Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill (First sitting)
(6 years, 5 months ago)
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The Committee divided: - Ayes: 8 / Noes: 9 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Chair
I remind everyone to ensure that all electronic devices are turned off or switched to silent mode.
Clause 4
Accident resulting from unauthorised software alterations or failure to update software
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
I beg to move amendment 11, in clause 4, page 3, line 13, at end insert—
‘, provided that the vehicle manufacturer has made all reasonable efforts to—
(a) notify the owner of a vehicle about the need for an update of the vehicle’s operating system
(b) provide the relevant update of the vehicle’s operating system to the owner or insured person, and
(c) arrange for the installation and update of the vehicle’s operating system.’
This amendment would ensure the manufacturer has made every possible effort to inform the owner of the vehicle that a software update is needed before liability is passed to the owner.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 12, in clause 4, page 3, line 36, at end insert
‘(7) The Secretary of State must by regulations establish a system by which an automated vehicle may only be approved for driving itself on public roads if all application software is up to date.’
This amendment would require the Government to introduce regulations to establish a system that requires automated vehicle software to be up to date in order for them to utilise automated functions on public roads.
New clause 9—Updates to software and operation of automated vehicles—
‘The Secretary of State must bring forward regulations to require that automated vehicles cannot operate in automated mode on public roads unless the application software relating to the vehicle’s automated function is up to date.’
This new clause would require the Government to introduce regulations that require automated vehicles to be up to date in order for them to utilise automated functions on public roads.
Alan Brown
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Mr Bailey. I note that you wisely ducked out just before I spoke yesterday in Westminster Hall, right enough—no such luck this morning.
Clause 4 is all about liabilities associated with operational software for automated vehicles. Amendments 11 and 12 aim to strengthen the clause and amendment 11 aims to clarify the responsibilities of the vehicle manufacturer. In turn, that may even assist the vehicle manufacturer with regards to clause 4(1)(b), which refers to whether a person ought to reasonably know about safety-critical software updates being required. We are using the right terminology, and it is hoped that the law meets its intended purpose both of ensuring that people are insured and of clarifying where liabilities are limited for insurance companies.
If the Bill sets out how important it is that safety-critical software is updated, it follows that duties are placed on the manufacturers to take all reasonable steps to ensure that that happens. Therefore, as with smartphones, the manufacturer must notify the owner of the need for upgrades but, unlike smartphones, it needs to be much more than a simple notification. Steps need to be undertaken to ensure that the vehicle owner is aware of the need for upgrades and to make arrangements for them to happen. There could be a series of warnings through the software, or written letters and correspondence. Given the sophistication of the software, and its interactive nature, in that it tries to talk to software on other servers, perhaps even some form of remote immobilisation could be considered. If those steps are followed, any evidence of the deliberate overriding of adaptations undertaken by the owner will fall within the insurance liability limitations outlined in clause 4.
Amendment 12 follows on from that, requiring the Government to introduce regulations to establish a system that requires automated vehicle software to be up to date in order to utilise automated functions on public roads. It might be argued that the amendment is not required, that it simply dots the i’s and crosses the t’s, but given that that function of the software is the brain of the vehicle, it is absolutely incumbent on the Government to ensure that there is a system for explicitly determining that the software is safe, and able to be used.
I suggest that new clause 9 serves the same function as amendment 12. I am therefore supportive of it in principle, but there is a logic in amendments 11 and 12 being put in with clause 4, to tighten it up.
Craig Tracey (North Warwickshire) (Con)
I want to make a brief contribution. I mentioned in a previous sitting that I chair the all-party parliamentary group on insurance and financial services. We have looked into this area in some detail and I think it is fair to say that across the industry there is a lot of support for the Bill, which is good news. The industry is appreciative of the fact that the Bill is moving forward at pace, and of the Minister’s approach to that. However, we think there is a definite opportunity to tighten the wording in clause 4(1)(b), as there seems to be scope for conflict between different parties in two areas.
First, regarding the phrase
“insured person knows, or ought reasonably to know, are safety-critical”,
one of the consequences is that there might be a legitimate reason for software not being installed: a vehicle might be on a journey, there might be no signal or someone might have to use a vehicle in an emergency. The wording is open to interpretation and one of the consequences of that could be delays in paying out claims.
My second point is whether a safety-critical update was contributory either in whole or in part to an accident. Without tightening up the wording, there could be delays in the settling of claims, potential higher claims costs, and more data—data was raised quite a bit in the evidence sessions—being required to settle claims and to establish cause. Again, a knock-on effect is that the full potential of cost savings on insurance might not be fully recognised because of the cost involved in deciding on liability.
With those two points in mind it seems sensible to shift the onus from the insured person for the safety-critical update directly on to the manufacturer in all cases. We know the technology is there. It is available either to not enable the vehicle to start if a safety-critical update is not put in place or—this is probably more reasonable—to not enable a vehicle to access the automated mode unless all safety-critical software issues are up to date. Those are just a couple of points that I wanted to raise with the Minister which perhaps he will consider when he responds to the amendments.
Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)
Following on from the points that my hon. Friend just raised, will the Minister clarify a couple of points regarding the phrase in clause 4(1)(b), which states:
“the insured person knows, or ought reasonably to know”?
I am concerned that the phrase “ought reasonably to know” is a little woolly. I am not a lawyer or an expert in parliamentary drafting. It may be that the phrase is a well-used one that the courts can easily interpret, but in the context of the new software I am a little uncertain as to what “ought reasonably to know” actually means. I can envisage a number of scenarios in which the driver may have had an alert from the manufacturer that says, “We need to install version 1.whatever of the software.” He gets the update at a quarter to nine in the morning. He is rushing out of the house, late for a meeting, and says, “I’ll do that later on,” and then the car he is driving is unsafe at that point. I am simply not clear where the onus lies and when that person should install the software. Perhaps the Minister will clarify that point when he responds to this group of amendments, or he may wish to reflect on it and consider the matter further on Report. It is an area I have concerns about and we ought to get the drafting absolutely right.
Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to recommence the discussion of the Bill under your chairmanship, Mr Bailey.
New clause 9, tabled in my name, states:
“The Secretary of State must bring forward regulations to require that automated vehicles cannot operate in automated mode on public roads unless the application software relating to the vehicle’s automated function is up to date.”
The new clause would require the Government to introduce regulations that require automated vehicles to be up to date in order for them to utilise automated functions on public roads. Under the current drafting, people would be able to drive their automated vehicles on the roads without having the latest up-to-date software, which could lead to safety risks. The new clause would ensure that the Government introduce regulations that require automated vehicles to be up to date in order for the automated function to be used. If a vehicle had a serious mechanical fault that could endanger the driver and others, we would not allow it on our roads. An automated vehicle would similarly present an increased safety risk if its operating system was not updated. Most people with a smartphone or computer are likely to have software that prevents it from being used until it is updated. I am not struck by any reason why a similar mechanism could not be included in automated vehicles. By preventing an un-updated vehicle from being used, we would achieve safer roads and cheaper insurance.
Graham P. Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making a powerful point. This applies most critically to GPS, where there may be changes to roads or whatever. The automated vehicle would need to know where it is going and whether there had been some ad hoc intervention in the road layout that meant that the GPS was inaccurate. Clearly, there would need to be an update. Does he share my view that updates should be regular and frequent, because they are part of the safety process?
Karl Turner
My hon. Friend makes a valid point when he talks about GPS systems. Without the new clause, people would be able to take un-updated vehicles on our roads, without being absolutely sure that they are safe. A primary benefit of AVs is that they reduce the likelihood of human error. However, one of the few areas in which the scope for human error remains—the responsibility for ensuring that software is updated—would not be addressed, even though it would not be difficult to do so. I cannot find any reason why it is not possible to legislate for this. The new clause addresses that obvious issue and I trust that the Government will consider it carefully.
The Minister for Transport Legislation and Maritime (Mr John Hayes)
We continue with dedication our diligent perusal of these matters and our scrutiny of this Bill. I am grateful to the Committee for its continuing determination to get this right. When we first met, we said that this was an important and challenging piece of legislation because we debate it in rapidly altering circumstances. The technology is moving on apace and we are trying to tread a path between creating sufficient certainty to allow insurers to develop the products they will need as the technology comes on stream and predicting a future which, by its nature, is unpredictable. That is the path we tread. It is important to emphasise in that spirit, in relation to this clause and these amendments, that the Bill is a first step. It does not solve all the problems or answer all the questions. It is a modest Bill, though an important one, in those terms.
It is doubtless true that as this technology unfolds more work will need to be done. We are on the cusp of an important—indeed, one might say revolutionary—change in what we drive and how we drive it, but it is not for this Committee, Government or Minister to predict quite what that might look like in decades to come. The modest character of the Bill needs to inform all our scrutiny. We are not aiming to solve all the problems here. We are aiming to take a measured first step towards solving those problems and meeting those challenges.
However, it is right that we debate the issue of how motorists understand and update their systems so that they can use their automated vehicles safely, as the shadow Minister, the mover of the amendment, the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown), and other contributors have said. A core part of that is to ensure that the regulatory framework is in place which compels manufacturers to bring to market systems that make this process as simple and effective as possible.
This is certainly not the place for that legislative process to occur. It is not the purpose of the Bill. The requirement for systems to update forms part of an international set of standards, which I mentioned earlier. Vehicle safety and technology is subject to international standards. Those standards are well established in respect of the vehicles we all typically drive, but they are emerging standards in respect of autonomous vehicles. Much work has been done by this Government and others to ensure that those standards are fit for purpose. They will form the basis of a new type of approval process. We are familiar with the existing means by which these things are assured. That will develop over time, as the type of approval process emerges as a result of the work that is being done. Until that type of approval process is fit for purpose, these vehicles will simply not be sold or driven on our roads. In addition to our domestic non-insurance regulatory programme, it is vital that we are mindful of those further developments.
Robust standards will be in place before the vehicles arrive to market. There is, therefore, a risk in acting unilaterally. I understand why people are suggesting that we might; it is a perfectly reasonable response to the debate and the Bill, and it is useful that we are airing these subjects here. However, we would not want to try to anticipate the development of those standards without a clear understanding of the ultimate design standards to which these vehicles will be held, as we would risk creating barriers to the use of this technology and inhibiting further research and development—indeed, possibly inhibiting the development of the insurers’ products that the Bill is all about. We are continuing to take part in the international negotiation shaping the standards, and developing domestic road traffic laws and guidance. We do not accept new clause 9 and the amendments to clause 4 that would compel us to act without a settled knowledge of how these systems will ultimately be configured.
Let me deal, however, with some specifics. A series of points have been made on these matters during our scrutiny. I have written to the Committee, as Members will know, dealing with some of the questions that were previously raised. I do not think that this is an appropriate point to go through those letters because they do not directly relate to the subject at hand, but there will be a chance—I think at clause 7—to revisit some of the issues that were dealt with when we looked at clause 1. I simply put that on the record, in case people were wondering why I was not immediately addressing some of the things that were raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset and others in earlier parts of the scrutiny.
In respect of the issues raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South, I am looking for the guidance that I might have received from another place—[Interruption.] Ah, here we are; it has winged its way to me. In the end, the courts will interpret the facts. If a person knew that they needed to update the software and failed to do so—that is, knowingly took a view that they did not need to update their software, rather as if someone knowingly drove a vehicle that was mechanically unsound—a judgment will of course be made about their responsibilities and whether they should have used the vehicle. If someone is negligent in respect of their vehicle’s fitness to be driven, clearly the courts will have to take a view about their responsibilities.
Iain Stewart
I agree that we cannot anticipate exactly what form the technology will take, or the form of the updates. My right hon. Friend mentioned that further regulations would be issued before these vehicles went on the road. Would those regulations include a clearer definition of the obligations on the driver regarding when they must install any updates to the software?
Mr Hayes
I will come back to that, because in a way it relates to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire. We anticipate that the majority of software updates will be delivered automatically over the air, as it were, so we would expect software to be updated over time in that way that my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South suggests. I am mindful of the work that my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire has done on this—we have discussed it outside the Committee.
Mr Hayes
I will in a second.
In the end, the clause aims to protect insurers from a negligent person who intentionally fails to update their vehicle. For the sake of clarity, I offer the parallel of someone who fails to ensure that a vehicle they drive now is safe—who fails to take the proper precautions or make the proper arrangements to ensure that their vehicle can be safely driven when they go out in it. So it will be with autonomous vehicles and the software that relates to them. That is the purpose of the clause, but I am not entirely convinced by the advice that I have had on it yet. The civil servants in the room—I know I am not supposed to acknowledge them—will have a shiver going down their spine. I want to reflect more on it. I think we are right and I am sure what I have said is right, but I may have more to say on it. I am happy to reflect on it and come back to my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire if there is more to be said.
Craig Tracey
I appreciate that the Minister will look into it. He mentioned that the clause will protect the insurers, but the insurers of the insured person will still be footing the bill. By passing the onus for safety critical updates to the manufacturer, that could be taken away from the insurance industry.
Mr Hayes
With laser-like precision, my hon. Friend has focused on exactly the reason why I want to reflect on it. I thought that that was what he might say and that was what he meant when he first spoke. Although the response I offered him goes a fair way towards what he was seeking, I need to clarify that additional consideration for him. In the end, that will bring us back to the point close to the heart of all insurance considerations: how we discern liability and negligence. I want to be more precise about the second point that he raised, but I do not yet feel confident to do that. I will now give way to my old friend—the veteran of many Committees with me.
Graham P. Jones
I am grateful for the Minister’s warm words. To return to the issue of GPS mapping updates, people expect the road network to be updated on vehicles, but the scenario is completely different for manual operation compared with automated operation. I hope the Minister is aware that most of the operated maps sit in the private sector. That is not an issue if the car is manually operated because the driver always has discretion as he sees the road in front of him, but that is not the case in automated mode. We have to think about our highways workers or our police force who may be intervening in the road network.
When we talk about updates, serious consideration needs to be given to GPS maps in automated mode. Who is responsible for them? Who owns them? Who will update them? How will we ensure that we have road safety? Updates are vital, but GPS mapping is particularly vital. The Minister needs to take a good look at that and how it will be integrated into the insurance industry and into the Bill and the regulations to protect our people working on the roads.
Mr Hayes
As I say, the hon. Gentleman is a veteran of many Committees. We have rarely crossed swords, but we have certainly waved swords at each other from time to time. He makes a sound point which is precisely why we would need to address a range of those issues in further regulation. At this juncture, I do not think we can think about adding that to the Bill. I know he did not say we should, but he did say that we should think about those matters and look at how they relate to this Bill subsequently. He is absolutely right.
At the risk of opening up a new avenue for discussion—I hesitate to do that because I know we want to make reasonably rapid progress today—the hon. Gentleman might also have raised the issue of the interface between the driver and the road, and the technology on the road. As we move towards smarter roads, there will be an increasingly close relationship between the information received in the car from outside, as well as the information that is at hand within the vehicle. That is another area where there will be a connection to automated vehicles. We are already seeing the regular use of gantries across roads that provide information. The interaction between that information, the car, and the information that is available locally will, over time, become an increasing feature of driving.
This is another area in which regulation will—in exactly the way the hon. Gentleman described—need to address how that works for automated vehicles. The assurance I give him and others is that we recognise these challenges, we anticipate further work, we know that work is ongoing and it will be set out, both in the formation of international standards for a type-approval process that I mentioned, and in the regulation we will introduce that matches that development.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
I would like to take the Minister back to his comment that this Bill was designed to protect insurers against drivers who fail, or refuse, to upgrade the software on their vehicles. I think that what he really meant to say was that the Bill is here to protect the consumer, and that unless the consumer is acting wilfully and refuses to upgrade the car, they cannot be held responsible, and the insurers cannot use this Bill to wiggle out of their responsibilities and paying whatever they are responsible for. The Minister is aware is that his comments, which go on record in this Committee, could be used to interpret an intent behind the legislation, so how we describe things is important.
Mr Hayes
The hon. Gentlemen implies that those things are mutual exclusive. Of course, if someone intentionally—deliberately—goes about the business of not updating their vehicle, that creates a responsibility and a liability. That has ramifications of the kind that I described for insurers, but it also has the wider ramifications that he described. I do not think we are in different places on that.
Let me turn briefly to the comments made by the shadow Minister. Again, I can see why he makes that point, but as he knows, we will shortly discuss clause 5, which gives the right of recovery against the person actually responsible for the incident, whoever that responsible person is. We can probably deal with the matter he raises when we debate clause 5, rather than adding to this clause in the way he suggests. His intent is entirely understandable but I do not think this is the best place to make the amendment that he proposes. With that, and my commitment to take further the point that my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire raised, and the more general commitment I have made, reflecting my original remarks about the ambitions of the Bill, the limits on those ambitions, and the development of further regulation, I do hope that the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun and others will see fit not to press their amendments.
Alan Brown
I have listened to the Minister and to the comments that have been made. Amendment 11 is still about putting additional responsibilities on the manufacturer, which seems to accord with some of the comments made by the hon. Member for North Warwickshire. The Minister agreed to take on board those comments, but I felt he was a little dismissive of amendment 11. I would like to press amendment 11 to a vote, but I will not press amendment 12.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
The Chair
That is voted on separately at the end.
Clause 4 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 5
Right of insurer etc to claim against person responsible for accident
Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Mr Hayes
Clause 5 gives insurers the right of recovery against the person actually responsible for the incident to the same extent that the person is liable to the victim. The person actually responsible for the incident could be, for example, the manufacturer. This clause also defines when and how the amount of the person’s liability is settled and when their right of action accrues. It sets out the arrangements and limits on the amounts they recover. This clause will therefore ensure that the insurers are able to recover from those responsible, to the extent that the victim will be able to do so. This will facilitate the effective functioning of clause 2, which imposes initial liability on the insurer or owner of the automated vehicle in respect of an accident.
Subsection (3) requires the insurer, if they recover more than they initially paid out to the victim, to pay the difference to the victim, and subsection (4) ensures the person responsible for the incident is not required to pay the insurer if they have already paid the injured party.
Sir Greg Knight
I am most obliged to my right hon. Friend. I am intrigued by subsection (2)(c), which refers to the amount of a claim as settled when it is established “by an enforceable agreement.” In this context, can he give the Committee an example of an unenforceable agreement?
Clive Efford
When the Minister sums up at the end of the debate, will he say how he envisages this provision working in practice? An accident occurs, and an injured party is making a claim; the aim of this Bill is to ensure that people are paid out speedily, but the clause describes a process that could be long and drawn out. How does that protect the consumer? Who pays in the first instance? As we have already heard in several debates around this Bill, we are adding more people who could have liability. Because of software upgrades, we are now including the manufacturers—the people who actually design the software. There is no requirement in the Bill for those writing the software to have their own insurance, should their software fail, so where do they come into this process? How do we ensure speedy pay-outs to the consumer when we have an increasingly complex network of people who may have liability in the aftermath of an accident? This clause seems to set out a labyrinth of different permutations that could arise in terms of liability, and that could take some time to resolve. Could the Minister say what is in the Department’s mind and how this will speed matters up?
Mr Hayes
I would not want to accuse the hon. Gentleman of misunderstanding, so I will perhaps say that I did not make it sufficiently clear in my opening remarks. For it is better to blame oneself than other people. The purpose of the clause is to supplement clause 2, in that it will ensure that victims do not potentially have to pursue major manufacturers through the courts. This is to avoid both the unreasonableness of having to do that and the delays suggested by the hon. Gentleman. It is designed to protect the consumer. At the end of the day, the consumer is our principal concern, as he said in an earlier intervention.
We want the system to operate in a way that is as quick, straightforward and comprehensible as possible for the consumer. That is actually what the clause does, by supplementing clause 2. The business of the relationship between the insurer and the manufacturer will be going on behind the scenes. The consumer will not need to know about that, and will get a speedy and satisfactory resolution of the event in the way that they do now. If there was a difference at all, that is where it lies.
Karl Turner
I have listened carefully to what the Minister says and he makes a very salient point. We do not have any objection to the clause.
Mr Hayes
Before we move on, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire raised the issue of enforceable agreements, and I did promise—with your indulgence, Mr Bailey—to respond, in my normal spirit. I am told that the agreement must be legally binding and therefore enforceable in court. Whether that satisfies my right hon. Friend, I do not know, but that is all I have to say, so he is not going to get any more out of me.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 5 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 6
Application of enactments
Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Mr Hayes
Briefly, clause 6 ensures that the new system of liability being created by the Bill preserves and is joined up with various forms of liability in other parts of legislation, and is straightforward in that respect. In creating a new form of liability in the Bill, that is vital. Where those liabilities exist in other legislation, they should remain unaffected. For example, the Fatal Accidents Act 1976 provides for a victim’s dependents to be able to recover damages in spite of the victim’s death, if the death was caused by
“wrongful act, neglect or default”.
That type of liability has been preserved and linked to the Bill’s system of liability so that the provisions of the 1976 Act are brought to bear. Not doing that would create gaps and risk leaving victims and their dependents with incomplete cover.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 6 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 7
Interpretation
Karl Turner
I beg to move amendment 14, in clause 7, page 5, line 15, at end insert—
“(c) an automated vehicle may be listed, under section 1, as being capable of driving itself “safely” if the vehicle is designed and manufactured to be—
(i) capable of driving itself in a manner unlikely to cause damage to the automated vehicle or another vehicle, or injury to a person, on the road or surrounding area, and
(ii) protected from hacking risks that the manufacturer knew, or ought reasonably to have known, are likely to cause damage to the automated vehicle or another vehicle, or injury to a person, on the road or surrounding area (see section (Cyber security and hacking of automated vehicles)).”
This amendment would define what is meant by an automated vehicle being capable of driving itself “safely”.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
New clause 18—Cyber Security and hacking of automated vehicles—
“The Secretary of State must, within 12 months of this Act receiving Royal Assent, consult with such persons as the Secretary of State considers appropriate on what steps will be required for the effective cyber security of automated vehicles listed under section 1 to protect those vehicles against accidents caused by hacking.”
This new clause would require the Secretary of State to report within 12 months what steps would be required to protect automated vehicles from accidents caused by hacking.
Karl Turner
Clause 7 sets out when a car is deemed to be driving itself, or in automated mode, but there is no mention of what happens if the vehicle is designed or manufactured in a faulty way or is hacked due to a failure by the manufacturer to install adequate protective software.
How would our amendment improve the Bill? While we all welcome the opportunities that the new technology will bring, we also have to recognise that it will bring risk. A lot of those risks will be around the software used, and they therefore may be harder to pick up than in a conventional vehicle. We all know the risks of hacking in computer systems. We have had experience in this House relatively recently of a cyber-attack—a hacking event—on Members’ emails. That experience is commonplace in workplaces across the country. When hacking and cyber-crime can result in serious consequences, we need to be extremely cautious.
We have the opportunity to put safeguards into the Bill now to give protections in this area, rather than doing that later down the line. The Minister has repeated constantly that this is a modest Bill that is merely a skeleton and that regulation will have to come as technology improves. Indeed, given the uptake of these vehicles and the number of them being purchased, action will clearly be required where the technology changes, but there is a real risk in not legislating now, when we have the opportunity to ensure the safety of these things.
Our amendment would definitely tighten up this area of the Bill by setting out when an automated vehicle is capable of driving itself safely. That would give the driver protection with regards to liability, if it was proved that there was a manufacturer’s fault or if the vehicle had been hacked. I do not intend to press the amendment to a vote; its purpose is to start a discussion about this area, in particular the hacking element. The issue of cyber-security and vehicles being hacked has been discussed previously, in the predecessor to this Committee. I have read the Hansard report of those discussions and there was some very detailed debate, but it is important to look at it again now. I stand to be corrected, but the Minister previously said he would come back with potential changes in this area. However, I think he simply wrote to members of the previous Bill Committee.
New clause 18 would do exactly what we intend it to do. We now have the opportunity, and I hope that the Government will listen carefully.
Sir Oliver Letwin (West Dorset) (Con)
I want to talk about clause 7(1)(b), which deals with the interpretation of what it is for a vehicle to be insured. That takes us back to the discussion we had in the Committee’s previous sittings. I am grateful to the Minister for providing access to his officials in the interim. I am satisfied that the issues I was raising are handled in the Bill, but want to set out how I now understand that to be the case, so that the Minister can give us an assurance that I have got this right and we know for the future that that is how the Bill is meant to work. It is a little sad that we have to do quite a lot of interpretative work to understand how the Bill is working, but I understand that that is caused by the fact that it is trying to piggyback on the Road Traffic Act 1988.
It turns out that clause 7(1)(b) is critical to the whole structure, because it defines a vehicle as being insured if there is a policy in force in relation to the use of it. Whereas one might think, under clause 2(1)(b), that when the Bill says the vehicle is “insured” at the time of the accident, it means the vehicle is insured at the time of the accident—indeed, I fell into the trap of thinking that that is what clause 2(1)(b) meant, because that is what it says—in fact clause 2(1)(b) has to be read in the context of clause 7(1)(b). Therefore, it is not actually the vehicle that is insured; it is the person who is, or may be—but maybe isn’t—the driver whose policy is the relevant policy and is actually insured to drive that vehicle. That is what I now understand clause 2(1)(b), in the light of clause 7(1)(b), to mean.
What clause 2(1)(b) is actually trying to say is that, as long as there is a person in the vehicle who, one way or another, is insured to drive the vehicle, then the insurer of that person is liable for the accident, even if the vehicle is driving itself. It follows from that that even if the driver, who is not driving at the time when the vehicle is driving itself, is not the owner but is insured to drive the vehicle on a policy that gives him insurance to drive other cars, it is also the case that the insurer of that person, not of the owner or the vehicle but of the person who is the driver—or would have been, if he was driving—is the insurer who is liable for the crash caused by the vehicle when it is driving itself. If I have at last understood all that correctly, it follows that the problems that I and several Committee members foresaw, about things such as transition, disappear, given that it is always the same insurer who is liable both when the car is in automated mode and when the car is being driven, because it is the insurer of the driver—or crypto-driver—regardless of whether he is driving or the car is driving itself.
Mr Hayes
That is the central and salient point. I think this is where the misunderstanding took place between us in the earlier sitting. That there is a single insurer, as my right hon. Friend now acknowledges, is one of the points covered in my letter, along with a couple of others, on which he will no doubt speak. He is right that that changes the assumption about the transition, as he describes it.
Sir Oliver Letwin
I am delighted to hear the Minister confirm that and that I have eventually managed to understand this. If it is a single insurer, those problems disappear, which is very good news.
Clive Efford
I understand that better myself now, but do I understand what the right hon. Gentleman is saying? The person in the vehicle is the one insured and, in the first instance, it is their insurance that would pay out. If the vehicle is found to be at fault, whether it is automated or under that person’s control, they would pay out in the first instance, and subsequently the discussion we had on the previous clause would apply, where there is a sorting out of who is actually responsible—the manufacturer, the software designer, the driver of the vehicle or of the other vehicle. That will be sorted out following the initial payment from the driver of the vehicle that is found at fault.
Sir Oliver Letwin
I was following the hon. Gentleman until the very last words he spoke, because I think he means payment from the insurer of the driver, rather than from the driver.
Sir Oliver Letwin
In that case, my answer is yes. As I understand it now, I think, the insurer who has insured the person who is sitting in the driving seat will pay the third party who has been damaged in the accident, regardless of whether the person sitting in the driving seat is driving the car or the car is driving itself. That is also regardless of whether the person sitting in the driving seat is the owner of the car, insured as the owner to drive that car, or is not the owner but is insured under some other policy to drive that car. In any of those cases—whether automated or not; whether the policy covers other cars or that car—the insurer of the person sitting in the driving seat at all times is liable to third parties, and then the insurer claims from whoever it wants to claim from, and is able to claim from in court, after the fact.
