vehicle. It specifically says that the vehicle is insured. Secondly, I would point out to the Minister that unless we get this right, there may be problems later if a minor is in the vehicle alone because of full automation—that minor cannot hold an insurance policy because as a minor they cannot contract insurance.
Mr Hayes
That is true enough. I suppose perhaps the easiest way of putting this is that, compared with the compulsory insurance cover that is the necessary result of the Road Traffic Act 1998 and is long established, the clause widens the insurers’ liability to include damage as a result of automation. Essentially, it includes damage suffered by the driver when the automated vehicle is driving itself, or damage suffered by any third party.
I invite the hon. Gentleman to look at clause 7, which deals with this matter—as I am sure other Committee members will do so with enthusiasm and speed. Clause 7(1)(a) describes a vehicle “driving itself” and subsection (1)(b) states that
“a vehicle is ‘insured’ if there is in force in relation to the use of the vehicle on a road or other public place in Great Britain”,
and so on.
That clause provides the clarity the hon. Gentleman seeks. When it is combined with what I described—the existing arrangements under the Road Traffic Act—I think he can be satisfied that we have got this right.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 2 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 3
Contributory negligence etc
Andy McDonald
I think there is a distinction between ordinary, conventional vehicle maintenance arrangements, with which people are familiar, and the requirements of this brand-new environment, where if software fails because critical updates were not installed or it has been infected in some way—I am not an engineer—the consequences can be catastrophic. Mechanical failures may not be picked up, but we have MOT tests and warranties and it may be starkly obvious that something is fundamentally wrong with the vehicle; software failure may not manifest itself so clearly.
Rob Marris
Is not part of the problem that we have several players on the scene? We have the manufacturer, the supplier of the vehicle—the main dealer for example—the insurance company, the owner of the vehicle and the driver. Part of the problem is that the owner of the vehicle may not have any contractual nexus with the manufacturer and may not know that the update is available for their software, just as many people may not know that their smartphone can be upgraded from Android Marshmallow to Android Nougat.
Andy McDonald
The point is well made, so I will not expand on my hon. Friend’s intervention but simply accept it.
In short, that the manufacturer should notify the owner of a vehicle of the need for an update of the vehicle’s operating system or whatever term we settle on, provide the relevant update to the owner or insured person, and arrange for the installation of the update, are reasonable expectations. We are shifting into a completely different model of vehicle ownership. We have already embraced the principles of personal contract plans and everyone in this room will be aware of the potential to migrate to bundled services, which might not be about one person with one vehicle; they might have a variety of options—a small vehicle for the home and a more comfortable vehicle to make longer journeys, such as touring the Scottish highlands.
We are getting into new territory, and it occurs to me that if we want motor vehicles to be sustainable, rather than rapidly obsolescent, it might be eminently sensible if, rather than someone owning and maintaining a vehicle, such maintenance were part of the services they received and the vehicle was ultimately returned to the manufacturer or retailer. We get into issues about extensions on product liability. With every iteration, there are issues around that. We heard from Mr Wong on Tuesday that the manufacturers will no longer support vehicles beyond a particular time. He did not expect the support to carry on for ever. If it was my Toyota Previa with 163,000 miles on the clock after 17 years it would be unsupported, but there we go.
Andy McDonald
Yes, it did, several times. It is still running, but it is partly rusted to death. The point is that the measure fits in with the new modelling and is entirely consistent, but it must be underpinned by the obligation to take reasonable steps to update the software. Otherwise, we have difficulties. The amendment would not put the manufacturer behind the eight ball if people are determined to avoid updates or interfere with them—far from it—it just sets out a framework that there should be an obligation on them. I recommend the amendment.
New clause 9 is directly related to the amendment. It requires the Secretary of State to make regulations preventing automated vehicles from being operated in automated mode on public roads unless the software for that function is up to date. We addressed the importance of updating earlier in the Committee, so I will not repeat those arguments, but I underline the seriousness of ensuring that the software is up to date. Out-of-date software can present safety risks. Because of the issues surrounding liability, it should not be beyond the wit of man or too difficult to prevent un-updated vehicles being on our roads, and it would make sense to do that. If a vehicle had a serious mechanical fault that could endanger the driver and others, we would not allow it on our roads. It makes sense that an automated vehicle would similarly present an increased safety risk if its operating system was not updated.
Alan Brown
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Ryan. I will mainly speak to amendment 21, and I will be brief. To remind the Committee, the amendment relates to clause 4. The title of the clause, “Accident resulting from unauthorised alterations or failure to update software”, implies that software that has not been updated causes an accident. Part 1 of the Bill is about defining the liabilities and responsibilities needed to make insurance practical and able to be rolled out, and to facilitate the roll-out of autonomous vehicles. On that basis, amendment 21 makes a lot of sense to me. In defining liability and responsibility, it clearly sets out that manufacturers have a responsibility to try to make sure that vehicles are updated with the latest software. That is important, and I do not think it should be left to the small print of individual insurance policies. If we are trying to improve consumer confidence going forward, placing an onus on manufacturers to fulfil their responsibilities make sense, and putting that in the Bill would help that. It would facilitate that for insurance companies as well.
New clause 9 complements amendment 21. I take on board the comments about incorporating terminology such as “safety critical” in the new clause; that is something that should be considered going forward as well. I think there is merit in the amendment and the new clause.
Rob Marris
As you know, Ms Ryan, Labour Members are particularly sensitive to getting the wording of clause 4 accurate. On new clause 9, I think the hon. Member for Wycombe is quite right; it would be better if, at the end of it, it said something like “up to date as regards safety”, because of the points that have been made on the difference between safety-critical updates and leisure or convenience updates or whatever.
On amendment 21, it may be that the Minister will be able to assure me that we already have a suitable system. I am thinking, for example, of the system in which, providing they can be traced, the current registered keeper of a vehicle in the United Kingdom gets a safety notification from the manufacturer. For example, my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough and I are pleased to drive Toyotas, but Toyota and a number of other manufacturers have a problem because the Japanese supplier of airbags and their ignition devices supplied about 15 million duff ones around the world. Those are gradually being replaced. As the registered keeper of a Toyota, I get a letter from the manufacturer—not from the mainline Toyota dealer from whom I bought it, but from the manufacturer—telling me that in due course this problem will need to be sorted out.
We are all familiar with that process now in relation to safety-critical updates for software introduced by the manufacturer, presumably as a result of its discovering a bug in software, which occasionally happens. We already have a system—for shorthand, “the airbag-type system”—that might read across in terms of the software system, and therefore we would not need amendment 21. However, I would like the Minister’s reassurance on that point, or his acceptance that we do not already have that kind of system as regards safety and therefore we need either amendment 21 or something akin to it.
Mr Hayes
The hon. Member for Middlesbrough began this part of our discussion by claiming that he was courageous and then admitting that he was imprecise. Courtesy obliges me to emphasise his courage and not his imprecision, although he also said that he recognised that my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe has expertise in this field. I have already said that I agree that it is important that we address the issues dealt with in these amendments, which were also highlighted by the comments of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West. It seems to me that we can look again at whether this part of this Bill needs the proposed improvements.
In respect of new clause 9 and amendment 21, I suppose the obvious point—I will go on to make less obvious points, or at least I hope they will be less obvious—is that manufacturers should and will ensure that they update software in a way that guarantees safety. That seems to me to be fundamental, but I just do not think that this Bill is the right legislation to do that.
Perhaps I can make a less obvious point—
Rob Marris
May I ask the Minister to reconsider that point? As he said, part 1 of the Bill is largely about insurance. Let us imagine that a manufacturer says of an automated vehicle, “We are not going to update the software for a vehicle that is more than 10 years old. We just don’t do that. We are not saying whether it is needed or not, but it has reached the 10-year mark and we will no longer support it.” At that 10-year mark, that vehicle is likely to be uninsurable, because the insurers will say, “We don’t know anything about the software. After 10 years, we don’t know whether it needs updating or not and the manufacturer isn’t telling us—end of story. We are not going to insure a vehicle that is more than 10 years old, or however long the manufacturer selects.”
Mr Hayes
We are ranging a little widely, but I must say that the hon. Gentleman is entering the realms of fantasy, to use a phrase often used by Captain Mainwaring of Corporal Jones in that legendary programme, “Dad’s Army”. Insurance models are currently available for all kinds of vehicles of all ages and at all stages of development and iterations—my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire is a renowned expert on the subject. Some of those vehicles are very ancient indeed and include no modern technology or mechanics, but they are safe, they can be driven safely, and they are insured accordingly. It would be extraordinary if the insurance industry did not develop products that suited vehicles of all ages. They do so now, so why would they not do so in the future?
Mr Hayes
He is rising to the occasion. Perhaps I can find a compromise, because it is important that we have a regulatory framework in place that ensures that manufacturers bring safe systems to market and that the process is as simple and effective as possible. I think we can do that, but not necessarily through the Bill or even through primary legislation. There is a good argument that understanding of the kind the hon. Gentleman advocates will emerge from the continuing dialogue that we enjoy with manufacturers and the further frameworks that result from it.
Our public engagement in this process is determined and well funded. We have invested more than £100 million in the research and development of connected and autonomous vehicles. Many of those projects have had a significant component of building public understanding, and part of that has been to explore precisely the issues that are dealt with in the clause and amendments
We have published a series of documents such as “Pathway to Driverless Cars: Proposals to support advanced driver assistance systems and automated vehicle technologies” and “Proposed ultra low emission vehicles measures for inclusion in the Modern Transport Bill”, which hon. Members will be familiar with. With the establishment of the Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles, the programme of work continues. We will work with the industry and academia to ensure that we not only test the behavioural response to all this, but work on where manufacturers’ responsibilities begin and end and how much further legislative action is required. I do accept that, and perhaps we can find a happy middle ground, but I am not sure the Bill is the right place.
I underpin that by drawing the Committee’s attention to the briefing we have had from Ageas, which is the third largest motor insurer and leading provider of award-winning insurance solutions in the United Kingdom—that sounds a bit like an advert. None the less, Ageas says that:
“The Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill will establish a new insurance regime for the next generation of autonomous vehicles currently being developed. Ageas is supportive of the Bill as it reflects the extensive discussion that have taken place between the government, insurance industry and other stakeholders.”
It goes on in a similar vein, but for me to amplify it further would seem a little self-congratulatory. I simply ask Members to give it their fullest consideration following this short speech.
Iain Stewart
The hon. Gentleman has anticipated what I was about to say, because the Minister kindly honoured his promise to write to me and gave me the clarification I needed. He said that although future regulations may be made, the current system will apply and ultimately the courts will decide where the liability lies if there was an external intervention. The Motor Insurers Bureau happily resides in my constituency and I visited it a couple a weeks ago, and we discussed that very point. I want to put on the record that the concerns I expressed on Second Reading have been addressed, and I am perfectly content with the clause as it is currently drafted.
Rob Marris
I have six fairly brief points. I know that the Minister is a great proponent of using language properly, so at the beginning of line 18 of clause 4(2), may I ask him to remove the first word “But”, which is a conjunction? It adds nothing to the Bill and is a grammatical monstrosity.
Rob Marris
What a Minister! Given that he has been so generous to me, I will be generous to him.
On a more serious point, may I draw the Minister’s attention to the beginning of line 23 of clause 4, which states
“knows he or she is required”?
I think that should state “knows or should have known that he or she is required”, because otherwise the person can plead ignorance and there is no “should have known” about it, which is a common construction in law, as my hon. Friend for Middlesbrough will know. Similarly, in line 33, “that an insured person knew or should have known that he was required under the policy” would be legally clearer and help all of us, including insurers. Line 41, subsection 5(b), reads
“which, at the time the person knew he or she was required”.
It ought to be “at the time the person knew or should have known he or she was required”. Having put that forward, I know the Minister will consider it in his usual generous spirit.
More importantly and substantively, there should be a provision in clause 4 on the cost of software updates. I appreciate that clause 4 is principally about insurers and so on, but it is about software updates. If in terms of safety—not the legalities—there is a safety-critical update that the manufacturer decides is going to cost £1,000 to whack in and the insured decides not to do that, that would void his or her insurance policy, but it would also put the rest of us at risk.
That is not a figure plucked out of the air. I might have said in an earlier session that the software to install a sat-nav in my car—just for the software; none of the hardware—costs £600. To update the software for sat-navs in many cars can be £300 or £400. That is just for the software update for a poxy sat-nav, let alone for an automated vehicle.
Tom Tugendhat
The hon. Gentleman is seeking now to regulate the contract between an individual and the car company they buy from in relation to servicing. There are many different updates that are required for a car in terms of safety-critical features, which happen every now and again, such as changing tyres. [Interruption.] Or buying a new set of brakes, as my hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire says. Each different manufacturer has a different price list. If someone wants to buy a Rolls Royce, they can be pretty sure that the price of the items will be very high. I chose not to—there were several reasons for that, not least that child seats do not fit very well. Rather more fundamentally, I chose to buy a cheaper car for the simple reason that I realised that if I was going to be asked to service the damn thing, I wanted it to be affordable. The hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West is effectively seeking to govern the servicing arrangements.
Rob Marris
Without straying too far, the Labour party was in favour of looking at a regulatory regime to cap energy prices; so now is the Conservative party. There is a role for the state when there is market failure. We are talking about potential market failure for very important safety items, not whether it is going to cost £100 or £200 to service a car and someone decides whether they buy a Rolls Royce, or whatever presumably less expensive car the hon. Gentleman bought—I cannot think that he would have bought a more expensive one. I understand the role of the market for that.
