Automated Vehicles Bill [HL] Third Reading 3.36pm Scottish and
Welsh Legislative Consent sought Motion Moved by Lord Davies of
Gower That the Bill be now read a third time. The Parliamentary
Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Lord Davies of
Gower) (Con) My Lords, before I begin, I will briefly update the
House on our engagement with the devolved Administrations. In line
with the Sewel convention, the Government are seeking...Request free trial
Automated Vehicles Bill [HL]
Third Reading
3.36pm
Scottish and Welsh Legislative Consent sought
Motion
Moved by
That the Bill be now read a third time.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for
Transport () (Con)
My Lords, before I begin, I will briefly update the House on our
engagement with the devolved Administrations. In line with the
Sewel convention, the Government are seeking legislative consent
Motions from the devolved legislatures of Scotland and Wales. The
legislative consent Motion process is engaged for Scotland and
Wales in relation to automated passenger services and the powers
under Clause 40 to require reports from the police and local
authorities. The Welsh Government laid their legislative consent
memorandum in November. I am grateful for their constructive
engagement to date. The Scottish Government laid an initial
memorandum in December and we are awaiting a supplementary
memorandum, outlining their recommendation on consent, later this
month. UK government officials are working closely with their
Scottish counterparts to clarify questions and provide support.
The devolved Governments are rightly taking a close interest in
this legislation, and we will continue to work constructively
with them to progress the consent process.
A privilege amendment was made.
3.38pm
Motion
Moved by
That the Bill do now pass.
(Con)
My Lords, I beg to move.
(Con)
My Lords, I will make a short speech, conditioned by my being a
former pilot with experience of Boeing, probably the most
sophisticated company in the world on unmanned aircraft. The net
result so far has been that 346 people died recently, although,
thankfully, nobody died in the Alaska experience. Given that
situation, although this Bill is supposedly about safety on the
roads, we need to take great care; I recognise that we need a
framework here, but I hope my noble friend will listen to what
the noble Lord suggested earlier in the debate and have the
Office of Rail and Road help oversee this Bill as it is
implemented in relation to vehicles on the road.
(Con)
I briefly congratulate my noble friend the Minister on bringing
this useful, modest and largely technical Bill to its completion.
The Government have expressed optimism that the arrival of
automated vehicles in large numbers on our roads is going to have
no effect whatever on how the rest of the road system and other
road users operate. It is the principle on which the Bill is
based but, to me, it seems to be credible only in the somewhat
artificial reality of your Lordships’ House.
My noble friend the Minister and his department still need to
address a worry many of us have. He has stated that nothing will
change—that facilities for pedestrians, for example, will not be
affected—with the arrival of these vehicles, but it is clear that
is not wholly credible. The people who have invested in automated
vehicles will find that pedestrians and other road users are
obstacles to the rollout of their plans, and they will then turn
up at the ministry and say, “We have spent all this money, so now
you have to do something to make it work for us”. At that point,
officials will roll over, Ministers will wave their hands and the
money will decide what the policy is. All of this will happen
without a parliamentary debate considering the effect of the
vehicles and what they mean for road users, especially in urban
environments. I hope my noble friend the Minister will find an
opportunity to allow us, and the public, a debate about what the
vision of our cities is when automated vehicles are operating in
large numbers as the Bill makes provision for.
(LD)
My Lords, in line with the usual courtesies of the House, I thank
the Minister and his team, all of whom were exceptionally helpful
and willing to give their time and expertise in some useful
meetings with myself and my Liberal Democrat colleagues. I also
thank my noble friends Lady Brinton and Lady Bowles, supported by
Sarah Pughe in our Whips’ office, for their work. Finally, I
thank noble Lords across the House: there was exceptional
co-operation in improving the Bill, and one of the outcomes was
the amendment of the Minister which clarified the statement of
safety principles.
The Bill was a logical progression from 2018, and I would predict
that this second Bill will be followed, I am sure, by a third
Bill to try and get this right. There are still unanswered
questions, and I will briefly list them. There needs to be a
fresh look at the legislative framework affecting delivery
vehicles that are already on our streets. Those who operate them
are concerned about lacunas in the legislation.
We are also particularly concerned about the issue of disabled
access, which is where my noble friend Lady Brinton worked
closely with the noble Lord, Lord Holmes. As the noble Lord, Lord
Holmes, said,
“the promise of automated vehicles is accessible mobility for
all”.— [Official Report, 6/2/24; col. 1585]
It is, therefore, deeply disappointing that the concept of
disabled access—from the physical space of the vehicle to the
software that drives it—is not to be built in from the start. It
always costs more to adapt things later, and I believe this is
yet another missed opportunity.
Finally, it is a great pity that the vote on the amendment in the
name of the noble Lord, , was lost so narrowly. It was
just the kind of thing an advisory council could provide a sense
of direction on. I hope the Minister will reflect on the need for
certainty on the future structure of appropriate bodies to
provide advice and regulation.
We remain concerned, in particular, about data protection in
respect of the Bill, which is predicated on a future
conglomeration of personal and commercial data, and data
associated with the security of the state. It will come together
in an unprecedented way. It would enable a massive intrusion of
personal privacy, but in its entirety would offer massive power
to a malign foreign power or even to a clever, meddling,
individual hacker. Although it is well intentioned, the Bill
hardly starts to tackle the dangers of that accumulation of
data.