Mr Hayes
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his helpful dialogue because it also relates the issues raised by the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East. The short answer to the question posed to my right hon. Friend is yes. The complicated factor that my right hon. Friend is now dealing with is that there are policies—I do not have one myself and I do not suppose many here do—where fully comprehensive insurance cover allows other people to drive. That is not the named drivers policy that most of us will probably have, but a more permissive kind of policy, and that is exactly what my right hon. Friend is alluding to.
Sir Oliver Letwin
I am grateful again to the Minister. Yes, exactly: I had been worried about two cases, one in which the person sitting in the driving seat was the owner, and the other in which the person sitting in the driving seat was not the owner but was covered by a policy covering the driving of other cars. In both instances, I think it is clear.
The reason I am labouring these points and asking the Minister to confirm them is that I do not think that any ordinary human being reading the Bill would have the slightest clue that this is what it is trying to do. I think its architecture has been forced on it by the desire to piggyback on the Road Traffic Act; and I suspect that lawyers will understand, because they will be familiar with the Road Traffic Act and how its principles operate. Therefore, I am satisfied that probably this is the right way to structure the Bill. In any case, it is certainly structured in a way that, when everything is read together in the right way, does not create the gap that I was worried about, as the car moves between automated and non-automated mode. That was the critical issue.
Graham P. Jones
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bailey. I seek clarity from the Minister—I know he has been reasonably descriptive up to a point—on the types of vehicles that will and will not be insured. It will probably be connected and automated vehicles, automation level 4 and 5; however, I am concerned about the size and shape of the vehicles and how the legislation will fit them in the future.
There has been an issue about insuring automated vehicles, not just on public but on private land. However, even on public land, are there situations where we might see a size of vehicle—my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull East drives a very small electric vehicle, and there might be even smaller ones—on parts of the road network that had become accessible to new types of electric vehicle, and where we might suddenly need to reflect on the type of insurance? They may get down to the size of a bicycle, for example—I do not know—so are there circumstances or situations where the shape and size of the vehicle would have some effect? I suppose that relates to the definition of level 3 and 4 automation. I know that the Minister will produce a list in future guidance, but I would welcome a clarification from him on shape and size, how the Government see that changing and whether they will be responsive to that.
Going back to insurance on private land, this causes an enormous problem, quite apart from my earlier point about mapping. The legislation says that vehicles must be insured on public and private land—although there are some discrepancies around private land. How will this work with automated vehicles? If we multiply that by the fact that the shape and form of automated vehicles may change—they may be able to go down narrow footpaths, for example—where are the Government on the insurance system? How it will work with automated vehicles accessing private land? I am asking for clarity on this point. I do not know the answer; I am probing the Minister to see if he does. There seems to be a complex minefield of issues when it comes to insuring an automated vehicle—of whatever shape, form or function—that can wander off on to private land. There does not seem to be much clarity in the Bill on that. It seems to be hanging on the old legislation for traditional motor vehicles as we know them and how they are insured on the current road network.
Turning to automated vehicles, in particular on private land, and their shape and form, this will clearly be a challenge, so will the Minister clarify how the Government will respond? Again, I come back to the mapping issue. There will surely need to be tighter definitions of where automated vehicles go and what they are allowed to do. There seems to be no reference to that in the guidance or anywhere else. Will the Minister provide some clarity? People want to know. It is not just about the public highways, motorways, A roads and B roads. It is far bigger than that and the insurance system has to cope with insurance off-road, on private land.
Mr Hayes
By way of adding a certain excitement to the proceedings, I shall deal with the last point first, rather than reply to the points made in chronological order.
The hon. Member for Hyndburn spoke about where vehicles might be used, and the size and shape of vehicles. He was right to identify that it may be—note the emphasis on “may”—that autonomous vehicles at the beginning of their life on our roads are typically used in certain places and in certain ways. One can easily imagine a vehicle in autonomous mode travelling on a long straight road—a motorway, for example. It could be that that is the way the technology will develop. He is right to draw attention to that because it has been written and spoken about many times in the discussions about autonomous vehicles. He was also right to raise the matter of shape and size. Earlier in our considerations, we discussed vehicles other than private cars. Of course we should not assume that autonomous vehicles will simply be private motor cars. There will be other kinds of autonomous road vehicle and it may be that they will develop first, or at least in parallel with the development of private cars.
The hon. Gentleman is right that that could well be where we are heading, but the essence of his argument is that we might have to have different insurance policies to deal with those different eventualities. That will not result from the measure before us; the size and place considerations—the type of vehicle and where it is used—will be the same as in the current insurance framework, most of which is covered by the Road Traffic Act, so I do not anticipate a huge departure from existing practice.
In essence, insurance works on the basis of insuring people, to some degree taking account of what they are driving—for example, policies take account of the size and shape of vehicles. I do not imagine that that will change and nothing in the Bill suggests otherwise. I anticipate—the insurance industry told us this in evidence submitted to the Committee—that the industry wants enough certainty from the Bill to develop products that are fit for purpose. My judgment, from what we have been told, is that the industry will want such products to mirror as much as possible what is available now. Certainly that is true of where vehicles are used and of their shape and size.
Graham P. Jones
I was simply probing the Minister because the use of automated vehicles on private land is an interesting area on which the Government must be probed. I also made some other small points. I urge him to clarify whether he foresees any situations, beyond what is in regulation or statute now, where automated vehicles on private land may provide a challenge that the Government will need to look at.
Mr Hayes
I will deal with the private land point in a moment.
To re-emphasise: when we insure a vehicle at the moment, the questions we are asked by the insurer are not about where we intend to drive it—we are not interrogated about whether we will drive the vehicle on the motorway, on side roads or only in our village. That is not typically what happens with an insurance policy, although there are exceptions. Someone with a historic vehicle, for example—a classic or vintage vehicle—might well take out an insurance policy stipulating that the vehicle will only be used for a certain number of miles in a given period, paying a lower premium as a result. If people say that they will use their vehicle only on high days and holidays and that it will be driven for less than 100 miles a year, of course they will obtain a different kind of policy, often offered by a specialist provider. That, however, is an exception. As a rule, we are not interrogated about where we are going to drive, whether it be on a main arterial route or a side route, so I do not think that the insurance products that I hope are developed as a result of the Bill will, in those terms, be very different from what we have now.
That is certainly what the Association of British Insurers and others have told us. The evidence to the Committee emphasises not only the insurance industry’s support for the Government proposals, but its wholehearted support for the development of autonomous vehicles. The industry sees it as critical that we get the legislation on to the statute book so that it can develop the products necessary to provide the safety and security we all seek.
Graham P. Jones
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way one last time. To pursue this matter, let us say that an accident occurs on private land while the vehicle is in autonomous mode. Does he think that the existing regulatory framework is sufficient for insurers, or that some changes will be needed for assigning liability should there be an accident on private land? An automated vehicle goes on to a large piece of private land, a track or whatever, and there is an accident, so there needs to be an investigation as to who was in the right and who was in the wrong. On private land where an automated vehicle was making its own decisions, does he not think the Government should conduct some analysis of the potential issues? It may be that no changes are required, but should not the Government consider it? People do drive on private land, and if they are going to take automated vehicles on to private land, it is a legitimate question.
Mr Hayes
The hon. Gentleman’s specific question is about private and public land. The Bill and the products that emerge after it is enacted will follow the Road Traffic Act, which is clear about public roads and other public places. I see no distinction between what we have before us and what is in law now. Because I am not intoxicated by the exuberance of my own verbosity, I will end there.
Clive Efford
I did not hear the Minister—I must have missed it—respond to the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull East and the issue of hacking. We are discussing amendment 14, are we not, Mr Bailey?
The Chair
The hon. Gentleman can decide whether he wishes to make his comments then or whether they would be more appropriate later.
Clive Efford
My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull East has raised an important point. There might be a whole new area of insurance with clauses in the small print of an insurance policy that require people to be covered in the event of an automated vehicle being hacked. If the manufacturer and the designer of the software that drives the automated vehicle, and the insured party who is in control of the vehicle or in the vehicle—I am not sure whether we can say in control of the vehicle now—have all taken reasonable steps to prevent hacking and the software is hacked in some way, and that affects the vehicle’s operation and causes an accident, liability inevitably falls back on the person in the vehicle at the time of the accident, as set out by the right hon. Member for West Dorset.
I can foresee a circumstance where insurers say, “Every reasonable step has been taken to prevent hacking of this vehicle, so the manufacturer of the vehicle cannot be held liable, and nor can the people who wrote the software. It is unlucky, but it is your responsibility as the driver of the vehicle, because your vehicle has been hacked and has caused an accident.” It seems a considerable liability could be taken on by drivers. We have heard a lot about the safety aspect of automated vehicles, which is bound to reduce the number of accidents and therefore the number of claims, but what we can see here is a whole new area of insurance opening up where there are different sorts of claim being made as a consequence.
I think it is reasonable of my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull East to table an amendment requiring every step to be taken to protect the vehicles from hacking. It is right that it should be in the Bill because we need to protect consumers from that potential liability. What is the Department’s thinking? What consideration has it given to vehicles being hacked and liability in such circumstances? What are “reasonable steps” to prevent it happening? We all know that even though we have the highest level of security to protect the software or computers from being hacked, they still are. We have seen numerous examples in recent times, not least the successful hacking of some very high security systems, so we can imagine that this will present a challenge for some of those people who undergo that sort of criminal activity. It could put lives at risk and open people up to considerable liability, so I wonder what the Government’s thinking is about that.
Mr Hayes
Let me see if I can satisfy the hon. Gentleman by way of a brief intervention. I will then respond, as he invited me, to the shadow Minister when he comes to the new clause. The critical thing is to understand that an autonomous vehicle will, in practice, be a combination of sophisticated software and technology—the mechanical components of the car and the software that drives it. If the vehicle is deemed to be liable for an accident, that might be as a result of its software being faulty or because of a mechanical failure. From the perspective of those affected by the accident, that is immaterial because even if the software had been hacked the autonomous vehicle would still be responsible; the consumer’s position does not change. The consumer is protected, as it were, from the reasons why the autonomous vehicle was responsible and whether it might be as a result of a fault in the software.
Clive Efford
If I have followed the Minister correctly, and it is distinctly possible that I have not, the situation I am describing is slightly different. He says that there will be a vehicle that is at fault, that the person who is insured to be in the vehicle will pay out initially, and that there will then be consideration of who is liable.
Clive Efford
That is fine, but if the vehicle has been hacked, the person paying out initially is opened up to a liability even though they are not at fault because they took all reasonable steps to prevent such hacking. However, no one else accepts responsibility because they too took reasonable steps to prevent the vehicle from being hacked. It is not unreasonable to require in the Bill that every measure be taken to prevent the liability from falling back on the insured person, whose vehicle has caused the accident even though they were not at fault. How do we ensure that the liability is not dumped on the consumer?
There is also the issue of the vehicles communicating with each other. If they are hacked and are communicating duff information, who will be responsible? Considerable liability could fall on consumers. Their vehicle is the cause of the accident but they are not responsible for it because of hacking. However, they are ultimately deemed responsible because no one else will accept responsibility.
Mr Hayes
I will make the point more emphatically; I was perhaps being a bit too understated. Understatement is a problem I constantly struggle with, as my right hon. and hon. Friends know.
The simple fact of the matter is that if the autonomous vehicle is “responsible” for the accident, and its software is at fault, whether that fault be caused by malevolence or some failure, the consumer’s interest will be unaltered. In the Bill, the consumer is protected in the way I have described, regardless of why the vehicle was at fault. That will then be a matter to determine during the course of the events, but it will not affect the person or persons affected by the accident.
Sir Oliver Letwin
I think this is a conversation somewhat at cross-purposes. Use of the term “consumer” by the Minister is confusing the issue. Let us distinguish between the injured party and the insured party. The injured party is protected in the way my right hon. Friend the Minister and I have described, and the hon. Member for Eltham, my right hon. Friend and I are all in agreement that that is okay.
The hon. Gentleman is asking about the insured party. He is really asking whether anybody will be willing to buy an autonomous vehicle level 4 or 5 under circumstances in which, having taken out the insurance policy, the insurer then discovers that they are liable to some injured party. Then, having paid out to the injured party—tick—they come back to the insured party and say “Because the manufacturer had taken reasonable steps and because the hacking went on despite that, and because nobody including the manufacturer is responsible, and because your insurance policy excludes—you may not have noticed this—in the small print a hacked case, you, O insured party, are now responsible.” I hope I am correctly interpreting the hon. Gentleman.
Sir Oliver Letwin
Yes, good. He is raising a serious point. I do not know whether it is about the Bill, but it is certainly a serious point about what the Bill is trying to achieve, which is to get to a situation where people buy autonomous vehicles because they are able and willing to insure themselves to own them and drive them. They would not be if they thought this was a realistic possibility. Somehow, that problem needs to be solved, whether in the Bill or otherwise.
Clive Efford
Again, I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. I have a feeling of déjà vu because he is putting my points better than I can. I have little to add to that. There is an issue there that my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull East has raised in his amendment that the Government should go away and consider.
Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)
It strikes me that there is potentially a grey area between the software company and their design and the hacker and where the responsibility begins and ends, and how any court or technical expertise will be able to determine where ultimate responsibility lies. A software company could readily say “We designed it. We were perfectly happy with it and there were all these protections and safeguards in place,” and they will blame the hacker, but who can determine if it was down to a hacker or the failing of the software designs? I just throw that out because sometimes these things are very difficult to determine and I am not sure where the responsibilities lie.
Clive Efford
I will finish on this point and I will not take much more of the Committee’s time. The Bill is designed to ensure that the injured party is paid out swiftly in the event of an accident, with blame subsequently apportioned either through agreement or by a court. In this case, however, there is another consumer—the insured party—who could be open to enormous liabilities through no fault of their own where nobody else can be found to be at fault because they have taken all reasonable steps. There is a grey area, as my hon. Friend has just said, where the Government need to go away and give that some further consideration.
Mr Hayes
It seems to me that we are risking going on a flight of fancy by trying to anticipate exactly what the insurance products that develops as a result of this legislation will look like. My right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset described a policy that might qualify the protection offered in the way that he set out. We cannot, at this juncture and certainly not in debating this Bill, start a debate about what those policies might look like down the line.
The essence of the Bill is that the insured party will only potentially be liable if they are responsible and the insurer does not cover that risk. If someone deliberately failed to maintain their vehicle, deliberately failed to update their software, even interfered with their software for some reason I cannot imagine, clearly there would be an issue of responsibility. The important thing is that the debate that takes place on why the vehicle failed—assuming it is an autonomous vehicle—is one that the individuals concerned should not have to know about unless there is a palpable reason for their doing so, because of the negligence or even malevolence that I describe.
We could have a long debate about the kind of insurance policies that might emerge. I am not an expert on insurance and I do not know if there are any in the room.
Craig Tracey
The set of circumstances described by the hon. Member for Eltham actually exists in current insurance. If someone had a car that was parked up and somebody else stole it, drove off in it and hit a row of parked cars, then for insurance purposes the onus is currently on the owner of the vehicle. The whole point of insurance is to protect the insured person against unforeseen circumstances, and hacking would come under that process, because we do not presently know how it could affect the systems.
Mr Hayes
One of the delightful things about the House of Commons, and indeed about Committees such as this, is that there is always expertise that one did not know about previously and that emerges as a result of the discourse. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his expert advice on that particular subject. The point raised by the hon. Member for Eltham is that he wants to be certain that an innocent party is not adversely affected by the development of products that do not afford the same kind of protection that people now routinely rely upon.
I share the hon. Gentleman’s view. My view is straightforward: it would be intolerable for a situation to develop in which people, through no fault of their own, and with no negligence or irresponsibility in what they have planned or done, were to find themselves uninsured because of the development of some perverse policy. In the end, that is a matter for the insurance industry, but I have made my views clear and put them on the record, and they reflect the views of the hon. Gentleman and my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset, who, among his many distinguished and eminent achievements, has today added another: becoming a spokesman—or perhaps I ought to say the interpreter—for the hon. Member for Eltham. And so it is that such unions are formed in Committees such as this.
Karl Turner
I want to speak briefly to new clause 18. Before doing so, I want to put on record my thanks to the Minister’s officials for the work they have done with my office. They have been extremely helpful.
New clause 18 covers the issue of cyber-security and the hacking of automated vehicles. It would require the Secretary of State to consult with such persons as he considers appropriate within 12 months of the Bill receiving Royal Assent. I am not planning to push the new clause to a vote; its purpose is mainly to probe a little deeper to ensure that the Government properly and widely consult in this area. I would be grateful if the Minister indicated how that has already been done. I know that a great deal of work has gone on behind the scenes; will he assist the Committee by setting out who the Department has consulted with thus far?
Sir Oliver Letwin
I actually do not think that this matter can be dealt with in the Bill, but I agree with the shadow Minister that we should seek an assurance from the Government that they will spend the time that needs to be spent, once the Bill is out of this House, trying to deal with what is a very, very big problem.
It is easy to imagine that this is just science fiction, but it is not. It is more than imaginable that, as part of the convergence of networks and as the transport system becomes automated, the single biggest security vulnerability of the UK—and, while we are at it, of any other advanced economy—will be the ability of state or non-state actors to intervene in a whole series of its convergent networks. Obviously, there may also be threats from exogenous things such as space weather, which may affect convergent networks, including electricity, transport, communications and so on, but state actors and some non-state actors are employing serious and highly developed methods to intervene in our cyber-security, as the Government are well aware.
The capacity to do damage to the UK by bringing the transport system to a grinding halt, amidst thousands or perhaps hundreds of thousands of simultaneous crashes, is a delicious prospect. I absolutely guarantee the Minister, although I am sure that he does not need my guarantee to believe it, that someone sitting somewhere—if not several people sitting in several places—is planning that kind of offensive cyber-activity at this very moment. Many of those people have access to many of the people who will be involved in developing the software that will be used in the very machines that we want to be used on our roads.
That is an irony of the globalised world. This is not like the 18th century, when people sat behind huge national barricades and we did not use their technologies but they tried to use them against us. We are now in a position where the people who may use our technologies against us supply some of those technologies to us. That creates a degree of risk out of all proportion to anything we have witnessed before. I am a believer in automated vehicles—I do not think that we can resist this trend—but we need to ensure that an immensely higher level of cyber-security is built in from the start than we might think necessary under other circumstances.
I want to make one further point. This is one of those cases where externalities will not be internalised. It is not in the interests of particular manufacturers to worry very much about this issue. If I am a specific manufacturer of a specific automated vehicle, my interest is in producing something that is good to drive, cheap and normally safe, because that is the way I will sell the maximum quantity of it. If somebody tells me that I could make it safer from hacking, which is unlikely to occur, in the sense that there is a one-in-1,000 or one-in-10,000 or whatever chance of it being hacked, by making it significantly more expensive, my natural and commercial response will be not to add that protection, because it would make me less competitive. I am not particularly worried that Britain may be brought to a halt, because I am not Britain; I am a manufacturer, and I am answerable to my shareholders, not to the electors of the UK.
There is a clear area of intrinsic market failure here, where, however pure a free marketeer one is, Adam Smith principles apply and it is for the state to ensure that the externalities are internalised by legislating or regulating, or by reaching agreement with manufacturers. As I say, I do not believe that the Bill can be the vehicle for creating a whole new structure of invigilation of the cyber-security standards of automated vehicles, but the Minister, in conjunction with Ministers in parallel positions in other jurisdictions, needs to get to work on that rapidly. If that is not done, the Bill will be useless, because it will provide a framework for something that no rational Government will ever allow to occur.
We cannot allow the UK’s transport system to be put in peril by being easily accessible to hackers in a way that could cause hundreds of thousands of accidents simultaneously. It is a necessary concomitant to the Bill that there should be a serious attempt to create that degree of universal cyber-security for level 4 and level 5 vehicles. I hope that the Minister will be able to tell us that he is at this very moment getting the plane tickets to go and talk to all the other relevant Ministers and set up the international systems required to do something similar to the protocols that govern the GSM standard, which make it not unhackable, but much less hackable than previous mobile systems.
Mr Hayes
Perhaps I should say a word now about my personal and professional relationship with my right hon. Friend, in as much as it relates to what he has just said. When we worked together in Downing Street, we discussed these kinds of issues many times. I was the Minister responsible for cyber-security at the Home Office, and I take what he and the shadow Minister said very seriously indeed. My right hon. Friend is absolutely right that cyber-security is a pressing, present and immensely great threat. It is vital that the work on this technology, like all the work we do across the House and across Departments, takes account of the scale and nature of that threat and that it does all we can to counter it. My right hon. Friend was involved in that at the Cabinet Office.
On a more personal note, I am not surprised that my right hon. Friend raised the issue. I am rather more surprised that he—with an absolute, but none the less surprising, frankness—emphasised the limits of the market and the constraints on commerce, because he has always been more inclined to a liberal perspective than I am. But then again, who is not? I know he is a great admirer of the power of the markets to shape our futures, so I am delighted—perhaps it is my influence or that of his dear late mother, who, I think it is fair to say, was more on my wavelength on these subjects—that he has been encouraged to take the view, which he has articulated so forcefully and persuasively today, that the industry will not do this alone. It is right that we should work in partnership with the industry. The Government must take their place and have their influence in that respect, and that brings me to new clause 18.
If anything, I regard new clause 18 as an understatement of how significant the issue is. If it were accepted—although I am grateful that the shadow Minister has said he will not press it to a vote—it would impose a requirement to consult on security risk. I do not regard that as a requirement; I regard it is as an obligation. It is absolutely essential that we do that. The work that we are already doing, which he asked me to briefly summarise, is advanced but ongoing. We are working with UK security agencies, the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure and the new National Cyber Security Centre—which was set up while I was the Minister responsible, by the way. This issue is a real challenge for Government and for Parliament. It stretches well beyond any particular Government or political party, as has been made clear by what has been said. We will need to engage directly with industry and raise awareness.
We are already discussing the issue with industry. As part of that, we have consulted, developed and published a document, “The key principles of vehicle cyber security for connected and automated vehicles”. It is a guidance document for the automotive industry on good cyber-security and the connected and automated vehicle ecosystem. I do not know whether the Committee has access to that, but I will happily make it available in hard copy form. It is available electronically, if Members wish to take a look. We have also set up the automotive information exchange to promote the sharing of intelligence and best practice for effective cyber-security across the industry.
This issue has been identified as a top priority by the new National Cyber Security Centre. The work will continue and our understanding of how we can counter the risks will grow; but more than that, I would say—as a result of the contributions from my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset and the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East—that we should consider seeking additional powers over time. I do not think that this Committee is the right place to debate that, or indeed that the Bill is the right vehicle to bring those powers forward, but a commitment to considering additional powers, should they become necessary, is an important one to make. Furthermore, I think my right hon. Friend is right: we need to ensure good cross-governmental work on this. I will take that away, because a further dialogue across Government is necessary. It is happening, but we can always do more, and when it happens at ministerial level, as he will know from the meetings we have had over time, a great deal can be achieved rather more quickly.
Clive Efford
The Minister says that the Bill is not the appropriate place for us to legislate on that, but that is exactly what new clause 18 says. It says that consultation should happen separately from the legislation and really only sets the timescale. On that basis, will he accept new clause 18?
Mr Hayes
I charged my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset earlier with being the hon. Gentleman’s spokesman and interpreter, but now the hon. Gentleman has put the boot on the other foot. He added further sophistication to my right hon. Friend’s argument in his last contribution. He is right that the Bill begins to address this issue; the point I was making is that, given the ongoing work I described through the agencies I mentioned, it would not be right to set that out in further detail in the Bill. I am arguing against an addition to the Bill, rather than what is in the Bill already.
There is another aspect to this that I want to add. It is very important that we work internationally. Of course, many of the manufacturers are, by their nature, multinational organisations that therefore work across national boundaries. We talked earlier about the development of standards, and how that is happening at UN level and as a result of international dialogue. There is an international dialogue as well on cyber-security, and it is important that we marry our conversations on vehicle standards with our conversations on cyber-security, to ensure a synergous approach to the two.
With those commitments, that absolute assurance of the Government’s understanding of the significance of this matter and my heartfelt support for the strength of the argument made by the shadow Minister and my right hon. Friend, I am delighted that the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East will not push his amendment to a vote. We will report back further as time goes on. I will commission the work across Government and, as I have said, I will make available to the Committee some of the documents we have already published.
Sir Oliver Letwin
Before my right hon. Friend sits down, and at some risk of adding to the antiphonal relationship with the hon. Member for Eltham, I wonder whether he will also consider clause 1(1)(b). At the moment, it gives the Secretary of State the power to list vehicles capable of “safely driving themselves”. It might be appropriate to consider changing that to “safely and securely driving themselves”, or making some such other amendment, to ensure that he has the power already in the Bill when making the list to include on the list those vehicles that conform with whatever set of standards for cyber-security he eventually develops as a result of the work he is talking about.
Mr Hayes
Every member of the Committee should cherish the moment they are about to enjoy, because I accept that proposal and I will consult with my officials on making a minor and technical amendment to that effect, barring any absolute reason why it cannot be done. If we are advised by parliamentary draftsmen that it cannot be done for any reason, we will not, but barring that exception, I will do exactly what my right hon. Friend has described.
Karl Turner
I have listened very carefully to what the Minister had to say and to the discussion between right hon. and hon. Members from both sides of the Committee. I am satisfied that the Minister will do everything he can to achieve what the amendment hoped to achieve. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
The Chair
My instinct is that the issues in clause 7 have been fully debated, so I will now put the Question.
Clause 7 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 8
Definitions
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Mr Hayes
As we move to a new part of the Bill, it seems important to say a few words of introduction about it. The first part of our consideration was dedicated to gaining a clearer understanding and addressing the provisions in the Bill that relate to autonomous vehicles. The second part of the Bill, which we come to now, deals with electric vehicles and in particular electric charging infrastructure. With your discretion and indulgence, Mr Bailey, perhaps I may say why that matters.
It matters because the Government are committed to promoting low emission vehicles. I have always argued that that is not because of a high flown view about what might happen to the climate in centuries to come; rather, it is much more about the effect of particulate materials, which are the result of petrol and diesel vehicles and which have a day-by-day, here-and-now effect on the wellbeing of our people. I have no prejudice about this, as is well known. I made the point on Second Reading to my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire—who as ever made a passionate but measured case for those older vehicles that we enjoy on our roads—that we certainly would not want to prohibit their use. However, the Government are clear that by 2050 we expect new vehicles to be low emission vehicles. That will very largely be achieved by promoting and encouraging the use of electric vehicles. Our approach has always been technology-neutral, but electric vehicles are bound to be an important part of achieving our ambitions.
The reasons cited for why people do not buy electric vehicles in greater numbers now—I ought to caveat that by saying that their number is growing impressively—range between, first, the cost, which will to some extent be a feature of their number: as more are sold, the more the price will fall. Secondly, there are doubts about the battery technology and battery life. That is improving as battery technology moves on apace, with good work being done to improve the quality of the product. Thirdly, there is the availability of charge points. Most people, of course, charge at home, but people want to be able to charge away from their residence. As a result, in the Bill the Government are doing more work to put in place provisions that will allow the development of more charge points around and about the United Kingdom.
