Baroness Randerson:

Moved by Baroness Randerson

23: After Clause 6, insert the following new Clause—“Commencement of sections 5 and 6: review of road infrastructure(1) Before making regulations commencing sections 5 and 6 of this Act, the Secretary of State must undertake a review to identify how widespread issues with the condition of the roads might impact the safe operation of automated vehicles.(2) The review must also outline a strategy for improving road infrastructure in locations where this would put the safe operation of automated vehicles at risk and must make a recommendation as to whether a body should be established to design the improvements required.”Member’s explanatory statementThis amendment would require the Government to review the impact of road infrastructure and the potential impact of poor road quality on automated vehicles, before commencing and making authorisations under sections 5 and 6.

My Lords, I have Amendments 23, 24, 54, 58 and 60 in this group. Amendment 23 calls on the Government to review the current state of road infrastructure. Amendment 24 asks for a similar review of the gaps in the telecommunications network. In both cases, those reviews should be done before commencing and making authorisations under Clauses 5 and 6. The reasoning behind this is simple: in the current state of our infrastructure, automated vehicles will simply not work.

First, let us look at the state of our highways. The current neglected, ramshackle state of our highways will not provide the reliable and consistent signals on which AVs will depend. Everything from road services to white lines to battered signage obscured by foliage will have to be transformed; there will have to be a revolution. I have a couple of thoughts. When I am in London, I stay in an area that was redeveloped with a modern road layout designed about 20 years ago. On the surface, it is ideal for automated vehicles: the roads are much wider and straighter than the average roads, and modern in concept. It would be potentially perfect except that, since it was created 20 years ago, no one has maintained it. When I go out of the door to cross the road, I cross at what I always regard as a notional zebra crossing: the stripes disappeared long ago. People in the area know that it is there, but it no longer has stripes. It is a big job to deal with that basic, regular wear and tear across the UK, because it is well beyond the resources of local government and it must be done on a similar timescale across local government boundaries, because automated vehicles will, in many cases, not be stopping at the local boundary.

I have a second thought, from experience. There has been a real revolution lately in the state of French roads; it has happened over about the last five to seven years. There has been widespread improvement in road surfaces, and traffic calming and safety measures have been widely introduced. It is an example that it can be done, and done quickly. I have no idea how much money France spent, but it obviously cost a great deal.

Another issue I want to raise in this respect is the issue of consistency in traffic signs. There are some problems with that. I will give the example of warning signs about fords. Back in 2016, the Government decided to deregulate the signs warning that there is a ford ahead, so the local authority no longer has to provide a sign of a specified size, design or siting.

I am aware of this issue, which I have raised here on several occasions, because of the tragic case of a young woman who drowned after failing to notice a small, badly sited warning sign on a dark country road in heavy rain. I know about this case because the coroner’s report drew attention to the need for the standardisation of signs. I have no idea whether ford sign deregulation was a one-off or whether other road signs were deregulated around the same time, but they will all have to be similar or within a range recognised by automated vehicles; otherwise, the whole thing will not work.

Therefore, there needs to be a major financial commitment. I recognise that automated vehicles will start with limited services in limited areas—probably city centres or motorways—but quite soon this country-wide revolution will be needed, and so will need to be financed. I acknowledge the importance of the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, asking where the money for this necessary revolution will come from, as it is a key strategic issue.

Similarly, Amendment 24 deals with current gaps in the telecommunications network, mainly, although not exclusively, in rural areas. When I am not in the House of Lords, I live a mile from the city centre of Cardiff, where there is a very poor mobile network. It would certainly not be strong, regular and reliable enough for automated vehicles. It is obviously dangerous to have gaps in the network—it might be personally dangerous to be driving through the countryside and find yourself marooned, but probably even more dangerous if there were a gap on major roads.

The Transport Select Committee in the other place took evidence on this, noting the “significance” of the current gaps, and the SMMT and others have made representations to us on the importance of this. The Government’s shared rural network project aims at 95% 4G coverage by at least one operator by 2025, but that leaves a 5% gap, which is worrying. In its report, the committee noted the key co-ordinating role of the Government in this, so I would be interested to hear what the Minister sees that co-ordinating role being, beyond this 95% aim.

Amendment 54, and Amendments 58 and 60, which are consequential, relate to personal delivery services, which we raised last week. As was noted then, we have hit a snag with the very tight scope of the Bill. Ironically, the one aspect of the Bill that is already up and running, with trials and regular services, is excluded from its scope. Those running these services are urging the Government to take action to support their businesses.