I am not looking to cap service charges, but there is an argument for the state putting a cap on the price of software updates, on safety grounds. The hon. Member for Wycombe referred earlier to parachutes. He can correct me on this, but I do not think that many people are killed in this country from someone’s parachute failing, besides that individual. What we are talking about here potentially is an individual whose parachute fails and who then lands on someone else and kills them. It is not just the owner of the vehicle; it is the rest of us.
Tom Tugendhat
The hon. Gentleman talks about safety-critical software. Brake pads are pretty safety-critical. If someone does not maintain their vehicle to a reasonable standard with proper brake pads, the vehicle is uninsurable. The same would be true in this case. If the manufacturer overprices the update, people will not buy the car. If people do not update the software, the car will be uninsurable and therefore undrivable.
Rob Marris
The hon. Gentleman has a much more touching faith in the market than I do to resolve these things—that is why he is on those Benches and I am on these. That is fine, but in terms of the safety of all of us—he drives on the road, so do I; his family goes on the road, so does mine—I want a cap on safety software upgrade prices. The Minister should consider that, and it would go in clause 4.
Mr Hayes
I am going to be brief. I was in favour of a prices and incomes policy when even the Labour party had abandoned that. [Interruption.] I hear comments from behind me. I have been a protectionist all my life, and now it is coming back into fashion. The semantic points that the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West made are good ones. As I said, we will take out the word “But”—as there are no ifs or buts with me, as yet. We will take a look at the other semantic points; there are bound to be those linguistic changes to a Bill.
The hon. Gentleman’s fundamental point was about the cost of software. If there was a catastrophic market failure—we are speaking about something down the line, as my hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling said, for we do not know what the market looks like yet, but if we follow the hon. Gentleman’s advice we are already dooming it to failure—of course we would consider becoming involved. Were that to compromise the wellbeing of a large number of people who purchased automated vehicles, with all the consequences that might have, at some point the Government would need to take some kind of stand, but, if I may use an appropriate phrase, frankly I think we are at risk, Madam Deputy Speaker, of travelling roads as yet uncharted, let alone those we can reasonably foresee how we might journey down.
Rob Marris
Will the Minister explain why the Bill is confined to Great Britain and does not include Northern Ireland? There may well be a simple explanation.
Mr Hayes
The hon. Gentleman’s assiduity does him great credit. It is perhaps worth saying that the clause defines a series of terms and concepts vital to the functions of the proceedings in the Bill. The only reason it does not apply to Northern Ireland is that this is a devolved matter: motor insurance is devolved in Northern Ireland.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 7 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 8
Definitions
Mr Hayes
As I enjoyed a very light and healthy lunch in between the two sittings of this Committee today, I was able to have a very brief informal conversation with Members of the Committee on exactly that subject. We discussed the risk of being “hemmed in”, as the hon. Gentleman put it, which is certainly not the Government’s intention.
I want to focus on ultra low emission and zero-emission mobility, of course, because that is very much in accord with the Government’s policy and strategy, but it is right that we do not close off technological options that have merit. With all technological change in its early stages—at its cusp, as it were—it is important to retain an open mind. I could give many examples from the technological changes that have occurred in my own lifetime of decisions that, if we took them now, would be rather different, because we were not sufficiently open-minded about the kinds of developments that the hon. Gentleman has described, so I am certainly open-minded. I do not want to close down options, but I am heavily focused on low and zero-emissions mobility. That is the formula that we will adopt.
On that basis, and with what I thought was a rather more enthusiastic welcome for my hon. Friend’s predilections and, may I say, prejudices—without meaning to sound in any way pejorative—I hope that the amendment will be withdrawn.
Rob Marris
I thank the Minister for his indulgence. This has been an interesting debate; I have to say that I think it has been a diversion, almost completely irrelevant to this Bill. The long title of this Bill says it is a Bill to:
“Make provision about automated vehicles, electric vehicles, vehicle testing and civil aviation”.
Then it has some stuff about lasers, and so on. If—
The Chair
Order. I should let the hon. Member know that it is a matter for me what is relevant.
Rob Marris
I understand that, Ms Ryan, which is why I was thanking the Minister and made no comment on the selection by you and Mr Gray. It is just surprising that we have had such a long debate on something that is without the long title of the Bill.
Rob Marris
Some of what I intended to say has been foreshadowed and I will not repeat it all, you and the Committee will be relieved to hear, Ms Ryan. When we heard from Robert Evans, who is the chief executive of a specialist research and technology organisation and represented the UK Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment Association, he addressed the issue of train stations, airports and so on. More pertinently, we also heard on Tuesday afternoon from Teresa Sayers, the chief executive of the Downstream Fuel Association, who said:
“We represent the non-refining companies and major supermarkets.”––[Official Report, Vehicle Technology and Aviation Public Bill Committee, 14 March 2017; c. 37, Q65.]
When I questioned her about the wording of clause 10, she said:
“Our apprehension about the wording is all about the location of the EV charging point on a forecourt, for the reasons we have discussed.”––[Official Report, Vehicle Technology and Aviation Public Bill Committee, 14 March 2017; c. 41, Q71.]
I said to her:
“The word “fuel” in “large fuel retailers” is causing you to scratch your head a bit?”––[Official Report, Vehicle Technology and Aviation Public Bill Committee, 14 March 2017; c. 41, Q73.]
She replied, “Yes, absolutely”, and agreed that “large retailers” would be better.
I look forward to the Minister’s design competition, which he announced today and which is wonderful. I suggest that, for the design that is ultimately decided upon, rather like we have Belisha beacons, we could have “Hayes hook-ups” or something similar. As the hon. Member for Bedford said, we need to think more broadly about planning permission and building those into planning requirements for new buildings, and possibly about a requirement for three-phase electricity and that sort of thing for more rapid charging.
We need to look at the regulations for the franchise specifications for motorway service station operators. They have a franchise that, I would guess for most of them, requires them to open for 24 hours a day. We do that as a public good. For motorway service station operators, providing coffee at three in the morning is a public good, but it is probably not profitable; however, providing coffee over 24 hours is profitable. As a society we say we want that, because we want motorists to drink coffee and stay awake on the motorways. Electric charging points could be part of a motorway service area franchise, because—surprise, surprise—we get on to clause 10 and the Government are quite willing to intervene in a market that hardly exists now. Good; they are coming over to the socialist side. There is a role for Government in making markets that, honourably and commendably, the Government, as represented by the Minister today, are seeking to fulfil.
In terms of making markets, I suggest to him that clause 10 does not need, and should not include, the words “large fuel retailers”; I did not table an amendment to that affect because I came to that view only after I heard the evidence on Tuesday. We do not, and should not have, the word “fuel”; in fact, if regulations are made, as the clause provides for, that will provide definitions, we do not actually need the word “large” either. Ministers never want excess wording in Bills; I understand that.
We understand from the Bill’s wording, which could be usefully removed, the Government’s idea that little corner shops would not be subject to the regulations. Corner shops are retailers and almost all of them have a little parking area, even in rural areas. I think we understand that the concept of large fuel retailers would not cover, for example, my local BP station, which is a one-minute walk from my house and has five parking spaces; some cars parked for a quick, 30-minute charge will clog things up there. We went through the evidence on that on Tuesday. We ought to be looking at retailers and at supermarkets in particular, because very broadly most people go there, park their car, go off and do their shopping for half an hour or 45 minutes and come back. Their car could be charged during that time.
Now is the perfect time to do this because the business rates revaluation is still going through the House in the Local Government Finance Bill. Many supermarkets—not all—are winners under the business rates revaluation, so they will be paying lower business rates, which is a bit of a windfall for them. The Government could taketh away through the Bill by saying, “Well, you’ve had your windfall on business rates, but you have got to invest that for the benefit of our society by providing electric charging points. You are large retailers, not fuel retailers or service area operators. But, for the public benefit, as a Government our public policy to drive the market is that supermarkets or such operations that have a lot of parking should be providing public charging points, as clause 10 seeks to do for large fuel retailers.”
When I had a discussion with the Minister about that outside the Committee, he was positive and said that he would think about it. That is all I ask of him today. I hope he will feel able to stand up—if he catches your eye, Ms Ryan—and say that he will consider the point of broadening out the clause by removing “fuel” as a concept, because that gets us from forecourts and so on—many areas with limited parking spaces—and more into the scenario of supermarkets, train stations, airports and so on, which is much better, more amenable and would provide a better service to those we seek to represent.
Mr Hayes
I will be brief. We have had a good, detailed debate on this aspect of the Bill. I hope that my determination to broaden the number of points at which people can charge vehicles is clear from my earlier remarks. Equally, my parallel determination is to ensure that while we mandate the provision, we do not do so in a way that is not reasonable or affordable.
I take the hon. Gentleman’s point and I will return to it in a second. I suppose the reason why “fuel” is there is that it is not unreasonable that the people who are likely to benefit should make some contribution. If we think of motorway service areas—by the way, they are already taking this on—there are charge points at most of them now, and in some cases they are trialling hydrogen refuelling points, too. Given that they are likely to benefit and they are already investing, it does not seem unreasonable to pursue that avenue.
Mr Hayes
I was driven in a Nissan LEAF yesterday, so I really do live the policy. The hon. Gentleman is right: as well as putting in place the broad infrastructure that I described, we need to provide information, and part 2 of the Bill will do precisely that. It will allow the Government to improve the provision of information on charge points for electric vehicles by requiring network operators to provide the information necessary to make locating and charging an electric car easy and hassle-free.
The way in which people obtain information has changed and will continue to change. In-car information is likely to be a feature of future developments. It is important that we set out the requirements now, so that motorists know, as a minimum, where charge points are located and can plan their journeys accordingly. As the hon. Gentleman said, the provision of information is probably as important as issues that we have spent longer discussing. The fact that he has not tabled any amendments implies that he agrees with us that the data on location, price and availability need to be accessible and open. That will also allow service operators to develop their products by giving motorists a complete picture, allowing them to plan their journeys with greater confidence. The market is moving in the right direction, and we are trying to support that in the Bill.
Rob Marris
If someone wanted to make a public telephone call 30, 40 or 50 years ago, one of the ways in which they got information about where to make it from was visual—a red telephone box was a visual source of information. I suggest that the Minister should interpret broadly the phrase
“in what form the information is to be made available”
in clause 11(3)(a), including within it the design of Hayes hook-ups, so that, like red telephone boxes, they give a visual clue—visual information—and people can see from their design where the available charging point is.
Mr Hayes
What a wonderful image the hon. Gentleman conjures; I will certainly take his point to heart. I will ask my friend and adviser, the distinguished architect Quinlan Terry, to suggest further developments of the kind that the hon. Gentleman set out.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 11 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Jackie Doyle-Price.)
Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill (Third sitting)
Rob Marris Excerpts(7 years, 8 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Andy McDonald
It is also about the publication of criteria; we have to arrive there and there has to be a journey to get to the establishment of the criteria, and we could explore how we might share some consensus around that. I do not suggest for one minute that Secretaries of State will rush off and include on their list of vehicles devices that are wholly and utterly outwith the contemplated legislation, but it is useful to consult on and establish the criteria against which we judge automated vehicles. I hope that will become clear from the rest of my contribution, but I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention.
The significant production of automated vehicles is still some years away. We are preparing the ground for an environment that we know will come but does not yet exist. However, there has already been an increase in assistance systems and partial automation introduced over the years to support drivers. The Bill assumes a clear distinction between advanced driver-assistance systems and fully automated driving technology in UK policy and legislation. As such, there is a need for collaboration between the Government, manufacturers, insurers and consumers to develop a viable and practical system of classification to identify when a vehicle is deemed to be automated or autonomous.
The clause requires the Secretary of State to
“prepare, and keep up to date, a list of all motor vehicles that…are or might be used on roads or in other public places in Great Britain, and…are in the Secretary of State’s opinion designed or adapted to be capable, in at least some circumstances or situations, of safely driving themselves without having to be monitored by an individual.”
By introducing a requirement for the Secretary of State to consult on the criteria used to reach that opinion, the amendment would ensure that all automated vehicles were covered by those criteria. The requirement for the criteria to be published would provide greater clarity for all concerned.
Rob Marris (Wolverhampton South West) (Lab)
Is my hon. Friend aware—the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire might be, because he is sometimes referred to, perhaps unfairly, as a petrolhead—of whether the current homologation criteria for vehicles on the road are published?
Andy McDonald
If I knew what “homologation” meant, I might have a chance. My goodness, we get an education here.
Because we are entering new territory, we need to agree what we mean by automated vehicles. We have it fixed in our minds that the definition covers only end-to-end journeys, but there are also journeys of which parts are under the direct control of the vehicle and not of the person who occupies it. We already have autonomous braking systems—the Committee explored those on Tuesday—and our shared view is probably that they fall outside the definition of an automated vehicle, because they do not cover every function; the person occupying the vehicle is still required to intervene. There are also devices to ensure that drivers do not stray into another lane. Those are all welcome assistance measures, but they do not fall within the definition of an automated vehicle as I understand it. I do not think that it is asking too much to suggest that we go through the process of establishing the criteria.
Mr Hayes
He is honourable, certainly, and in my estimation, deserving of so much more.
Clause 1 compels the Secretary of State to create a list of automated vehicles. That is to provide clarity to industry and the public on which vehicles will be captured by the provisions—we need to define what kinds of vehicles are affected by the Bill. The Secretary of State will do that by applying the definition in subsection 1(a), to which the hon. Gentleman referred, and subsection 1(b). In those provisions we see the means by which the Secretary of State will create that list.
It is important to define the difference between driver assistance and automation, as the hon. Gentleman asked us to do. We are defining automated vehicles—the hon. Gentleman asked for this clarification—as those vehicles that have the capability to drive themselves without human oversight or intervention, for some or all of the journey. An automated vehicle might not be automated for the whole of the journey, but for at least part of it, and perhaps for the whole, it will not require the person driving it to intervene.