That is what the clause begins to do, by providing definitions of electric vehicle charging and in particular a precise definition of what a charge point is, as well as what a hydrogen refuelling point is. It goes further and defines a public charging point. It is important that those definitions are set out clearly, so that the effect of the power matches the intent and the intent of the power is made clear to the public. Clearly, any other, more detailed definitions can be set out later in secondary legislation, but in essence this part of the Bill is about defining electric charge points and, in later clauses, which I look forward to debating, going about the business of how we can increase their number.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 8 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Andrew Stephenson.)
Armed Forces (Flexible Working) Bill [ Lords ] (First sitting)
Tuesday 14th November 2017
(6 years, 5 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Armed Forces (Flexible Working) Act 2018 View all Armed Forces (Flexible Working) Act 2018 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 14 November 2017 - (14 Nov 2017)
The Chair
Before we begin line-by-line consideration, I have a few preliminary announcements, as usual. Please switch all electronic devices and mobile phones to silent. Tea, coffee and other hot drinks are not allowed during sittings.
Today, we will consider the programme motion on the amendment paper. We will then consider a motion to enable the reporting of written evidence for publication. In view of the time available, I hope that we can take those matters formally without debate.
If any gentlemen would like to remove their jackets, please feel free to do so. Minister, before I call you, would you like to remove your jacket?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Tobias Ellwood)
I am not going to upset the Chair. If you tell me to remove my jacket, I am happy to do so.
The Chair
You asked if you could. Otherwise, Minister, please feel free to move the programme motion.
Ordered,
That—
(1) the Committee shall (in addition to its first meeting at 9.25 am on Tuesday 14 November) meet at 2pm that day;
(2) the proceedings shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at 5.00 pm on Tuesday 14 November.—(Mr Ellwood.)
The Chair
The deadline for amendments to be considered at today’s sitting of the Committee was 4pm last Thursday.
Resolved,
That, subject to the discretion of the Chair, any written evidence received by the Committee shall be reported to the House for publication.—(Mr Ellwood.)
The Chair
Copies of written evidence that the Committee receives will be made available in the Committee Room.
We now begin line-by-line consideration of the Bill. The selection list for today is available in the room and on the Bill website. It shows how the selected amendments have been grouped together for debate. Amendments grouped together are generally on the same or a similar issue. A Member who has put their name to the leading amendment in a group is called first. Other Members are then free to catch my eye to speak on all or any of the amendments within that group. A Member may speak more than once in a single debate.
At the end of a debate on a group of amendments, I shall call the Member who moved the leading amendment again. Before they sit down, they will need to indicate whether they wish to withdraw the amendment or to seek a decision. If any Member wishes to press any other amendment or new clause in a group to a vote, they need to let me know. I shall work on the assumption that the Minister wishes the Committee to reach a decision on all Government amendments, if any are tabled.
Please note that decisions on amendments take place not in the order that they are debated, but in the order that they appear on the amendment paper. In other words, debate occurs according to the selection and grouping list. Decisions are taken when we come to the clause that the amendment affects. I shall use my discretion to decide whether to allow a separate stand part debate on individual clauses and schedules following the debates on the relevant amendments. I hope that that explanation is helpful.
Clause 1
Regular forces: part-time service and geographic restrictions
Gerald Jones (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) (Lab)
I beg to move amendment 1, in clause 1, page 1, line 18, at end insert—
“(3B) The proportion of regular forces serving on a part-time basis in any single regiment may not exceed 15% of the total regular forces serving in that regiment.”
This amendment limits the proportion of part-time regular forces to no more than 15% of any regiment.
This is a probing amendment that seeks clarification from the Minister on how the Bill will work in practice, and specifically whether there will be any kind of cap or upper limit on the number of personnel on part-time working. The amendment refers to no more than 15% of any single regiment serving on a part-time basis, which is simply a way to establish whether the Government have any plans to place a limit on personnel who work part time, and at what level a cap would be placed.
There are significant problems with recruitment and retention in our armed forces, which is one reason for the Bill. As of September 2017, the regular armed forces were at a 5.3% deficit against the liability—an increase in the deficit from 4.1% under the liability in September last year. Furthermore, the outflow of regulars continues to outpace intake. Voluntary outflow is the main source of outflow, so most personnel who are leaving are doing so before the end of their agreed engagement or commission period.
The pay review body highlighted in its most recent report that issues with recruitment and retention have been acknowledged by the Department:
“In evidence MOD stated that there were recruitment and retention challenges across all Services for certain groups in the engineering and aviation cadres. It stated that recruitment of Regulars had continued to be challenging throughout 2015-16”.
Our armed forces are not in a situation where they can feasibly allow a significant number of personnel to work part time.
The Government’s fact sheet for the Bill says:
“We anticipate from the existing evidence that there will be a very small initial take up of the new flexible working arrangements, no more than 1% when they are implemented in April 2019. We anticipate that this will increase slowly as cultural change is fully embedded over the next 10-15 years.”
However, there is no indication of what the Government expect that figure to grow to and whether there will be any limitations on numbers.
The amendment highlights the fact that problems are more likely to emerge if a much greater proportion of those in specific roles want to work part time, particularly if they are in operational pinch points. OPPs are branch specialisations, sub-specialisations or areas of expertise where the shortfall in trained strength is such that it has a measurable detrimental impact on current, planned or contingent operations. As of April this year, there were 15 OPPs in the naval service. The key pinch points relate to engineering roles, plus some specialist roles such as warfare specialists. The Army has four OPPs, the key ones being logistics roles, and the RAF has 11 OPPs, where the key pinch points are in engineering and intelligence roles, as well as shortfalls in the aircrew branch. The Bill’s administration fact sheet says:
“The Approval Authority will take into account the chain of command’s recommendation, overall manning levels of the Service and the individual’s trade, and any specific skills held by the Service person.”
Presumably that means those from OPPs are automatically ruled out.
While I am not expecting the Government to accept the amendment, I hope that the Minister will answer some questions that were not addressed on Second Reading. Will there be clear limits on the number or percentage of those working part time in any specific regiment? How would that look in the RAF and the Navy? Would the percentages be universal or different for each service? If somebody applies for part-time working after that limit has been met, will they automatically be rejected? Will personnel from OPPs not be given the option to apply for part-time working, or will they be allowed to apply but, because of their trade, have no chance of being accepted?
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Dorries. I want to expand on some of those issues.
As my hon. Friend said, this is a probing amendment, but it goes to the heart of the entire Bill and how it will be implemented in practice. Will the 15% limit operate in the same way across the three services, and how will it work within each individual service? Let us take trades, for example. We all know that fast jet pilots are quite a small pool of individuals. If someone from that pool wanted to work part time, that would obviously have an adverse effect on the capability of that frontline unit. Likewise, if 15% of a ship’s crew suddenly decided to apply for part-time working, on what basis would a decision be arrived at in terms of operational effectiveness? As my hon. Friend said, there are certain niches or pinch points within the Army, with trades that are in scarce supply because of recruitment problems. What limit would be put on the number of those individuals who could apply for part-time working?
I would like to get an understanding from the Minister of how this proposal will work across the various ranks. There is a big difference, for example, between a private and a general applying for part-time working. We can envisage a situation where a senior officer in all three services wanted to go part time. One aim that General Carter has put forward for the legislation is to encourage opportunities for more family-friendly working practices, and obviously there is the aim of encouraging women not only to join the armed forces, but to advance up the career path. I would therefore like to know from the Minister what the rules are. Will there be uniform rules across the ranks for how individuals, and what percentage of individuals, would be covered?
Having read the Bill, I am not sure whether this issue is covered. Clearly, the ultimate decision is about the operational effectiveness of our armed forces. We could not have a situation in which, even if there was a 15% upper limit, we took out an entire capability that was needed by our armed forces.
I would be interested to know, through the probing amendment tabled by my hon. Friend, what the appeals mechanism is. One issue in the armed forces is women not advancing up the pay spine or rankings because of breaks in service and other situations, so what would be the appeal mechanism? If someone felt that they were being unfairly denied part-time working, what would be the process? If it relates to a female member of the armed forces, is that not opening us up, potentially, to a claim of discrimination against that individual if she feels that that is the reason why she has been denied part-time working?
Mr Ellwood
First, it is a pleasure to be here. I am very grateful that the Bill has reached Committee and, from looking around the room, it is clear that there are many committed right hon. and hon. Members who want the best for our armed forces. I am pleased that the Bill has reached this stage and that we can scrutinise what I hope will be an important stepping-stone in our support for our armed services.
In the wider debate on the clause, I will expand on the virtues and benefits of the Bill, but specifically on the amendment, questions were raised about recruitment and retention. We concede that this is a difficult climate in which to recruit and retain personnel. That is why we have put forward the armed forces people programme, of which there are four distinct parts. This Bill on the flexible working programme, which we are debating here today, forms one part of that. We need to advance, to modernise. We need to reflect society and ensure that we can recruit from that gene pool—the voluntary force out there—and make the armed forces attractive in a modern-day context. That means providing an element of flexibility in the work that we expect them to do.
The Armed Forces Pay Review Body was touched on. We will probably look at this matter in further detail under a later amendment. Now, I will simply say that the freeze—the pay cap—has been removed. Absolutely, there may be a requirement for an increase in salaries for specific trades where there is a shortfall, and we need to attract people and fill posts. That is beyond the scope of the Bill and this debate, but it sits in the wider context of ensuring that we are doing our best to attract and retain people for the most professional armed forces in the world.
I was asked whether this provision applies across the three services. It does. However, the word “regiment” would not necessarily apply in all contexts of the armed forces. It is important to remember the requirement in respect of operational capability. The example was given of an individual seeking to apply for flexible working while on board a ship. The hon. Member for North Durham will be aware that they will be attached to a posting for a period—possibly nine months—and they will make an application for the future. They would hope, perhaps, to be able to remain in a geographic location or to have the freedom to work part-time or reduced hours once they got off the ship. Ultimately, operational capability is of first and foremost importance, and it must not be affected at all by any aspect of the Bill.
Mr Kevan Jones
The Minister is right that a person on a ship would be applying for the future, but what would be the decision-making process when putting together a crew for a ship? What percentage of the crew would be allowed to work part time?
Mr Ellwood
When we look at countries that already have this process, figures like 15% simply are not applicable. Australia has, I believe, up to 1% or 2% of its personnel interested in pursuing this. Ultimately, it is about the operational capability of any ship and the force on board. Any commander or authority has the ability to deny any individual application because of that. Should an individual still feel that they require this kind of working because of their personal circumstances, there will be an appeals process. We will come on to that under a later amendment.
We have the mechanisms in place to recall service personnel. I want to make that clear. Even if permission was given for an individual not to be on a particular ship, they could be recalled because of operational capability if the situation demanded it. That is the agreement under which this entire offering is being made.
These measures have been designed by the services for the services. This is the Army, Air Force and Navy looking at their own protocols and personnel situations, and seeing how they can manage situations like the one on the ship that was described by the hon. Member for North Durham. It makes sense, therefore, to leave many of the judgments on the details to the services themselves. They own the responsibility to deliver operational duty and capability in order to recruit and fulfil their tasks.
In our view, the arbitrary limit of 15% in the amendment was put forward with good intentions, but would inevitably prove unhelpful. I am pleased that it was clear from what the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney said that it is a probing amendment. We must allow the services to retain the flexibility and agility to manage their manpower as they see fit.
Mr Kevan Jones
The Minister says that this proposal comes from the services. How far down the chain of command is there buy-in on this? If anyone in the Navy is asked about their next posting, they will always say, “Put the two at the top that you don’t want and you’ll get the one that you want third.” Will there be a cultural shift so that this is not just something that is recognised by the senior heads in the Ministry of Defence, but something that has buy-in from the people actually making the decisions about where people go?
Mr Ellwood
As I say, this has been designed by the armed forces themselves. A series of surveys has been put forward. I refer the hon. Gentleman to the opening speech given by the then Secretary of State on Second Reading, which made clear the length and depth to which the Ministry of Defence has gone to ensure that there is buy-in and approval not just among service personnel, but from their families and partners who are directly affected by this. There is absolute support for this and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will agree, particularly with his experience, that it would not be wise to go ahead with it if the chiefs did not agree, if the commanders did not agree and if the armed forces personnel themselves were not calling for it.
Looking at the surveys, one reason why individuals make the tough decision to sign off and leave the armed forces is the stress and strain that it places on their families. That is why we have said, “Let’s adapt, let’s reflect on what society is doing and on what happens in civilian areas.” That is why I believe that it makes sense to persevere with this idea. I assure the hon. Gentleman that it has support across the board.
As I suggested, we envisage a modest take-up of between 0.5% and 1% of all service personnel. The take-up rate is highly unlikely to exceed 15%, but of course it would be wrong to place a cap or arbitrary limit on it. Following the assurances that I have provided, I hope that the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney will agree to withdraw the amendment.
Gerald Jones
I concur with the Minister about the unity across the House in wanting the best for our armed forces. As I said at the start, this is a probing amendment to seek further clarification. My hon. Friend the Member for North Durham has indicated what clarification is required on how the proposal will work across the ranks and on the appeals mechanism.
Although I accept what the Minister said about the services having flexibility, there needs to be some idea of what the limit will be in the future. Hopefully the Minister will consider that. For the arrangement to work effectively, there needs to be further clarity. I ask the Minister to look at that again, but I do beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)
I beg to move amendment 5, in clause 1, page 1, line 18, at end insert—
“(3AA) The Secretary of State must prepare and publish an annual report on any use of the power to vary, suspend or terminate set out in subsection (3A) and must lay a copy of the Report before Parliament.”
An amendment to require the Secretary of State to report annually to Parliament on instances where the right to work part-time or in a geographically restricted area has been varied, suspended or terminated.
I rise to speak to amendments 4 and 5—
The Chair
Order. Amendment 4 has not been selected. It is not on the selection list, so just speak to amendment 5.
Carol Monaghan
I think I missed that paper then, because I am looking at it—
The Chair
When we come to the clause stand part debate, you can be more wide-ranging in your comments, Ms Monaghan, but please just stick to amendment 5 for now.
Carol Monaghan
I would like to raise similar concerns to those raised already, but probably coming from a different position. We have already heard that there are issues around large numbers of personnel and the requirement to maintain operational capability. I would certainly echo those concerns, but if the Bill is to deal with retention of the talent that we cannot afford to lose, and identify how best to make the armed forces modern and fit for purpose, we need to consider how it will be implemented.
There are some worrying phrases in the Bill, such as the “prescribed circumstances” in which flexible working can be suspended. We have already talked about the suspension of flexible working during a national emergency; nobody has a problem with that, but the form of manning crisis and its management, and the ability of the service to refuse applications broadly on the grounds of defence need are more problematic.
We have already heard about areas in which there are key shortages—engineering and particular parts of the RAF, and I will add the submarine service to that. There are people in those services who are currently unable to take the annual leave to which they are entitled. Those same people will not be able to access flexible working, and the result will be the same—members of the armed forces will leave before they are due to do so and the problem with retention will continue. To maintain operational capability, members of particular sections will not be able take up flexible working or get leave because of things that are absolutely out of their control, such as shortages and budget cuts. We need some clarity on how that is rolled out.
Getting the Secretary of State to report to Parliament is quite important. People need to know the situations in which applications have been refused and the number of people who have taken the option up. The Minister mentioned his view that a very small percentage will take it up. We need to be told regularly exactly what the uptake is and across which services, and why applications have been refused—was it because of a particular short-term issue or longer term, endemic problems? Having the Secretary of State report to Parliament regularly would allow some clarity and allow us to monitor who is able to access flexible working and who is not.
Amendment 4 is a probing amendment, but I reserve the right to return to it at a later stage.
Mr Ellwood
I admire the way in which the hon. Lady finessed amendment 4, which disappeared, into amendment 5 with the dexterity that we all require in such situations.
I am grateful for the general support for the armed forces. It is important to understand the context. Is this about budget cuts? That is a knee-jerk reaction—a question that I also posed, when I was in opposition, whenever any decision came up. Is the Bill a consequence of that? I can say to the Committee that it is not; it is absolutely nothing to do with financing whatsoever. It is purely to do with recruitment and retention, and the hon. Lady cited examples of that.
Carol Monaghan
I am not suggesting that the Bill is a way to deal with budget cuts. I am suggesting that budget cuts to particular areas may make people working in those areas less able to access the flexible working provisions because they are stretched to their limit.
Mr Ellwood
I am grateful for that clarification. The hon. Lady talked about what she called the endemic problems we are having. I was very frank, honest and transparent and said, yes, as the Secretary of State and the Armed Forces Minister recognise, we need to do our best to recruit and retain. We can only do that if we adapt, and that is one of the reasons for the Bill.
The hon. Lady gave an excellent example of those who are under pressure because of their expertise—there are not enough experts in a particular field, which places extra pressure on those who are there. We need to make sure that we recruit more experts in a particular field—engineers, for example—so that we limit the pressures on any individual to constantly be at work, which we do not want.
The new arrangements will be available to all regular service personnel and are aimed at improving recruitment and retention, in not just the short but the long term. Our aim is to approve as many applications as we can, but we also recognise that there will be some that we will not be able to approve. There will be requests made to work part time to which we will have to say no—for example, because somebody is serving at the moment in a high-readiness unit. We have to manage the expectations about the arrangements and we have to provide commanding officers with the information to help them to determine, with their people, whether the arrangements are right for them, or whether less formal flexible working arrangements, which are already available, might suit them better.
Careful consideration will be given to applications when they are made, and because of that we do not anticipate that there will be a need to vary, suspend or terminate any arrangements. However, the ability to do that is necessary to maintain our ability to recall if operational capability demands. It also provides our people with some flexibility should their own needs change.
When it comes to the numbers, as I mentioned, we do not expect take-up of more than about 1%. On that basis, in our view, collating or reporting the information for the size of the cohort will not provide significant or beneficial data. Our internal systems are likely to capture that information anyway as a matter of course and be reported to Parliament in the normal way. That will provide management information from which the services can assess how effectively the new arrangements are working and make any appropriate adjustments.
This is a new concept; of course we need to understand and manage it, see how it works in practice and adapt accordingly. It therefore seems disproportionate to require the services to spend time and resources compiling the management information proposed in the amendment into a form robust enough for publication when we expect the numbers affected by the powers to be small. I hope that I have provided clarification and assurances, and that the hon. Lady will agree to withdraw the amendment.
Carol Monaghan
I still have some questions. There is a difficulty: if we cannot look at the entire picture and see the particular areas of service that cannot access the arrangements, we are missing a trick. Undoubtedly, if people are operationally stretched and unable to access them, there will be more retention issues. However, for the moment, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 1 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 2
Consequential amendments
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Mr Ellwood
Clause 2 makes small consequential amendments to existing legislation to provide that regular service personnel temporarily serving under flexible working arrangements continue to be excused automatically from jury service. It has long been recognised that regular service personnel are in a unique position when it comes to jury service. It is vital, as I stressed before, that operational capability is maintained at all times, so commanding officers have the ability to certify the need for their personnel to be exempt. The changes will ensure that the same protections are in place for those working under the new part-time arrangements.
The relevant legislation providing automatic excusal and discretionary deferral from jury service in England, Wales and Scotland refer to full-time serving members of Her Majesty’s naval, military or air forces. Service personnel temporarily serving under part-time working arrangements will not, therefore, be covered by the legislation in England, Wales and Scotland. Clause 2 will ensure that we maintain the current position for our people.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 2 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 3
Short title, commencement and extent
Gerald Jones
I beg to move amendment 2, in clause 3, page 2, line 21, at end insert—
“(3A) Prior to making any regulations under subsection (3), the Secretary of State shall commission an independent evaluation into the impact of part-time and geographically restricted working on recruitment methods to the Armed Forces and shall lay the report of the evaluation before each House of Parliament.”
This amendment requires an evaluation of the impact part-time and geographically restricted working has on recruitment to the Armed Forces.
The amendment relates to recruitment methods and practices in the armed forces. It would require the Government to report on the impact of new working practices on recruitment and on how recruitment methods are changing to reflect that. I have already mentioned briefly the problem with recruitment into the armed forces. The numbers are simply not what they need to be, so we need to have a good look at current practices and how to improve the situation.
In 2012, Army recruitment was outsourced through the recruitment partnership project. The contract, said to be worth around £44 million over 10 years, is subject to renewal in 2022. Unfortunately, since 2012, the recruitment picture has not been pretty. When the Capita contract was awarded, regular soldier applications were around 70,000, but they fell to around 45,000 in 2012-13, which is roughly where they remain. A report by the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois), who I think we would all acknowledge has outstanding knowledge of these matters, highlighted the poor performance, stating
“with the programme now having run for some five years it is evident that RPP has been underperforming significantly below initial projections.”
Research by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty), whose extremely hard work on this issue I must highlight, uncovered the poor rates of take-up at Army training courses across the country. Only 14 troops signed up for the standard common infantry course at Catterick in one of this year’s batches, despite 96 spaces being available, meaning 85% of the places were empty. Similarly, 30% of places were unfilled on courses starting between July 2015 and June 2017 at the Pirbright Army Training Centre, and a quarter of spaces were left unfilled at the Army Training Regiment at Winchester.
Mr Kevan Jones
The Minister has spoken about these new working practices, which I support and which are designed to make the armed forces more attractive to individuals. I can clearly see that people already in the armed forces may well take some of these on board as their lives change—with changing family commitments, for example. Has the Ministry of Defence considered offering part-time posts as part of recruitment?
The main thrust of the amendment is toward those already in the armed services, but would it allow the Ministry of Defence or the three armed services to advertise a role as part-time? People might say that that goes against the ethos of what we want from the armed forces, but I could see a situation in which someone who has previously served in the armed forces wants to come back once their circumstances change—certainly, if we are to try to attract more women back into roles—and they may want a specific role in the armed forces that is not full time. Will the Bill allow that, and has the Minister considered advertising certain posts as part-time? He has already talked about pinch-point trades, and some of those that are geographically restricted in certain areas could offer part-time work as part of a recruitment exercise to fill some of those posts.
Mr Ellwood
There has been helpful discussion on this clause, and I welcome the tone adopted by both hon. Gentlemen. We discussed the excellent report by my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford on the armed forces. It is called “Filling the Ranks”, and I recommend it to all right hon. and hon. Members. I am pleased that we have accepted all the recommendations. It is a sober consideration of the challenges that we face in our armed forces today, and part of the work that we are doing—including in this Bill—is about moving on from that.
We want to widen opportunities for those in the armed forces, and it could be that instead of working part time, somebody may wish to leave the armed forces all together. I remember from before I left regular service—I do not know whether others who have served felt this as well—that as soon as someone put their hand up and said that they were going to depart, they were given different types of jobs and treated slightly differently, simply because there was perhaps a question mark about their commitment that should not have been there. We now have a process of leave well and then rejoin well, because it could be that after a period in civilian life, someone might fancy going back again, and they need to be able to do that. People should not leave under any cloud, and the service should be welcoming so that somebody can come back in.
The importance of diversity was mentioned on Second Reading, and I agree. We want to recruit the very best from across the country—men and women from different ethnic backgrounds and geographical locations. There should be no inhibitors for anybody wishing to serve.
The contract with Capita was also raised, and there have been some issues and concerns about that. Again, we must advance and modernise to reflect the modern needs of our armed forces personnel.
The idea of the part-time post was raised. I will take that away with me as it is certainly worth considering. We must bear in mind that some of those posts already exist for reservists, and it will be for the services who are designing the arrangements to ensure that operational capability is not threatened in any way. It would, however, be silly not to consider any of the freedoms and opportunities that could be set up underneath that, and I welcome the input from the hon. Member for North Durham.
The amendment seeks to place an obligation on the Ministry of Defence to commission an independent report on the effects of new forms of flexible working on recruitment to the armed forces. The new flexible working measures are designed to attract, recruit and retain people from a more diverse cross-section of society. We stress that we need the knowledge, skills and experience to deliver that operational capability, and we believe that these measures will benefit a small but significant cohort who wish to take up this offer—for example, women and men starting a family, those with caring commitments, or those who wish to undertake long-term studies. However, evidence gathered by our external report, the internal surveys, the focus groups and our ongoing flexible duties trial shows we are providing our people with modern choices, which will help us retain highly skilled personnel who might otherwise leave—a concern that has already been expressed in this Committee.
This evidence already provides us with detailed assessment of the benefits of the new forms of flexible working. The MOD is experiencing many of the same skills and recruitment challenges that are being faced nationally, so to meet those challenges as proactively as possible, we are modernising the employment offer for our armed forces to better allow defence to attract and retain the right mix of people and skills. As I mentioned earlier, those are being managed collectively under our armed forces people programme, which comprises projects including the new joiner offer and the enterprise approach. The latter is about taking people with civilian skills—for example, working for Rolls-Royce or Babcock—and bringing them straight across to work in the defence environment.
The Committee will be aware that the intake in strength by rank, trade and specialisation is monitored and managed on a regular basis at both the service level and centrally by the MOD. The MOD already publishes detailed information analysis on intake in the “UK armed forces monthly service personnel statistics” publication—a long title. The overall numbers taking up the new opportunities are likely to be low, as I have mentioned before. This will mean that any detailed evaluation, external or otherwise, of the impact of the new flexible working measures on overall recruitment in the armed forces will be difficult to achieve in the early years of operation. Furthermore, evidence gathering already conducted by the armed forces of the benefits and impact that the new forms of flexible working will have on our people is of greater value than an evaluation from an independent contractor. The obligation proposed in the amendment will be unnecessarily costly, will delay the introduction of the new measures and their benefits for our people, and will add little value to what defence is already trying to achieve. With those assurances, I hope the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney will agree to withdraw this amendment.
Gerald Jones
I thank the Minister for his comments. While I do not intend to push this amendment to a vote, I ask the Minister to reflect on the need for further work to evaluate the investment being made in recruitment and the advertising process for recruitment to the armed forces, because it is not reflected in the current take-up. There is a need for further work and attention in that area. I ask the Minister to take those comments on board. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Gerald Jones
I beg to move amendment 3, in clause 3, page 2, line 21, at end insert—
“(3A) Prior to making any regulations under subsection (3), the Secretary of State shall commission an independent evaluation into the impact of part-time and geographically restricted working on Armed Forces housing contracts and shall lay the report of the evaluation before each House of Parliament.”
This amendment requires an evaluation of the impact part-time and geographically restricted working has on Armed Forces housing contracts.
The amendment is about armed forces housing and the impact that changes to working practices will have on housing contracts. As I am sure the Minister has gathered, the amendment is a way for me to question him about housing as it relates to recruitment and, more specifically, retention.
We know that housing is an important element of the overall offer to our armed forces. As far as I am aware, there will be no change to current allocation of service accommodation as a result of changed working practices. The Bill guidance states:
“Service provided accommodation, which is provided because of the inherent mobility of Service life, will continue to be available for those taking up these new flexible working arrangements under the normal eligibility criteria because they will continue to remain liable for routine assignment changes.”
This was affirmed in the other place by the Minister of State, Earl Howe, who said,
“I stress again that regular service personnel who successfully apply to work part-time following the introduction of these new measures will be entitled to service accommodation commensurate with their personal status category and other qualifying criteria in the same way as their full-time colleagues.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 11 October 2017; Vol. 785, c. 260.]