Having said all that, I thank the Minister again for his
co-operation, assistance and leadership on the Bill.
(Lab)
I join other noble Lords in thanking the Minister for the time he
spent explaining things on the Bill. I support everything that
has been said in this very short debate. I am also sad that the
advisory committee did not get voted through. My idea of having
an independent regulator was the same thing.
The noble Lord, , made the most important
point—that behind the technology for this will be very large
companies with enormous balance sheets. When equipment starts
operating on the road, if the Government and Parliament have to
consider how to balance the interests of those companies with
disabled people, cyclists, or pedestrians, it will be very hard
to do that and resist the pressure from these big companies
without some kind of independent scrutiny. As other noble Lords
have said, we look forward to the next Bill with interest.
of Northwood (Con)
My Lords, I echo the thanks to my noble friend the Minister and
his team for all the work they have done on the Bill. I also echo
the thoughts that this is just one Bill. We are on a journey with
this technology and these vehicles, and where it will be
going.
I would like to address some of the comments that have been made
from all sides of the House, because I hear the fear, worry and
concern, as technology takes a giant leap forward. We worry about
the implications for the world as we see it now. However, the
world changes and adjusts. I understand the questions the noble
Baroness had about data, its ownership, its power and the
responsibility. When we launched the Oyster card in London in
2003, the first time data would be captured en masse—tracking
peoples’ individual movements—I remember similar challenges being
made as to what we would do with it.
We have come a long way in 20-plus years. We understand a lot
more about the power of data and how it can be used for the
benefit of people, as much as the challenge there is to keep it
safe. I hope that will be echoed in the usage of data with these
vehicles.
Additionally, I hear the voice of my noble friend . We worked together many a
year ago at TfL, bringing in implementations. Back then, there
was a significant challenge to another change we were
implementing. We were told pedestrians would be vulnerable; we
were told accessibility would be reduced; we were told safety
would be jeopardised. What was the change we were bringing in? It
was bicycles: the cycle hire scheme for London. There are always
challenges to bringing in new schemes. They are always seen as
having many problems on safety and security, and vulnerabilities.
As I say, this is in the context of the world as we see it, not
maybe as we can amend it and make it better.
This is the journey. There will be more Bills, and we will
scrutinise further the use-cases and the opportunities that this
technology will bring, for the benefit of designing the future
with safety in mind, I hope.
(Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister and his team for their
co-operation on the Bill. I thank my co-spokesman, my noble
friend , and , our researcher.
When I wrote these few lines down, I was full of unbridled
optimism for the Bill—but I had better come back a bit. I am
sorry that the concerns of the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson,
have not been satisfied; they were good and proper concerns, but
I am sure that they will be properly considered.
Proceedings on the Bill have been very much the House of Lords at
its best, and that was very much facilitated by the Minister.
Like the Lib Dems, we had several meetings with him, and issues
were generally treated on their merits. I am sorry that the noble
Lord, , is not more reassured by the
changes we made to the safety standard. I believe that the safety
standard that is now in the Bill is a good one that regulators
will be able to work with and that is robust enough to stand up
to enterprises with a great deal of money. I, for one at least,
say that we have a better Bill of which this House can be
proud.
(Con)
My Lords, it is nearly three months since the Bill had its Second
Reading in this House. I am hugely grateful to colleagues on all
sides for the very detailed scrutiny and challenge that they have
provided over that period, as has already been alluded to. I
heard what noble Lords have said.
The Bill has seen real benefit from the open and positive manner
in which the opposition Front Benches have engaged. I thank the
noble Lords, and , for the series of constructive
discussions we have held on safety and other matters. In
particular, the noble Lord, , brings with him many decades
of experience in the world of transport safety, and I am pleased
that we have been able to draw on that during the Bill’s passage.
I am grateful too to the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, for her
contributions, both in the Chamber and in our separate meetings.
I also thank those who joined me for our two round-table sessions
on data and accessibility, particularly the noble Baronesses,
Lady Bowles and Lady Brinton, and my noble friends Lord Holmes
and .
I am also grateful to the teams at Wayve and Oxa, which have been
so accommodating in welcoming me and colleagues across the House
to experience self-driving technology in action. For those who
have not yet had the chance, I can tell them that riding in one
of these vehicles is simultaneously astonishing and—for want of a
better phrase—reassuringly dull.
I am sure that colleagues will join me in thanking the countless
policy officials and legal experts standing behind this piece of
legislation. I am very grateful to the Bill team: Josh Kossoff,
Marty Zekas, Dani Heard, Fran Gilmore and John Latham. My thanks
also go to the policy leads Jenny Laber and Catherine Lovell; to
Sam Cook, our drafter; and to Adam Lawless and Sean McGarry in my
private office.
Finally, I pay tribute, one last time, to the Law Commission of
England and Wales and the Scottish Law Commission. Their
painstaking review is the foundation on which this legislation is
built, and we have felt the benefit of their expertise throughout
our debates. In particular, I thank the review’s lead lawyer,
Jessica Uguccioni. The Bill receiving its Third Reading today is,
in no small part, the product of more than half a decade of her
work.
At Second Reading, I spoke of the potential benefits of bringing
self-driving technology to our roads: safety, connectivity and
new economic opportunity. Thanks to the careful and considered
scrutiny of this House, the Bill now moves to the other place all
the better able to make those benefits a reality.
Bill passed and sent to the Commons.
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