Rob Marris
On that point, the Minister will be aware—I think he referred to it—that for a number of years there have been cars that will park themselves. Under the definition he has just given, those cars would be counted as automated vehicles. That may be what the Minister intends, but to many people a vehicle that simply parks itself would not really be an automated vehicle. Is he saying that self-parkers will be on the list?
Mr Hayes
No, they would not be on the list because, although it is true that the cars we typically buy now might well have assistance with parking—I mentioned them a moment ago—the oversight of that remains with the driver. Automation is the transfer of that oversight or responsibility.
It is important to point out that the driver retains responsibility for the performance of the vehicle, but will not have oversight of the functions that are automated. I suppose that in the world we are now imagining, it would be possible for a driver to be doing something else while the car was being driven.
The best parallel here, and one with which we are all pretty familiar, is aeroplanes. When we fly on a jet, as some of us no doubt have and will again, for some of the journey the plane will be switched to automatic pilot, although it is true that the responsibility remains with pilots and co-pilots. We are quite familiar with that; the plane will essentially be flying itself. As I said, that means that the capability moves from the pilot to the plane, and in the case of a car, from the driver to the vehicle. So the vehicle will become capable of driving itself in an automated way.
Mr Hayes
I think there is an implicit need to continue the dialogue that the hon. Gentleman seeks. It is absolutely right that the spirit in which, as the shadow Minister recognised and welcomed, we have gone about our business so far continues to inform these developments. Bluntly, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire is right that any responsible Government and Secretary of State would want to work on that basis. It is important we are clear at the moment about the definition so that we do not inhibit the development of further insurance products and thereby the further development of the technology. It is true that at some future point we may need to return to those matters, but the core definition we are trying to establish here is sufficient, as we heard from the insurance industry when it gave evidence, to allow it to continue its work.
We are not giving unbridled powers to the Secretary of State. Once we have established a clear definition, the Secretary of State will have no discretion to exclude a vehicle that meets the definition. The Secretary of State cannot be capricious about which vehicles are on the list and which are not; the vehicles will be defined by the criteria and by the definition. The Secretary of State will not define which vehicles are on the list, but will take responsibility for publishing the list. Conversely, if a vehicle does not come within the definition, it cannot be included. The power is merely, in that sense, an administrative power, not a discretionary power. The Secretary of State cannot, as I say, pick and mix the vehicles on the list outside the definition we are trying to set here in law. If he or she could do so, insurers simply would not have the confidence to develop the products that they need to.
Rob Marris
The Minister talks about developing products. Although the problem may be to do with that, part of the problem is the elasticity of the definition. The Minister referred earlier to some or all of a journey being self-driving, and it says in the definition and in the amendment that cites this part of the definition,
“in at least some circumstances or situations”.
I think that is the problem. He is trying to include in the definition part-time automated vehicles. Either they are fully automated and safe for me to be on the roads with those vehicles whizzing up and down, or they are not. This part-time stuff fudges it all and is a big problem.
Mr Hayes
I am not sure that that is true and a reflection of what is likely to happen. If I am right—the Opposition said this at the beginning of the debate and I acknowledged and agreed with it—and others are right, too, that the changes are likely to be incremental rather than sudden, so that the changes are likely to build on technological developments that have happened in the past, then it may well be that we move to a circumstance where vehicles are developed that can be switched to autonomous mode and then switched out of it. That is more than likely to happen—in fact, it is probably inevitable.
The issue is not whether a vehicle can be autonomous; it is about what we do when a vehicle is autonomous. From an insurance point of view, being clear about what happens when a vehicle is autonomous and making sure that the insurance policy is consistent and, as I said, provides the safety and assurance that is needed is the fundamental here.
Mr Hayes
On that point, my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford asked David Williams, the chair—I call him the chairman—of the Automated Driving Insurers Group, who spoke for insurers:
“Within its scope, does this Bill do enough to position the UK as a global leader in vehicle technology? If not, what is missing? If you do not have the time to answer, maybe you can email me.”
That was very courteous of my hon. Friend, but David Williams did not need to email him, because he was able to answer very concisely:
“From an insurance perspective, yes.”––[Official Report, Vehicle Technology and Aviation Public Bill Committee, 14 March 2017; c. 16, Q28.]
It should reassure the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West that insurers clearly think that the Bill will allow them to move forward with developing the products that I described.
I want to be as reasonable as I can, so I emphasise the point that we want to continue discussion and consultation on all these matters as we move forward. That is absolutely right; the Opposition reasonably ask for it, and it is an assurance that I am happy to give. I emphasise yet again that getting clarity at the beginning that is sufficient to satisfy the insurance industry, as clearly we have done, is really important in order not to inhibit further development. As though that were not enough, I can offer further reassurance: hon. Members know that the approval of vehicles for sale and use will ultimately be subject to the international standards of the United Nations economic commission for Europe, as well as our own domestic standards. All vehicles must be safe to sell, use and drive. There will be an underpinning set of safety standards, both domestic and international.
Rob Marris
The Minister is being generous in taking interventions. Perhaps he will correct me, but as I understand it, a vehicle has to have a homologation certificate in order to be used on the public roads in Britain. Are the criteria for homologation certificates published?
Mr Hayes
The certification process for all vehicles is common, in that they must meet proper safety standards. There is no suggestion that the safety standards for these new kinds of vehicles will fall below that level—that would be preposterous. The hon. Gentleman can have an absolute assurance that the Government will ensure that those standards are applied. I am very happy to make available the information he seeks about the standards we apply; that seems perfectly reasonable to me.
Rob Marris
It is to do with publishing the criteria. May I give the Minister an example? The best-selling vehicle in the world is the Ford F-150 pick-up, which is not sold in the United Kingdom. If I wish to import one and use it on British roads, I will need a homologation certificate. I am asking the Minister for his assurance that the criteria for such a certificate, in this case for automated vehicles—what will or will not go on the list—will be published. I am not asking him to say now what those criteria will be; I quite understand that he cannot do that.
Mr Hayes
I am certainly happy to give that assurance. We will make available to the Committee the standards that are already established. As the hon. Gentleman says, it is important that they are published. I will give a further commitment. As international and domestic standards evolve over time, at the point at which it is appropriate to do so, we will publish those, too. I want a consistent approach. If that is what he seeks, it is reasonable to do so. In the same spirit, we will consult and certainly publish as much information as possible for the Committee and beyond it.
To develop the argument—I do not want to go on exhaustively, but it is important to set out the core principles at the beginning of our consideration of the Bill—the hon. Gentleman will understand that the standards I describe form the basis of the type approval process that conventional vehicles currently follow, and that of course automated vehicles will follow, too. The same consequent process will happen. Based on those standards, and likely the vehicle’s registration document, we expect it to be very clear which vehicles can safely operate in automated mode. As I have said, that is important to reassure the public and others.
Rob Marris
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. My remarks will be more of a stand part nature; I hope that is in order, after your injunction at the start of the sitting. I anticipate that you may decide, using your discretion, not to have a stand part debate, because we have thoroughly gone around the block on these issues.
Rob Marris
I have a few points for the Minister. I have considerable sympathy with the suggestion from the hon. Member for Bedford that control is a better verb than monitor in these circumstances. We will all be aware, from our advice surgeries if nothing else, of the vagaries and multiplicities of human behaviour. I know hon. Members will laugh, but there is a risk that people may be sitting in—I am trying to be neutral—a vehicle that they think is automated but is not fully automated and it crashes and they will say, “I was just making a cup of tea and the car just ran into the car in front; I thought it was one of those self-driving thingies because it was on some separate list.” I think that is, in part, because the Minister is trying to be flexible in his definition because of what may or may not happen with the technology. Clause 1(1)(b) refers to
“at least some circumstances or situations”.
I think that is the nub of the problem. Those words are understandably repeated in amendment 17.
He also said, when reading from the scoping document,
“some or all of the journey”
when referring to what one might call part-time or partially automated vehicles.
Kit Malthouse
Presumably in those circumstances, anybody who is in an automated or autonomous vehicle will still have a duty to understand its capabilities before they get into it. If there is an incident in which they have misunderstood or have not availed themselves of the information to understand the vehicle that they are getting into, they would be negligent, in legal terms. There is no attempt in the Bill to remove the notion of somebody being negligent once they enter some kind of vehicle.
Rob Marris
Of course, the hon. Gentleman is right; we will deal with negligence later when debating clause 3. However, that is precisely why I referred to the vagaries of human behaviour. I will give him an example of language, how we use it and how it can be misunderstood. There is a well-known incident involving someone who was maintaining an aircraft. It said in the manual, when inspecting a piece of the aircraft, to remove that piece, to inspect it, and, if faulty, to replace it. That is what the individual did; they took it out, inspected it, found it was faulty and replaced it back into the aircraft. That is the language and those are the vagaries of human behaviour. In terms of the legal technicalities, the hon. Gentleman is quite right, but I am talking about human behaviour, which is sometimes different. Fortunately for me, though not the individuals involved, I made a living out of that, because I was a personal injury lawyer and people did strange things.
Mr Baker
I do not doubt that the hon. Gentleman is relating a tale from his direct experience that is therefore true. I just say, as a chartered aerospace engineer, that the terminology was always very clear—taking a component out and placing it back where it had been was refitting, not replacing. Replacing was taking a component out and putting another back.
The Chair
Order. I am reasonably content to allow something of a stand part debate, but you must refer to the clause itself or amendment 17. We are drifting rather wide of the topic under discussion.
Rob Marris
I thank you for that guidance, Mr Gray. I was trying to say—perhaps not very clearly—that in both the amendment and the Bill, the wording
“in at least some circumstances or situations”
is problematic. I agree with the hon. Member for Bedford that the word “monitored” is potentially problematic, too.
More generally, does the Minister envisage a completely separate list, or will the list that is created under the powers in clause 1 simply be a subset of the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency database, just as the DVLA database currently has a subset dealing with hybrid vehicles and vehicles that, for London congestion charging purposes, have carbon dioxide emissions of 75 grams or less per kilometre? It is an administrative question.
My second administrative question is this. Does the Minister envisage that a vehicle on the list that is created under clause 1 will have separate registration plates? Will there be a separate method of indexing so that when I drive down the road in my non-automated vehicle, I know whether I am behind an automated vehicle? I do not suggest one way or the other whether that would be advisable, but it is an issue that needs to be looked at.
If the words
“in at least some circumstances”
are not removed, will the list that is created have two sections—one for partially automated vehicles and one for fully automated vehicles? In human terms, driving terms and insurance terms, those are two different sorts of vehicle. Partially automated vehicles are, to use the Minister’s analogy, those that one can put on automatic pilot for part of the journey but not the whole journey. Those differ from the kind of vehicle that we started out talking about, which, for example, a person with almost total visual impairment could safely be transported in alone because it is fully automated.
Will there be two separate lists for fully automated and partially automated vehicles, and will there be separate registration plates?
Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I shall make a few brief remarks and, I hope, a helpful suggestion to the Minister.
I have listened carefully to the debate, particularly the discussion about cars with driver-assist technology. Essentially, we are looking at three types of vehicles. At one end there are regular vehicles that have park assist, adaptive cruise control and all those things. I am fairly clear from the discussion that those are not automated vehicles—the key phrase is “driver-assist”—so they are not covered by the clause. At the other extreme there are vehicles that will be fully automated, which probably will not have steering wheels, pedals and the like. Those vehicles are similar to the prototype vehicle that my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford referred to, in which the Secretary of State for Transport and I whizzed around Milton Keynes shopping centre, somewhat to the bemusement of shoppers going about their business.
The critical vehicles are those that fall in between—those that can be driven as a regular vehicle but where, under certain circumstances, the driver is able to press a button or pull a lever that moves the vehicle fully into auto-control, where they have no part whatsoever in its operation. I envisage a scenario in which we end up with road trains on motorways, with a chain of cars—perhaps 10 or a dozen—all following one another. We do not yet know how that technology will evolve. That to me is the critical definition. Following on from the comment from the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West, does the Minister envisage that the list he is creating will make that distinction between wholly and partly automated vehicles? That might go some way towards clarifying the matter.
As many hon. Members have said, it is important that we get the parameters established now. They need to be flexible enough as the technology develops, because none of us knows exactly where this will lead. I am comfortable that the clause does give the Secretary of State that power, but it might be helpful to sub-divide the list in the way I have suggested.
Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill (First sitting)
Rob Marris Excerpts(7 years, 8 months ago)
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Kit Malthouse
Q So you think the Government should predict and provide, rather than be agnostic about technology.
Denis Naberezhnykh: Yes. I do not think being agnostic, in the sense of saying, “We don’t care which technology it is. We just need to invest in putting all of it up” is particularly helpful to the industry and the users. We need to recognise that some technology can achieve things that other bits of technology cannot. Some have strengths and weaknesses, and we need to pick out those strengths and weaknesses and emphasise them for implementation in infrastructure appropriately.
Rob Marris (Wolverhampton South West) (Lab)
Q I cannot see anything in the Bill that would change who is licenced to drive a vehicle. In terms of future-proofing, one can envisage that people under the age of 17 or people with significant visual impairment could be, to use the current verb, “driving” automated vehicles. Should that future-proofing be provided for in the Bill, Mr Williams, and if so, what insurance issues would there be, say, for a seven-year-old alone in an automated vehicle?