The only slight concern I have with Earl Howe’s statement is the reference to P-stat categories. Obviously, if the P-stat category changes, their allowance changes. Will the Minister please confirm that personnel who work in part time will not have their category changed? I am sure that was a turn of phrase and I am perhaps nit-picking, but I would appreciate having that confirmed by the Minister, just for the peace of mind of our service personnel.
The Minister highlighted on Second Reading that the new working practices were fitting into wider planned changes as part of the people programme. He mentioned,
“our future accommodation model, advancing the housing options available both to single and to married personnel, including home ownership”.—[Official Report, 30 October 2017; Vol. 630, c. 672.]
We know very little about the new accommodation model and I hope that the amendment will enable me to pry a few more details out of the Minister. I say “pry” because we have been asking for a while and unfortunately the Government remain tight-lipped.
Ruth Smeeth (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)
As my hon. Friend and the Minister know, I pay close attention to this issue. The complaints are not necessarily about response times, but about where the key performance indicators have been set and how they do not meet the needs of our armed forces. CarillionAmey is meeting its KPIs. It will turn up within 24 hours, but it takes eight days to fix the boiler, and I think that is more of a problem. I can empathise with that, given how cold it is in here today.
Gerald Jones
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. She has highlighted one of the many concerns that we have around the work of the contracts, or the way that the contract is not working for families in our armed forces.
Last year’s National Audit Office report on service family accommodation was damning of Carillion’s performance:
“The performance of CarillionAmey has been totally unacceptable”.
Although I welcome the action that has been taken, the Government had the option to terminate the contract, yet they did not, which leaves me with some concerns about how seriously the matter is being taken. I appreciate that there have been some improvements, but reports have shown that continued dissatisfaction with the delivery of the contract is still widespread. For those in service family accommodation, satisfaction with the quality of maintenance/repair and with response to requests for maintenance/repair fell to just 28%, which is very alarming indeed.
Of course, this is all in the context of many personnel seeing increased costs for their accommodation and ongoing pay restraint. The pay review body commented on that in its latest report:
“A key consideration in people accepting the increases in charges being seen…will be a clear improvement in both the overall quality of the housing stock and the effective delivery of maintenance services.”
I would like to hear whether the Department has any specific plans to take action to improve performance and at what point we might see that happen.
Recruitment and retention issues are at the heart of the Bill, and housing is a crucial factor in that. I hope the Minister can give me some assurance and answer my questions about how the new working practices will impact on housing allocation, what the latest progress with the future accommodation model is and how the Government will deal with housing contracts if marked improvements are not shown.
Mr Kevan Jones
I would like to get an understanding of how the housing of someone who works part time will be dealt with. Housing has always been seen as part of the overall remuneration package that armed forces personnel get. We will potentially have a situation where someone who works part time lives in a house next door to someone working full time, with both getting the same housing package. If someone goes part time, will there be a way to recoup some of the advantage, or will they continue as if they are working full time? I can see that creating some issues, where people working full time and people working part time are getting the same benefits. How will the Ministry of Defence address that? There could be an issue of perceived fairness for the individual working full time and the idea that someone is getting benefits that they are not working for. I would like to know how the Minister thinks that would be addressed when this is rolled out.
Mr Ellwood
We have wandered into another huge chunk of the armed forces people programme. It is pertinent to the Bill, but it is so important that it sits alone as one of the four major pillars of improvement we are trying to make to recruit and retain armed forces personnel.
The future accommodation model has been mentioned. It will be coming round the corner very soon in more detail. It is still very much being planned, so I am not able to share too much detail, but it is helpful to hear the concerns, which we are very much alive to.
Ruth Smeeth
May I suggest that as the Minister is looking at those proposals, he bears it in mind that to move from where we are now to a regional model is of huge concern to the families?
Mr Ellwood
I know that the hon. Lady has spent a lot of time looking at these issues, and I am grateful for her input. She has done well to finesse those concerns into the Bill. She knows that that is a separate but very important subject. I hear what she says.
CarillionAmey was mentioned. That concerned the previous Secretary of State, and the company was called in to ensure that improvements were made to meet the KPIs. The contract comes up for renewal in 2020. That does not stop us making sure we provide the best accommodation we can for our armed forces personnel. We should recognise that what people choose and expect today is very different from 15 or 20 years ago, when a room this size would have been full of 20 beds. Now people expect individual accommodation, wireless networks and decent cooking facilities, and that is what we are providing, not least as we build new premises and new accommodation, with the returning of our armed forces from Germany.
The hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney seeks to place an obligation on the MOD to commission an independent report evaluating the impact of new forms of flexible working on armed forces housing contracts. The Government have already provided assurances during the passage of the Bill that regular service personnel, when taking part-time work, will retain those entitlements currently available to full-time regulars. There will be no change there. Providing our people with service accommodation is pivotal for their work. We must ensure that their families have that guarantee and that support, particularly if circumstances change and they need to be called back at short notice.
Regular service personnel who successfully apply to undertake the new forms of flexible working following the introduction of these measures will be entitled to service accommodation commensurate with their personnel status category and other qualifying criteria, in the same way as their full-time colleagues. Individuals will take up these new arrangements for a defined period only and will retain an enduring liability for mobility. They will still be subject to the same moves associated with new assignments as others in the regular armed forces.
Mr Kevan Jones
It is common sense that no one will suddenly be turfed out of accommodation, but can the Minister not see that tensions might rise if someone working part time is living long term next door to someone working full time? He said “as long as that contract continues”, but what happens if the person is still part time and is redeployed somewhere else for new accommodation? Will they have the same access to housing or will that change in some way?
Mr Ellwood
I understand where the question comes from; it is a detailed, specific point, but it needs to be considered. They will be treated in the same manner as anybody else in the unit that they are with if there is an ORBAT change or movement. It will also be down to the arrangements made when the application is put forward in the first place. If a unit is moving from one location to another, that needs to be factored into the decision. Someone might look over their shoulder and have a view about that, but that same person might request a period of absence or a change in their circumstances to move to part time at a later date. I hope the fuller explanation that we give to our armed forces personnel as these measures are rolled out will clarify that and ensure that there are not those feelings that the hon. Gentleman has mentioned.
Support for service families was a recurring theme on Second Reading. The Bill is at the heart of the work we are doing to support our people. I reaffirm that enhanced flexible working options are about providing opportunities for our people who want to work more flexibly and not about disadvantaging them or their families by limiting access to support and entitlements. I have said before that only a small yet significant number of personnel will undertake flexible working and that the longer-term impact of these new options will be difficult to assess in the early years of implementation. For those reasons, the impact on service accommodation contracts is likely to be minimal—I do not see a huge change there—and challenging to assess, particularly in the light of the fact that there are no plans for the entitlements to be altered, and an independent evaluation is therefore deemed unnecessary.
The Ministry of Defence recognises that the current system for accommodation can be unaffordable and inflexible, and that it does not support personnel to live in the way that many of them want to today. We are reforming the accommodation model so that all regular personnel can receive support to live how they want to. We recognise the need to offer accommodation that meets their needs and expectations today and in the future. The hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney asked about the future accommodation model, which is due to be introduced in 2019 as part of the defence people programme. We are exploring options for a more flexible accommodation offer to give service personnel more choice in how they live.
Mr Kevan Jones
May I suggest that the Minister delve into the bowels of the Ministry of Defence? There was a plan there in 2010 that is clearly gathering dust, but it addresses quite a lot of the issues that he has raised.
Mr Ellwood
I shall certainly go back to the bowels of the MOD and see whether I can find anything that the hon. Gentleman has left behind.
Extensive work is being done to consider a wide range of options, from widening entitlement based on the current model of service-provided accommodation to helping service personnel to meet their aspirations for home ownership. We hope to be able to say more about that at the end of the year. Eligibility under the future accommodation model will not be altered for personnel who work part time or who are subject to geographical restriction when the new measures come into force. I hope that makes it clear to the Committee that there will be no change. I hope that hon. Members are reassured by what I have said and that the hon. Gentleman will withdraw the amendment.
Gerald Jones
I thank the Minister for the clarification and reassurance he has provided, and for recognising that there is still significant concern. My hon. Friend the Member for North Durham highlighted the concerns and practical issues facing families. The Minister commented on the future accommodation model, understanding that it stands alone as a significant piece of work. He said it is “coming round the corner” soon. Given that we were told that we would have the detail in 2017 and there are only six weeks left in 2017, and while I appreciate that he might not be able to give the fullest detail, I would have hoped for an indication of when that detail will be forthcoming. I am sure the Government recognise that this is a significant issue and that there are huge concerns around it. That said, I do not wish to push the amendment to a vote. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Carol Monaghan
I beg to move amendment 6, in clause 3, page 2, line 21, at end insert—
“(3A) Within one calendar year of making any regulations under subsection (3), the Secretary of State shall commission an independent evaluation into the impact of part-time and geographically restricted working on welfare of Armed Forces personnel.”
An amendment to require the Secretary of State to consider the welfare implications of part-time and geographically restricted working on Armed Forces personnel.
I will explain a little about the amendment. Ultimately, the Bill is to improve the welfare, satisfaction and work-life balance of those who are serving. Of course we want to modernise the services, consider working practices and, as a result, improve the recruitment and retention of personnel. The amendment would ensure that there was an evaluation of the process. Unless we evaluate the scheme, it will be impossible to know its efficacy and impact. The continuous attitude survey is already carried out, and we know that, at the moment, 35% of serving personnel report dissatisfaction with service life. It would be straightforward to widen the continuous attitude survey to include a section on flexible or part-time working, and have a specific evaluation for those who have undertaken that work.
Any new scheme needs evaluation. I am sure the Government have plans to monitor the success of the scheme, so I am not trying to be difficult, but it would be useful to know the details of the monitoring that will take place. Without evaluation, we cannot know the impact of what I believe to be a positive step for those now serving in the armed forces. I would welcome comments from the Minister on that point.
Mr Ellwood
I understand what the hon. Lady is saying, but she wants to place a further burden on the Secretary of State to commission an independent evaluation of the impact of the new flexible working arrangements within 12 calendar months of the clause containing the powers to make the new terms of service regulations coming into force. I am not sure whether that is exactly the intention of what she wants to achieve. The regulations to implement the new flexible working arrangements may be made some months before they come into force, so she might be seeking to place a duty on the Secretary of State to commission an independent evaluation of the impact of the new flexible working arrangements within one year of the new terms of service regulations coming into force.
Either way, I assure the hon. Lady and the Committee that the policies and processes that will support the changes brought about by the Bill have been designed by the services for the services. We have done a great deal of work to ensure that the services develop policies that work for them and for their people. Any effects on allowances or promotion are intended to be proportionate and fair, and our policy has been developed to limit any of the negative impacts.
The physical and mental health of our people and their wider wellbeing contribute directly to our operational capability. I have stressed again and again that we must bear that in mind, but we recognise the welfare risks of some personnel having less income, for example, as a result of serving part time. We will strive to ensure that service personnel are independent and responsible in respect of their personal finances, and that will be one of the things that commanders discuss with applicants before making recommendations or seeing applications that are pushed through.
I hope that, given those assurances, the hon. Lady will withdraw her amendment, but I am happy to discuss it with her in more detail at a later date.
Carol Monaghan
There is an issue. We need to know how successful flexible working is. Some 35% of serving personnel are dissatisfied; we need to know whether personnel accessing flexible working feel more satisfied with service life. If they do not, the Bill fails.
Mr Ellwood
The hon. Lady makes the argument herself that if there is a sense of dissatisfaction, we have to ask ourselves why that is. We are trying to remedy that dissatisfaction; we are trying to make more people satisfied. That will be achieved through flexible working—through the Bill.
Carol Monaghan
I think we are probably coming from the same point of view. It is difficult to know the impact if we do not monitor it. The impact of every change we make has to be monitored. However, given the Minister’s assurances, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Mr Kevan Jones
I just have a question. Clause 3(5) states:
“Section 1 and this section extend to—
(a) England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland,
(b) the Isle of Man, and
(c) the British overseas territories, except Gibraltar.”
I wonder what the issue is with Gibraltar.
Mr Ellwood
The hon. Gentleman poses an important question. There is a technical reason for this. It is simply because, as has come slightly mysteriously and miraculously to my attention, we have been liaising with the Gibraltarian Government about whether any provision of the Armed Forces Act 2006, with which he will be familiar, should be part of the new law of Gibraltar. They have undertaken to introduce their own legislation in the near future to effect this. I did know that, but a little piece of paper arrived to remind me of it. I am grateful for his question.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 3 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
New Clause 1
Protection of existing flexible working options
“(1) Nothing in this Act shall affect the ability of persons serving with a regular force to avail themselves of the flexible working options provided for in Chapter 1 of Joint Service Publication 750 (centrally determined terms of service).
(2) If the flexible working options in subsection (1) are withdrawn, the Secretary of State must make similar provision through regulations.
(3) Regulations under subsection (2) may not be made unless a draft has been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament.”—(Gerald Jones.)
This new clause preserves current flexible working practices for the Armed Forces.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Gerald Jones
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
The new clause relates to current flexible working practices in the armed forces. As the Minister knows, there are already ways for personnel to undertake flexible working. Although none of those options involves a reduction in overall hours, the former Defence Secretary, the right hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Sir Michael Fallon), pointed out on Second Reading that they are well subscribed:
“We know that these existing initiatives are popular: in the six months to July 2017, 1,400 personnel had taken advantage of them.”—[Official Report, 30 October 2017; Vol. 630, c. 624.]
The new clause would ensure that those popular options were retained and that the new options did not have unintended negative repercussions.
The three flexible working options available to service personnel, including home working, are outlined in Joint Service Publication 750. They involve an individual working the full number of hours associated with their role in a specific period, but having scope to vary their hours day to day. The guidance states that arrangements should be reviewed every 12 months, or earlier if circumstances change.
The current flexible working options are as follows. Variable start and finish times allow service personnel to start and finish their working day at different times from those considered the norm in their working environment, although the total number of hours worked will not be less than those considered normal for the role. That measure may cover part or the whole of an assignment.
Home working allows service personnel to carry out their work from home if that gives them greater flexibility in meeting their domestic needs and if the nature of the work allows it. Ad hoc home working is an informal agreement that gives personnel the opportunity to work at home occasionally to complete a particular task or project. Regular home working gives personnel a more regular home-working arrangement, so their working time is shared between home and the workplace. Compressed hours allows individuals to work the normal number of hours for their role over a shorter period to allow flexibility for travel or to meet other domestic demands during the week. For example, it allows an individual working away from home on a conventional Monday to Friday pattern to start late on a Monday, finish early on a Friday and work extended hours on the other days to facilitate travel.
The guidance cites
“a variety of personal responsibilities, such as for young children or for sick, disabled or elderly relatives”
as possible reasons for wanting flexible working, but I am slightly confused about the role that the new flexible working practices will play. Of course, it would be much easier to establish that if we knew what they will look like, but the Bill is very light on detail. The guidance for the new practices states:
“Service personnel will be able to apply to take up the new flexible working opportunities at any point in their career once they have completed their basic and professional training, plus an additional period prescribed by their Service. Therefore, we expect that it will be around four years before a new entrant will normally be permitted to undertake part-time working”.
There seems to be a conflation of part-time working with flexible working. The guidance refers to “new flexible working opportunities”, but then refers to part-time working. Perhaps the current practices will remain with the addition of a part-time element. Will the Minister clarify whether there will actually be any changes to the current flexible working practices? If so, will the new practices supersede the current? Will personnel have the option to continue with their current situation? If not, will they be expected to move over to the new practices as soon as they are introduced or will there be a grace period to allow families to adapt? It may be that the current flexible working options fit very well with a person’s lifestyle, but a part-time option and the pay reduction that comes with it might not work as well.
If the Minister can reassure us about how the new practices fit in with the current ones, I will gladly withdraw the new clause, but I would like some clarity on those points.
Mr Ellwood
I am grateful for this probing new clause, which allows me to explain how JSP 750—I have a copy here, should anybody wish to read that heavy-duty but important document—fits in with this flexible working Bill.
It is worth pausing to consider people’s perception of the armed forces. People see the armed forces as mainly the infantry, but certainly the action-orientated, frontline services. That is what they see on television, but it is the very top part. Any action that the infanteer takes is a response to a huge series of decisions taken by other people. We collect data in the armed forces and our other agencies. That data is turned into information, that information is turned into intelligence, that intelligence is turned into wisdom and that wisdom is turned into action. There are an awful lot of personnel doing an awful lot of work behind those we see—the overt picture of our armed forces.
The manner in which those personnel work varies. There are many situations—the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney went through some of them—such as variable start and finish times, compressed hours, home working, different forms of unpaid leave and career breaks. That is all covered in JSP 750, and it is very pertinent to providing flexibility prior to the Bill’s coming into force.
The new flexibilities that the Bill will introduce are part of a series of steps that we are undertaking to modernise the conditions of the service that we offer to those who serve. Those considering a career in the armed forces will not be affected at all by what exists already; nothing will be replaced in that sense. The long-term aim is to improve overall recruitment and retention in our armed forces.
Gerald Jones
I thank the Minister for his commitment to the existing arrangements under Joint Services Publication 750 and for the clarity that no existing arrangements will be affected by the changes. Given that he has stressed that intention, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the clause.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 2
Reporting of Armed Forces personnel serving part-time
“(1) The Secretary of State must include the number of personnel who are serving part-time in the monthly UK armed forces service personnel statistics.
(2) The Secretary of State must include the number of personnel who are serving part-time in the UK armed forces biannual diversity statistic.”—(Gerald Jones.)
This new clause requires the number of UK armed forces service personnel working part-time to be reported regularly, and to be included in the UK armed forces biannual diversity statistics.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Gerald Jones
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
The new clause is about ensuring that armed forces personnel numbers and diversity statistics are as accurate as possible. It requires that both the personnel and diversity statistics include details of how many personnel are working part time. We believe that it is important to be open with Parliament and the public about the personnel statistics. Unfortunately, the Government have a poor record when it comes to the number of armed forces personnel, specifically the size of the Army.
Since 1 October 2016, Army personnel who have completed phase 1 training, which covers all new entry training to provide basic military skills, but have not completed phase 2, which includes initial individual specialisation and technical training following phase 1, are considered trained personnel. Prior to that, personnel were considered to be trained only when they had completed both phases.
The Government made a clear and specific promise in their 2015 manifesto that the Army would not fall below 82,000 under the old definition. Unfortunately, it seems that the change in the definition was a cynical attempt to keep that promise. The Government dropped the commitment for the 2017 election, and since then they have given increasingly vague answers to parliamentary questions about targets and minimum thresholds. That promise has not been kept. The latest figures show that the full-time trained strength of the Army is now just 77,680.
In the consultation on the change to the statistics, the Government said:
“The main purpose of these statistics is to measure the performance of the MOD against government and Parliament targets, and also to inform general debate in government, Parliament and the wider public.”
It is vital for accountability and informed debate that there is transparency around the personnel numbers. It would not be right to suggest that the Army or any of the services is at a greater strength than it actually is by failing to separate part-time and full-time personnel. Therefore, the personnel statistics must include specific detail on the number of personnel who are working part time.
The Government have made it clear that one of their hopes is that the Bill will encourage women not only to join the forces but, crucially, to stay in the forces. That is an excellent goal and one that we should pursue. When it comes to the diversity statistics, the reasons for wanting to include the number of personnel serving part time are twofold. As I mentioned, the Government have a record of trying to inflate personnel numbers. The 2015 strategic defence and security review includes a target to increase the number of women members of the armed forces. The aim was that by 2020, 15% of the regulars and reserves would be women, moving eventually to 20%. Figures from April 2017 show that just 11.4% of the regulars and reserves are women, but the new working practices apply only to regulars, of whom 10.2% are female. I look forward to the new diversity statistics that come out at the end of the month and hope that the numbers will have risen.
It is important that the number of female personnel is accurate, detailed and not overstated, so that we are not complacent about the work that is needed. If a significant reason for the legislation is to retain women, we need the diversity statistics to reflect how well that is working. The new Defence Secretary will name the new Chief of the Defence Staff soon. If we want to get to a situation where that could be a woman, we need to keep women in the services and promote them. There is a view that this was a missed opportunity to have a woman as the new Defence Secretary. She would have been the UK’s first female Defence Secretary, but who knows? Perhaps we will have one before long.
If we can establish how women are using the new working practices and how they affect their length of service and progression, we can establish the policy’s impact. To do that successfully, the more information we have, the better. The new clause does not try to undermine the Bill or its measures, but would be important in helping us to monitor how successfully the Bill’s aims are being met and in ensuring that the statistics are transparent. The new clause is a way of seeing whether we need to do more or explore other options. As was said on Second Reading, the Bill will not be a silver bullet for recruitment and retention issues in the armed forces, but we need a way to establish whether it is successful and, critically, how successful it is.
The Government’s fact sheet on the Bill acknowledges the issue, stating:
“The impact of these new arrangements will compete with the many other factors that influence recruitment and retention, and measurement of the effects of the changes will entail a mixture of metrics on the numbers and types of applications and the approval rates, alongside specific surveys to assess the impact. We are currently designing our strategy and methods for measuring this.”
Will the Minister give us an update on the progress of the monitoring systems?
I hope that the Minister will accept the new clause or give us assurances either that the personnel and diversity statistics will reflect the new working practices or that some kind of monitoring report will be publicly available, if that is already in his plans.
Mr Ellwood
I am once again grateful for the manner in which the hon. Gentleman asked his important questions about transparency in the numbers. We are aware of the challenges on recruitment and retention, and we are here today to advance our offer to the general public to consider a career in the armed forces. However, the challenges we face do not currently affect our operational capability. We are involved in about 30 operations in about 80 countries across the world. We are very much meeting our commitments, but there are challenges, which is why we have introduced the Bill.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned some of our targets on diversity, as did several hon. Members on Second Reading, including the 20% target for women, which I hope we will meet. He is aware that we already publish detailed information and analysis of the UK armed forces in the monthly service personnel statistics publication—I have a copy of it here, should any hon. Member wish to look at it. It provides statistics on the number of service personnel by strength, intake and outflow in the UK armed forces. Detail is provided both for the full-time armed forces and the reserves.
The MOD promotes the importance of the armed forces being appropriately representative of the diverse society that they exist to defend, with operational effectiveness being dependent on inclusion and fairness. My Department publishes comprehensive data in the UK armed forces biannual diversity statistics, a statistical release that presents information relating to the gender, ethnicity, nationality, religion and age of personnel employed by the MOD. That meets our obligations under the public sector equality duty to provide information on our workforce in relation to the protected characteristics identified in the Equality Act 2010. In addition, the armed forces proactively release data on the number of personnel undertaking and returning from maternity and shared parental leave as part of that publication.
The recording requirements for any pattern of work in our armed forces are stipulated in policies and recorded on the joint personnel administration system. JPA is already used to process applications for existing flexible working options. We plan to enable all instances of part-time working or geographical restriction on the part of personnel to be recorded on JPA when the options are made available. As the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney implies, it will be crucial to ensure that all cases of flexible working are properly recorded and monitored to provide personnel and commanding officers with a record of all the discussions and agreements, so that they can understand the impact and success of the entire process.
The number of applications, however, is likely to be low in the early stages, so collating and reporting information on a monthly or biannual basis on the number of regular personnel undertaking new forms of flexible working would not provide significant or beneficial data. The longer-term effects of those measures should be a measure of the effectiveness of the new arrangements. We must also bear in mind our operational capability. I should add that any hon. Member may exercise the right to ask a written question—looking around the room, I can see that that is done regularly—to verify or confirm the statistics at any point.
With those assurances, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will consider withdrawing the new clause.
Gerald Jones
I thank the Minister for the information that he has provided and for his commitment to improving the diversity of our armed forces. I am aware of some information that provides some of the detail that I have talked about, but it is essential for us to be fully aware of diversity and personnel numbers. It is important to ensure that there is no confusion about the number of personnel as a result of part-time equivalents. I ask the Minister to reflect on that and to ensure that it is included in future. With those comments, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
Question proposed, That the Chair do report the Bill to the House.
Gerald Jones
Thank you for your chairmanship, Ms Dorries. I would have thanked Mr Davies as well, but we have not reached the afternoon sitting. We had his support yesterday.
I thank the Clerks for their assistance in drafting and tabling the amendments, which supports better scrutiny of the Bill. I thank the Doorkeepers, who keep us safe, and Hansard for recording our every word in a rapid process that ensures transparency and clarity for the Committee.
I thank the Opposition and Government Whips for their organisational skills in running the process effectively. I thank all hon. Members, and Opposition Members in particular. I think that there is unity of purpose across the House in wanting the best for our armed forces. Finally, I thank the Minister for his constructive approach and for some of his responses, which were helpful at times, and the civil servants for their hard work.
Mr Ellwood
I rise to reflect that at the weekend, we all paused to show respect and reverence for all those in our armed forces who have fallen in the past. Up and down the country, there was a moment of silence to say thank you to those who have served. The country owes them a huge debt of gratitude.
I think we would all agree that our armed forces are the most professional in the world. They can only continue to be so if we recruit and keep the right people. That is why the Bill, in context, plays a wider and more important role in what Britain seeks to do on not only the national but the international stage, as we face the difficult challenges of the 21st century.
I am pleased with the attitude and commitment throughout the Committee. I join the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney in thanking you, Ms Dorries, for chairing the sitting, the Clerks for their work and my team for the few hours that we put in behind the scenes to ensure that everything went smoothly. I also thank hon. Members—everyone in the Committee is very committed to our armed forces—and the Whips, who keep us all on the straight and narrow.
I look forward to reconvening on Report and Third Reading, when we can look further into the detail. I am glad of that, because the Bill is an important part of the jigsaw of improving recruitment and retention in our professional and brave armed forces.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly to be reported, without amendment.
Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill (Sixth sitting)
Tuesday 14th November 2017
(6 years, 5 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Automated and Electric Vehicles Act 2018 View all Automated and Electric Vehicles Act 2018 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 14 November 2017 - (14 Nov 2017)
Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)
I beg to move amendment 3, in clause 9, page 6, line 22, at end insert—
‘(4) The Secretary of State must consult charge point operators and vehicle manufacturers on the prescribed requirements for connecting components (before regulations under subsection (1)(b) are made).”
This amendment requires consultation with charge point operators and vehicle manufacturers on the requirements for connecting components for the charging of electric vehicles.
It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. The amendment requires consultation with charge point operators and vehicle manufacturers on the requirements for connecting components for the charging of electric vehicles. As the Bill is currently drafted, the Secretary of State has the power to make regulations in relation to the components of charging points. What the Bill does not do is define what criteria will be used or who will be consulted when making that decision.
The Bill presents a significant opportunity for the UK to lead globally in encouraging uptake of electric vehicles. Making the most of that opportunity will require action in a number of areas. One is the availability and interoperability of charging points. As Members will know, there is some concern about differing design standards for charging points. Those Members, such as myself, who have electric cars, or know constituents who do, will know how frustrating it is to come to a charging point when there is no common universal standard. It is extremely annoying to pull up, try to plug in and then, all of a sudden, realise there is no opportunity to charge. It is important to avoid the situation in which vehicles have a wide range of different connecting components because they will have to be reflected on forecourts. A wide range of different connecting components will be absolutely impractical and create confusion, as we have already discussed. The amendment would require the Government to consult charge operators and vehicle manufacturers on these vital infrastructure decisions.
Sir Edward, I do not intend to press the amendment to a vote. Its purpose is to probe a little deeper to ensure that the Government consult properly and widely on the final form and implementation of those connecting components, specifically consulting recharge point operators and vehicle manufacturers.
