Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Monday 23rd October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. I had hoped that we would not have to impose another time limit, but I have so many speakers left that I am going to impose a three-minute limit.

[Julian Knight (Solihull) (Con)]

I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and my chairmanship of the all-party group on fair fuel for UK motorists and UK hauliers.

I was going to regale the House with talk about Jaguar Land Rover in Solihull and all the efforts it is making in this regard, but that can wait for another day. The Bill takes us part way, doing good groundwork and providing rolling regulatory reform, to ensuring that the necessary provisions are in place by the time the cars of the mid-21st century hit the market in the 2020s. For electric cars, we need not only a proper regulatory framework, but to ensure that the necessary physical infrastructure such as charge points is in place. I, along with my all-party group, outlined to the Chancellor recently in a letter that we have a long way to go to reach this goal.

We have 8,400 filling stations, each of which can fill five or six cars every five minutes, whereas there are fewer than 4,000 public charging points, only a quarter of which can fully charge a car in half an hour or less. We need to bring confidence to the market over time by reassuring motorists that there is no danger of their running out of juice on their way to the next appointment or to their urgent engagement. This is to say nothing of the major upgrades that will be needed to the national grid and our national power generation, or the technological progress necessary to feed back into the network from these new types of car.

I am pleased that the Government are taking steps to ensure that the challenges involved in insuring automated vehicles are resolved as soon as possible. The Bill will rightly ensure that insurers have a statutory right to recover costs from a manufacturer in the event of a crash caused by malfunctioning self-driving technology. That is absolutely vital to ensure that car users are not unfairly punished in the event of a collision they could not have prevented. Moreover, the provision to ensure that insurers retain the primary responsibility for settling claims means that victims will not need to wait for the outcomes of arcane and technical disputes.

Finally, I must emphasise how important it is that the public mood is prepared for self-driving cars. As chairman of the all-party group on fair fuel for motorists and hauliers, I have seen how millions of motorists bought diesel cars with the very best of intentions, urged on by politicians, only to face the potential for punitive taxes as official winds now blow in a new direction. I well understand why the public would be sceptical of politicians lauding a new game-changing technology, but we need to emphasise the huge potential to save thousands of lives by cutting the number of human error car accidents on our roads each year. We will fulfil that potential, though, only if automated vehicles are taken up widely. We all know how easy it can be to stick with what is comfortable and familiar. If public opinion does not keep pace with technology, the visions contained in the Bill will not go as far as they should. I welcome the Bill; it is definitely a step in the right direction.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

After my strictures, a lot of Members have obviously withdrawn from making their speeches, so we can move to Andy McDonald.