Already operating in the UK are companies called Starship and Cartken, which is working with DPD. They are operating from West Yorkshire to Milton Keynes, from Cambridgeshire to Manchester to Bedfordshire. They operate what are called personal delivery devices—PDDs. This operates on a much wider scale in the US and several EU countries. Basically, it is robots; they mainly use pavements but occasionally have to cross the road. They are operated to provide deliveries, which, of course, means that they have to go off the road and up people’s drives as well as on the pavements.

Over the last five years, PDDs have already made 5 million deliveries in the UK. The companies involved, and there are many interested in the future of this, are very keen for the Government to legislate. This Bill, however, does not help them at all. The US, Estonia, Finland and Japan already have PDD regulation; there are several other countries in the process of producing it. Once again, why is Britain not at the forefront, given that these little vehicles are already operating? It will affect investment in our economy if the Government do not sharpen up on this very rapidly. It is also important for carbon reduction. We need to encourage this kind of alternative for deliveries.

The Department for Transport must be aware of the urgent need for this legislation because the companies concerned have been vocal about it. Why was the decision made to exclude this blossoming sector from the legislation? What are the problems with including it? Will the Minister agree to go back to his department and consider broadening the scope of the Bill so that the sector can be included, allowing us to take advantage of the latest technology? I beg to move.

My Lords, I have a couple of amendments in this group, but I will start by talking about Amendment 51 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Liddle. If he wants to come in ahead of me and take precedence on it, he is welcome to do so. No? I thank him.

Last time, I talked about what I referred to as my Eastbourne letter. Since then, I have had a courteous non-reply. It seems to me that the Government are really lacking energy on this. They are not making speed; they are not forging ahead; they are not looking for opportunities in the way I would hope. What the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, has just said about delivery vehicles is typical of that, as is their inability to give me an idea of how a particular operation might be tackled by automated vehicles. What are they looking at? Where are they taking this industry? Are they a Government who are in the lead or just sitting back and waiting for things to happen? Currently, they are giving me the second impression. I hope I am wrong, but nothing I have heard in our previous session, today or in the letter has given me any comfort on that.

I very much support Amendment 51 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Liddle. Let us pin down the Government on this matter and get them to produce a very useful strategy in six months’ time, so that we know what they intend to do and we get some energy and direction, rather than just the gentle, permissive Bill we have at the moment.

I have two amendments in this group, Amendments 44 and 45. The former looks forward to the point where automated vehicles become standard. In the early days, there will be a little fleet, and whenever it needs recharging, it will trundle back to its base. But that is not the way of operating any large-scale automated vehicle rollout; they have to be able to charge at ordinary, public charging points. If that is to be possible, we have to start thinking about the problem now. There is no point putting in a whole network of charging points, which we are making reasonable progress on, if none is usable by automated vehicles. We have to remember that, under our intentions, these charging points will be used by automated vehicles in five or 10 years hence. What does that look like, and what are we asking for? This comes back to the point I made last time about international standards: what do we expect to be available for an automated vehicle to hook into a roadside charging point? It does not carry a credit card with it—at least not in the ordinary way. These problems have to be addressed, solved and agreed internationally early and then incorporated into the rules and regulations we have for the charging point rollout. The point of my Amendment 44 is to give the Government power to specify how the charging point rollout should be made accessible to automated vehicles. They should commit to do at least that in the Bill, and then we can push them to do it speedily.

My second amendment is about using automated vehicles on railway track. There are two railways—particularly in relation to the Beeching railways—that we might want to revive. They will start off as routes that people are not used to using and where there is no existing train service—we are not trying to divert trains down them, by and large. Why do we not want to consider using the best available technology and run a service which runs every minute, rather than every hour, and that stops at the stations that the people in the vehicles want to stop? There are all sorts of other things that could come from using automated vehicles. From the point of view of automated vehicles, you are dealing with an environment where there are no people—but maybe the occasional cow. It is therefore a much less problematic environment to run an automated vehicle service than a public road. Where we are looking at reviving railways, or looking at a low-use branch service that we would like to make much better, we ought to look at automated vehicles as an alternative. The point of my Amendment 45 is to make sure that the Government have the power to do that, should they ever have the opportunity. I very much look forward to the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, proposing his amendment.