Sir Oliver Letwin (West Dorset) (Con)
My main purpose in speaking to this clause and the amendment is to raise the same broad issue that I tried to raise on Second Reading. I have had a chance since then to talk to some of those involved in various elements of the industry and I am reaffirmed in my view that the scope of the regulations proposed in clause 9(1) and 9(2) is too limited.
It is clear that, if we take clauses 9 and 10 as a whole, they miss out a very important, critical element of the scene, without which we will not succeed in engendering the spread of electric vehicles that we seek. That is the assembly—many thousands in the one case and many hundreds of thousands in the other—of apartment blocks on one side and homes on the other side that do not have off-street car parking. In my own constituency, a very large proportion of the population does have off-street car parking because it is a rural area. Many suburban areas fall into the same category, but in our major cities there are many people who live in homes that do not have off-street car parking. Except at the very top end of the market, almost all people living in apartment blocks do not have full off-street car parking that is particularly associated with them. There may be a place where people park but it is not one that can be guaranteed to belong to a Mr or Mrs X. At the moment there is nothing in the Bill that mandates any off-street car parking under either of these circumstances.
My right hon. Friend the Minister may say, as he is wont to do in the Committee, “This Bill is only the beginning.” Yes, but it needs to be a beginning that is sufficient to bring about the largest part of what we seek to achieve. I urge him to talk to his colleagues in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to work out how, in connection with the clean growth strategy, he can provide, probably in the other place rather than on Report, although either would do, an amendment to clauses 9 or, conceivably, 10, or even a new clause, to provide powers for a Secretary of State—probably the one for Business rather than the one for Transport—to ordain that district network operators have to install off-street parking on some rational basis.
Clearly, a lot of consultation is needed with the manufacturers of the relevant equipment, as the shadow Minister said, but principally with the utilities themselves—the district network operators—to work out the best way through that. My feeling when I was involved in this as a Minister was that there is a great deal of difference between taking this in marginal steps as streets are being broken anyway for the purpose of repair or expansion of the network, and doing it all at once. Asking the DNOs to put in off-street car parking on all city streets and for apartment blocks that have not got it and where parking is permitted would be expensive and overplay what is needed in the first year or two. It is doable, but it is excessively costly for the consumer of electricity on whom the cost would fall—assuming it was allowed into the regulatory asset base, which it obviously needs to be. If, however, it is a programme of work that proceeds as streets are broken—I have done a little investigation, although the Minister’s counterparts in BEIS will be able to do much more, which suggests that over about a 10-year period almost all city streets would be able to have off-street charging installed at the same time as works went on—there will obviously be a marginal cost, but it is small.
I made an error in my remarks on Second Reading, because I thought at that time that the rational way to do this was to provide for fast charging off-street through what Hansard, with a delicious benevolence, transcribed as “free-phase charging”. That is a lovely idea, but I hope what I actually said, and I certainly meant to say, was 3-phase charging, which is fast charging. I thought that would be necessary off-street to provide for people to come home from work, charge off-street and then set out for supper or whatever. I have now been told by three different groups of manufacturers, so I begin to believe it, that that is not judged to be necessary and that low-voltage charging would do. That is because, in experience so far, almost everyone who engages in off-street parking or indeed any kind of charging at home does it overnight, in which case low-voltage does perfectly well.
That makes the proposition I am making considerably cheaper. If it is just a question of putting in lamp posts and bits of street furniture that have plugs, it is not complicated. It would be much aided if what the shadow Minister is requesting happened and there was a universalised plug system—but in any event it is perfectly doable at reasonably low cost if done over a period when streets are being broken anyway. If that does not happen, we will not see anything like the spread of electric cars that we would otherwise see, because about half the population does not have access to off-street parking, so it is a very important thing to do.
I want to anticipate one thing that I know from experience the Minister will be told by people in BEIS if his officials ask its officials. That is why I ask him to talk directly to our mutual friend, his counterpart Minister there, about it. He will be told that it is okay because Ofgem has powers within its current regulatory regime to modify licences in order to bring this about and it has powers to allow things to be charged to the regulatory asset base. Those propositions happen to be true, but I do not think that they are a good basis for not taking the power, because the next thing, which the Minister may or may not be told but is also true, is that Ofgem is an independent entity and one cannot guarantee that it will actually use the powers, because if we look at its duties in the underlying primary legislation, we see that it does not have the duty to promote the use of electric vehicles. It may interpret its duties to the electricity supply industry, in terms of balancing and economics, as meaning a large amount of renewables and the prospect of a large battery for the nation residing in its cars. It may interpret its duties as meaning that it ought to do this, but it might interpret its duties differently. It may say that the electricity consumer should not have to bear this cost, and therefore I think that Ministers need the powers directly. They may well never need to exercise them, because they may be able to say to Ofgem, “Look, we have a regulation-making power here. Rather than us using it, why don’t you just enforce this?” But one way or the other, I think that the power should be taken, and it could be taken in a form that allows a very moderate, slow roll-out over, say, a 10-year period. That would broadly do, because I do not think any of us imagines that tens of millions of our citizens will have these kinds of cars 10 years from now. We want there to be able to be tens of millions of our citizens with these cars 20 or 30 years from now, so it would do if this was done gradually as streets were broken.
I hope that that is clear and the Minister is willing to consider it, in conjunction with BEIS, between now and the final passage of the Bill through the other place.
Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)
I rise briefly to seek the thoughts of my right hon. Friend the Minister on clause 9(2), which deals with the potential regulations covering the payment methods for charging points. During an evidence session, one of the most powerful pieces of evidence that we got was from Robert Llewellyn, who pointed to the chaotic situation that existed in California and Ireland, where different providers had different payment cards and methods and there was no standardisation until they legislated for it. My reason for speaking is to hear a little more about what the Minister intends under clause 9(2). Is it his intention to seek a common payment mechanism, and if so, is the current wording of the clause sufficient? The evidence that we had from Robert Llewellyn was that the industry itself will not come up with a common payment mechanism and that will require Government intervention. The Minister may argue, and I will be perfectly happy to accept, that the clause as drafted does it, but perhaps he will wish to consider a slight alteration in the wording to set out that expectation.
Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)
I want to amplify the points made by the right hon. Member for West Dorset in talking about the opportunity we have—I think he was saying this—to be more ambitious and to mandate more for the provision of public charging points on our streets, and the challenge that we face particularly in urban areas. Many of us will appreciate the financial pressures that local authorities are under, and we need to look at introducing LED street lights, whereby we invest in order to save in the budgets employed by councils in the provision of street lighting. Linked to this is a huge opportunity for those authorities to invest in and provide street charging points, and for electric vehicles. I want to broaden the thinking. We are talking in the main about electric cars—that is the mindset we are focused on. However, particularly in urban areas, other forms of electric mobility will offer us a huge opportunity. We need to be cognisant of that, especially electric bicycles—I think that will be a huge growth area.
Sir Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the private sector will undoubtedly play its part in providing charging places? I am thinking in particular of pubs, which are always looking for ways to increase their takings. In Yorkshire there is one pub, near my constituency, which has introduced three electric charging points that are there now, ready for use. Many supermarkets have their own car parks, and it seems to me natural for a supermarket to start providing charge points in their car parks.
Matt Western
I totally agree. There is an opportunity both for the market and for authorities to seize this. It is really about showing leadership and ambition in the sector.
Stephen Kerr (Stirling) (Con)
I am thinking about the planning implications of all this for the provision of off and on-street charging points. Do we need to think more widely and, again, more ambitiously, in terms of stipulations that surround planning permissions?
Matt Western
Planning is not my specialism, but I agree that that does come into it, as we recognise what the opportunity is. I think that in China there is already significant progress in electric mobility. Certain cities are adopting this in its entirety. Of course, they are starting from a green field to develop these new eco-cities. It is within our remit to consider these things and to think about planning new elements under local plans that are going through many of our local authorities right now, and how that might be provided for. It is something that we need to do now. Perhaps I can only speak from a Warwickshire perspective, where I know there is a wholesale plan. The right hon. Member for West Dorset spoke about the renewal plan—the accelerated plan to start putting in LEDs and all sorts of other street furniture. It is a terrific opportunity. If we put the framework in place we could help to accelerate, if the Committee will excuse me using that term, that introduction, which would be a very healthy one.
The Minister for Transport Legislation and Maritime (Mr John Hayes)
What a delight to sit under your chairmanship again, Sir Edward, to participate in this exciting exchange of views. As I mentioned informally earlier, we moved from autonomous vehicles to electric vehicles apparently seamlessly, but with equal determination and diligence.
This clause provides powers to improve the consumer experience for gaining reasonably straightforward, easy access to all public charging infrastructure, regardless of where motorists are driving in the UK. The aim is essentially to improve confidence in the purchase and use of electric vehicles, which in itself is part of our efforts to reduce emissions by encouraging people to buy those vehicles that emit fewer NOxic things. We spoke earlier about particular material, the effect it has on human wellbeing and our determination as a Government to take action to counter its effects.
At the moment drivers face myriad different charge points, as we have heard in the course of the debate. I suppose that partly because the industry is developing, the technology is evolving. Like all technological change in its first phase, a variety of different options is still available to the consumer. Perhaps that is the inevitable consequence of the early stage of the development of technology. Usually technology settles around a few common standards and often around a single common standard. That may be the natural consequence of a rationalisation in the market.
I had an interesting conversation about two pervasive and—by the fact that they are widely believed—apparently persuasive myths with two members of the Committee over lunch, not from the Government side, by the way. The two myths we discussed were the misconception that the market would necessarily and automatically settle these matters itself. That is not my view. The second myth was that all technological change is, by its nature, intrinsically efficacious. That is not my view either. It is a lazy assumption that all change is for the better and an even lazier one that all technological change, by its very nature, because it is exciting, fresh and enthralling, must be in the interests of the people. That is not so. It is our job to ensure that these things are encouraged where they are indeed virtuous but constrained where they are not, and, as my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset and others have mentioned, to shape change for the best effect. That is precisely what the Bill tries to do with electric charge points.
I have many notes ahead of me, some of which I will use and some of which I will not because I want to address directly the points that have been raised. There seem to be four points. The first point is about access to charge points and making that access, as I described it a moment ago, straightforward, readily available and widely understood. That is not the case now, as the shadow Minister said of his own experience as an electric car driver. The Bill creates powers for us to achieve what I think he wants. The powers will be sufficient to allow us to define a single means of access and to link to that a single payment method. The problem at the moment is not only about interoperability—although it is about that—it is also about how you pay. Some power points are paid for in advance, some are pay-as-you-go. There are different systems; some are paid by card. There are different payment methods, which adds to additional doubts—for the purposes of Hansard, that was alliterative; it was tautological as well as alliterative, to be precise, Sir Edward.
Mr Hayes
Quite. I know the Hansard writers are wonderful people.
The aim of the Bill is to create greater clarity and consistency about access and payment. We are confident that the powers are sufficient to do that. It is necessary to consult the industry on this and I commit to doing so. We want to do this as much as we can as a result of that collaborative, co-operative dialogue, but we will take powers as necessary to provide the certainty that we all seek. That seems to me to be important and urgent and it is very much in tune with what the shadow Minister said.
The second point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset was about the location of charge points in those places where it is less straightforward and where there is not easy access.
Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for giving way and for mentioning our brief conversation at lunch time; it is very good of him. On his point about the location of charge points, as someone who represents a constituency with poor quality air—we suffer greatly from air pollution in Reading, as do many other urban areas, even relatively small or medium-sized ones—I not only commend his interest in encouraging charge points but urge him to speak to his officials and other partners, including the industry and local authorities, to see whether areas with air pollution problems can be prioritised as we roll out this new technology. Residents in those areas would be very grateful and appreciative if thought were put into whether that is possible.
Mr Hayes
The hon. Gentleman, with great courtesy, gave me notice as part of the civilised conversation we had at lunchtime that he would raise that very point. When he mentioned it to me informally, I said that it was an interesting thought. It is not incompatible with the zonal approach we have taken to air quality. As he knows, we have developed an approach that focuses on areas that are particularly severely affected by poor air quality. I cannot give a definitive commitment to do exactly what he says, but I am certainly prepared to think about it. It would not be out of tune with the Government’s approach; as well as raising the quality of air for everyone, we have done extra work in parts of our country—typically urban places—that are particularly badly affected. I think he can take that as a small win, in that he has made his point, which I have acknowledged and committed to going away to think about more.
My right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset made a point about existing powers. He will be aware of the powers granted by the Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Regulations 2017, which I think he referred to. They have just been introduced in the UK and will go part of the way to solving the problem. Those regulations require that all charge points offer ad-hoc access without requiring people to have membership, as some existing systems do. They are about creating the greater consistency that he seeks.
In a former life I was the Energy Minister, and I remember dealing with Ofgem and others, as my right hon. Friend will have done in the roles that he has had. I hear what he says about the practical business of ensuring that the appropriate powers are employed in the way that we seek, and I will think more closely about that, too. It might be necessary to do that in primary legislation in the way that he described, but there may be other ways of achieving that end, and I want to give it further consideration.
It is certainly essential, if we are going to make this multiplicity of charge points as widely available as possible, to address the issue of off-street charge points. As my right hon. Friend and others will know, some local authorities have already made progress in that regard. I am delighted to be able to tell the Committee that just this weekend, London boroughs took the lead. Wandsworth approved a plan to convert all lampposts so that they have charge points, which is notable and important, and Kensington and Chelsea announced the conversion of 50 lampposts as a first step to converting all its lamp posts. So, there is some progress in London.
Sir Oliver Letwin
It is indeed encouraging that those things have been done, but does my right hon. Friend agree that the scale of the ambition is wholly different? Fifty charge points is fine, but I am talking about something like 10 million. I think that I am right in saying that there are about 20 million cars in this country, so about 10 million will be owned by people in places where there is off-street car parking. I do not think that local authorities, Ofgem or utilities companies have got the idea at all that we need to build the infrastructure far in advance of the cars if we are ever going to have the cars. That is why I beg him to consider primary legislation that puts it beyond doubt that Ministers could, if necessary, just make this happen wholesale. That way, they will probably avoid ever having to use those powers.
Mr Hayes
Before I give way, I will quote Ruskin. I know that the hon. Gentleman will want to be informed by that before he contributes. Ruskin said:
“Quality is never an accident. It is always the result of intelligent effort.”
The effort required is of a scale and of the kind that my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset mentions. I shall be able to offer extra, exciting news in a few moments.
Graham P. Jones
I am more likely to quote Rousseau than Ruskin. To take the point made by the right hon. Member for West Dorset and talk about it practically, in my constituency 50%-plus of properties are terraced and the lamp standards are set back, not kerbside. That causes a difficulty, because even if we were to fit charging points, we would still have trailing wires. We therefore have all sorts of issues about how we interconnect a property with the kerbside when the lamp standard is set back towards the property, not the road.
By 2040, of course, all vehicles will have to be electric vehicles. The houses will still be there—we are not going to demolish or reconstruct them—so there will have to be a process of adaptation between now and then. The right hon. Member for West Dorset was talking about 10 million charging points and 20 million cars, and I do not think he is too wrong. Who knows? With smaller vehicles, there may be more vehicles than that. How does the Minister envisage resolving that?
One thing the Minister could do, though it would not bridge the problem of open wiring and cabling from a property to the kerbside, is on parking bays. One of the problems in terraced areas will be the competition for parking outside. If a person has a charging point on their property, with the Government having alleviated the problem of cabling across the kerbside, they still have the problem of accessibility when they come home. The Government need to consider how the charge is transferred from the property to the roadside and how to prioritise, because someone who has just bought an electric vehicle will want to be able to park outside their house to connect the cable up at the shortest point. Those are issues the Government need to consider. When we look at the scale mentioned by the right hon. Member for West Dorset and where the volume of terraced properties is like mine at 50%-plus, we see there is a major challenge for the Government.
Mr Hayes
Yes, and one might say, paradoxically, that the challenge is both urban and rural. In many urban areas, people may not have convenient roadside parking, while in many rural areas people may live remote from main arterial routes and therefore major retailers. The Bill mentions major retailers, and I want to deal with that in greater detail. The point was made by the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun in considering the previous incarnation of the Bill—the first Bill that dealt with these matters, which never came to fruition because of the general election—that rural areas in the north of England and Scotland and elsewhere could be disadvantaged if charging points are focused on main routes and urban places. I want to deal with that in my remarks and the subsequent actions I take.
The hon. Member for Hyndburn is right that there is a technical challenge in making sure that the infrastructure is in place to deliver the charging points. There is also the planning challenge. My right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset describes the efforts of Wandsworth and Kensington and Chelsea as just the beginning. Those were not his words, but I want to ensure that no one felt he was being critical of those brave local authorities.
Yesterday, I met the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government and discussed this with him. In two respects, planning is critical. It is very important that we ensure that, first, electric car charging points are part of any application for new housing—an implicit part of new developments—and secondly, in respect of local authorities, we achieve greater consistency in the provision of charging points for the very reason that my right hon. Friend gave. The numbers involved require all local authorities to consider them and act on those considerations, or we simply will not get enough charging points—or, just as seriously, we may get them clustered in certain places and absent in others. That will not build the confidence we require to encourage the purchase and use of electric vehicles.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
I agree with the principle that we need to expand the infrastructure as quickly as possible to create the space for the development of these vehicles. However, when we legislate for these things, as we must, there is the risk of hidden consequences. For instance, in an area where there is a high demand for kerbside parking spaces, particularly in central London, if these parking spaces are exclusive to electric vehicles that reduces the number of spaces for other road users. That may be one of the reasons why some of the boroughs in central London are resistant to creating large numbers of spaces, because they are going to lose the revenue from the car parking on the kerbside and the parking meters. These are the hidden consequences and we have to consider how we roll this out, because it could inconvenience a great many people. It certainly would in my constituency.
Mr Hayes
Yes. It is possible, as the hon. Gentleman says, that there could be contradictory needs, and incentives and disincentives such as those which he describes. We need to be careful about how we put in place those additional requests and requirements. That is about the conversation we will have with the Department for Communities and Local Government. I am writing to the Secretary of State as a direct result of my conversation with him about this yesterday evening. I knew the Committee would want to know about it and I made sure I had it before we met today. I anticipated that the Committee would want reassurance, which I am now ready to offer, that I intend to take this as far as we need to go. This would be done not only by taking these pretty extensive powers, which allow us to make regulations to ensure the easy accessibility of charge points to a common access method as a minimum, but also through the work of other Government Departments. I include BIS, where I used to be a Minister—now called BEIS—and DCLG.
Sir Oliver Letwin
This exchange across the Committee is important. We need collectively to adjust our view of what we are trying to achieve. Hitherto, we have been talking about putting in—if I can put it in these terms—a few charge points here and there in the hope of getting some useful experimentation with electric vehicles, which has all been good. We now have to move into an entirely different world, in which we, by no means exclusively reserve places for electric vehicles, nor do we have a few of them. We have to build out the infrastructure, just as with mobile telephony we have to build out the masts and therefore the capacity to deliver long before people will buy the machines to use it. We have to build out charge points everywhere, right across the country. Every parking place must be a place where you can park an electric vehicle and charge it, because that is the only way we will move quickly as a country from next-to-zero to millions and millions of electric vehicles.
We have a choice as a country. We could be a laggard; we could pass nice Bills, preen ourselves that we are interested in these matters and watch the countries that are going fast go fast. We have done that with some technologies and it is always catastrophic to our competitive status, but we could do it. I do not think that is what the Minister wants, I do not think it is what the Government wants, I do not think it is what the clean growth strategy demands and I do not think it is what the Committee wants. If we do not, we have to envisage regulatory powers that will force the build-out right the way across the street so every on-street car parking place is an on-street car charging place.
The Chair
Order. Interventions are becoming longer and longer and more and more discursive. So, interventions should be short—anybody in these Committees can speak whenever they like—and to the point.
Mr Hayes
Let me be crystal clear: I have no intention of being behind the curve. I am not satisfied to be on the curve, we are going to be ahead of the curve. That is why we must think about housing developments and local authorities but, more than that, about workplaces. I want the Committee to know that the Government have already put into place grant funding to encourage workplaces to put charge points in place, so that people who do not have easy access to a charge point on the street and have not charged at home can charge at their place of work.
I want every local authority in the country to know that there is grant funding available for on-street charge points and I encourage them all to apply. We are not simply speaking of regulations or guidance that encourages or obliges them to consider these matters. We are prepared to help to fund this roll-out.
Workplaces, homes, local authorities, on-street, working across Government—this will not simply put us ahead of the curve, it will make us a leader in this field. I personally am not a laggard, and neither are the Government.
Graham P. Jones
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. He raises a good point: it is desirable to have charging points in workplaces, and I hope the Government will follow through on the Minister’s advice. People do not want charge up at home. There is obviously an issue there: the energy is coming from their own power point and, even if they have solar panels, they will be at work during the day when the sun shines and their vehicle is more likely to be at work. So the workplace is a great place for people to charge electric vehicles. That is desirable in the UK because if we are charging during the day—most people work during daylight hours—it will be from a renewable energy source.
Let me will just return to the Minister’s point about local authorities. My local authority is about to implement a planning policy making charging points automatic in every new build. They are progressive, but they are still left with this legacy. I put this to the Minister today, in my constituency of Haslingden and Hyndburn—where 50% of homes are terraced houses and the lampposts are set back—what incentive do people have to buy an electric vehicle when they cannot charge it at their property? Either they cannot get an access space, or they would have to run a cable. There is the technical problem of running a cable from the property to the car. What is the Minister’s response today, to get the electric vehicle market growing, and to get it growing in constituencies like mine?
Mr Hayes
It is straightforward: greater interoperability, greater shared and common access, consistency about payment method, and much greater availability—in homes, on streets and in workplaces. We simply have to have a step change in volume, but a fundamental change too in the ease of use of charge points.
It is true that most people who currently have an electric vehicle, for most the time, charge at home, and typically they charge overnight. That point was made earlier in the debate. But unless people have the confidence that they can charge straightforwardly elsewhere—with a system they understand and a payment method that is easy to use—they will not have the confidence to purchase or drive an electric vehicle. We see this as absolutely critical to our bigger ambitions for low emission vehicles, which is why we introduced the Bill. The whole purpose of the Bill is to address one of the principal reasons people might cite for not switching to an electric vehicle.
Craig Tracey (North Warwickshire) (Con)
What scoping have the Government done of alternative charging methods? I ask because there was a scheme run in Israel, which admittedly did not work, but it failed because of lack of critical mass of electric vehicles. The technology was in place for service station-type set-ups where the entire battery could be replaced within five minutes. A car would go in, and come out with a fully charged battery. That would seem to get round quite a few of the problems we talk about in terms of roll-out and range, but also cover the areas that do not currently have any electrical charging points.
Mr Hayes
I do not know about the Israeli experience but I am more than happy to ask my officials to explore it and to see what we can learn from it. Other countries are engaged in the same process: electric vehicles are becoming increasingly popular across the world, so most Governments are looking at the barriers to entry to the market and what they can do to remove them. Certainly we should learn from the best international examples and see if it is right to emulate them.
The scale argument is well made by my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset, the accessibility argument well made by the shadow Minister. Neither one is the more important. As I have said, accessibility, interoperability, ease of payment and scale all matter, but they must also sit alongside an appropriate consideration of design. The Committee would be disappointed were I not to say more about that, because part of the problem with charge points at the moment is that they are not easily recognisable. One could drive past the Department for Transport’s electric charging point and not know it was there, because it does not stand out like a beacon. Perhaps it should. Anywhere in the country, it would be better to know what an electric charging point looked like, particularly a roadside one in an unfamiliar place. People know their own locality, but this will be a national network of charging points and we have to consider people who are driving outside their locality.
Clive Efford
I welcome that competition. May I suggest that, if the points are to be easily distinguishable, they should be bright golden? If they were named after the Minister, they could be known as the bright golden Hayes. If one were put in a meadow, even better.
Mr Hayes
The Hayes hooks, as I think they were dubbed by a former Member of this House, now gone on to other—I will not say greater—things, are my only hope of emulating my predecessor Leslie Hore-Belisha with his beacons. I do see myself as a beacon, as you know, Sir Edward, and my charging points would be a lovely contribution to posterity.
Mr Hayes
I will take that, Sir Edward, with the courtesy that you deserve, as a bid and consider it alongside other helpful suggestions.
So, the design competition will be launched shortly. A combination of that readily recognised design, with the pervasive policy that will result from the work that we are going to do with other Government Departments and the powers we are taking here, will mean that, as with the old red telephone boxes, when they were more common, and pillar boxes that still are, people will know exactly what a charging point looks like and how they can access one.
Perhaps inspired by the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun, I want to deal with the matter of rural areas, which is not in my notes. I am mindful of the experience of mobile telephone coverage or the roll-out of broadband. Members of the Committee who represent rural areas who, if they have not said something already, will at least be thinking, what about Dorset, Lincolnshire or Cornwall? We love driving on the main arterial routes, but will we be neglected? I think we need to do more work on that. We have mentioned major retailers in the Bill, but by their nature they may well be disproportionately located in the places where populations are concentrated and where most vehicles travel, and not in the rural areas represented by a number of members of this Committee.
We should think creatively about how to ensure that rural areas are not neglected. We must not end up with an inadequate number of charging points in parts of the country and therefore a disadvantage for the people of, for example, Gainsborough. I know you would not want that, Sir Edward. That is an additional consideration that I offer the Committee. I do not think it is an automatic consequence of the Bill, but it should accompany it as a further piece of work. There may be ways in which we can encourage certain local authorities. There may be ways to monitor and then ensure a consistent roll-out of charge points across the country. This is not unlike the suggestion that was made by the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington about how we might apply different aspects of the policy in different ways at different locations.
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
I welcome those comments, but obviously this will not be in the Bill. How can we make sure that the work goes ahead on assessing rural capability and the actual roll-out in rural areas?
Mr Hayes
This part of the Bill facilitates a regulatory environment that would allow us to address a range of challenges. The Bill anticipates regulations, though I do not yet know whether this needs to be done by regulation or whether it can be done by other means. I wanted to highlight that I share the hon. Gentleman’s concern. I know that the Committee felt that there is, not a risk or a likelihood, but a possibility that we might end up concentrating charge points, even though they are interoperable and easily accessible and wonderfully recognisable and beautiful, and that rural areas would consequently be at a disadvantage. I will look at the matter closely and see whether we need regulation, or whether we can use other means.
I must say a word about amendment 3, as it is the subject of the debate. The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East suggests that we require the Secretary of State to consult charge point operators and vehicle manufacturers before regulating. I can absolutely assure him that we will be consulting charge point operators and vehicle manufacturers before we make regulations. He has my certain assurance that that consultation will take place. I do not feel that the amendment is necessary, because it is implicit in the way in which the Government will go about their work. Ruskin said:
“Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless; peacocks and lilies for instance.”
That does not mean that useful things must be ugly. It is perhaps true that the most beautiful things are useless, but let us make useful things as beautiful as they can possibly be.
Graham P. Jones
Presumably, Sir Edward, with your permission, we are also speaking to clause stand part?
The Chair
I think we have had a very discursive and wide-ranging debate. If the hon. Gentleman wants to add anything, he should speak now.