David Williams: A major benefit of autonomous vehicles will be bringing mobility to people who currently do not have that benefit. We are very much looking forward to that. In Flourish—one of the Government-backed consortiums—we have Age UK as one of the critical partners to make sure that we understand the implications. I am not sure whether it needs to be in the Bill, because that establishes the insurance regime among other things. It will be complex for some vehicles. With the pods that UK Autodrive is going to put in Milton Keynes, there will be no way that you can intervene, so I see no reason why somebody in one of those vehicles would need to comply with any test or have any form of licence.
The majority of vehicles in the early stages of market development will probably be ones—for example, a level 4 vehicle—that you can switch from manual to automatic. You then get to the situation where people think, “An autonomous vehicle can bring me home when I’m drunk from a party, so I won’t need a taxi.” My thought is that you will not be able to do that if you have a vehicle that you can switch between the two modes, because you would still be in charge of a vehicle that could be driven manually.
At some point work needs to be done on licensing and testing, but for fully autonomous level 5 vehicles, the insurance aspects are covered in the Bill and we have no concerns there. We want to see the adoption of these vehicles because we think that they will make the roads generally safer and we therefore want them to be available appropriately, as widely as possible.
Rob Marris
Q The insurance provisions in the Bill would be sufficient to cover what I think you call a level 5 vehicle, which could be carrying a seven-year-old on their own.
David Williams: Absolutely.
Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)
Q I want to explore some issues of public confidence in the potential uptake of autonomous vehicles and get your views on whether the Bill goes far enough to set the scene. Given that the technology is available, what measures are required to make the public accept it and want to take it up? We have heard about the confusion and resistance, perhaps, because of the different approach to electric vehicles, but what do you think is required for the future in the Bill?
Steve Gooding: First, the Government are right to focus on the insurance angle, because that strikes me and the foundation as the first thing that needs sorting for all the reasons that the Committee is thinking about. Following that, what will affect the public’s willingness to accept the technology is their sense that it is genuinely safe. It is understandable that the Bill is silent on such things as construction and use standards, because they will need to be negotiated in an international forum. That is definitely something—the Minister knows we have flagged this up—to get on with thinking about. How you move away from a construction and use safety regulation system that is very much based on traditional mechanical engineering to one that is based far more closely on one that we apply to human drivers, because we are dealing with artificial intelligence, needs a bit of a boost.
David Williams: I think that we need to be vocal about the capability of the technology. We often quote statistics: for instance, automated emergency braking systems reduce accidents by 15% and injuries by 18%, so even if they do not avoid the accident completely, they slow the vehicle faster than a human would and reduce injuries. That is one small component of what will be the driverless cars of the future.
We need to show people the testing regime that these vehicles will undergo before they are let loose on the road, but it is natural to expect some nervousness and resistance. I do not know if any of you have seen the trailer for the new “Fast and Furious” movie, “The Fate of the Furious”, where robot cars get taken over. That will not help and, therefore, we need to be particularly vocal about the positive benefits. I fundamentally believe that we will see fewer deaths on the roads and much safer roads and, therefore, we need to do whatever we can to encourage adoption.
There is also a massively positive business case in the haulage industry for the adoption of connected and autonomous vehicles. I think we may see more rapid adoption in the commercial vehicle space. People will then get used to being around autonomous vehicles, even if they are commercial vehicles and that will make the adoption at a personal level easier.
Denis Naberezhnykh: I would add that some excellent work is happening in the UK now. A project called MOVE-UK compares and contrasts the different styles of vehicle automation and how an autonomous vehicle would perform in the same situation that a human driver performs in. That kind of comparison and learning will enable those automated vehicles and semi-autonomous functionalities to be as palatable to users as possible, so that there is the least amount of discomfort or worrying about the functionality when they try those vehicles out for the first time. It will be the first early adopters—early users—who will form an opinion and then spread the word about whether it works or whether they feel comfortable or not. Getting that right is important and some great work is already happening in the UK to try to do that.
David Wong: I have four brief points on increasing acceptance. One is on messaging. In addition to what Steve has just mentioned about showing the public that the technology is genuinely safe, we have to be very careful, particularly with regard to the Bill, with public messaging in relation to insurance, to assure the public that this will not result in a hike in insurance. The public will rightly expect that the lowering of risks and fewer accidents will mean that insurance premiums should come down.
The second point is about convincing the public through public demonstration projects. We are pleased that the Government are backing a number of these collaborative R and D and demonstration in live trial projects. We would like to see some of the learning coming out of these projects on how the public might interact with autonomous vehicles.
Thirdly, on public demonstration projects, going forward, perhaps the consumer can pay, not unlike the very successful Go Ultra Low campaign for ultra low emission vehicles. It may be useful for connected autonomous vehicles at the right point in time, and particularly at the point when vehicle manufacturers are ready to deploy these vehicles on UK roads.
Lastly, we think as an industry that the gradual escalation of the levels of automation can perhaps help Joe Public to be more comfortable with the technology, as opposed to asking Joe Public to jump straight into a vehicle with no steering wheel from day one.
Mr Hayes
Q The essence of your point is that the Bill and the debate that it stimulates will encourage innovation and catalyse the demand management tools that you describe.
Robert Evans: The Bill gives the Office for Low Emission Vehicles and other parts of the Government the ability to keep pushing forward discussion and dialogue between the motor industry and the energy sector to ensure that smart charging is part of our future, because it explicitly expresses a desire to regulate should smart charging not proceed. There is a desire to explore this, but the Bill gives the Government powers to help set an agenda that brings the groups together and moves forward the smart charging agenda.
Quentin Willson: Work is being done in America, notably by Tesla, where consumers charge their cars at smart times and then, when the grid is out of balance, that electricity is sold back to the power companies. These millions of electric cars become energy storage devices. This is another very important cycle of change that we need to look at. Any imbalance would be negated. Also, a lot of electricity is produced by renewables—wind and solar. In the UK, 41% of the electricity dragged from the grid on Christmas day was from renewables.
Rob Marris
Q If, over the next five years, 10% of new vehicles were electric and each of them, on average, did 10,000 km a year, 10,000,000 km per year would be driven in electric vehicles. This is a question for Mr Stewart. What is that as a percentage of UK electricity generation at the moment? You may not be able to reply today, but perhaps you will tell us. I am a bit worried that you will encourage all these electric vehicles and then the grid falls over, so I need to get some idea of proportionality.
Marcus Stewart: I will give you an example. If you have 1 million electric vehicles—you don’t need to worry too much about how many miles they are doing; when they are charging is what is really important, because that is what impacts on the supply and demand balance—and you charge them on a 7 kW charger, in theory that could give you 7 GW of demand, and 7 GW is two and a bit very large nuclear power stations.
Rob Marris
Q What percentage is that of total UK demand?
Marcus Stewart: Total UK demand today is about 50 or 55 GW.
Rob Marris
Q That is 12% or 13% of total electricity generation.
Marcus Stewart: If everyone charged at exactly the same time. Studies have shown that behaviours are such that around about 20% charge at the same time. You immediately, without incentivising people, just with normal behaviour, reduce that down to 1.5 GW. If you then apply smart charging incentives, you can reduce that by a further 84%, and that—
Rob Marris
Q Hang on—but we still have to generate the electricity. For shorthand, this is just a kind of Economy 7 approach to the issue.
Marcus Stewart: Let’s just look at peak for the moment, and then I will talk about annuals. So you move from 7 GW down to 1.5 GW and to around 400. You can see that, very rapidly, the total system has to deliver a lot less when it is under stress, if you move to a smart world. The system is designed to meet those peaks, so you end up with generation outside those peaks being available. That generation is there to meet the demand you have moved from 6 o’clock in the evening to 8 o’clock in the evening, 10 o’clock or whenever. The electricity system from a pipes point of view and a capacity point of view is designed to meet those very high peaks.
By applying smart charging, you can accommodate a lot of electrical vehicles without necessarily having to increase that overall total capacity at a total system level. If you have clusters of demand at a local level, you would expect there to be local reinforcement to accommodate that—fast charging, for example, can provide heavy loads at certain points on a system, but you would connect that to a slightly higher voltage tier to ensure sufficient capacity. The system has the capability to deal with it if the type of charging is smart. The provisions put forward in the Bill make total sense to us.
Rob Marris
Q Do you think that the market will handle it, in terms of a tariff regime that incentivises midnight charging, or do you think that there needs to be regulatory intervention by the legislator—to spread that load, literally?
Marcus Stewart: We have seen in the past that people respond to the incentives of charging tariffs—these natural behaviours where people would plug in—but in the first instance the capability needs to be there. The market then has the opportunity to provide the incentives to do that. I do not think it needs to be fully legislated that you must plug in—
Rob Marris
Q No, it is not that. I am saying that one way of doing it is regulation over the power supply and to say that you have got to make these incentives available for midnight charging. Should that be regulatory, to bring it about, or do you think the market will do that?
Marcus Stewart: I think the market will do that. Suppliers would look at the cost to them of securing more energy and they would look at the opportunities to trade that off against their portfolios. The market should provide that.
Richard Burden
Q Mr Evans in an earlier answer described the purpose of the Bill being to take reserve powers to allow stepping in to stimulate the right kind of infrastructure where the market does not provide it already. May I press you a little more on what that is, and on whether the Bill is hitting the right target? The stress within the Bill is on the provision of charging infrastructure by what it describes as “large fuel retailers.”
A lot of the discussion we have had so far has been about the importance of having rapid availability of charging points, and sometimes smart charging points, in a much more dispersed area than what might be described as large fuel retailers—typically, the motorway service areas. Is the emphasis on that right? If it is not the right emphasis, do those powers need to be applied more broadly? If those reserved powers are applied more broadly, what safeguards need to be in the Bill to ensure that unreasonable regulatory requirements are not put on a whole dispersed range of potential electricity suppliers?
Robert Evans: That is a good point. The powers that we are looking at are primarily around the provision of information to the user, the ability to have smart charging should you need it, and the interoperability. Those sorts of questions are dealt with in the Bill and are key topic areas for the industry. On the question of where infrastructure is located, supermarkets are an interesting one. We have a situation in which not everybody has off-street parking. When one comes to a place such as London, it is not practical to put charging all down London streets. Supermarkets become an extremely practical, pragmatic place for charging to be accessible, along with retail shopping centres, in a crowded city such as London. The consideration of that, along with motorway service areas, which is about allowing people to travel distances across the UK, are two strategic priorities. That is not to say that there are not other areas. The Government have provided incentives for the deployment of infrastructure in other locations and have obviously taken a view that maybe the market can deliver in those locations.
Quentin Willson: However, technology does exist that would allow you to charge at a street lamp post, although admittedly that could be for slow charging at night. For people who do not have parking within their house and have to rely on the street, this facility could be available on every single lamp post in the UK.
Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill (Second sitting)
Rob Marris Excerpts(7 years, 8 months ago)
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Andrew Selous
Q Thank you. I have a final question for Mr Nash. Hearing about the training needs of the industry, what preparation is going on in schools and further education colleges to set up courses so that we have enough skilled technicians to service these vehicles in future?
Steve Nash: There are plenty of places around the country that can train people in the technology. Obviously, over time, the new apprenticeship standards will evolve, but it has to be remembered that an apprenticeship is a start, not a finish—we are talking about lifelong learning here. Apprentices will not come out of their apprenticeships ready and available to work on the high-voltage electrics. That will take time, and that is additional training that will come as they develop their career. We as an organisation, a professional body, work with a network of 600 FE colleges, training companies and manufacturers’ academies around the country, many of which are capable of delivering this kind of training. As I said earlier on, it is a sort of chicken and egg situation—a question of supply and demand. They are ready to offer it once people have moved in that direction, but it will not happen on its own.
Rob Marris (Wolverhampton South West) (Lab)
Q I want Ms Sayers to clarify a bit. The supermarket I go to every week is, I suspect, like quite a lot of them. It has a large car park—it is one of the major multiples—and alongside but distinct from that car park is a petrol station, which is branded by the supermarket but is a Shell station. As my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden) said, the Bill gives “large fuel retailers” certain responsibilities. Would your members prefer the wording, “large retailers”, to make that clearer? In the supermarket car park, people may typically leave their car for 30 minutes. I am thinking of those old westerns where people hitch up their horse outside the saloon—people hook up their car, grab a trolley, go in to do their 30-minute shop and, when they come out and unplug it, they have had a fast charge. The charging points would therefore be better placed in each parking bay for the supermarket proper, which is not a large fuel retailer at the moment. Is that more consonant with the way in which your members are thinking?
Teresa Sayers: Very much so. Our apprehension about the wording is all about the location of the EV charging point on a forecourt, for the reasons we have discussed.
Rob Marris
Q The word “fuel” in “large fuel retailers” is causing you to scratch your head a bit?
Teresa Sayers: Yes, absolutely.
Rob Marris
Q “Large retailers” would be more palatable for your members. Am I right?
Teresa Sayers: Yes.
Rob Marris
Q I have three quick points for Mr Howarth. First, the Bill talks about the vehicle being insured as opposed to what currently happens, from my understanding, which is that driver is insured. So I have policy motor insurance that enables me to drive certain vehicles, including my principal one. Is the insurance industry happy with what appears to be a change in focus—that is it now on the vehicle rather than the driver?
Ben Howarth: I think it is not a huge change in focus. In practice, the enforcement that industry currently does—via the motor insurance bureau—to check that you have insurance is done via the vehicle. It is done by checking licence plates. The responsibility is on the human driver, but the practical enforcement is to check whether that car, on the road, at that time, is covered by insurance. This Bill is primarily designed for vehicles that will be manually driven some of the time and automated some of the time. It is just the practicality that, once you are switching to an automated car, you need to be thinking about the car rather than the driver.