My Lords, we have had two very interesting and productive contributions from the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, and the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. The noble Lord has, in essence, put his finger on a real point about whether the Bill is satisfactory. On our side of the House, we want to promote innovation: that is what the country needs. The country needs new ideas and new things that will work and will be commercially successful. An innovation policy is not just a matter of making regulations for something that somebody has already had an idea about that might work—which, I think, is the case with the classic automated vehicle—it is also about considering how the technology that we are on the threshold of developing can be applied more widely in a way that leads to great human benefit and advance. Our probing amendments—and they are very much probing amendments—are on the theme of how wide the scope of the Bill is and whether the issues have been thought through as a genuine innovation policy for the country.

My two amendments, Amendments 51 and 56, are really about what is in the scope of the Bill. Are we regulating for delivery robots or not and, if we are, have we thought about how this framework might be different from the automated vehicle framework and how it would be the same? This is a very serious issue, and you can think of lots of social benefits from a widespread rollout of delivery robots. On Amendment 51, have we thought about these questions in terms of public transport, as against the automated car? What special arrangements do we have to make for public transport, if any, and where? These are speculative amendments, but I think they are raising fundamental points about whether this Bill is going to be a great leap forward for us or not.

The other aspect which we are concerned about is the infrastructure element. What changes in infrastructure will be necessary? Have the Government done work on that? Have they thought about where roads need to be redesigned and how the sensing systems of artificial intelligence will work on our infrastructure? I can see quite a lot of potential costs in this, but I do not want the cost to be a barrier to innovation. I want the Government to have thought in advance about how you deal with the question of what changes in infrastructure are necessary. I do not want a repeat, if I can say it plainly, of what I think has been the pretty chaotic rollout of charging points for battery vehicles. We need a plan. Is the Bill giving us a plan or a road map for these developments? With those comments, I commend our amendments and look forward to the Minister’s reply.

My Lords, forgive me for intervening before the Minister responds, but the word “rural” in Amendments 51 and Amendment 61 attracted my attention, as you might expect. As I said in my Second Reading speech—and following up on what the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, has just been talking about, the Government have to make a plan, because the SDVs could make a huge difference to rural life, if the rules allow it. I do not expect Uber 2—or whatever you want to call a fleet of for-hire self-drive vehicles—to make an impact. It is not going to come into the countryside, in the same way as Uber 1 has not come into the countryside. It is not economically viable for any fleet of hire vehicles to do so. As I see it, for rural purposes, it is most likely going to be a solution whereby, if it is a big market town, there may be a car available as a self-drive vehicle or, if it is a small rural village, it will probably be a private vehicle either for hire or for free by use of the local community and all its different members.

We will need the Government to enable it to happen. That is really the point that everyone has been making: the Government have to think about it. Can a private citizen allow their SDV to be used by others, either for hire or for free? How easy will it be for private citizens to rent out an SDV locally? As I understand it, the insurance is likely to be covered by the motor manufacturer, but would that insurance cover the situation that I am describing, where an SDV will have a multi-purpose role in a small rural village? I hope that the Government will think about these things.

My Lords, I want to make a few brief points on what we have discussed today and what I have read in the Bill previously. It is seen as a very legally descriptive Bill. Some of the challenges and questions that we are raising in our conversations are around use cases, applications and geography, including how this will shape the future in terms of not just mobility but society. These are quite large concepts for us.

My recommendation to the Minister and the Government is that different phases and parts of the Bill addressing specific use cases and their applications may evolve as we go forward, be they about where automated vehicles may be used in railways, rural life, emergencies or the as yet innovative opportunity for such vehicles in commercial applications. In a previous debate on the Bill, I spoke about how we should potentially view automated vehicles as the equivalent of a smartphone, as compared with the mobile phones that we had originally. A smartphone is no longer just a phone; it enables us to do so many other things. These vehicles have the opportunity to become so many other things that we probably cannot define them to the nth degree yet; it is therefore difficult for the Bill to work against that. However, if we can start to scope out additional use cases and see how they would affect the legislation, that may be the way to go.

Let me make a point or two about the points that have been made, for example about the challenges around road signage and automated vehicles. We are already stepping towards an environment where sensors and smart vehicles acknowledge the changes that happen on the road and the speeds on the road around us. This will be another phase of that evolution. Funding for that is a good question; we should discuss in more detail where we will look at providers, digital technology suppliers and the other opportunities that they will provide from that kind of implementation of technology.

