Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill (Third sitting)

Debate between Rob Marris and Kit Malthouse

Thursday 16th March 2017 Public Bill Committees

[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.

Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Rob Marris and Kit Malthouse

Tuesday 14th March 2017 Public Bill Committees

[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?

Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill (First sitting)

Debate between Rob Marris and Kit Malthouse

Tuesday 14th March 2017 Public Bill Committees

[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.