Rob Marris
Q On that basis, is the industry also happy that the insurer is liable rather than the owner-driver, which is currently the case?
Ben Howarth: Again, it is a practicality that we are essentially stepping to the front. We are coming into the sun.
Rob Marris
Q Yes, you used to be behind the scenes. For these vehicles, you would be up front. That is all right with the industry?
Ben Howarth: The whole purpose of the legislation is, I suppose, to be an enabler and say to people, “You can be confident using this technology, because you will not have to worry about getting into complex battles with your manufacturer.” We do not know for certain that that is what will happen. Some manufacturers have given positive statements about it, but if that does happen, the insurers will step into the front of the system and say, “We are actually going to take these on. We are the first port of call, even in the case where the person to whom we have sold the insurance policy to is not directly liable.”
Rob Marris
Q The third point is on the software updates. From memory, when I bought my car, which has a touch screen on it for the radio and things, it would have cost me an extra £600 to have sat-nav put in. That is just the software because it already has the screen and the buttons and everything. I am thinking about software updates, which we have talked about, and a failure to install software updates could invalidate the insurance policy under clause 4. I understand that, but I am a bit concerned that the Bill appears to have no provisions to cap the charges for software updates. For the sake of argument, I have just spent £15,000 on a two-year-old automated vehicle and then some software update comes in that is £1,000 and a month later they want another £1,000 out of me. If I do not do it, the thing is useless, because it is uninsurable and therefore undriveable. Do you think there should be provision for a cap on software update costs, so that vehicles do not become uninsurable and therefore driven without insurance?
Ben Howarth: I have not really got a view on a cap, per se, but I have got a view that if it is a fundamental safety upgrade and it will change the functionality of the vehicle significantly, there needs to be an arrangement in place to make sure that is not optional. It is probably for other stakeholders to say how we make that affordable to the public. From an insurance perspective, we do not want cars to be unsafe simply because people cannot afford safety upgrades. That is true today, thinking about automated braking: it would be great if that was a standard feature of all new cars because it is proven to be safe. It is optional and it is often not taken up because it is too costly.
Rob Marris
Q This stuff would not be optional, would it? The software update, effectively, would not be optional.
Ben Howarth: No, where it is fundamental to the car’s safety, it needs to be non-optional. We are hoping for a system where it is impossible not to get the safety-critical upgrades. I cannot really comment on how much to charge for them.
Andrew Selous
Q I just want to return to two groups that miss out on the freedom and opportunities of being able to drive. We talked about older people and disabled people but also young drivers, for whom insurance is often prohibitively expensive, running into many thousands of pounds. What analysis have you done of the advantages of connected and autonomous vehicles over and above taxis, private hire vehicles, getting an Uber? What extra benefits do you see those two groups being able to derive once this technology is established and there is widespread take-up? Have you done any analysis or thinking on the social benefits for those two particular groups?
Iain Forbes: We have not done a research project on this, but I am aware that new products enabled by connected systems are opening up the ability to drive to a wider range of people. For example, younger people now have access to a wider range of insurance products enabled by telematics than was the case previously. Certainly, there is innovation within the industry that I am aware of, which is opening up options for accessing insurance to younger people as well as to some other groups as well.
Kit Malthouse
Q Would it be fair to say that level 5 cars might be the saviour of the rural pub? Can I drink and drive a level 5 car?
Ben Howarth: I am a big fan of the rural pub, but I do not know the answer for certain. That is probably also an infrastructure question: I can see the cars working in certain inner-city areas, but personally, I am not 100% sure whether level 5 is ready for some rural roads yet. I think evangelists for level 5 technology will say that it is.
Rob Marris
Q One for Mr Howarth. What will the industry do about Northern Ireland and automated vehicles? That is not covered in the Bill.
Ben Howarth: Is there any particular aspect of Northern Ireland that you think is not working?
Rob Marris
I do not know. I wondered whether you guys discussed it because the automated vehicle elements of the Bill do not apply to Northern Ireland, yet one would expect people in Northern Ireland, as elsewhere in the United Kingdom, to wish to have automated vehicles available to use.
Ben Howarth: I am not aware of any problem with Northern Ireland.
Rob Marris
From an insurance point of view?
Ben Howarth: I am not aware that we have any particular concerns about Northern Ireland, but I am not sure why it is not in the Bill.
Rob Marris
Okay, but from an insurance point of view, you have no concerns about Northern Ireland?
Ben Howarth: Not that I am aware of.
Tom Tugendhat
Q I assume that you looked at other countries as you prepared for the Bill. Will you say a little bit about how other countries are addressing the insurance and regulatory challenges?
Iain Forbes: The legal frameworks in different countries are often specific to those countries, so it is not possible to do an exact read-across, but we are looking at what people are doing to see whether there are broad lessons that we can learn. For example, in California, if you want to test automated vehicles, you have to put up a surety bond to ensure that there is a provision to cope with any accidents. Looking at that and other systems, we felt that the system in the Bill was appropriate for the UK and how our insurance system operates. It builds on a system that people would recognise, so it would look similar to what people do now, and it targets an important policy, which is to ensure that innocent victims caught up in an incident involving a vehicle in automated mode can get quick access to claims.
Tom Tugendhat
Q It does not matter which hand drive a car is, does it?
Iain Forbes: Which is part of the reason why it is important for some of the discussions about the regulatory framework to take place at international level, under the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe or other bodies that regulate how vehicles operate to ensure that, where possible, we have interoperable systems.
Ben Howarth: If you are thinking about cross-border insurance, as long as the broad principles are united—there are already big differences between the UK and other parts of Europe and how they insure vehicles; we have a driver-centric version whereas a lot of other European countries have a vehicle-centric system and a form of strict liability with various definitions—one would hope that we could evolve a system that gives at least minimum cover on a unified basis. We should not therefore have too much of a problem.
Rob Marris
Q Mr Tugendhat made an interesting point. It had not occurred to me, but if I am in my automated vehicle, which I have taken through Eurotunnel, and I am driving down a road in France and a non-automated vehicle is coming at me in the middle of the road, I do not want my British automated vehicle diving off to the left—which is what you would do to take evasive action in this country—
Rob Marris
This is a serious point in the context of Mr Forbes’s discussing interoperability. I presume there has been a discussion about the coding—I would like reassurance about this—so that the evasive action that automated vehicles might take when faced by unsafe manoeuvres by non-automated vehicles is appropriate to the side of the road on which one drives. Otherwise, we will have a big problem, as Mr Baker will know, with software coding and so on.
Iain Forbes: These are the sorts of challenges that you have to work through when you sit down to think about how the system will operate in practice. We are still at the stage of the technology where the developers are making sure that they can get their systems to work in particular locations—particular cities or areas. If the developers want to sell products and services that can be used in more than one country, that is something we will have to bear in mind when taking forward our development programmes. Indeed, if they are going to operate in accordance with the right regulatory framework, they will have to have discussions with regulators about how that will operate in practice.
Rob Marris
Q Do we need legislation now, in the United Kingdom, to assist that process?
Iain Forbes: From my perspective, it feels a bit early to take forward regulation in that space, but we should definitely be involved in the discussions at international level and with developers, to make sure that those issues are dealt with in due course.
The Chair
If there are no further questions, may I thank the witnesses for their evidence, time and co-operation? We will move on to our next panel.
Examination of Witnesses
Richard Moriarty and John de Vial gave evidence.
Bus Services Bill [Lords]
Rob Marris ExcerptsWednesday 1st March 2017
(7 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Bus Services Act 2017 View all Bus Services Act 2017 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 67-I Marshalled list for Third Reading (PDF, 65KB) - (22 Nov 2016)
Andy McDonald
My hon. Friend makes a hugely important point. It is absolutely right that local authorities should have that freedom. To restrict them in this way, as the Government purport to do, is basically to say, “You can have devolution in England, but you will have it only on the terms that we decide are available to you.” In other words, authorities can do what they want as long as the Government agree with what they are doing—[Interruption.] Yes, any colour as long as it is black.
Rob Marris (Wolverhampton South West) (Lab)
As one of the few MPs who made their living for several years as a bus driver, I do welcome this Bill. My hon. Friend is extolling the virtues of localism, but may I caution him that localism is all well and good as long as there is the money to go with it? At the moment, we see a huge imbalance in England between the money spent on London for public transport and the money spent elsewhere. He pointed out that the reason why public transport works better in London is partly due to the fact that there is non-deregulation, but it is also due to the fact that funding is far better. Will Labour commit itself to adequate funding for this localism of bus services?
Andy McDonald
I think that I am being invited to write a manifesto at the Dispatch Box. I am quite happy to do so, Mr Deputy Speaker, if you could just give me a few minutes. My hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight the gross imbalance in spending in this country. In the north-east of England, we spend £229 per head of the population on transport, compared with £1,900 per head in London, so there is an imbalance. Undoubtedly, that must be corrected if we are to rebalance our economy in the UK.
It is interesting that this denial of opportunities to start up a new municipal company flies in the face of some of the more successful companies in the country. Why on earth would people not want to have a look at that as an option? There is no suggestion for a single second that there will be a mad rush of local authorities wanting to do this. They will want to weigh up and do what is best for their localities. Why on earth a Conservative Government would want to deprive them of making that choice is beyond me—or perhaps it is not.
Mrs Villiers
No, I will not give way.
In my previous role as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, I was contacted by Wrightbus of Ballymena. The company was concerned about the chilling effect that even the proposals leading to the Bill were having on orders for new buses from operators in England. Wrightbus is a hugely successful company that exports buses to many places around the world, as far afield as China. It delivers the highest quality engineering and provides training and opportunities for hundreds of young people. It is a great asset to Northern Ireland and to the UK as a whole. Its concerns demonstrate that the re-regulation of bus services outside London is not a step to be undertaken lightly. It is not a cost-free option. If we get this wrong, it will be the passenger who suffers. I therefore appeal to the Minister to table amendments that would remove clause 4. At the very least, it is important to amend the Bill to reverse the changes made in the other place, which extend franchising powers beyond mayoral combined authorities and which would allow all local authorities to set up their own bus companies.
Mrs Villiers
No, I am just concluding my speech.
Reverting to the Bill’s original drafting would not deal with all the issues that I have highlighted today, but it would certainly mitigate the problems caused and the uncertainty that is likely to damage the interests of passengers by undermining the viability of bus operations and investment in those services. I therefore very much welcome the intention expressed by the Secretary of State to amend clause 4 as it stands, and I give the Government my support in their endeavour. As the Bill progresses, I hope that they will consider going a step further and remove clause 4 altogether.
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
I rise to say a few words on clause 17, which is the only UK-wide provision in the Bill. I am going to start by doing something that I have not done before, which is to commend the Government and the other place for agreeing to amendments that brought in clause 17 and the provisions on accessibility. This is a victory for common sense as well as for equality. It makes no sense that train operators have had to provide audio-visual information for years, yet bus companies are under no such obligation. By default it is clear that more people use buses and that people with visionary or sensory impairment are likely to require access to buses far more frequently than to trains.
As part of the Talking Buses campaign, I wrote to the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones), and also used my first question to the Prime Minister to raise awareness of the campaign, so I am well aware that at that point the Government were not for moving on this matter. The Transport Minister’s response stated:
“Such systems are expensive to install, potentially creating a disproportionate financial burden to bus companies”.
He also stated:
“We propose that franchising schemes could require the installation of equipment to provide accessible information on buses where the local authority feel this is appropriate”.
We cannot have the Government putting out the message that these provisions would be too expensive for them, only to ask local authorities to deal with them instead.
Rob Marris
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that some of the concerns about the cost of these proposed measures are entirely misplaced? When I drove a bus, it was a requirement of my job that I announced every stop as it was upcoming. Most bus drivers have a voice and can announce these things as part of an audio-visual information package for people with disabilities without spending any more money at all.
Alan Brown
I thank the hon. Gentleman for passing on his experience. That makes sense. In fact, the Department for Transport’s own figures suggest that the provision of audio-visual information would cost less than £6 million a year, which in terms of its overall expenditure is absolutely nothing.
The Government have previously suggested that phone apps might be the way forward. While apps have benefits, they cannot be the only solution. I was contacted by a company that gave me a phone to trial, so I handed it over to a constituent with a visual impairment. They told me that the app was fine as far as it went, but it could not be relied upon 100%.The app’s functionality also depends on the type of phone being used, so the Government cannot use that sort of technology as a way around the problem. We need audio-visual technology on buses.
Mary Robinson
It is important to look for ways to improve all services, even those in the most difficult of areas, and buses play a significant part in that.
As a Greater Manchester MP, I look at the Bill in the context of the ongoing devolution of powers to the area and the commitment to economic growth fuelled by the northern powerhouse. I do not underestimate the importance of an effective public transport network that supports jobs and underpins our local communities. Bus services are a critical part of our transport network, accounting for almost 80% of public transport journeys across Greater Manchester. More frequent and better-quality services are essential for Greater Manchester’s growth and would help local residents to contribute to and benefit from future economic prosperity.
Franchising presents an opportunity to introduce simple and integrated smart ticketing across Greater Manchester. It could also alleviate some of the problems in the current system of multiple providers. Some 22 different bus operators provide services across Greater Manchester. Each has its own fares and branding, which gives rise to inconsistency. Compare that with the single, unified brand that operates successfully across London. A change to the current system will allow seamless travel through joint-ticketing and a more stable service. It could also end injustices such as passengers having to pay a 10% premium for a ticket that can be used across different operators.
Furthermore, the Bill is an opportunity to improve disability access and, importantly, disability training, so that drivers know the importance of where to pull into at bus stops and how to provide the best service for people with disabilities. The Bill will encourage a joined-up approach between local authorities, and it is important that disability access issues are properly considered, whether through audio-visual announcements or just by giving people with disabilities the time and space to access services.
