Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of the timescale for self-driving vehicles to be permitted on UK roads.
We expect self-driving vehicles to be permitted on the roads in two ways:
(1) commercially available self-driving systems, that can drive in certain circumstances and which require a responsible human in the vehicle (such as those compliant with the Automated Lane Keeping System (ALKS) Regulation), will be deployed when a manufacturer brings a vehicle to market and it is approved; and
(2) self-driving passenger transport and logistics vehicles are also being trialled on the roads currently, and we anticipate progress towards the first deployment over the next 5 years.