Graham P. Jones
The clause states that the Secretary of State will make regulations on these matters. What is the timeframe for this and what is the process? Who will be involved in some of these decisions and in formulating some of the ideas? When in the near future will some of these regulations be laid? As I said earlier, 50% of the issues for my constituents are simple technical matters: terraced property, road and the kerb that sits in the middle. When will the Secretary of State bring forward the regulations in clause 9 and who will be involved in that?
Iain Stewart
Forgive me if I was so mesmerised by the prospect of the competition that the Minister has just announced that I missed his comments, but can he clarify the point I asked about the common payment mechanism, which I think would be an important feature of the interoperability of these charging points?
Mr Hayes
Let me deal with that first. I wholly agree that the regulatory powers we have taken are designed to produce a common payment method. That is very important. As I offered a moment ago, we will engage with the industry to work to that end, but we could use these powers to oblige that. It is intolerable that people might turn up thinking they could charge their vehicle, find that the charge point was compatible because of the steps we have taken, and then find that they had to have pre-booked, prepaid or have a special card to do pay. It is probably right that we go for a pay-as-you-go method, but I do not want to be definitive about that. Let us have those discussions to achieve the end my hon. Friend suggests.
On the other matter, will the hon. Member for Hyndburn remind me what he said? I have now waxed so lyrical that I cannot remember.
Graham P. Jones
It was about the process and the involvement of the regulations that the clause says the Secretary of State will introduce. When are we likely to see them? Fifty per cent of my constituents have a technical problem that could be resolved quite soon. Perhaps the Minister’s office and the regulations might resolve that for them.
Mr Hayes
I know that when I display my scepticism about the free market, it excites my Opposition friends whose views on such things are closely aligned with mine. I have to say, however, that the market is not entirely undesirable. We hope that through co-operation and collaboration, consultation and discussion, we can bring about a happy series of outcomes. We want to work with manufacturers and industry to ensure that we get to the destination that we all seek, but the regulations ensure that if we do not get there, we take the powers. My view is simple: we will introduce regulations when it is necessary to do so. We will not regulate unless we have to. As my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset said, there seem to be persuasive arguments that if we do not establish the ability and, in some instances, the actuality to do so, the market will not necessarily deliver all these outcomes, but that is a matter to gauge when we see how things develop. The important thing is that the Committee can be proud of putting in place the means by which Government can do just that.
Alan Brown
Building on the Minister’s commitment to look at the considerations for the roll-out in rural areas, I make a plea for him to consider the associated factors that need to be taken into account, such as mobile coverage or communications connections. I ask him to take account of those wider issues to get the full big picture of what is required to enable roll-out.
Mr Hayes
I am a great believer in allowing one’s ideas to formulate and develop through scrutiny. I am inclined to say that we should do a mapping exercise to see where charge points are now and where we envisage them developing in the short term, and to identify the further steps that need to be taken at an early stage. With the other technologies that the hon. Gentleman and I have mentioned, we are playing catch-up. Good work has been done by this Government, the previous Government and the Government before that in trying to get there, but anticipating some of those problems by doing a detailed mapping exercise might allow us to take early steps of the kind that the hon. Gentleman and I wish to see. I commit to do that as a result of this scrutiny.
Stephen Kerr
The Minister provides us with a number of interesting packages. I am thinking of the areas that criss-cross with devolved areas that belong with the devolved Administrations, and the competition that he has announced. Has he consulted the devolved Administrations so that we can have a United Kingdom approach to the competition and the design?
Mr Hayes
Where matters of beauty are concerned, I tend to rely on guidance from the good Lord, as I see beauty as inseparable from truth, rather as Keats did. None the less, in moving forward it is absolutely right that we should engage with all organisations that might want to play their part. It is perfectly reasonable that we should have those discussions, albeit driven by the expression of truth in the form of beauty.
Sir Oliver Letwin
It is regrettable that my right hon. Friend, even after 20 years of discussions between us, has failed to take on board Kant’s distinctions between beauty and truth, but we will leave that aside for the purpose of the clause.
I do not disagree with anything my right hon. Friend said about making charging points more accessible and more uniform, including making the payments system more uniform. In every respect it is admirable that he wants to encourage local authorities and many others to participate in providing them. That is all fine, but it will not do the job. I urge him to attend to the question of the distribution network operators; they, and they alone, are capable of rolling out on-street charging on the scale we require.
Let us think about what it feels like in public choice theory terms—that is, what it feels like to the official who is trying to do it. If a local authority seeks to put in charging points, the official has to ring up the DNO, if they can find the number—it is not easy to find numbers for DNOs—and ask them whether they would like to put them in. The DNO’s immediate response is, “No.” Why? Because the DNO is not allowed that in its regulatory asset base. They then engage in a negotiation, which goes on for some months, about how much the local authority will remunerate the DNO for putting in the relevant wires. The official in the DNO who is having this conversation is on the commercial side, but unfortunately, people on the commercial side of DNOs are not good at talking to the engineering people in DNOs, so they usually have to go up to a manager above each in order for a manager then to come back down to the engineering side. At this point, the engineering side decides that it has a lot on its plate, because it is engaged in reinforcements, repairs and design, so it does not particularly want to do this. There are some more months of negotiation between them, the manager and the commercial side of the DNO. About a year or two later, if we are lucky, 50 charging points arise.
I am not speculating about that; it is what we have seen happen so far. If there were explicit, primary statute powers in the Bill to regulate the DNOs—I recognise that that is a radical idea, because it is not the structure we currently have for most purposes—the upshot would be that my right hon. Friend, acting through his colleagues in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, would have the whip hand. He would be able to say to the DNOs, “You have to do this. You can put it in your regulatory base, and therefore it is a cost not to you but to electricity consumers as a whole. Here is a national plan for doing it.” We could then be confident that over a number of years, there would be on-street charging the length and breadth of the cities where it is needed. I do not think anything less would do the job.
I recognise that that creates an oddity: this Department for Transport Bill would in effect have to become a DFT and BEIS Bill for the purposes of that set of measures. It is not complicated otherwise. I do not think that there is a compelling regulatory structure that would allow that to happen. Obviously nothing will be done now or on Report, but I urge the Minister to talk to BEIS and to introduce some such provision in the Lords. It is a no-regrets policy, because if it turns out that I am wrong and the charging points are put in by local authorities without the need for those powers, the powers will just sit there and not do any harm. If I am right, the powers might solve a problem that would otherwise have to be solved by someone coming back in one, two or three years from now with a further Bill. That would be a terrible waste of time when we can do it right now.
Several hon. Members rose—
The Chair
You have. My attitude is that you reply to that point, Minister, and the two hon. Gentlemen on your left may intervene on you if you wish—are you happy with that, Minister? Perhaps you want more time for cogitation—I call Clive Efford.
Clive Efford
I was going to speak on this matter under the next clause, but it seems more relevant to this debate, so I will get it out of the way. Clauses 9 and 10 overlap.
My starting point is this: why are we taking powers in clause 10 that impose requirements but are not imposing requirements in other areas? The Government have to go away and come up with an overall strategy that involves DCLG and BEIS in planning how to roll out charging points in a variety of places. Clause 10 refers to large fuel retailers, but in a sense their sites are not a logical place for vehicles to park for long periods. We will need charging points in more realistic, more strategic places where people park for long periods, which is large retail outlets and other sites. For instance, in workplaces we could put a surcharge on parking spaces that do not have electrical charging points, which could be hypothecated back into a grant that would allow businesses—
The Chair
Order. Will the hon. Gentleman try to stick reasonably close to the amendment?
Clive Efford
It is about extending the number of charging places, Mr Leigh. We could look at a strategic approach from the Government.
Matt Western
One of the interesting things that came out of the evidence, particularly from the likes of National Grid and others, was the challenges they face in particular in their dealings with developers, whether it be for commercial or residential property, and the fact that they are very much driven by the price or cost envelope that they are being driven to. As the right hon. Member for West Dorset described, they were saying at the meeting—or perhaps afterwards, in the evidence—that they will only put in the minimal amount of cabling that is necessary. They are not thinking strategically; they are not forward-thinking, because they are commercial and are working within a budget envelope. That is why I believe this has to be mandated and we have to take that responsibility in this.
Clive Efford
I agree with my hon. Friend. I think that the charging point operators need to have their toes held to the fire. For instance, we have spoken about the problems that may arise for council tenants who live in a tower block and are unable to access these points. Earlier, the Minister said that if charging points go in they have to be open access, so that anyone who needs a charging point can access one, but that can create problems. We all have parking areas in our constituencies around tower blocks where parking spaces are at a premium and fines are imposed on people who do not live in those properties who go and park there. If we start to lose parking spaces, we can foresee the conflicts that will arise, hence the need for what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Dorset proposed.
We need an explosion of charging points, so that we overcome competition for roadside parking spaces. It may be that we should talk to providers about how we use renewable energy. The top of a tower block could be a wonderful place for a wind turbine feeding into a power point downstairs for charging electric vehicles; perhaps we could make that accessible using the key fob to the tower block, so that the people from the block benefit. If those people are on low incomes, that brings back into play the whole social mobility issue that the Government have mentioned in regard to this Bill in the past.
There is a variety of ways that we need to look at expanding the provision of charging points. It needs to be part of an overall strategy that different Government Departments are signed up to—not just the Department for Transport but DCLG and BEIS. We need a sea change, to bring the benefits of electric vehicles and make a huge impact on the growing problem of air quality that we have to address.
Mr Hayes
I will be brief, because I need only to address two matters that have not been covered extensively already. It is absolutely clear what the Government’s intent is and what the Bill does to make that intent binding. My right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset raised a point about DNOs. All I will say to him is that we will certainly work with Ofgem, and I will facilitate that work as a result of this debate. We have already had conversations, but I will make sure that they are intensified with the network industry. I think that he is right that that must not become a barrier, even with local authorities’ enthusiasm growing, as was illustrated earlier, so I will certainly do that.
As for the point made by the hon. Member for Eltham, I am very happy to consider whatever approach is necessary to ensure that the infrastructure roll-out is as effective as it can be. I am mindful of the circumstances he described of someone who lives in a tower block and cannot get access to a charge point. I talked about the potential disparity between urban and rural areas, but there is also a disparity between people who live in houses with easy access to a street charge point or who have off-street parking or their own parking, and those as he described who may have none of those things. Are we really going to say to those people that they cannot have ready access to electric charge points and therefore remove their incentive to buy an electric vehicle? Of course not. So we certainly need to take his point into account, and we will.
Karl Turner
This has been a very instructive debate and it is clear that the Minister has thought very carefully about this issue. On that basis, I am happy to beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 9 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 10
Large fuel retailers etc: provision of public charging points
Karl Turner
I beg to move amendment 4, in clause 10, page 6, line 34, at end insert—
‘(2A) Regulations under subsection (1) must provide exemptions for retailers and operators in instances where adhering to such regulations would—
(a) require an expansion of land, or
(b) result in any other disproportionate costs for retailers and operators.’
This amendment ensures that there are exemptions for operators with limited forecourt space who are unable to accommodate public charging points without an expansion of land and that retailers and operators do not incur disproportionate costs for complying with regulations.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 5, in clause 10, page 6, line 36, at end insert—
‘(4) The Secretary of State must publish, in draft, the criteria and definition of “large fuel retailers” and “service area operators” at least six months before regulations under subsection 10(3) are made.’
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to consult on and publish criteria to be used for the definitions of “large fuel retailers” and “service area operators”. This will make clear to the industry which kinds of companies are covered by these regulations.
Karl Turner
Amendment 4 would ensure that there are exemptions for operators with limited forecourt space that are unable to accommodate public charging points without an expansion of land, and that retailers and operators do not incur disproportionate costs for complying with the regulations.
As it stands, the Bill allows the Government to impose requirements on what are described as “large fuel retailers” and “service area operators”, but the problem is that Ministers have yet to define or outline the criteria for what those actually are. The requirements will apply to large fuel retailers and service area operators, and the definition of those is what the Government say they are. Amendment 5 is designed to resolve that issue by requiring the Government to publish in draft the criteria for and the definition of large fuel retailers and service area operators that they intend to use.
It is just as important to consider how charging infrastructure can be expanded in supermarkets, shopping parks and workplaces. Those are all points that have been raised by my hon. Friends and others. All those things seem to go well beyond the kind of charging infrastructure it is envisaged the Bill covers. In the meantime it is worth putting on record that businesses are concerned what the Government taking the kind of powers conferred by the Bill will mean for them. I think, for example, of a small fuel retailer in my constituency. It is a small business that is very important to the local economy and to local people, but the investment that it would have to make might be absolutely huge and the business might not be in a position to make that financial commitment.
These are much more immediate, practical issues, but the Government’s impact assessment lays out the potential significant costs to the operators affected by this part of the Bill, which could run into many millions of pounds. The Minister will correct me if I am wrong, but I think that the average cost of installing a charge unit runs up to about £50,000.
Graham P. Jones
The Minister talks about Ruskin, and a quote from Rousseau comes to mind:
“What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness?”
That probably sums up the Minister’s efforts in Committee, and I greatly appreciate the tone and manner in which he always conducts Bill Committees in which he leads for the Government.
I want to take up the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham, who said, “Why just fuel stations?” It seems a good question. If the Minister and the Government can regulate for the imposition of charging points at fuel stations, why not do so for other places? My hon. Friend talked about workplaces, which seem an ideal location, for many reasons. They may be able to capture renewable energy, for example—and people spend a lot of time at workplaces. Why not retailers? If we are going to have fast charging, why not in a big car park, with plenty of space? Sometimes fuel stations are a bit more limited in the space that they afford the motorist. In fact, they are very limited in some cases, particularly in metropolitan areas. Why not public spaces? Why not encourage a whole new enterprise culture whereby people provide, in open spaces, charging points? Why is it just fuel stations?
I am concerned that this seems like a restrictive practice. We are accelerating an advantage for fuel stations, rather than thinking about the benefit to the nation of rolling out as many charging points as possible, as the right hon. Member for West Dorset has said numerous times this afternoon.
There is another disadvantage that ought to be mentioned in restricting the acceleration of charging points. For those homeowners, middle or upper class, who have off-street car parking, a drive and a garage, and are probably charging off the solar panels on the roof or can even afford to charge out of the mains grid at home, that is fine. However, restricting access will result in poor people in my constituency paying a price. If those in a detached or semi-detached house with off-street car parking are charging a vehicle using renewable energies or using the grid, then they will be doing so at a cheaper and more affordable price. Over 50% of my constituents live in terraced properties, and there is no way that they can access a domestic charging point. It is not there. They would have to use a commercial charging point, and there is a cost to that. We are imposing a cost on the poorest people: the cost of moving the vehicle to the location wherever that is, the cost of leaving the vehicle there, and then the cost of paying for that service. The middle-class or wealthy person in my constituency with a drive and off-street car parking can, however, enjoy all the advantages of a home consumer.
We are making regulations for only a few places, but I urge the Minister to see that there are far-reaching consequences to the policy. My hon. Friend the Member for Eltham made this point: we ought to be rolling out charging points everywhere. We should be mindful, as I have said previously, that we are not doing enough for some of our poorest constituents in some of the properties least able to be adapted. Those people are going to end up paying higher premiums should they wish or be able to acquire an electric vehicle. This restricted availability is wrong. It does not allow for social mobility and it denies some of the poorest people access to the market. I would ask the Minister to reconsider and—when he wants to encourage or even mandate retailers or anyone in society that can afford and offer a charging point—to think positively about how many charging points we can achieve over the period of time, how many opportunities there are and why we are restricting it to just a single section of the market.
The cynical person might say that this is the petrol retailers, that as the market changes from fossil fuels to electricity we have to give them some kind of commercial advantage. Perhaps it is in the Government’s mind to say, “Let’s give them a heads-up and a lead on this issue.” I would say that it is not right, that electric charging points should be made available to all and that we should be thinking about the nation and the national interest, not a limited commercial interest that seems to be in clause 10. I would urge the Government to rethink this clause.
Sir Oliver Letwin
There are two specific points that I would like to raise in relation to clause 10, but before I do so I would like to explain why they arise.
As I understand it, about 90% of charging for current electric vehicle use goes on at home, largely overnight at low voltage. In trying to achieve the Minister’s aim—which is the Government’s aim and the cross-party aim of the House of Commons as a whole—of achieving a step change in which we move from 100,000 electric vehicles to tens of millions of them, one of the things that needs to be addressed is what we were discussing a moment ago: the issue of overnight, on-street parking. However, there is a paradox.
Even if there were 10 million on-street parking charging points working beautifully, unfortunately, there would not be very many electric cars using them because there is range anxiety. That is another limiting factor in the expansion of electric car take-up. That range anxiety may in due course be resolved by the advance of battery technology, the introduction of solid state batteries and so on—I very much hope that it will be. The Minister, I and the Committee as a whole recognise that we cannot predict the speed at which battery technology will advance to the point at which relatively cheap and light batteries can carry someone for 400 or 500 miles on a reliable basis. The overwhelming majority of journeys per day are 20 miles and under in the country and do not actually cause any range problems.
I am sure that other Committee members feel, as I do, inhibitions about purchasing a vehicle that will run out of charge if I am trying to make the journey from London to my constituency, then travel around my constituency, if I cannot find a point at which to charge it. Unlike the position on the overnight charging, range anxiety can be cured—unless we adopt the Israeli model, which I am not recommending—only by very high voltage, fast charging at points on the journey that are not too far from the start and are interspersed at relatively short distances. We could debate whether that distance is 50 miles or 100 miles, but if we fixed in our mind the importance of making sure that nobody who started in London and was trying to get to any point in the country would find that it was more than 50 miles before the next fast charging point was actually available—I do not mean was sitting there and being occupied by some other car, but was actually usable at the time they wanted it and could charge their car in five or 10 minutes, at a reasonable price, while we went to buy the paper, went to the loo and did the other things we do at service stations on motorways—range anxiety would be at an end in the UK. Is that achievable, and does clause 10 allow the Government to ensure that it will quickly be achievable? Those are the questions that we need to address.
The answer to the first question—is it achievable?—is yes, it is abundantly achievable. The National Grid is conducting a trial with UK Power Networks to show the cost of stringing lines from the nodes on the high-voltage network to service stations, which will establish the cost of a core network of 50-mile spaced service stations, on the motorway network in the first place and, quickly thereafter, on those parts of the trunk road network that are necessary to cover in relation to, say, Cornwall or Scotland.
I stress that it is all about Highways England, the National Grid company and a few of the DNOs from time to time. Nobody else needs to play a part. If they were all working together to install the relevant infrastructure quickly, it is perfectly doable and not terribly expensive. I have spent time talking to the National Grid company about the likely cost of this, and even if we take quite a high estimate, the effect on bills for customers buying electricity would be in the order of 0.1p per kilowatt hour. It is very small beer. I cannot overemphasise the importance of curing range anxiety early—if we do, we will get scale, and if we get scale the price of electric vehicles will drop, then we will get demand. We would get a virtuous circle. The speed with which we do that will very much influence the future industrial history of this country, because if we do it quickly enough, so that we get scale in electric vehicles before other European countries do, we will be ahead of the market and all sorts of investment decisions will flow to the UK. If we are slightly behind them—and I welcome what the Minister said about being ahead of the curve—it will have the opposite effect. They will be built in Germany and later exported to the UK. That must be our aim: to establish a national network of fast charging points, supported by very high-voltage cables, quickly installed at distances along our motorways and trunk roads, which enable people to make a journey from any point to any point in the UK without anxiety about range, even if their vehicle only has 75 miles of battery range.
Two items are missing from clause 10 that would enable the Government to achieve that. First, there is no power to compel the National Grid company to install such links. It goes back essentially to the same kind of structural point that I was making about DNOs in relation to on-street charging, although the item here is quite different: we are talking about a big, heavy-duty, high-voltage cable. However, the principle is the same. At the moment there is no knowing whether Ofgem would allow NGC to charge to its regulatory asset base such links, because there is no power in the Bill or anywhere else that allows the Minister or the Secretary of State to mandate the creation of such links. That is another item that I strongly hope the Minister will consult his friends at BEIS about and, in due course, come forward in the other place with appropriate minor amendments.
Sir Greg Knight
Does my right hon. Friend not accept that the argument he is now developing applies today to retailers of petrol and diesel on our motorways, some of which charge exorbitant prices because they are in a monopoly position? Should the price cap not also apply to them?
Sir Oliver Letwin
I think it is an academic point, but my right hon. Friend is completely right. I have always regarded the regulation of motorway service stations in Britain as an abomination. In terms of both quality and price, they do not compare with their properly regulated counterparts in many European countries. However, I am not sure we ought to detain Parliament by legislating for the past when we can now legislate for the future. I think this will be much quicker than many people think. My guess is that about 20 years from now, we will not have very many petrol vehicles on our roads. I would much prefer to persuade the Minister to regulate for electric charging points, but if he is minded to pay attention to my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire and fold in a power to regulate for petrol too, I do not mind.
The last thing I want to say about clause 10 is that I think there is a missing entity, as well as missing powers. Interposed between the service station provider and the motorist lies the bizarre phenomenon of the national monopolist who provides the power points at service stations. That is a very odd feature of the scene. I do not understand why it has grown up this way, but we need to make absolutely sure that the powers in clause 10 can apply to anybody who holds any kind of market power over the provision of the charging points in the service stations, and not just over the service station operators. Parliament often legislates and thinks it has legislation that will have the effect that it intended, then discovers that it is not there. This could be such a case unless the lawyers have thought about all that. If they have and it is drafted appropriately, no one will be more delighted than me.
Mr Hayes
I will deal with the last point first: yes, it does apply in the way my right hon. Friend said.
Let me now deal with the issue of motorway service areas, about which I have very strong views. I am the Minister responsible for motorway service areas, so I am in regular dialogue with them. I visit them with alarming regularity—from their point of view, not mine. I am determined that we can do more and better, and so are they, by the way. They are committed to building on the progress that has been made in motorway service areas over a considerable time, but we can do more. I want more particularity, more local source of supply and better design. I want them to be places that people choose to go to rather than have to go to. I want the quality of motorway service stations and their connection to the localities to be a thing of style and grace, and that includes the provision of electric charge points.
The reason we have spoken about major retailers is very much as a start. This is not a reason that limits what we might do later. In fact, we will need to do more later. It is an attempt to make an important start in providing more charge points. Highways England has already committed £15 million to ensure there is a rapid charge point every 40 miles on the strategic road network in England. That picks up the point about battery life, of course, because this is about the regularity of provision. People need to know that, on a major route, they are never more than 40 miles away from a charge point. Highways England is running a procurement exercise as we speak to fill the gaps to achieve that end and it expects to deliver on that commitment as soon as possible. That was part of the road investment strategy, which I launched when I was a Minister in the Department on a previous occasion. I have been a Minister in the Department on many occasions, and when I launched the road investment strategy, that was part of it and one of the commitments we made then.
I know that the good point that my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset made about the link to Ofgem is a particular concern of his, as he expressed it in an earlier part of our debate. It is important that we facilitate the kind of work with the providers of power that he describes. I am determined they should not be a barrier to growth in the number of charge points. As I said earlier, and I do not want to become tediously repetitive—repetitive while it is exciting, but not tediously so—we will make sure that those discussions are exaggerated helpfully as a result of this short debate.
We have spoken already about our determination to grow the number significantly. My right hon. Friend poses an interesting challenge: that we should lead the field internationally and be ahead of our principal competitors. That is a perfectly reasonable challenge and one I am happy to meet. I am determined that Britain should be a leader in this field. We have often led in the field of technology and we can again. As I said, it is a challenge I welcome and which I am determined to meet.
With regard to the amendment, which the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East spoke to, I am going to abbreviate my remarks a little. I have quite a long speaking note, but I want to come to the core elements that address the arguments the shadow Minister advanced. The shadow Minister drew attention to our debate in the Vehicle Technology and Aviation Public Bill Committee, on which some members of this Committee sat. They will remember the helpful debates we had then and how we have moved on in a sense, although we set out our ambitions in that Bill. I committed to be more precise about the regulations and the shape they might take by publishing a draft. To be helpful today, I ought to say what that draft is likely to contain in respect of the specific circumstances that any regulations would need to take account of in mitigating the effects of the obligations that we are creating in the Bill to make charging points available.
Certainly, where the commercial viability of fuel retailers, their forecourts and service areas and the effect that mandatory electric vehicle infrastructure would have upon that are concerned, we would need to be mindful of the interests of retailers. We are not in the business of creating such a burden that people, first, will not do it and, secondly, will be compromised by it.
Secondly, there is the issue raised by the hon. Gentleman about places where there is not space available and the total land take makes provision impossible. Thirdly, there is the point about the impact on the local electricity grid. Fourthly, there is the proximity of other charging points, which relates to the consideration we enjoyed earlier about concentration. We do not want a cluster of charging points in a small area and yet no charging points for a long stretch. The proximity of the electric vehicle infrastructure and of other fuel retailers and service areas also seems to be salient.
The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East was right in moving the amendment to say that we need to be mindful of the practical effect of the obligation we are creating. It must not be crude in its effect; it must be measured, and the regulations will ensure that. They will certainly contain the elements that I have set out. The hon. Gentleman is also right that clause 15(3) specifically commits the Secretary of State to consult with appropriate persons before making regulations under this part of the Bill. Given that the effect of the Bill is to make the provision of charging points mandatory, it is right that we should consult.
Equally, we should be bold and ambitious. I think it was Ezra Pound who said that when faced with two options, choose the boldest. That is very much the recommendation of my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset and the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East. We do need to be bold and ambitious, but we need to be measured. We must not create an obligation that is heavy handed in its effect. I want to achieve what the Committee has recommended to me, which is to lead the field. The best way to do that is to put in place regulations that can be effected quickly, efficiently and effectively.
We will consult. The consultation needs to be wide ranging and thorough, and we would like to commence much earlier, so that the regulations come into force after proper reflection—probably earlier than the six months proposed by amendment 5, but not so early that I do not have time to consider the results of the consultation.
Karl Turner
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 10 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 11
Information about public charging points
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Sir Greg Knight
My right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset referred earlier to petrol cars as being in the past. Let me say to him: not quite yet. Although manufacturers estimate the average life of a car to be 10 to 12 years, I have to tell him that I have a petrol-powered car that is 81 years old, and I still enjoy driving and using it.
Can the Minister confirm his intentions regarding subsection (2)(c)? Whether their car is powered by a battery or by petrol, the motorist has a right to expect the Government to intervene to protect him or her from being ripped off. Clearly, where the retailer is in a monopoly, or near-monopoly, position, such as a petrol or diesel retailer on a motorway—or indeed the provider of a charging point on a motorway—it is essential that the motorist is made aware, before he or she commits to a purchase, of the price they are going to be asked to pay. Can the Minister confirm that he will use the power in the Bill to require the electric charging point providers to display the cost to the motorist—as is now the case for petrol and diesel suppliers—so that if there is an intention to overcharge and rip off the motorist, that motorist has the opportunity to drive away and go to the next retailer?
Graham P. Jones
Does the right hon. Gentleman also agree that that information should be displayed in a manner that the customer understands?
Sir Greg Knight
Absolutely, and I would go further and say that it also has to be displayed in position where it can be read from the interior of the car, before the motorist has alighted from the vehicle and made his or her way right up to the charging point.
Stephen Kerr
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the information should perhaps also be available in open data format, so that when apps are constructed to advertise the availability of charging points, as described in the Bill, the price should also be there in plain sight?
Sir Greg Knight
I can answer my hon. Friend very simply: absolutely. He is absolutely right on that point.