We should look at making sure that charging points are integral and standard for usage with automated vehicles as well. I helped the then Mayor of London set up the London electric vehicle partnership in 2008, when we first looked at electric vehicles. We knew that there would be a challenge around standards and charging but we did not allow those challenges to hold us back. We need to think about agile development, failing fast, and enabling trialling and testing to continue so that we do not slow things down as we look for overall international agreement on some of these things. It is a challenge to make sure that we get momentum, which I think we are all looking for.

Perhaps we can identify the use cases that we are highlighting more specifically, then look at how the Bill can address them in its future versions.

My Lords, I shall be brief. It has been an interesting debate on this group of amendments because we have started talking about infrastructure separately from what goes on it. That is an important issue to look at because, whether in terms of the comments that I remember the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, making at Second Reading about the benefits of living in the countryside or the comments of other noble Lords who have mentioned the need for proper infrastructure, the key to this—it was in the press at the weekend, I think—is that the infrastructure mapping must be accurate. Who is going to do it?

The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, suggesting putting it on an old railway line. The old railway line is on the maps already, but can you drive down it safely? Is it a guided bus rail, which is another form of getting around? Not only do all these things need to be kept up to date but somebody needs to be responsible for ensuring that they are up to date and for what happens if they are not. I am sure that this is all on Minister’s mind for when he responds, but there is further work to be done here.

My Lords, I thank your Lordships for the many contributions to this interesting debate. I will try to address the issues that have been raised.

These amendments concern the integration of self-driving vehicles into the existing transport system, particularly the extent to which each may need to adapt to accommodate the other. I begin by clarifying a key point. Self-driving vehicles must be capable of operating safely and legally using the infrastructure as it exists today. There can be no expectation on the part of developers that our roads will change in some way to accommodate their vehicles. Nor do we consider such changes to be necessary for safe deployment.

Vehicles will need to be able to cope safely with issues such as wear and tear, road closures and variation in signage that are found across our road network. This also extends to digital infrastructure. Self-driving vehicles can make use of services such as data connectivity, GPS and digitised traffic regulation orders, but like humans they will need to be able to maintain safety in the event that these services are unavailable. Those which cannot do this would not be authorised.

Government and local authorities have duties to manage and maintain their road networks for the benefit of all users. Over time, local authorities may choose to adapt their networks to leverage the wider benefits from self-driving vehicles. This might include, for example, investing in information systems that can communicate directly with vehicles. However, this is a long-term view. Considering that we are still in the early stages of the deployment of this new technology, it would be premature to anticipate what such changes could look like. Our guiding principle remains that self-driving vehicles must adapt to our roads, not the other way around.

This brings me to Amendments 37 and 50, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Liddle. These probe our plans for adapting the road network to accommodate self-driving vehicles, including how this will be funded. For the reasons that I have set out, the deployment of self-driving vehicles does not require any adaptations of our physical or digital infrastructure. This means that there are no associated costs and that the noble Lord’s amendments are therefore unnecessary. It means that the infrastructure reviews proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, in Amendments 23 and 24, are also unnecessary, along with consequential Amendments 58 and 60. However, in relation to the noble Baroness’s comments on the condition of the road network, I note that the Government have recently announced the biggest-ever funding uplift for local road improvements, with £8.3 billion of funding to resurface over 5,000 miles of roads across England.

Amendments 51 and 61 call for strategies to be published on the application of self- driving vehicles in rural areas. The Government have already published their comprehensive vision for the future of self-driving technology in the UK, Connected & Automated Mobility 2025. As part of that vision, the policy paper considers the opportunities for self-driving technology to improve public transport and to enhance mobility in rural areas. Furthermore, in October last year, we published the Future of Transport rural innovation guidance, providing local authorities with advice and support to embrace technologies such as self-driving vehicles in rural areas. To publish further strategies would risk duplicating this existing work. On the specific point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, about public transport, our investment in trials such as CAVForth in Scotland and Harlander in Belfast demonstrates clearly that our commitment extends well beyond private use of self-driving vehicles.

On Amendment 48, Clause 47(4)(b) specifically states that the user-in-charge immunity does not extend to the qualifications of the driver. The requirement to hold a valid driving licence therefore continues to apply to the user-in-charge, even while the self-driving feature is active. This is necessary as they may be required to resume control of the vehicle in response to a transition demand.

In a no-user-in-charge vehicle, there is never a requirement for a qualified person to assume control. While a no-user-in-charge feature is active, any person in the vehicle is simply considered a passenger and will not need to hold a driving licence.

