Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill (Fifth sitting)

Tom Tugendhat Excerpts

Tuesday 21st March 2017 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Hayes]

No, but we look up to you; that is the point I am making.

We are also working with UK security agencies. When I was in my previous job as security Minister in the Home Office, I was heavily involved in consideration of cyber-threats and cyber-security. It is important for the Committee to know that this is something that has been discussed across Government, because some of these responsibilities are shared by different Government Departments and different Ministers. We are therefore working with other parts of Government on the new National Cyber Security Centre to engage directly with the industry to raise awareness and promote best practice. Using the Government’s approach to cyber-security, applying it to this area of work, engaging with the automated industry and those who are developing this technology is central to our purpose.

The hon. Gentleman invited me to go into some more detail. As part of that, we have set out for the industry the objective of developing a set of principles for cyber-security. As a result, our thinking is developing alongside that of the industry. It is important that we establish at an early stage the principles—many of which the hon. Gentleman touched on—that will underpin the safe and secure development that he and I seek.

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

Given that the foreign countries to which people are most likely to take their electric cars are going to be European countries, can the Minister tell the Committee a little about what co-operation he hopes to have with European partners, particularly on charging points? We know that the vulnerability in cyber-security is often at the point of connection. The telephone network—presumably a telephone network is linking them—and the charging points are going to be vulnerable.

[Mr Hayes]

The promotion of sharing good practice will be national; it will be between Government and industry; and it will be pan-national, pan-European and, beyond that, international. The establishment of an information exchange to share exactly those kinds of principles is part of what we are doing. That certainly includes work across Europe, for the very reason my hon. Friend gave, which is that people will want to travel beyond the boundaries of this country. They will also, of course, buy vehicles that are manufactured in other places—the nature of the automotive industry is that it is pan-national. It is critical that we can rely on digital standards, just as we expect mechanical standards to be reliable.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.