Mr Hayes
When my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset spoke of the past, he may have been doing so mildly pejoratively. I take the view that we are the past: all we are is what we remember; now is an illusion, as it becomes then in an instant, and the future—as we have said repeatedly in our considerations on this Bill—is an uncertainty. So when my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire speaks of those vehicles, vintage and classic, that he holds so dear, I can say with certainty that the future of Jaguar XK120s, 140s and 150s, Bentley Continentals, Humber Snipes, Singer Gazelles, Ford Anglias, Morris Minor Travellers, and Jensen Interceptors, among many others, is secure in my hands.
The substantial point that my right hon. Friend makes is about clarity when it comes to price. He is right that petrol stations show the price of the goods they sell—petrol, diesel, et cetera—and it is right that we should be clear about that. I believe we can ensure that that happens in the way that he sets out, as it seems to me perfectly fair and reasonable.
Sir Oliver Letwin
I am, as ever, grateful for my right hon. Friend’s mellifluous misinterpretations of philosophy, but to return to the matter in hand, while I very much welcome what my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire has said about transparency of pricing, I hope he will agree that, at least in the interim, that is not going to be enough. The reason it works for petrol is that the petrol engine and the fuel tanks that go with it now have range capacities, which mean that people can almost always choose where they want to fill up. At least for the short term—that is, the crucial moment in which we either will or will not achieve a transition to a vast scale of electric vehicles in this country—electric vehicles do not have a range that enables people to make that choice under all circumstances. Therefore, having people know that they are going to be ripped off when they get to the relevant service station, which is the only one they can charge at, is adding insult to injury, because they are told in advance that they are going to be ripped off, but they are still ripped off because they have no choice. Therefore, at least in the interim, we do need price-capping powers—which, alas, my right hon. Friend the Minister did not mention in his response to the last clause, but which I hope he has taken on board.
However, the point I want to make in relation to information is different. Clause 11 begins very well, by saying in subsection (1):
“Regulations may require operators of public charging points to make available prescribed information relating to such points.”
Unfortunately, subsection (2), if I have understood the way it is articulated correctly, limits that power by saying that what can
“be prescribed under subsection (1) in relation to a public charging point is such information as the Secretary of State considers likely to be useful to users or potential users of the point”,
which is followed by a perfectly sensible list. That is a very valuable power to have, because, for the reasons that my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire advanced, and other reasons, it is good that there should be transparency for users and potential users. I very much agree with a point that my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling made about open data sources and apps, but there is an information flow that is even more important than the information flow to the users.
We need to look ahead to the time when there are 20 million of these electric vehicles in the UK, or even to when we are a quarter or half of the way to that total. At that point the dynamics of the electricity supply industry will—as my right hon. Friend the Minister knows from his time in Energy—fundamentally change. We will have the capacity to deal with intermittent provision of energy to the grid by a flexible demand response engendered by electric vehicles, in their millions, either ceasing to charge or ultimately delivering electricity to the grid at points when the intermittent supplies from, shall we say, solar energy are not available and when the load curve would otherwise create additional demand that could not be met.
That is a huge gain to our country, and it could eliminate very expensive investment in fixed storage or additional capacity from fossil fuel or nuclear stations. In order for that gain to be realised, there needs to be a flow of data back from every kind of charging point all over the country into National Grid, so that the National Grid planners can plan ahead in the knowledge of the patterns that are being established, dynamically, as there are more and more electric cars and the interactions of those with the smart charging points and the smart grid change.
This is really a very important flow of information indeed. At the moment it does not exist, and there is nothing in the Bill that gives the Secretary of State the power to mandate that it should exist. It would be a simple matter to do so; we would need only to enlarge the scope of the power in clause 11(1) and (2) by changing the drafting so that it is possible to mandate information useful not only to users or potential users, but to operators of infrastructure relevant to charging: the grid, for example. I am not trying to draft on the hoof—it is obviously easy for the Minister to commission the appropriate drafting—but I hope that the intent is clear. It would make a significant difference.
I am told by National Grid that at the moment it has considerable difficulty accumulating any serious information about patterns. Car manufacturers do not want to give it, because they regard it as commercially sensitive information, and the commercial operators of the current charge points do not want to give it, for the same reason. Therefore, the Minister will need powers that compel a range of people providing various different kinds of charging points to provide that information back to the grid if the grid is to have a reliable supply of data to enable it to plan in an appropriate way.
The grid—and the DNOs, to the extent that we are talking about distributed power—has good information at the moment on the generating side, and it will get pretty good information from people’s homes through centralised computing after the smart meter roll-out. However, that brings me to my last point. As I understand it—I do not know how it happened; the Minister might have been responsible, or me, or one of our colleagues at the relevant time—unfortunately, by oversight, we have not so far required the information that electricity suppliers get through the central computing system attached to smart meters to be transmitted to the DNOs and the NGC. Therefore, to the extent that cars are being charged off-street, at people’s homes, they are unable to get that data flow. That goes back to a decision by our right hon. Friend Lord Maude to allow the continuation of the use of suppliers rather than DNOs to supply smart meters in people’s homes.
Be that as it may, it is now also urgently necessary that the data flow be mandated back from the smart meters in people’s homes to NGC, so that as electric cars are charged overnight off-street at people’s homes, that can also be built into NGC’s planning horizons. If we can do those two things—mandate data flows from all public charging points and all smart meters installed in private residences back to NGC—the Minister will be able to contribute significantly to the much more economically efficient development of our electricity supply industry, as part of the roll-out of electric vehicles, which is part of the aim that the Government have always had.
Mr Hayes
I will deal briefly with the two points made by my right hon. Friend; I think that he is wrong about both. In respect of the powers, I am advised that work is under way with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy on that. He will understand that, as he said earlier, that needs to be a cross-governmental piece of work. That work is designed to consider what we can do to catalyse the deployment of technology, including potential funding for innovation.
The key point is that the powers proposed in the Bill are sufficiently broad to allow for regulations to include requirements for information relating to vehicle-to-grid charging. That would include information between the vehicle and the grid. Obviously, that would have to be defined in regulation, but I understand that powers can be introduced to fill the gap that he describes in providing information back to the grid about demand and supply.
Sir Oliver Letwin
I would be delighted if the Minister is right, but can he explain how the phrase
“likely to be useful to users or potential users”
in subsection (2) allows the mandation of the information to be provided to the grid, which is neither a user nor a potential user of the charging point?
Mr Hayes
I will return to that when I have dealt with what my right hon. Friend got wrong in his first point. On the relationship between subsections (1) and (2), he is right that, in his words, subsection (2) limits subsection (1)—I would say explains it, but that is a matter of interpretation and semantics. Subsection (2) sets out a series of pieces of information that, for example, the Secretary of State might deem appropriate. It is not an exclusive list, although it is pretty comprehensive:
“(a) the location of the point and its operating hours,
(b) available charging or refuelling options,
(c) the cost of obtaining access to the use of the point,
(d) the method of payment…
(e) means of connection…
(f) whether the point is in working order, and
(g) whether the point is in use.”
The Secretary of State may prescribe other matters as he sees fit, but those are offered “for example”, as the subsection states. I think that my right hon. Friend is wrong about that, or perhaps he will tell me why he is not.
Sir Oliver Letwin
I do not doubt that the list is a very good one, or that it is a list of examples; as the Minister says, the subsection states “for example”. My problem is with the governing phrase above that:
“likely to be useful to users or potential users of the point”.
The National Grid Company is not a user or potential user of the point. Therefore, I do not think that the Minister has the powers under subsection (2) to prescribe that the information flows to it. As he has already said, subsection (2) explains or interprets or restricts (1), so I do not think he has those powers under that subsection either. I am not trying to be a parliamentary jobsworth and I would be delighted to be proved wrong.
Mr Hayes
We come to the nub of the difference between us, over which I think we can reach an Hegelian synthesis in the few short words I will offer my right hon. Friend. I understand that he accepts that subsections (1) and (2) are about providing information for people who might seek to charge their vehicle. He freely acknowledges that the list is not exclusive, although it is extensive. What concerns him is that the subsection does not stipulate any link back to the providers of power—it provides information to the users of power but not to the providers of power. That is because the powers to which I am referring are contained not in this part of the Bill, but in clause 12. I do not want to debate that clause now, because you will not let me, Sir Edward, but I highlight the fact that clause 12(2) speaks of the ability
“(a) to receive and process information provided by a prescribed person,
(b) to react to information of a kind mentioned in paragraph (a) (for example, by adjusting the rate of charging or discharging)”
and so on. We believe that there is sufficient power in clause 12 to get to the destination that my right hon. Friend seeks. If that is not the case by the time we come to debate clause 12, I will explain why not and put that right. I hope that for the time being at least I might have satisfied him.
Sir Oliver Letwin
Of course I will wait until we get to clause 12. I do not read it the way the Minister does, but we will come to that.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 11 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 12
Smart charge points
Karl Turner
I beg to move amendment 6, in clause 12, page 7, line 29, after “security” insert “and provide safeguards against hacking”.
This amendment clarifies that smart charge points must have measures in place to safeguard against the risk of being hacked.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss new clause 19—Cyber Security and hacking of electric vehicle charge points—
“The Secretary of State must, within 12 months of this Act receiving Royal Assent, consult with such persons as the Secretary of State considers appropriate on what steps will be required for the effective cyber security of electric vehicle charge points to protect those charge points against hacking.”
This new clause would require the Secretary of State to report within 12 months what steps would be required to protect electric vehicle charge points against hacking.
Karl Turner
Amendment 6 and new clause 19 address the issue of cyber security and hacking in relation to charging points. A lot of what we covered this morning applies to the amendment and the new clause, so I do not want to repeat what has already been said. Any element of data, digital infrastructure or digital function is incredibly valuable and increasingly involves a risk of being hacked. The data infrastructure and digital function behind the charging infrastructure and its interface with electric and automated vehicles are no different. We need to address cyber-security and data protection in relation to all these areas, including charge points.
Amendment 6 relates to charge point cyber security. Clause 12 contains a range of non-exhaustive specifications —we discussed them a few minutes ago—that a charge point must comply with. It appears that will involve a large amount of data being transmitted from the charge point. Measures are therefore needed to ensure that charge points and the data they process are protected against attempts at hacking. I think that is what the Government are getting at in subsection 2(e). Will the Minister clarify whether that provision also covers cyber security and the risk of hacking? I also invite him to clarify who the information that clause 12 refers to is to be shared with and where.
We need safeguards. It is not beyond the realms of possibility that if the safeguards are not in place, information could be downloaded from an electric or automated vehicle being serviced that would allow hackers to obtain information or—perhaps worse—control safety-critical elements of the vehicle’s functions.
On new clause 19, I will not repeat the points made this morning, but I would be grateful if the Minister could indicate what work has already been done. I am aware that a great deal of work is being done behind the scenes, but it would assist us to know who specifically his Department is consulting.
Sir Oliver Letwin
In this useful dialogue we have got to the point of agreeing that it is necessary to have the information flow back to NGC, and that clause 11 does not provide for that to be mandated. The Minister ended his remarks on clause 11 by saying that clause 12 does allow the Secretary of State to mandate the provision of that information by charge points to the National Grid Company.
I said that I did not read clause 12 the way the Minister does, and that is because I suffer from this problem of reading the thing as if it were in English and I were a speaker of English. Let me illustrate to the Minister why a normal reader of English would not take clause 12(1) and (2), as currently constructed, to have the effect he is describing. If he can then explain to me why a lawyer reading it in some other language believes that it will have that effect, I will gracefully and happily give way, because I have no desire to engage in unnecessary redrafting.
In English then, clause 12(1) states:
“Regulations may provide that a person must not sell or install a charge point unless it complies with prescribed requirements.”
That is entirely about the design of the charge points; it says nothing about the provision of information. It is perfectly true that clause 12(2), again in English, states in the governing phrase:
“The requirements that may be imposed under subsection (1) include requirements relating to the technical specifications—”.
It then gives some examples—I take the point that this is not an exhaustive list—which do include, in clause 12(2)(g), the capability of the machine in question to be “accessed remotely” and, in clause 12(2)(a),
“to receive and process information provided by a prescribed person”
and even more appositely, in clause 12(2)(c),
“to transmit information…to a prescribed person”.
I accept that clause 12 is drafted in such a way that, when read in English, it would enable the Minister to pass a regulation stating that the charge point in question must be designed to have the capacity to transmit information to the prescribed person—namely, the NGC, if the Minister prescribed that. I accept all that, but having a machine with the capacity to transmit certain information does not entail the person who has the machine in their possession actually transmitting or allowing the transmission of the data in question.
There is nothing here in English that gives the Minister the power to mandate that the person who owns or supplies the relevant charge point has to allow the transmission of those data. I know of no obvious principle of jurisprudence that would mean that having a machine of a certain capacity means that it has to be used in a way that lives up to that capacity. It would indeed be strange if there were such a thing, because there are many instances in which people have things with capacities that are lawful, or even mandated, without having the obligation to use them in that way.
If the Minister can explain why enforcing a rule that the charge point has the capacity to deliver the relevant information to the NGC will automatically entail the machines all doing that, I will be delighted and I shall stop inquiring about it. If he cannot, this clearly needs some adjustment so that he has the further power to mandate the flow of data and not just the capacity of the relevant equipment to transmit such data.
Mr Hayes
Let me deal first with the shadow Minister’s comments about cyber security. I am grateful for his brevity, because we dealt with this at length in your absence this morning, Sir Edward. The Government take cyber security very seriously, and the shadow Minister is right that we need to be mindful of the risks associated with malevolent activity, including, as he described it, the hacking of software and other matters. It is important that in the Bill the Government take account of the requirements relating to security, and I simply say to him that they do. If he looks at clause 12(2)(e), we specifically speak of complying with “requirements relating to security”. It is right that information should be shared with those persons who are prescribed in regulations. That would include security measures and, by the way, might also include the National Grid. We are taking powers in the Bill to ensure that information will be made available in the interests of ensuring security.
I turn to the remarks made by my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset about whether clause 12 is sufficient to provide the mechanism that I described earlier and the information that he sought in his speech—this is about creating greater clarity over electricity supply and demand, as he described it, and I will not repeat what he said for the sake of time. I am advised that that is the case, but I am inclined to reflect and write to the Committee. It may be, as with our earlier considerations, that in doing so I am able to satisfy him. When we were debating clause 1, he made the point that the wording of the Bill was not sufficient to make clear its full extent, and I think my supplementary letter helped to clarify that. I suggest that I might do that again, which will allow us to make more rapid progress. I know that will please the whole Committee, and not least you, Sir Edward.
Karl Turner
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 12 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 13 and 14 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 15
Regulations
Karl Turner
I beg to move amendment 7, in clause 15, page 8, line 32, leave out from “consult” to end and insert—
“(a) the National Grid,
(b) large fuel retailers and service area operators as defined under section 10, and
(c) any other such persons as the Secretary of State considers appropriate.”
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to consult specifically with the national grid, large fuel retailers and service area operators before introducing regulations.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 13, in clause 15, page 9, line 33, at end insert—
“(3A) Before making regulations under this Part, the Secretary of State must consult the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government and the Northern Ireland Executive and have regard to their views.”
New clause 5—Review of regulations in Part 2—
“(1) Within 12 months, and once in each 12 month period thereafter, the Secretary of State must lay a report before Parliament on the regulations made using powers granted in Part 2 of this Act.
(2) The report must consider—
(a) the effectiveness of the regulations,
(b) the impact the regulations are having on public charge point operators,
(c) the impact the regulations are having on fuel retailers,
(d) the impact the regulations are having on the National Grid, and
(e) how the regulations are impacting on the uptake of electric vehicles.”
This new clause would require the Secretary of State to lay a report before Parliament each year assessing the effectiveness and impact of the regulations in Part 2.
Karl Turner
I rise to speak to amendment 7 and new clause 5, which appear in my name. Amendment 7 would require the Secretary of State to consult the National Grid, large fuel retailers and service area operators before introducing regulations. New clause 5 would require the Secretary of State to lay a report before Parliament each year assessing the effectiveness and impact of the regulations in part 2.
Amendment 7 would require the Government to consult widely before regulations were implemented. One significant area that our proposals will deal with is the potential impact of the expansion in the number of charging points on the national grid. To be frank, the Bill barely addresses this issue. There is a fear that huge, sudden spikes in demand could easily damage the network and even lead to power cuts in extreme situations. Serious planning and consultation between the Government, the grid and the charge point operators are required if the policy is to work. I appreciate that the Government are trying to address some of that with smart charging, but the risk is still there, particularly if rapid charging is used at charge points during peak rush hour.
Those concerns need to be carefully considered, and the impact must be monitored in the roll-out of infrastructure changes. Will the Minister commit to considering the matter further, to consulting with the necessary bodies to ensure that the impact is limited, and to ensuring that measures—including smart charging—will be in place to prevent network overload? The Government will have to consider a great many things that they do not know now. They do not yet know what regulations they want to bring in, who these will affect, nor how they will be affected. That underlines the importance of the Government consulting with stakeholders, as requested in amendment 7.
I am not opposed to the use of secondary legislation, because it is necessary to future-proof the Bill, but it is important for the Minister to come back to Parliament with more detail and specific proposals for regulation, particularly on something that, as it stands, does not include much detail. I am sure the Minister will agree that regular reviews can help not only in assessing how things are working, but in guiding future action.
The new clause would require the Government to lay a report before Parliament each year that considers how the regulations are working, specifically their impact on charge point operators, fuel retailers, the National Grid and the overall uptake of electric vehicles. The Government’s intention is for the Bill to enable and encourage the uptake of electric vehicles, and we all want to achieve that goal. I think we are right to do that. It would therefore make sense for them regularly to review whether that is actually happening, and whether things need to be changed down the line. Involving Parliament in this issue would not only be beneficial to the Government; it would enable them to regularly reassess their efforts. I would like to think that the Minister would say that to us if our seating arrangements were reversed. We must keep the matter constantly under review and we should be prepared to revisit it if the circumstances require it.
I do not intend to press the amendment to a vote, but I give the Minister notice that we definitely wish to return to this issue. I hope that, as the Bill continues its progress through the House, the Minister reflects on that. Perhaps on Report, his position will have changed and we can consider using the affirmative procedure. New clause 5 is about review, and if the Minister can give assurances that he is prepared to review, reassess and change the legislation as necessary, I do not intend to press it to a vote.
Mr Hayes
The amendments and the new clause address the issues of consultation and review, as the hon. Gentleman briefly set out. I could give a short version of my speech and simply say to him, “Yes, yes, yes, yes and yes,” but I am not sure that that would satisfy the more demanding members of this Committee, so let me explain what I mean.
The hon. Gentleman is right that consultation must be part of the continuing determination to ensure that the objectives of the Bill are met. I am determined that we should consult with the National Grid, large fuel retailers and others before making regulations. I completely agree with him that it will be important to consult a wide range of stakeholders on making regulations under these powers, and that will include the devolved Administrations detailed in amendment 13.
The hon. Gentleman will note that we have an obligation, set out in clause 15(3), to do so:
“Before making regulations under this Part, the Secretary of State must consult such persons as the Secretary of State considers appropriate.”
It is right that the hon. Gentleman asks, “Well, who does the Secretary of State consider appropriate?”, because these are broad powers. It would certainly include all the organisations he has mentioned and, by the way, others across the industry. The providers of charge points and others must be consulted, as I have emphasised throughout our consideration of the Bill. He can have the binding assurance from me that we will consult in precisely the way his amendment suggests.
Furthermore, I agree with the hon. Gentleman about the business of review. Given that I have emphasised, as I think have other members of the Committee, that this is a rapidly changing area of work, with evolving technology—the modest nature of the Bill means that we know more will need to be done, both in secondary legislation and, I suspect, beyond—it is important that we keep a close eye on how things are developing.
I have already agreed, as a result of the brief exchanges between myself and the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun, both today and in earlier consideration of these matters, that we should map the provision of charge points across the country. It is very important that we monitor closely how charge points are rolled out. We have spoken about workplaces, local authorities, service stations and so on and so forth, but we need to get a clear view about where the concentrations of charge points are and what needs to be done to fill in any gaps that emerge.
More than that, it is appropriate to review more generally. I draw the attention of the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East to the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015, in particular to section 28. He will remember, probably having debated it at other times and in other places, that section 28 creates a
“Duty to review regulatory provisions in secondary legislation”—
in my judgment, absolutely properly. Section 28(2) makes it clear that:
“The Minister must—
(a) make provision for review in the secondary legislation in which the regulatory provision is made…or
(b) publish a statement that it is not appropriate in the circumstances to make provision for review in that legislation”.
Either the Minister must justify why he is not reviewing, or review.
My strong indication to the Committee is that in those circumstances, we would want to review and consider the ramifications that result from the legislation, for the very reasons I have just given. It is a rapidly evolving and changing field and we want as much debate and scrutiny of it as possible. It is not a matter of contention, but a case of the whole Committee—indeed, the whole House—wanting to get it right. There is provision for us to do so; we have committed to that in clause 15. For those reasons, and with the strong assurances I have offered, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will withdraw the amendment.
Alan Brown
I agree with the principle of amendment 7, and it is good that the Minister says he will take that on board and do the necessary consultation. New clause 5 is about annual review, reporting and updating Parliament, so I would like to hear a wee bit more about how the Minister will do that kind of review of the uptake of electric vehicles and feed back to Parliament, working out, if necessary, what targeted interventions might be required on the back of that.
The Minister said that he would consult the devolved Administrations listed in amendment 13, which appears in my name. I welcome that, but the whole purpose of the amendment was to get the involvement of the devolved Administrations into the Bill, to absolutely ensure that it happens. Based on his earlier intervention, I am sure that the hon. Member for Stirling would agree with that concept.
Certainly, there are advantages to a UK-wide approach, and that requires the involvement of the devolved Administrations. For example, Scotland has its own electric and automated vehicles strategy, which was announced in this year’s programme for government. Scotland is trying to take a lead in the roll-out of such vehicles, and we have set a target of 2032 as opposed to 2040. If the Bill had not been so tight, I would have tabled an amendment to bring forward the 2040 deadline, but unfortunately I have not been able to do so. There is a different strategy in Scotland, and the UK Government need to take that on board, with the Scottish Government.
Scotland has an excess of commercial and academic expertise in smart grids and data management, and we need to ensure that that expertise is tapped into in the consultation and brought forward for the benefit of everyone. I have mentioned the Scottish Government; clearly, other devolved Administrations might have their own priorities that need to be fed in as well. The Minister said that he would give that assurance, but I will look to see how it is taken forward and whether we need to revisit amendment 13 on Report.
I am happy not to push the amendment to a vote; I am just looking for that certainty on an ongoing basis. The Minister is probably aware, regarding the Brexit negotiations just now, that the Scottish and Welsh Governments have raised concerns that they are not fully involved and are getting overlooked. We cannot be in a position where decisions are imposed on the devolved Administrations without consultation and without those decisions being agreed.
Mr Hayes
The hon. Gentleman is not the first, and will not be the last, to clamour to hear more from me, but I do not want to tire the Committee unduly. I have given the commitment that he will have heard about the consultation, but just in case he is uncertain about the good will that lies behind it, let me say, merely on the grounds of unvarnished self-interest, that the Government would certainly want to consult, because we want to get this right. Frankly, there is little for the Government to lose from that kind of dialogue with the devolved Administrations and the whole of the industry. Any responsible Government would want to engage in such dialogue and consultation. I do not suggest for a moment that the hon. Gentleman does not trust my good will, but just in case he does not want to depend on it, I assure him that it is in the Government’s interests to ensure that we get this absolutely right.
Karl Turner
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 15 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Andrew Stephenson.)
Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill (Fifth sitting)
Tuesday 14th November 2017
(6 years, 5 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Automated and Electric Vehicles Act 2018 View all Automated and Electric Vehicles Act 2018 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 14 November 2017 - (14 Nov 2017)
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 8 / Noes: 9 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Chair
I remind everyone to ensure that all electronic devices are turned off or switched to silent mode.
Clause 4
Accident resulting from unauthorised software alterations or failure to update software
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
I beg to move amendment 11, in clause 4, page 3, line 13, at end insert—
‘, provided that the vehicle manufacturer has made all reasonable efforts to—
(a) notify the owner of a vehicle about the need for an update of the vehicle’s operating system
(b) provide the relevant update of the vehicle’s operating system to the owner or insured person, and
(c) arrange for the installation and update of the vehicle’s operating system.’
This amendment would ensure the manufacturer has made every possible effort to inform the owner of the vehicle that a software update is needed before liability is passed to the owner.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 12, in clause 4, page 3, line 36, at end insert
‘(7) The Secretary of State must by regulations establish a system by which an automated vehicle may only be approved for driving itself on public roads if all application software is up to date.’
This amendment would require the Government to introduce regulations to establish a system that requires automated vehicle software to be up to date in order for them to utilise automated functions on public roads.
New clause 9—Updates to software and operation of automated vehicles—
‘The Secretary of State must bring forward regulations to require that automated vehicles cannot operate in automated mode on public roads unless the application software relating to the vehicle’s automated function is up to date.’
This new clause would require the Government to introduce regulations that require automated vehicles to be up to date in order for them to utilise automated functions on public roads.
Alan Brown
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Mr Bailey. I note that you wisely ducked out just before I spoke yesterday in Westminster Hall, right enough—no such luck this morning.
Clause 4 is all about liabilities associated with operational software for automated vehicles. Amendments 11 and 12 aim to strengthen the clause and amendment 11 aims to clarify the responsibilities of the vehicle manufacturer. In turn, that may even assist the vehicle manufacturer with regards to clause 4(1)(b), which refers to whether a person ought to reasonably know about safety-critical software updates being required. We are using the right terminology, and it is hoped that the law meets its intended purpose both of ensuring that people are insured and of clarifying where liabilities are limited for insurance companies.
If the Bill sets out how important it is that safety-critical software is updated, it follows that duties are placed on the manufacturers to take all reasonable steps to ensure that that happens. Therefore, as with smartphones, the manufacturer must notify the owner of the need for upgrades but, unlike smartphones, it needs to be much more than a simple notification. Steps need to be undertaken to ensure that the vehicle owner is aware of the need for upgrades and to make arrangements for them to happen. There could be a series of warnings through the software, or written letters and correspondence. Given the sophistication of the software, and its interactive nature, in that it tries to talk to software on other servers, perhaps even some form of remote immobilisation could be considered. If those steps are followed, any evidence of the deliberate overriding of adaptations undertaken by the owner will fall within the insurance liability limitations outlined in clause 4.
Amendment 12 follows on from that, requiring the Government to introduce regulations to establish a system that requires automated vehicle software to be up to date in order to utilise automated functions on public roads. It might be argued that the amendment is not required, that it simply dots the i’s and crosses the t’s, but given that that function of the software is the brain of the vehicle, it is absolutely incumbent on the Government to ensure that there is a system for explicitly determining that the software is safe, and able to be used.
I suggest that new clause 9 serves the same function as amendment 12. I am therefore supportive of it in principle, but there is a logic in amendments 11 and 12 being put in with clause 4, to tighten it up.
Craig Tracey (North Warwickshire) (Con)
I want to make a brief contribution. I mentioned in a previous sitting that I chair the all-party parliamentary group on insurance and financial services. We have looked into this area in some detail and I think it is fair to say that across the industry there is a lot of support for the Bill, which is good news. The industry is appreciative of the fact that the Bill is moving forward at pace, and of the Minister’s approach to that. However, we think there is a definite opportunity to tighten the wording in clause 4(1)(b), as there seems to be scope for conflict between different parties in two areas.