Rob Marris
Franchising—I would say that there are four ways to provide a service without franchising in the area—can also cover emission standards, which is particularly important in metropolitan areas.
Mary Robinson
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that important point, which I will discuss later.
People want passenger-friendly bus services, which is about not only how information is delivered, but having good-quality information available in the first place. I echo the comments of the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh), who is no longer in the Chamber, about the importance of open data. Open data can allow passengers more easily to compare offers from various providers, thereby increasing their confidence in the service they can expect and when they can expect it. At present, bus operators have no obligation to provide information about fares, except at the point of boarding, or how routes are performing. Live information via information screens at waiting stops and smartphone apps is key to empowering passengers, encouraging the use of services, and allowing operators to understand local needs better so that services can be improved.
Addressing air quality is a key aspect of the Bill. Poor air quality contributes to an estimated 1,000 early mortalities a year across Greater Manchester. The increased use of public transport will clearly help to address the problem, so I welcome its being part of the Greater Manchester 2040 strategy. Air quality is particularly important in Cheadle, where the local pinch point at the Gatley-Kingsway junction causes a great deal of congestion and misery for local road users and commuters. More people using buses, and combined authorities having the ability to set minimum standards for bus fleets across the region, have the potential to reduce dangerous emissions.
Mrs Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op)
The Transport Committee was pleased to have the opportunity to scrutinise the Bill after its consideration in the other place. Indeed, that was the fifth occasion in this Parliament and the previous one that the Committee had considered the state of our bus services, which indicates the level of dissatisfaction with the problems of the current system and the need for change.
Nobody should doubt the importance of buses to our local communities. About five times as many public transport journeys are made by bus than by train, yet little attention is given to buses. Overall, across Great Britain, buses account for 62% of passenger journeys, but the figure reaches over 80% in Manchester, Merseyside and the west midlands. We are therefore talking about a lot of people. I have always found it totally incomprehensible that there is so little national interest in bus services when so many people across the country are affected by them.
Good local bus networks open up new education opportunities for young people, provide routes to work—64% of jobseekers cannot drive or have no access to a vehicle—and ensure that people have proper access to healthcare and social facilities. The converse is also true. If bus services are inadequate or, indeed, do not exist at all, many people lose out on opportunities to develop their abilities or even to get a job, and the economy loses out, too. Interesting new analysis that was recently published by the University of Leeds suggests that a 10% improvement in local bus service connectivity is associated with a 3.6% reduction in social deprivation. Simply put, we cannot afford to neglect our bus networks.
Rob Marris
Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the difficulties with buses can be the huge cost? My home is less than a mile and a half from the centre of the city, yet a one-way ticket is £2.40. That is absolutely ridiculous, and the situation is replicated across the country.
Mrs Ellman
I agree with my hon. Friend that the cost of bus services often deters people from using them, which indicates that the promise of deregulation has not materialised. We were told that competition would bring down costs and fares, but that simply has not happened.
In England, outside London, we have seen a long-term decline in bus passenger numbers since the deregulation of the bus services market in 1986. Since then, operators have been able to run bus services on the routes of their choosing, with the frequency and fares that they feel appropriate. The result is that we now have a two-tier system outside London. Commercial operators, especially the big five companies that dominate the market, run profitable routes and, as the previous Transport Committee found, a lack of competition means that they are failing to provide an adequate service in many areas. Routes in those other areas have often been funded by local authorities, which have often stepped into the breach if socially important services are not commercially viable.
Local authority budgets have been cut in recent years, which has taken its toll on the provision of local bus services. Indeed, since 2010, funding for supported bus services in England and Wales has been reduced by 25%. Our inquiry heard that, in practice, whole villages and towns have been cut off from their neighbours, but this is not always about villages and towns because estates or whole areas of a city or town can be cut off. That prevents people living in those areas from having reasonable access to jobs and training, or being able to get on with their life.
One problem with the current system, as hon. Members have said, is a lack of integration and proper information. Passengers are offered a confusing variety of tickets covering different operators. Different fares are set and various technologies are used, and timetables are not always properly accessible to people who want to use buses. Accessibility is an important aspect of making bus services attractive. People will use buses if the services are there, if they feel that those services are reliable and if they have proper information about what is available, but too often that simply does not happen. The fact that timetables are not integrated with those for other modes of transport is another problem.
Integrating different modes of public transport is important for reducing congestion and addressing the important issue of air quality. We need more integration of our public transport services—that is what most people want—but the current system does not facilitate that. There are alternative models to the two-tier system of deregulation, and London is the most prominent one. Patronage across the capital has doubled since 1986 and, on average, fares there have been lower than in other city regions. The system that is operated in London might not be suitable for all parts of the country, and certainly not all local authorities would want to take it up, but the situation there shows that when appropriate powers are given to local authorities to work with the private sector, which provides the actual buses, the system can work.
Some attempts to reform the system that began operating in 1986 have brought about improvements, albeit limited ones. Our inquiry was given examples of innovative partnerships operating around the country. For example, the west midlands bus alliance has benefited passengers through integrated timetabling and joint ticketing, and FirstGroup told us about a successful partnership in Bristol. I am sure that there are many other examples of partnerships on offer under the current system that have made things better and been able to address some of the problems.
However, those achievements have been few and have come too slowly, and some parts of the current framework are clearly not fit for purpose. Members have mentioned quality contract schemes. They were introduced to give local authorities the opportunity to implement a system similar to franchising if they wanted to do so, but no such scheme has ever been implemented. As has been indicated, it might be that no authority wanted to do so, but I do not think that that is the case. The system that was set up—not by this Government but by a previous one—was so complicated, complex and convoluted that in practice it was difficult to implement, so authorities simply did not attempt it.
I am glad that the Bill has had such widespread general support. It is the latest in a series of attempts to address the problems created by bus deregulation—I believe it is the third such Bill to be presented to Parliament since that time. The Transport Committee looked at the Bill in general and examined its details, including the changes made by the other place. We support the Bill and most of what is in it. We support the general principle of local authorities deciding the structure of bus services that is most appropriate for their communities. That structure might be a deregulated market left as it is, or it might be about partnerships, franchising or setting up a municipal operation. Our report on the Bill states clearly that we would encourage local authorities to look at each of the possibilities sequentially to see which is the most appropriate to address problems in their area. The question we should be asking now is: how will the Bill improve the situation? How will this Bill put in place something different from what has gone before? How will it make things better? Let me say at the outset that this Bill is a much more comprehensive approach to improving bus services than either of the previous Bills because it looks at the system as a whole and the improvements it suggests are much more substantial and comprehensive than before.
The Committee heard powerful testimony about the difficulties faced by people with visual impairments when using the bus, and we commend the Government’s commitment to introduce regulations on improving audio-visual provisions. In particular, we heard evidence from Jacqueline Juden, a guide dog user, who described graphically the problems experienced by visually impaired people when using buses. The latest information shows that only 19% of buses provide reliable next-stop audio-visual information, with most of those being in London. I was appalled to read evidence from Guide Dogs saying that its survey found that 32% of visually impaired people using buses had missed a stop because they were too worried to inquire about where they were. It provided the equally horrendous and surprising statistic that 28% of drivers had refused to tell these people that information. Hon. Members have talked about problems when people do not have enough access to information and data. We wholeheartedly welcome the Bill’s provisions to make those much more available, as that is very important.
Let me turn to the structural changes proposed in the Bill, as amended in the other place and as the Secretary of State intends to take it through this House. Will those changes make a substantial difference? The provisions as amended—even before that—will make a welcome, positive change. The Bill offers stronger powers for local authorities to work with private operators and for new forms of partnership—advanced quality contracts, enhanced partnerships and franchising. We were very concerned about the Department’s failure to publish regulations and guidance when we considered the Bill, as that impeded scrutiny. It was very wrong that that was the situation, but since that time changes have been made, and guidance and some regulations have been published. However, it appears from that guidance that even authorities with a directly elected mayor, which are eligible for franchising—the Secretary of State confirmed that again this afternoon, as the Government do not propose to change that proposition—would have to make what the regulations call a “compelling case” for franchising to the Minister.
May I ask for clarification about the position? The Committee did not have that information when we considered the Bill, and we were concerned that we did not know what the regulations and guidance would be. I must ask the Minister what that provision means. Does it in any way cut across the commitment, which was repeated today, that areas with directly elected mayors would be able to opt for a franchising system if they want to do that?
We are still unclear about whether transport authorities without a directly elected mayor will be able to have franchising if they feel that that is suitable for their area. I sense some ambivalence in the Secretary of State’s comments. It is clear that he does not want franchising powers to be held in areas outside those with directly elected mayors, although I understand that a separate agreement has been made in relation to Cornwall. However, the guidance is still in place, so what exactly does it mean? What kind of application could be made by local transport authorities outside areas with directly elected mayors? Would the process be complicated, meaning in effect that these areas would not get authorisation? What is going on, and will this be very confusing?
Our inquiry also heard about the deep frustration that communities feel when bus services are cancelled without proper notice being given. We therefore very much welcome the provision in the Bill that will allow the designation of bus routes as community assets. That would mean that the cancellation of a route could be delayed while alternatives were considered, which we think is a very good idea. We also looked at the question of whether municipal operators should be set up, and we felt that, in general, local transport authorities should be able to have the system they think appropriate for their areas. We certainly recognised that there could be conflicts of interest, but we felt there were ways in which those could be addressed. We did not think it was right—we felt it was disproportionate—to say that no new municipal operators could be set up.
Graham Stringer
The hon. Gentleman is quite right about Merseyside. In Manchester, Mayne Coaches ran a service in the private sector, but it was regulated; it could not just—as happens under the deregulated system—decide to run a bus service one day and take it off six weeks later, or vice versa. So the issue is not privatisation but the lack of regulation.
The point I was getting to is that there is supplementary evidence that competition did not work. The rate of return in London was much lower, and FirstGroup moved out of the London market because it could make a much higher return in South Yorkshire and Greater Manchester.
Rob Marris
My hon. Friend may be aware that, of the major metropolitan urban areas outside London, the west midlands had the least competition, with over 85% of services run by Travel West Midlands and then by National Express. The ridership dropped less in the urban west midlands than in any other metropolitan areas, but, literally, at a price, with some of the highest fares and some of the highest returns on capital. So the competition was not there, and we had the high prices, but at least we had the continued ridership.
Graham Stringer
Indeed. It was often the change that led to the loss of ridership. When companies such as FirstGroup and Stagecoach operated their services, they were certainly, whether by tacit agreement or not—I doubt whether there was a written agreement—operating semi-monopolies, which enabled them to charge much higher fares. It is not only that the ridership has gone down, but fares have gone up by about 43%.
The question I was coming to in terms of supplementary evidence is this: in terms of the way the legislation has worked so far, does anybody think that we, as the taxpayer, have had our return from Brian Souter and his sister, who have become billionaires out of this—I do not mind people being creative, being entrepreneurs and making money—pocketing money by gaming the system, running semi-monopolies and putting buses out, when every single bus that goes out of the depot has, on average, a 50% public subsidy? Certainly, Brian Souter and his sister have made money out of gaming the way the subsidy works. The system has not worked; it has not been competitive. Moving to a system where there is competition, not on the road, but by tender by private bus companies, will be better for the travelling public. I agree with competition by and large, because monopolies tend towards inefficiency, but the competition is better off the road, not on it.
I have one question about reliability, which my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman) asked about. We are often told that congestion makes the buses unreliable, and it does. However, when the Transport Committee took evidence, we found that, in the majority of cases where buses did not turn up, that was not because of congestion, but because of mechanical failures in the buses, which had not been properly maintained, or because drivers had not turned up. That is an important point to bear in mind.
Finally, I would like to ask the Minister, who is in his place, the same question my hon. Friend asked: is saying that mayoral combined authorities have to have a compelling case before they re-regulate the buses trying to bring back the very high hurdle—the very high benchmark—that was in the Transport Act 2000, which effectively prevented those authorities that wanted to re-regulate the buses from doing so? Is it there to undermine what is essentially a good Bill? I hope the Minister will answer that in summing up.
Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)
The Bill presents a unique opportunity to improve bus services, tackle congestion, support local economies and boost regional growth in my constituency and in Greater Manchester more widely.
The benefits of franchising mean that Greater Manchester will have the ability to decide the routes, frequencies, timetables and quality standards for buses, as well as a Mayor to hold to account should the service falter—all things that London has and takes for granted. That will particularly benefit people living in areas—especially rural areas—where current bus services are unreliable. Providing these franchising powers only to local authorities with directly elected mayors will ensure that there is a decision maker to hold to account, although other authorities without mayors will not necessarily be excluded and will be considered on a case-by-case basis.
The Conservative devolution agenda has the potential to be hugely beneficial to those areas included, especially because of the ability to apply joined-up thinking to planning and other areas of governance. Unfortunately, I am not convinced at the moment that the leadership in Greater Manchester is taking the opportunities presented. The Greater Manchester spatial framework has recently been published, and it seems to have been done in complete ignorance of the needs of public transport and of people right across Greater Manchester. It seems designed to optimise urban sprawl and the consumption of our green spaces so that councils can gain the maximum council tax receipts, but it shows little to no evidence of how best to use public transport infrastructure. Bus companies cannot economically operate frequent services from early morning till late at night if their passengers are spread thinly over large areas. We just have to look at where public transport works best, which is in areas of high population density, to know that. The authors of the GMSF need to take the opportunity of the Bus Services Bill to reflect on the needs of public transport and to take serious account of the contributions to the GMSF consultation. Essentially, the current proposals need to be shredded and the whole process started again.