Driving licence categories will continue to apply to self-driving vehicles as they do to conventional ones—for example, by weight and number of seats. It would be premature to consider new categories of driving licence at this stage, but it would be possible in the future under the Road Traffic Act. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, feels that this clarifies the position sufficiently.

Amendment 44 concerns the interaction between self-driving vehicles and ChargePoint infrastructure. Self-driving vehicles are not yet on our roads and the technology for automated charging is still very much in its infancy. However, we will continue to monitor the future direction of the technology. Should developments demonstrate a need for regulation in this space, we will consider next steps on consultation. The Government are focusing our current intervention on areas where an accelerated pace of rollout is most needed, such as high-powered chargers on the strategic road network and for local street charging.

Amendments 54 and 56 refer to delivery robot vehicles and devices. It is the Government’s view that the Bill already contains the necessary legislation to regulate the safety of all self-driving road vehicles. In line with Clause 94, any mechanically propelled vehicle intended or adapted to be used on the road is already within the scope of the Bill.

As I have said previously, the definition of a “road” extends beyond the carriageway itself. For example, it includes the pavement. Delivery robots and devices that meet these criteria would therefore be in scope. However, to pass the self-driving test, they must drive legally and comply with all relevant regulations. This includes construction and use regulations, and restrictions on pavement use by motor vehicles. Any future changes to regulations on pavement use would need to be balanced with the need to maintain safety and accessibility for other road users. All in-scope vehicles will be subject to the monitoring, assessment and reporting requirements set out in Clause 38. This makes additional reporting requirements unnecessary.

I know that my noble friend Lord Lucas, who tabled Amendment 45, is a long-standing advocate for this particular use case. Although it sits outside the regulatory framework that we are proposing, which is concerned only with roads and other public places, I reassure him of our interest in its potential. We are one of the first countries to explore the business case for self-driving mass transit on segregated routes, with 10 feasibility studies under way backed by £1.5 million in government funding. We are already looking at how regulatory requirements could be overseen for segregated routes. Work is under way with the Office of Rail and Road and the Health and Safety Executive to establish a firm footing for the kind of deployment that my noble friend is interested in. While the technical regulations being developed in support of the Bill may be a useful guide for these “off-road” applications, the frameworks are distinct.

I hope, as a result of what I have said, that the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, sees fit to withdraw her amendment.

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his response. This has been a good debate, with some important points raised. It is a good example of us trying to think positively, outside the box, about the important issues that this new technology will raise for us all. I just pick one raised by the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, which is the potential to benefit rural areas. I fear that they will probably be the last areas to benefit, unless there is a proper plan. That is the sort of thing we should rightly be doing here at this stage of the Bill. However, having listened carefully to the Minister, I will look very carefully at Hansard, because he said some interesting but worrying things.

First, he said that self-driving vehicles must be able to operate on the roads as they are today. I will take that away and think about it, because the Minister is arguing there will be no cost. I have to say this is not the way those involved in the technology behind this new industry see the future; they do not think along those lines. The AV industry considers that there will have to be changes to our roads for its vehicles to operate in anything other than the most limited manner. Of course, there will be areas where you could run a robo-taxi system over a few hundred yards, or perhaps establish a public transport system in some modern areas of a city centre, but it is not going to be a general thing that can be done without considerable change. Indeed, it is not the experience of the experiments taking place in San Francisco, where failures in the system have been very much linked, on occasions, with the state of the infrastructure.

I am afraid that the Government are driving themselves into a cul-de-sac on this one. There are parallels with the Government’s attitude to electric vehicle charging points. Over the years since that change began to happen, the Government have told us that the market will decide; that competition is king and that government do not have a role in leading on this. That did not work, and there are reasons why we are behind so many other countries in the rollout of electric vehicle charging points, and therefore the sale and development of electric vehicles—that part of our economy—and of course the manufacture of the vehicles to service that economy. The Government need to look carefully.

I turn finally to the scope of the Bill. The Government’s understanding of its scope seems to be at variance with the interpretation by the clerks of this House. There needs to be a discussion, because it is not realistic to argue that delivery robots are part of this Bill if they cannot deliver. You cannot as a delivery robot do your job if you are constrained to the highway. A delivery robot, at least nine times out of 10, has to deliver to a place that is not the highway.

Having said all that, I will of course read Hansard carefully. I thank the Minister for his answer and I withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 23 withdrawn.

Amendment 24 not moved.