Good public transport infrastructure has many benefits in relation not just to housing and planning but to improving jobs and employment, including supporting young people to get into work. When I recently chaired the all-party group on youth employment, many young people compared the opportunities and transport links in London and the north of England. Poor public transport in the north is a barrier to their getting into work. With an ageing population, many of whom reach a time in their lives when they are no longer able to drive, it is more important than ever to ensure that vital services are connected to good public transport and, because of their comprehensive nature, especially to buses.
I met the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association in my constituency, and I note that the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) took the blind walk, where you are blindfolded and follow the guide dog. That is a disorientating experience for anyone, although, after a few minutes, you get some idea of what you are doing and you get that trust and confidence in the guide dog. I am really pleased that we have now made progress on audio-visual provision, and hearing about it certainly had an impact on me, as it does on anyone else who has spoken with the association. The association briefed me on the importance of visual aids for not just blind people but those with partial sight loss. This is about giving people far more independence than they have at the moment. Sight loss is a significant barrier in daily life, in daily experiences, and in getting and retaining a job.
I am pleased that the Bill allows enhanced partnership schemes between local authorities and bus operators, to require all buses in a local area to provide audio and visual next-stop information. Authorities using the new bus franchising powers will also be able to place similar requirements on affected operators. It is particularly welcome that the Government have, in clause 17, amended the Bill to enable the Secretary of State to require service operators to make such information about audio-visual aids available to passengers. However, I want the new Mayor of Greater Manchester to use these powers to ensure that all users have an improved service—not just people with difficulties with sight but those who may not use the bus services regularly. I will be lobbying the new Mayor to make sure that all buses in Greater Manchester use AV—no matter who the Mayor might be, whether Sean Anstee or one of the many other candidates.
The provisions on joint ticketing make it much easier to introduce multi-operator and multi-modal smartcards and e-ticketing, making bus travel easier and more convenient—the starting point for wider application across the whole of the public transport network. Colleagues may be interested to know that the benefits of integrated multi-modal smart ticketing was the subject of the Science and Technology Committee’s evidence check web forum on smart cities. From its introduction—from the very beginning—it is necessary to collect and interpret travel data so that further improvements can be made to Greater Manchester’s public transport system. Again, I intend to raise this with the new Mayor of Greater Manchester and Transport for Greater Manchester.
The Bill’s requirements for open data on fares and real-time running means that passengers will be able to access details of timetables, fares and routes in a much simpler format, putting an end to the frustration of not knowing when the next service will turn up. This has the potential to be further developed into passenger information apps or websites giving door-to-door real-time travel information and live updates on the status of bus routes, as Transport for London currently does through one of the largest automatic vehicle location systems in existence. AVL allows real-time passenger information, service control, and performance management. I would like to see this and smart ticketing used in Greater Manchester in future, following bus franchising.
However, I do have some concerns about the Bill. The Government must ensure that small and medium-sized bus operators are able to compete in a franchised environment. It is encouraging that the Bill includes a requirement to ensure that franchising authorities consider in their procurement strategy how to facilitate smaller operators. I hope that as well as considering this in their strategy, local authorities will ensure that there is a wide range of service providers—often innovators coming in with new ideas for new routes, who ought not to be excluded from franchising.
Rob Marris
The hon. Gentleman may be aware that that is already allowed under clause 4 on franchising. Franchising does not provide a monopoly. Clause 4 provides four different ways in which bus operators can provide a bus service within an area but outside the franchise regime, including additionality—that is, the innovative new routes that he mentioned.
Chris Green
It is also incumbent on the new mayors and the new systems that we have in place locally not just to allow that to happen but to encourage it to happen.
The Conservative party has often led the way on public transport. In Greater Manchester, we need only look back to our reintroduction of the tram network in the early ’90s after an absence of decades, and only this week we have seen the completion of the latest expansion of Greater Manchester’s Metrolink. We need a better integrated and thought through service on buses, as we have on our trams. These improvements to Greater Manchester’s public transport network have not always, unfortunately, been matched with great ideas from Labour, which wanted to impose a congestion charge on people travelling in Greater Manchester—a burden that would have disproportionately affected people in the Bolton, Wigan, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Salford, Stockport Tameside and Trafford boroughs.
Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bolton West (Chris Green). It is noticeable how many Greater Manchester MPs are in the Chamber today. That is an indication of how important this Bill is to us.
It is funny how sometimes conversations stick in one’s mind. I have a very vivid memory of a conversation in, I think, 1997. I was sitting in Café Renoir in Fallowfield on Wilmslow Road—
Jeff Smith
As you do. This being south Manchester, Eric Cantona was playing chess at a nearby table. I was sitting with my girlfriend watching empty bus after empty bus go past the window along Wilmslow Road. I was a recently elected councillor, and enthusiastic, and I began to hold forth to my girlfriend about how we really needed regulated buses like they had in London because deregulation was not working. [Interruption.] The relationship did not last, people will not be surprised to hear. Twenty years later, Café Renoir is no longer there, sadly; Eric Cantona is now, bizarrely, a movie actor; my girlfriend, I am glad to say, is happily married to someone else, with four fine children; and we still do not have bus franchising in Greater Manchester.
I am very proud of the achievements of the Blair-Brown Government. We should never forget, particularly people in my party, how we rebuilt public services in cities and towns across the UK after 18 years of neglect. I am very proud of that record. However, we did not get everything quite right, and that includes public transport management.
In Greater Manchester, we have been asking for London-style bus franchising powers for many years. That is why I am very pleased today to welcome this Bill, and most especially the bus franchising powers, because, as we have heard, deregulation has not worked for Greater Manchester. Since deregulation, bus use has fallen from 355 million passenger journeys a year to about 210 million passenger journeys a year. The system is confusing for passengers. We have 22 different bus operators running about 440 general bus services, and each of those operators has its own branding. The quality standards of the buses are inconsistent. The variety of fares and the pricing structure is confusing. We have 140 types of bus tickets across the Greater Manchester region, and passengers have to pay a premium for a ticket to use across different operators.
It does not work in serving our communities, either. In my constituency—at the end of my road—we have what is often claimed to be the busiest bus route in western Europe. I have never been able to verify whether that is the case, but what is not in doubt is that it is a busy and profitable arterial route through to the university and the city centre. Because of that, bus companies are competing for passengers and, as we have already heard, that competition is not always a good thing. Bus companies are running dozens of buses every hour—sometimes full, sometimes empty, but it is always chaotic and always congested.
At the same time in my constituency we have had cuts to services such as the 44 bus, which served Didsbury, and the 84, which served Chorlton. That leaves communities isolated. The Broad Oak estate in Didsbury and the Arrowfield estate in Chorlton are no longer served, cutting those communities off from access to their local hospitals and to local services. That is no way to run a public service. I am pleased that proper bus franchising will give us the opportunity to design a system that serves our communities properly.
I mentioned confused pricing, and I am also looking forward to our being able to simplify ticketing and introduce an Oyster-style system. Since I have come to this place, I have realised that one of the great things about London is the Oyster system. A similar system would be fantastic for Greater Manchester because it would integrate our buses with our other great transport, such as our fantastic Metrolink system.
We have been asking for these measures for some time and we are ready to implement them. We welcome the Government’s clear commitment to introduce them. I agree with the House of Lords and my hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State for Transport that these powers should not only be available to mayoral authorities; they should be available to others as well. However, if the Government are going to reverse the Lords amendments, which would be unfortunate, I urge them not to delay giving powers to the mayoral authorities and not to water down those powers.
We need the powers proposed in the Bill and we need to get on with improving the transport system in Greater Manchester, because we have a willingness to prove the model. We can make it work. We have the capacity and willingness to deliver. We can make public services better for the people of Greater Manchester if we are given the opportunity.
Transport for Greater Manchester is concerned about the recently published guidance on how the system will work, which appears to be pretty opaque and confusing. On Transport for Greater Manchester’s behalf, may I repeat the calls from my hon. Friends the Members for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman) and for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer)? Once the consultation on the guidance is complete, we need greater transparency and clarity, particularly on the question of the compelling powers that my hon. Friends mentioned—I will not repeat their points.
Finally, I welcome the opportunity to make our bus fleets more environmentally friendly. We know that 40,000 people die in this country prematurely every year as a result of poor air quality. It is a silent killer and vehicle emissions undoubtedly contribute a great deal to that problem. Air quality on bus routes is often a problem, so if we can set better minimum standards for buses, we can help to tackle those dangerous emissions and prevent those early deaths.
We have a growing population in Greater Manchester and we need a transport system that can cater for that growth without leaving our communities too reliant on private vehicles, both to support the economic growth that we are successfully generating and to safeguard the environment. This is a welcome Bill and an important step in putting right some of the problems we have had for the past 30 years. I look forward to working with my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) when he is elected as the Labour Mayor to design a system that works for all the people of Greater Manchester.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
I am pleased to speak in support of the Bill. As several hon. Members have said, it is all too rare to have a whole afternoon in the Chamber devoted to discussing buses, even though they account for many more journeys on public transport than our railways. Buses rarely get the attention they deserve in Parliament or, indeed, in the media, yet for many of our constituents, they are vital, linking them to jobs, services, amenities and, just as important, family, friends and a social life.
There are few places in the country where buses are more important than Nottingham. Our city has the highest bus use per person of any city outside London, and patronage is still rising. That did not happen by accident; it is the result of sustained political commitment and leadership over decades. I am incredibly proud of our city council’s work, often in partnership with local bus operators, to encourage and increase walking, cycling and public transport use. I will say more about the lessons that can be learned from Nottingham’s experience shortly.
I admit that it came as a surprise when the Government announced that they would provide the option for combined authority areas to be responsible for running their local bus services, because Ministers had long opposed such powers as unnecessary. The change of heart is welcome. Giving local authorities more powers to plan and manage local bus services will bring real benefits to local communities. We have heard from Government and Opposition Members about their aspirations for that.
As many Members have noted, it is more than 30 years since the Transport Act 1985 deregulated bus services in England outside London. On Second Reading, the then Secretary of State for Transport said that the purpose of the Bill was
“to halt the decline that has afflicted the bus industry for more than 20 years.”
He argued that competition would deliver the improvements that passengers wanted, including lower fares. Competition was to be the key to improvements and to increasing patronage. He said that the Government would not sit idly by while the industry was sinking, leaving more people isolated. Instead, they offered
“a full-scale rescue plan for the bus industry.”—[Official Report, 12 February 1985; Vol. 73, c. 192 and 199.]
If only the outcome had been as grand as his claims.
Competition did not deliver the improvements that the then Ministers promised. Across the country, buses continue to receive very high levels of public support, with 41% of the industry’s costs met by subsidy. As the Competition Commission found, genuine competition between bus companies is rare beyond occasional and disruptive “bus wars”. In too many areas, the market does not provide comprehensive networks, forcing councils to fund additional services where they can still afford to do so.
Thanks to strong campaigning, London was protected from the 1985 Act, and could therefore build a planned, integrated network, with competitive tendering for routes. That, combined with other factors, some of which are unique to the capital, meant that bus use increased dramatically—by some 227%—since 1985-86, in contrast to the decline in patronage nationally. In 1985, one in five British bus journeys took place in London. Today, the figure is one in two. That is great for Londoners, but not for passengers in towns, cities and villages where services have been cut.
That promise of lower fares has not materialised either. The average bus fare rose by 45% in real terms between 1995 and 2016, with significant regional variation. While fares in London rose by 36% over that period, in other metropolitan areas, they rose by 60%. Since 2010, the subsidised socially necessary services provided by local authorities have borne the brunt of the huge real-terms reduction in Government funding to local authorities. As the Campaign for Better Transport has consistently revealed, 46% of councils reduced their spending on such services in 2013-14, and a total of more than 2,400 services have been cut or withdrawn, particularly affecting rural and isolated communities. The simple fact is that the market and on-road competition have not delivered.
The Bill presents an opportunity for local transport authorities to select from a wider and more usable range of powers to improve bus services as part of planned and integrated transport networks, including the power to franchise services. The ability of the local authority to invite tenders to run bus services has been available in theory for more than a decade, but the quality contracts process has proved too cumbersome and complex to use, although I pay tribute to Labour councillors in the north-east who were brave enough to try.
It is vital that the new powers are workable and practical to implement. The process and any guidance underpinning it must be unambiguous, clear and transparent. Most importantly, the full range of powers should be available to all authorities, even if they choose not to use them. Like many Labour Members, I am disappointed to hear that the Government intend to reverse changes made in the other place to reinstate the restriction of the measure to mayoral combined authorities. If the powers to provide better bus services are good enough for Bolton, Birmingham and Boscastle, why are they not good enough for Boston, Bournemouth and Beeston, and other towns and cities beginning with other letters of the alphabet?
That is not to say that I believe that franchising is the only way to improve services, or that it is a panacea. In places such as Greater Manchester, there are already well developed plans to utilise the new powers—I look forward to seeing them in action. Other areas are considering the range of new options, but the ability to deploy franchising will undoubtedly focus minds in any partnership scheme negotiations.
Not only cities need all the options. Hon. Members have seen how Transport for London has used its powers, but as I mentioned, Jersey is an interesting and successful example of bus franchising. There are examples from across Europe where tendering for services is the norm. The ability to pool funding and cross-subsidise less profitable but socially necessary routes by linking them to more profitable ones could be of great value in rural areas.
I have no hesitation in claiming that my local area has the best public transport system in the UK, and without doubt the best buses. I recognise that hon. and right hon. Members often make grand claims for their constituencies, but in this case I can provide reliable evidence in the form of the Transport Focus bus passenger satisfaction survey. I will not dwell on it today, but it is no coincidence that our tram system is also outstanding. The survey shows that 94% of Nottinghamshire passengers are satisfied, very satisfied or fairly satisfied with their bus journey. That is the highest in the country. I suggest that, if the survey were limited to Nottingham city, the figure could be even higher.
There are three key reasons for Nottingham’s public transport success: consistent political leadership, our outstanding municipal bus company and the presence of an excellent private sector operator. The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (David Warburton) suggested in his speech that buses were not glamourous. I invite him to come to Nottingham to travel on a Trentbarton bus, with its leather seats, wood laminate floors, free wi-fi and USB charging sockets. They innovatively show how immensely glamourous buses can be. One difficulty we face in persuading people to travel on buses is that their memory is of their last school bus, which was probably old and rattly, and not a very pleasant experience. The new buses in my city are a million miles away from that experience.
Over several decades, Nottingham City Council has demonstrated a clear vision for transport in the city and a willingness to support that vision with investment in measures that make public transport an attractive and realistic option. Bus lanes and bus priority measures, good bus stops, good shelters, real-time displays and clean, environmentally friendly vehicles have all played a part. While the vast majority of bus services are run on a commercial basis, the city also has a range of tendered services providing links to the city’s hospitals, university campuses, major workplaces, local district centres and the city’s park-and-ride sites.
The workplace parking levy has enabled Nottingham to continue to invest in this network, which is now served by Europe’s largest electric bus fleet and operated by partners, Nottingham Community Transport. The benefits of the new buses are clear. They cut carbon emissions, improve air quality, reduce traffic noise, result in cost savings and, by getting more people riding, ease congestion.
Rob Marris
Does my hon. Friend agree that we ought to investigate much more thoroughly the possibility of reintroducing trolleybuses around the country, which would be commensurate with the provisions in the Bill in terms of emissions?
Lilian Greenwood
I thank my hon. Friend for that suggestion. It is certainly an interesting one. I am not sure that any local transport authorities in the UK are currently looking at trolleybuses, although I have seen them operating effectively on the continent, including in Lille, where they are part of the transport network.
One issue on which Nottingham City Council showed great foresight and some bravery was the decision to retain its municipal bus company, of which I think there are now only eight left in England. I can confidently say that Nottingham City Transport, the municipal bus company, is the best bus company in the UK, as it has won the UK Bus Awards’ coveted “Bus Operator of the Year” award in three of the last five years and topped the 2015 bus passenger satisfaction survey with 97% satisfaction. It has consistently invested in high-quality, cleaner, greener, new buses that are accessible for wheelchair users and parents with buggies, have audio-visual announcements, are equipped with wi-fi and are driven by well-trained staff.
We are fortunate in Nottingham that NCT is not the only excellent local operator. Trentbarton, a local private sector operator, has also invested in a high-quality fleet, shown a genuine commitment to serving passengers, been innovative in growing patronage and has similarly high satisfaction scores.
Nottingham’s public transport system is an example of what can be achieved through good partnership working between the local authority and local operators, but it is not perfect. The use of the Oyster card revolutionised travel in London, particularly by enabling passengers to move seamlessly between different modes and operators, but it proved difficult to introduce a similar successful multi-operator smartcard in Nottingham. Passengers still face a confusing range of fare options, and there are two different multi-operator/multi-modal smartcards, which give rise to different fares and cannot be used on all buses and trams in the city.
Partnerships can deliver real improvements, but they also have limits, and even the enhanced partnerships envisaged in the Bill rely on operators’ agreement, which can be difficult to achieve. Local transport authorities cannot always ensure that the best interests of passengers are served without access to the full range of options in their toolkit, and I find it hard to understand the Government’s justification for denying the vast majority of local transport authorities the opportunity to use franchising powers. I was equally disappointed by the Secretary of State’s explanation for reintroducing the ban on local authorities setting up municipal bus operators. While I do not believe it would be widely used, the Government’s opposition seems to be based on purely ideological grounds. First he seemed to argue that it would undermine competition but presented no evidence to support his assertion, and then he admitted that he simply did not want to allow Labour local authorities to act in the best interests of their residents—so much for localism.
Bus services are essential: they link people to jobs, training and education opportunities; support local businesses; combat isolation, particularly among the young and the old, disabled people and those who do not have access to a car; and cut congestion. New cleaner, greener buses can also improve air quality and contribute to our climate change obligations. It will be very disappointing if the Government now seek to remove the changes made in the other place. I hope that Ministers will think again and finally give our transport authorities the full range of options they need to put passengers first and ensure that they have access to bus services wherever they live.
Kevin Foster
I was on a bus last Wednesday. Yes, I do know where that quote comes from but, as the right hon. Gentleman will know, the focus is on what we are doing today. To be blunt, if bus deregulation was such a bad thing, Labour Governments had 13 years—I believe that the right hon. Gentleman was in the Cabinet—in which to change the system.
Things have moved on with public transport, and sometimes we need to be careful about instantly ascribing cause and effect. Car ownership, and particularly households owning more than one car, has increased hugely since the early 1980s. We can debate whether that is a good thing. In many parts of urban built-up areas that were designed for no vehicles, the fact that households have multiple vehicles has created a range of problems. That has inevitably had an impact on how many people use a bus in such an area, but that is not to say that we should not wish to have quality transport systems.
When we talk about bus priority measures, I am loth to look at how they could apply everywhere. They can make sense in congested urban centres, but they will not make a huge difference in parts of Torbay. We do not have a major central business district or a huge morning rush hour. Local authorities need to be able to choose what makes sense for their areas, rather than our coming up with an arbitrary idea and thinking that if something works in one area, it will automatically work in another.
I can remember dealing with operators in the west midlands. We often heard members of the public refer to the fact that buses were running empty, and we made the point that those services were being run not by the council, but by a commercial operator, which was paying the bill for them. I told them that it would be a bit bizarre for me to write to the operator demanding that it provided fewer services around my ward to deal with that problem.
Before services had to operate commercially, there was an issue with the tight regulatory structure, as it made adaptation and change difficult. For example, there would be services to factories that did not exist anymore, or those that did not reflect new and growing populations. Although it is important that we give areas—particularly mayoral combined authorities—the powers to shape services and integrated transport networks, we do not want to go back to the days when, in theory, a committee would argue for half an hour about exactly where a bus should run through a local housing estate. That is not an appropriate plan for the future.
We have heard lots of references to local services in this debate. I hope that the Bill will help councils such as the Torbay unitary authority to deal with situations such as the one that we are having with the Local Link services. A small bus company—it is not the main provider in Torbay—has announced that it will withdraw all 16 of its services from 1 April. It did that not following consultation, but by putting the relevant notice in to the transport commissioners. The services do not operate on the main routes, but they do provide social value, particularly for the elderly population. When we analysed the services, it was interesting to find that 83% of passengers were using the concessionary bus pass scheme. That is perhaps not a huge surprise, given the demographics of Torbay, but it was quite surprising to see just how much pensioners valued the services, particularly buses 60 and 61, which serve Preston, and 62, which serves Cockington village.
I hope that the Bill will give councils the opportunity to work with operators. I know that Torbay Council is already working quite constructively with an operator—I have been asked not to name it publicly—to try to find a solution to the problems on many of the routes. We are also looking at bringing on board a not-for-profit model. The Torbay Community Development Trust is looking at how it can provide services, effectively as a social enterprise. Some of the routes will provide enough to enable it to wash its face—cover its costs—but will not provide any form of commercial return. That is why this debate is both timely and welcome, because we can see what is happening in Torquay and Paignton today, and I am able to stand here as the local MP and look at possible solutions.
Although the Government will look at individual cases when it comes to franchising powers, I hope that such powers are automatically given only to mayoral or combined authorities. This is partly about having a bulk. Some people in Torbay might think that we could run our own bus services but, in reality, we would inherently be dependent on neighbouring areas.
It is also right that we should know the name of the person who can take decisions so that we can hold them to account—they might be the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) or Councillor Anstee in Greater Manchester in the near future. People should be aware of who those people are. That situation is very different from that of the old integrated transport authorities. If we had asked people to name the chairman of the authority in their area, most would be unable to do so. There would be less direct accountability for people serving on those authorities because they were indirectly appointed by local councils. There was not the ability for someone to say, “Actually I voted for this person,” or, if they did not vote for them, to say, “This person was elected”—I suspect that I might have that experience if I lived in one or two of the areas concerned.
This is about holding someone to account for how they use their power, rather than power being handed to a local authority in a similar way to under the quality contract scheme, which was not a practical thing to use and not of an appropriate scale. Likewise, decisions will not be made in a back room by people who might have an indirect mandate, but one that is not as strong as the mandate of a directly elected mayor.
I very much welcome the Bill. Obviously there will be a fair amount of debate as it goes through Committee and its remaining stages, but I welcome the general tenor of today’s debate. This is a Bill whose time has come. We can all debate whether it is on time and, indeed, whether more transport legislation is just round the corner—
Kevin Foster
There could even be driverless buses. It would be interesting to see how they would go down with passengers, given that many people—particularly older people—value a familiar driver. Whether they could have a similar relationship with the friendly robot welcoming them on board is another matter. However, 10 or 15 years ago, the idea of driverless vehicles on our roads was unimaginable. Now they are on their way, although I am not necessarily advocating that we should have them.
This is a good Bill that focuses on local transport services, and I think that it is one that will deliver. The Government’s intentions are right, and it is absolutely right that we give the Bill its Second Reading today.
Oral Answers to Questions
Rob Marris Excerpts(8 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Paul Maynard
I recognise the importance of bus services, particularly in many of the great northern communities—they are vital to Blackpool, too. We will have ample chance to discuss the Bus Services Bill in this place, and I am sure the hon. Lady will make her voice heard.
Mr Speaker
Order. Wolverhampton has much to commend it, but it is a long way from Leeds.
Mr Speaker
This is about light rail schemes for the city of Leeds, which is a very considerable distance from the constituency so ably and eloquently represented by the hon. Gentleman.
Mr Hayes
My hon. Friend knows I have also held a round table on that issue—as I have said before, my table is ever more round and I always welcome hearing from hon. Members across this House. My hon. Friend has made this case forcefully; she has done so at Westminster Hall and again today. She is right that we need to look at these matters because they affect local residents in exactly the way she said. We want to get a balanced package for HGVs, but a package that takes account of the overtures my hon. Friend has made in the interests of her constituents.
Rob Marris (Wolverhampton South West) (Lab)
When the Minister has discussions with Leeds City Council about the light rail scheme, will he also discuss trolleybuses? I drove a trolleybus for three years; they are very efficient and are a lot cheaper in infrastructural costs, and it would be a lot cheaper for Leeds and elsewhere if we had trolleybuses rather than trams.
Paul Maynard
The hon. Gentleman does not need to localise it any more to Leeds or Wolverhampton. I am in constant discussion with UK Tram and am very keen to lower the cost of all options, whether it be light rail, tram, train or trolley bus, but it is for local councils to decide on the most appropriate scheme for their local area.
M25: Dartford
Rob Marris Excerpts(8 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Adam Holloway (Gravesham) (Con)
I am extremely sorry that the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West (Rob Marris) did not get his way and see the previous debate continue for a further three hours, because that would have given me time to actually write a speech. It is a bit of a disaster, but I am sure that my hon. Friends the Members for Dartford (Gareth Johnson) and for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price) will be delighted.
Mr Holloway
I’ll need all of it.
This debate has been rather boringly entitled “M25: Dartford” but this is not a boring subject at all—I and my hon. Friends the Members for Dartford, for Thurrock and for South Basildon and East Thurrock (Stephen Metcalfe) have been looking at this for several years. What we do about another Thames crossing will affect tens of millions of journeys over the next 30 years. Drivers up and down the country, in Kent and Essex, Dartford and Thurrock, are being affected by the appalling congestion at Dartford.
To a very considerable degree, this debate is also about the appalling situation facing the residents of Dartford. As my dear friend—my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford—put it in his speech in January, this is quite simply the worst stretch of road in the UK, and it has a huge impact on local residents, who are now prisoners in their own homes. Children are not getting picked up from school on time. He called it
“congestion like I have never known before.”—[Official Report, 13 January 2016; Vol. 604, c. 388WH.]
I completely agree. It really is a national disgrace.
It is an appalling logistical travesty for people living in the area, who are being subjected to pollution as they go about their everyday lives—my hon. Friend is very good on the numbers and the impact of pollution on his constituents. In addition, there is gridlock, as well as frustration that for years Governments have done nothing about it. I imagine that that there is nobody listening to this debate—none from among the huge crowds of people here in the Chamber—who has not experienced what a disaster area this is. We can all agree that this is a kind of traffic-induced nightmare.
As the House will be aware, the Government are a hair’s breadth from approving gigantic spending on a new lower Thames crossing to the east of Gravesend, under what is known as option C. Back in 2009, the original aim was increased capacity at Dartford to get as many vehicles across at 50 mph and to get everything moving again. Then we had several other options, including: option B, now dropped because of the proposed theme park at Swanscombe; option C, to the east of Gravesend, which we will hear more about; and options D and E, further down the river.
I did not understand until recently the reason for the appalling congestion. If we imagine the River Thames and the wonderful towns of Thurrock to the north and Dartford to the south, we will notice that the M25 goes straight through both places. At the moment, we have two tunnels, one very good, one very poor, going from south to north, and a great big bridge running north to south. The problems of congestion tend to be in Dartford because heavy goods vehicles have to cross through the right-hand tunnels. Thurrock is awful as well, but since we have had free-flow traffic, it is not as bad. Thurrock is as bad or as good as the rest of the M25, but Dartford remains a real problem.