First, regarding the phrase
“insured person knows, or ought reasonably to know, are safety-critical”,
one of the consequences is that there might be a legitimate reason for software not being installed: a vehicle might be on a journey, there might be no signal or someone might have to use a vehicle in an emergency. The wording is open to interpretation and one of the consequences of that could be delays in paying out claims.
My second point is whether a safety-critical update was contributory either in whole or in part to an accident. Without tightening up the wording, there could be delays in the settling of claims, potential higher claims costs, and more data—data was raised quite a bit in the evidence sessions—being required to settle claims and to establish cause. Again, a knock-on effect is that the full potential of cost savings on insurance might not be fully recognised because of the cost involved in deciding on liability.
With those two points in mind it seems sensible to shift the onus from the insured person for the safety-critical update directly on to the manufacturer in all cases. We know the technology is there. It is available either to not enable the vehicle to start if a safety-critical update is not put in place or—this is probably more reasonable—to not enable a vehicle to access the automated mode unless all safety-critical software issues are up to date. Those are just a couple of points that I wanted to raise with the Minister which perhaps he will consider when he responds to the amendments.
Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)
Following on from the points that my hon. Friend just raised, will the Minister clarify a couple of points regarding the phrase in clause 4(1)(b), which states:
“the insured person knows, or ought reasonably to know”?
I am concerned that the phrase “ought reasonably to know” is a little woolly. I am not a lawyer or an expert in parliamentary drafting. It may be that the phrase is a well-used one that the courts can easily interpret, but in the context of the new software I am a little uncertain as to what “ought reasonably to know” actually means. I can envisage a number of scenarios in which the driver may have had an alert from the manufacturer that says, “We need to install version 1.whatever of the software.” He gets the update at a quarter to nine in the morning. He is rushing out of the house, late for a meeting, and says, “I’ll do that later on,” and then the car he is driving is unsafe at that point. I am simply not clear where the onus lies and when that person should install the software. Perhaps the Minister will clarify that point when he responds to this group of amendments, or he may wish to reflect on it and consider the matter further on Report. It is an area I have concerns about and we ought to get the drafting absolutely right.
Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to recommence the discussion of the Bill under your chairmanship, Mr Bailey.
New clause 9, tabled in my name, states:
“The Secretary of State must bring forward regulations to require that automated vehicles cannot operate in automated mode on public roads unless the application software relating to the vehicle’s automated function is up to date.”
The new clause would require the Government to introduce regulations that require automated vehicles to be up to date in order for them to utilise automated functions on public roads. Under the current drafting, people would be able to drive their automated vehicles on the roads without having the latest up-to-date software, which could lead to safety risks. The new clause would ensure that the Government introduce regulations that require automated vehicles to be up to date in order for the automated function to be used. If a vehicle had a serious mechanical fault that could endanger the driver and others, we would not allow it on our roads. An automated vehicle would similarly present an increased safety risk if its operating system was not updated. Most people with a smartphone or computer are likely to have software that prevents it from being used until it is updated. I am not struck by any reason why a similar mechanism could not be included in automated vehicles. By preventing an un-updated vehicle from being used, we would achieve safer roads and cheaper insurance.
Graham P. Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making a powerful point. This applies most critically to GPS, where there may be changes to roads or whatever. The automated vehicle would need to know where it is going and whether there had been some ad hoc intervention in the road layout that meant that the GPS was inaccurate. Clearly, there would need to be an update. Does he share my view that updates should be regular and frequent, because they are part of the safety process?
Karl Turner
My hon. Friend makes a valid point when he talks about GPS systems. Without the new clause, people would be able to take un-updated vehicles on our roads, without being absolutely sure that they are safe. A primary benefit of AVs is that they reduce the likelihood of human error. However, one of the few areas in which the scope for human error remains—the responsibility for ensuring that software is updated—would not be addressed, even though it would not be difficult to do so. I cannot find any reason why it is not possible to legislate for this. The new clause addresses that obvious issue and I trust that the Government will consider it carefully.
The Minister for Transport Legislation and Maritime (Mr John Hayes)
We continue with dedication our diligent perusal of these matters and our scrutiny of this Bill. I am grateful to the Committee for its continuing determination to get this right. When we first met, we said that this was an important and challenging piece of legislation because we debate it in rapidly altering circumstances. The technology is moving on apace and we are trying to tread a path between creating sufficient certainty to allow insurers to develop the products they will need as the technology comes on stream and predicting a future which, by its nature, is unpredictable. That is the path we tread. It is important to emphasise in that spirit, in relation to this clause and these amendments, that the Bill is a first step. It does not solve all the problems or answer all the questions. It is a modest Bill, though an important one, in those terms.
It is doubtless true that as this technology unfolds more work will need to be done. We are on the cusp of an important—indeed, one might say revolutionary—change in what we drive and how we drive it, but it is not for this Committee, Government or Minister to predict quite what that might look like in decades to come. The modest character of the Bill needs to inform all our scrutiny. We are not aiming to solve all the problems here. We are aiming to take a measured first step towards solving those problems and meeting those challenges.
However, it is right that we debate the issue of how motorists understand and update their systems so that they can use their automated vehicles safely, as the shadow Minister, the mover of the amendment, the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun, and other contributors have said. A core part of that is to ensure that the regulatory framework is in place which compels manufacturers to bring to market systems that make this process as simple and effective as possible.
This is certainly not the place for that legislative process to occur. It is not the purpose of the Bill. The requirement for systems to update forms part of an international set of standards, which I mentioned earlier. Vehicle safety and technology are subject to international standards. Those standards are well established in respect of the vehicles we all typically drive, but they are emerging standards in respect of autonomous vehicles. Much work has been done by this Government and others to ensure that those standards are fit for purpose. They will form the basis of a new type of approval process. We are familiar with the existing means by which these things are assured. That will develop over time, as the type of approval process emerges as a result of the work that is being done. Until that type of approval process is fit for purpose, these vehicles will simply not be sold or driven on our roads. In addition to our domestic non-insurance regulatory programme, it is vital that we are mindful of those further developments.
Robust standards will be in place before the vehicles arrive to market. There is, therefore, a risk in acting unilaterally. I understand why people are suggesting that we might; it is a perfectly reasonable response to the debate and the Bill, and it is useful that we are airing these subjects here. However, we would not want to try to anticipate the development of those standards without a clear understanding of the ultimate design standards to which these vehicles will be held, as we would risk creating barriers to the use of this technology and inhibiting further research and development—indeed, possibly inhibiting the development of the insurers’ products that the Bill is all about. We are continuing to take part in the international negotiation shaping the standards, and developing domestic road traffic laws and guidance. We do not accept new clause 9 and the amendments to clause 4 that would compel us to act without a settled knowledge of how these systems will ultimately be configured.
Let me deal, however, with some specifics. A series of points have been made on these matters during our scrutiny. I have written to the Committee, as Members will know, dealing with some of the questions that were previously raised. I do not think that this is an appropriate point to go through those letters because they do not directly relate to the subject at hand, but there will be a chance—I think at clause 7—to revisit some of the issues that were dealt with when we looked at clause 1. I simply put that on the record, in case people were wondering why I was not immediately addressing some of the things that were raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset and others in earlier parts of the scrutiny.
In respect of the issues raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South, I am looking for the guidance that I might have received from another place—[Interruption.] Ah, here we are; it has winged its way to me. In the end, the courts will interpret the facts. If a person knew that they needed to update the software and failed to do so—that is, knowingly took a view that they did not need to update their software, rather as if someone knowingly drove a vehicle that was mechanically unsound—a judgment will of course be made about their responsibilities and whether they should have used the vehicle. If someone is negligent in respect of their vehicle’s fitness to be driven, clearly the courts will have to take a view about their responsibilities.
Iain Stewart
I agree that we cannot anticipate exactly what form the technology will take, or the form of the updates. My right hon. Friend mentioned that further regulations would be issued before these vehicles went on the road. Would those regulations include a clearer definition of the obligations on the driver regarding when they must install any updates to the software?
Mr Hayes
I will come back to that, because in a way it relates to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire. We anticipate that the majority of software updates will be delivered automatically over the air, as it were, so we would expect software to be updated over time in that way that my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South suggests. I am mindful of the work that my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire has done on this—we have discussed it outside the Committee.
Mr Hayes
I will in a second.
In the end, the clause aims to protect insurers from a negligent person who intentionally fails to update their vehicle. For the sake of clarity, I offer the parallel of someone who fails to ensure that a vehicle they drive now is safe—who fails to take the proper precautions or make the proper arrangements to ensure that their vehicle can be safely driven when they go out in it. So it will be with autonomous vehicles and the software that relates to them. That is the purpose of the clause, but I am not entirely convinced by the advice that I have had on it yet. The civil servants in the room—I know I am not supposed to acknowledge them—will have a shiver going down their spine. I want to reflect more on it. I think we are right and I am sure what I have said is right, but I may have more to say on it. I am happy to reflect on it and come back to my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire if there is more to be said.
Craig Tracey
I appreciate that the Minister will look into it. He mentioned that the clause will protect the insurers, but the insurers of the insured person will still be footing the bill. By passing the onus for safety critical updates to the manufacturer, that could be taken away from the insurance industry.
Mr Hayes
With laser-like precision, my hon. Friend has focused on exactly the reason why I want to reflect on it. I thought that that was what he might say and that was what he meant when he first spoke. Although the response I offered him goes a fair way towards what he was seeking, I need to clarify that additional consideration for him. In the end, that will bring us back to the point close to the heart of all insurance considerations: how we discern liability and negligence. I want to be more precise about the second point that he raised, but I do not yet feel confident to do that. I will now give way to my old friend—the veteran of many Committees with me.
Graham P. Jones
I am grateful for the Minister’s warm words. To return to the issue of GPS mapping updates, people expect the road network to be updated on vehicles, but the scenario is completely different for manual operation compared with automated operation. I hope the Minister is aware that most of the operated maps sit in the private sector. That is not an issue if the car is manually operated because the driver always has discretion as he sees the road in front of him, but that is not the case in automated mode. We have to think about our highways workers or our police force who may be intervening in the road network.
When we talk about updates, serious consideration needs to be given to GPS maps in automated mode. Who is responsible for them? Who owns them? Who will update them? How will we ensure that we have road safety? Updates are vital, but GPS mapping is particularly vital. The Minister needs to take a good look at that and how it will be integrated into the insurance industry and into the Bill and the regulations to protect our people working on the roads.
Mr Hayes
As I say, the hon. Gentleman is a veteran of many Committees. We have rarely crossed swords, but we have certainly waved swords at each other from time to time. He makes a sound point which is precisely why we would need to address a range of those issues in further regulation. At this juncture, I do not think we can think about adding that to the Bill. I know he did not say we should, but he did say that we should think about those matters and look at how they relate to this Bill subsequently. He is absolutely right.
At the risk of opening up a new avenue for discussion—I hesitate to do that because I know we want to make reasonably rapid progress today—the hon. Gentleman might also have raised the issue of the interface between the driver and the road, and the technology on the road. As we move towards smarter roads, there will be an increasingly close relationship between the information received in the car from outside, as well as the information that is at hand within the vehicle. That is another area where there will be a connection to automated vehicles. We are already seeing the regular use of gantries across roads that provide information. The interaction between that information, the car, and the information that is available locally will, over time, become an increasing feature of driving.
This is another area in which regulation will—in exactly the way the hon. Gentleman described—need to address how that works for automated vehicles. The assurance I give him and others is that we recognise these challenges, we anticipate further work, we know that work is ongoing and it will be set out, both in the formation of international standards for a type-approval process that I mentioned, and in the regulation we will introduce that matches that development.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
I would like to take the Minister back to his comment that this Bill was designed to protect insurers against drivers who fail, or refuse, to upgrade the software on their vehicles. I think that what he really meant to say was that the Bill is here to protect the consumer, and that unless the consumer is acting wilfully and refuses to upgrade the car, they cannot be held responsible, and the insurers cannot use this Bill to wiggle out of their responsibilities and paying whatever they are responsible for. The Minister is aware is that his comments, which go on record in this Committee, could be used to interpret an intent behind the legislation, so how we describe things is important.
Mr Hayes
The hon. Gentlemen implies that those things are mutual exclusive. Of course, if someone intentionally—deliberately—goes about the business of not updating their vehicle, that creates a responsibility and a liability. That has ramifications of the kind that I described for insurers, but it also has the wider ramifications that he described. I do not think we are in different places on that.
Let me turn briefly to the comments made by the shadow Minister. Again, I can see why he makes that point, but as he knows, we will shortly discuss clause 5, which gives the right of recovery against the person actually responsible for the incident, whoever that responsible person is. We can probably deal with the matter he raises when we debate clause 5, rather than adding to this clause in the way he suggests. His intent is entirely understandable but I do not think this is the best place to make the amendment that he proposes. With that, and my commitment to take further the point that my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire raised, and the more general commitment I have made, reflecting my original remarks about the ambitions of the Bill, the limits on those ambitions, and the development of further regulation, I do hope that the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun and others will see fit not to press their amendments.
Alan Brown
I have listened to the Minister and to the comments that have been made. Amendment 11 is still about putting additional responsibilities on the manufacturer, which seems to accord with some of the comments made by the hon. Member for North Warwickshire. The Minister agreed to take on board those comments, but I felt he was a little dismissive of amendment 11. I would like to press amendment 11 to a vote, but I will not press amendment 12.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
The Chair
That is voted on separately at the end.
Clause 4 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 5
Right of insurer etc to claim against person responsible for accident
Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Mr Hayes
Clause 5 gives insurers the right of recovery against the person actually responsible for the incident to the same extent that the person is liable to the victim. The person actually responsible for the incident could be, for example, the manufacturer. This clause also defines when and how the amount of the person’s liability is settled and when their right of action accrues. It sets out the arrangements and limits on the amounts they recover. This clause will therefore ensure that the insurers are able to recover from those responsible, to the extent that the victim will be able to do so. This will facilitate the effective functioning of clause 2, which imposes initial liability on the insurer or owner of the automated vehicle in respect of an accident.
Subsection (3) requires the insurer, if they recover more than they initially paid out to the victim, to pay the difference to the victim, and subsection (4) ensures the person responsible for the incident is not required to pay the insurer if they have already paid the injured party.
Sir Greg Knight
I am most obliged to my right hon. Friend. I am intrigued by subsection (2)(c), which refers to the amount of a claim as settled when it is established “by an enforceable agreement.” In this context, can he give the Committee an example of an unenforceable agreement?
Clive Efford
When the Minister sums up at the end of the debate, will he say how he envisages this provision working in practice? An accident occurs, and an injured party is making a claim; the aim of this Bill is to ensure that people are paid out speedily, but the clause describes a process that could be long and drawn out. How does that protect the consumer? Who pays in the first instance? As we have already heard in several debates around this Bill, we are adding more people who could have liability. Because of software upgrades, we are now including the manufacturers—the people who actually design the software. There is no requirement in the Bill for those writing the software to have their own insurance, should their software fail, so where do they come into this process? How do we ensure speedy pay-outs to the consumer when we have an increasingly complex network of people who may have liability in the aftermath of an accident? This clause seems to set out a labyrinth of different permutations that could arise in terms of liability, and that could take some time to resolve. Could the Minister say what is in the Department’s mind and how this will speed matters up?
Mr Hayes
I would not want to accuse the hon. Gentleman of misunderstanding, so I will perhaps say that I did not make it sufficiently clear in my opening remarks. For it is better to blame oneself than other people. The purpose of the clause is to supplement clause 2, in that it will ensure that victims do not potentially have to pursue major manufacturers through the courts. This is to avoid both the unreasonableness of having to do that and the delays suggested by the hon. Gentleman. It is designed to protect the consumer. At the end of the day, the consumer is our principal concern, as he said in an earlier intervention.
We want the system to operate in a way that is as quick, straightforward and comprehensible as possible for the consumer. That is actually what the clause does, by supplementing clause 2. The business of the relationship between the insurer and the manufacturer will be going on behind the scenes. The consumer will not need to know about that, and will get a speedy and satisfactory resolution of the event in the way that they do now. If there was a difference at all, that is where it lies.
Karl Turner
I have listened carefully to what the Minister says and he makes a very salient point. We do not have any objection to the clause.
Mr Hayes
Before we move on, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire raised the issue of enforceable agreements, and I did promise—with your indulgence, Mr Bailey—to respond, in my normal spirit. I am told that the agreement must be legally binding and therefore enforceable in court. Whether that satisfies my right hon. Friend, I do not know, but that is all I have to say, so he is not going to get any more out of me.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 5 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 6
Application of enactments
Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Mr Hayes
Briefly, clause 6 ensures that the new system of liability being created by the Bill preserves and is joined up with various forms of liability in other parts of legislation, and is straightforward in that respect. In creating a new form of liability in the Bill, that is vital. Where those liabilities exist in other legislation, they should remain unaffected. For example, the Fatal Accidents Act 1976 provides for a victim’s dependents to be able to recover damages in spite of the victim’s death, if the death was caused by
“wrongful act, neglect or default”.
That type of liability has been preserved and linked to the Bill’s system of liability so that the provisions of the 1976 Act are brought to bear. Not doing that would create gaps and risk leaving victims and their dependents with incomplete cover.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 6 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 7
Interpretation
Karl Turner
I beg to move amendment 14, in clause 7, page 5, line 15, at end insert—
“(c) an automated vehicle may be listed, under section 1, as being capable of driving itself ‘safely’ if the vehicle is designed and manufactured to be—
(i) capable of driving itself in a manner unlikely to cause damage to the automated vehicle or another vehicle, or injury to a person, on the road or surrounding area, and
(ii) protected from hacking risks that the manufacturer knew, or ought reasonably to have known, are likely to cause damage to the automated vehicle or another vehicle, or injury to a person, on the road or surrounding area (see section (Cyber security and hacking of automated vehicles)).”
This amendment would define what is meant by an automated vehicle being capable of driving itself “safely”.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
New clause 18—Cyber Security and hacking of automated vehicles—
“The Secretary of State must, within 12 months of this Act receiving Royal Assent, consult with such persons as the Secretary of State considers appropriate on what steps will be required for the effective cyber security of automated vehicles listed under section 1 to protect those vehicles against accidents caused by hacking.”
This new clause would require the Secretary of State to report within 12 months what steps would be required to protect automated vehicles from accidents caused by hacking.
Karl Turner
Clause 7 sets out when a car is deemed to be driving itself, or in automated mode, but there is no mention of what happens if the vehicle is designed or manufactured in a faulty way or is hacked due to a failure by the manufacturer to install adequate protective software.
How would our amendment improve the Bill? While we all welcome the opportunities that the new technology will bring, we also have to recognise that it will bring risk. A lot of those risks will be around the software used, and they therefore may be harder to pick up than in a conventional vehicle. We all know the risks of hacking in computer systems. We have had experience in this House relatively recently of a cyber-attack—a hacking event—on Members’ emails. That experience is commonplace in workplaces across the country. When hacking and cyber-crime can result in serious consequences, we need to be extremely cautious.
We have the opportunity to put safeguards into the Bill now to give protections in this area, rather than doing that later down the line. The Minister has repeated constantly that this is a modest Bill that is merely a skeleton and that regulation will have to come as technology improves. Indeed, given the uptake of these vehicles and the number of them being purchased, action will clearly be required where the technology changes, but there is a real risk in not legislating now, when we have the opportunity to ensure the safety of these things.
Our amendment would definitely tighten up this area of the Bill by setting out when an automated vehicle is capable of driving itself safely. That would give the driver protection with regards to liability, if it was proved that there was a manufacturer’s fault or if the vehicle had been hacked. I do not intend to press the amendment to a vote; its purpose is to start a discussion about this area, in particular the hacking element. The issue of cyber-security and vehicles being hacked has been discussed previously, in the predecessor to this Committee. I have read the Hansard report of those discussions and there was some very detailed debate, but it is important to look at it again now. I stand to be corrected, but the Minister previously said he would come back with potential changes in this area. However, I think he simply wrote to members of the previous Bill Committee.
New clause 18 would do exactly what we intend it to do. We now have the opportunity, and I hope that the Government will listen carefully.
Sir Oliver Letwin (West Dorset) (Con)
I want to talk about clause 7(1)(b), which deals with the interpretation of what it is for a vehicle to be insured. That takes us back to the discussion we had in the Committee’s previous sittings. I am grateful to the Minister for providing access to his officials in the interim. I am satisfied that the issues I was raising are handled in the Bill, but want to set out how I now understand that to be the case, so that the Minister can give us an assurance that I have got this right and we know for the future that that is how the Bill is meant to work. It is a little sad that we have to do quite a lot of interpretative work to understand how the Bill is working, but I understand that that is caused by the fact that it is trying to piggyback on the Road Traffic Act 1988.
It turns out that clause 7(1)(b) is critical to the whole structure, because it defines a vehicle as being insured if there is a policy in force in relation to the use of it. Whereas one might think, under clause 2(1)(b), that when the Bill says the vehicle is “insured” at the time of the accident, it means the vehicle is insured at the time of the accident—indeed, I fell into the trap of thinking that that is what clause 2(1)(b) meant, because that is what it says—in fact clause 2(1)(b) has to be read in the context of clause 7(1)(b). Therefore, it is not actually the vehicle that is insured; it is the person who is, or may be—but maybe isn’t—the driver whose policy is the relevant policy and is actually insured to drive that vehicle. That is what I now understand clause 2(1)(b), in the light of clause 7(1)(b), to mean.
What clause 2(1)(b) is actually trying to say is that, as long as there is a person in the vehicle who, one way or another, is insured to drive the vehicle, then the insurer of that person is liable for the accident, even if the vehicle is driving itself. It follows from that that even if the driver, who is not driving at the time when the vehicle is driving itself, is not the owner but is insured to drive the vehicle on a policy that gives him insurance to drive other cars, it is also the case that the insurer of that person, not of the owner or the vehicle but of the person who is the driver—or would have been, if he was driving—is the insurer who is liable for the crash caused by the vehicle when it is driving itself. If I have at last understood all that correctly, it follows that the problems that I and several Committee members foresaw, about things such as transition, disappear, given that it is always the same insurer who is liable both when the car is in automated mode and when the car is being driven, because it is the insurer of the driver—or crypto-driver—regardless of whether he is driving or the car is driving itself.
Mr Hayes
That is the central and salient point. I think this is where the misunderstanding took place between us in the earlier sitting. That there is a single insurer, as my right hon. Friend now acknowledges, is one of the points covered in my letter, along with a couple of others, on which he will no doubt speak. He is right that that changes the assumption about the transition, as he describes it.
Sir Oliver Letwin
I am delighted to hear the Minister confirm that and that I have eventually managed to understand this. If it is a single insurer, those problems disappear, which is very good news.
Clive Efford
I understand that better myself now, but do I understand what the right hon. Gentleman is saying? The person in the vehicle is the one insured and, in the first instance, it is their insurance that would pay out. If the vehicle is found to be at fault, whether it is automated or under that person’s control, they would pay out in the first instance, and subsequently the discussion we had on the previous clause would apply, where there is a sorting out of who is actually responsible—the manufacturer, the software designer, the driver of the vehicle or of the other vehicle. That will be sorted out following the initial payment from the driver of the vehicle that is found at fault.
Sir Oliver Letwin
I was following the hon. Gentleman until the very last words he spoke, because I think he means payment from the insurer of the driver, rather than from the driver.
Sir Oliver Letwin
In that case, my answer is yes. As I understand it now, I think, the insurer who has insured the person who is sitting in the driving seat will pay the third party who has been damaged in the accident, regardless of whether the person sitting in the driving seat is driving the car or the car is driving itself. That is also regardless of whether the person sitting in the driving seat is the owner of the car, insured as the owner to drive that car, or is not the owner but is insured under some other policy to drive that car. In any of those cases—whether automated or not; whether the policy covers other cars or that car—the insurer of the person sitting in the driving seat at all times is liable to third parties, and then the insurer claims from whoever it wants to claim from, and is able to claim from in court, after the fact.
Mr Hayes
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his helpful dialogue because it also relates the issues raised by the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East. The short answer to the question posed to my right hon. Friend is yes. The complicated factor that my right hon. Friend is now dealing with is that there are policies—I do not have one myself and I do not suppose many here do—where fully comprehensive insurance cover allows other people to drive. That is not the named drivers policy that most of us will probably have, but a more permissive kind of policy, and that is exactly what my right hon. Friend is alluding to.
Sir Oliver Letwin
I am grateful again to the Minister. Yes, exactly: I had been worried about two cases, one in which the person sitting in the driving seat was the owner, and the other in which the person sitting in the driving seat was not the owner but was covered by a policy covering the driving of other cars. In both instances, I think it is clear.
The reason I am labouring these points and asking the Minister to confirm them is that I do not think that any ordinary human being reading the Bill would have the slightest clue that this is what it is trying to do. I think its architecture has been forced on it by the desire to piggyback on the Road Traffic Act; and I suspect that lawyers will understand, because they will be familiar with the Road Traffic Act and how its principles operate. Therefore, I am satisfied that probably this is the right way to structure the Bill. In any case, it is certainly structured in a way that, when everything is read together in the right way, does not create the gap that I was worried about, as the car moves between automated and non-automated mode. That was the critical issue.
Graham P. Jones
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bailey. I seek clarity from the Minister—I know he has been reasonably descriptive up to a point—on the types of vehicles that will and will not be insured. It will probably be connected and automated vehicles, automation level 4 and 5; however, I am concerned about the size and shape of the vehicles and how the legislation will fit them in the future.
There has been an issue about insuring automated vehicles, not just on public but on private land. However, even on public land, are there situations where we might see a size of vehicle—my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull East drives a very small electric vehicle, and there might be even smaller ones—on parts of the road network that had become accessible to new types of electric vehicle, and where we might suddenly need to reflect on the type of insurance? They may get down to the size of a bicycle, for example—I do not know—so are there circumstances or situations where the shape and size of the vehicle would have some effect? I suppose that relates to the definition of level 3 and 4 automation. I know that the Minister will produce a list in future guidance, but I would welcome a clarification from him on shape and size, how the Government see that changing and whether they will be responsive to that.
Going back to insurance on private land, this causes an enormous problem, quite apart from my earlier point about mapping. The legislation says that vehicles must be insured on public and private land—although there are some discrepancies around private land. How will this work with automated vehicles? If we multiply that by the fact that the shape and form of automated vehicles may change—they may be able to go down narrow footpaths, for example—where are the Government on the insurance system? How it will work with automated vehicles accessing private land? I am asking for clarity on this point. I do not know the answer; I am probing the Minister to see if he does. There seems to be a complex minefield of issues when it comes to insuring an automated vehicle—of whatever shape, form or function—that can wander off on to private land. There does not seem to be much clarity in the Bill on that. It seems to be hanging on the old legislation for traditional motor vehicles as we know them and how they are insured on the current road network.
Turning to automated vehicles, in particular on private land, and their shape and form, this will clearly be a challenge, so will the Minister clarify how the Government will respond? Again, I come back to the mapping issue. There will surely need to be tighter definitions of where automated vehicles go and what they are allowed to do. There seems to be no reference to that in the guidance or anywhere else. Will the Minister provide some clarity? People want to know. It is not just about the public highways, motorways, A roads and B roads. It is far bigger than that and the insurance system has to cope with insurance off-road, on private land.
Mr Hayes
By way of adding a certain excitement to the proceedings, I shall deal with the last point first, rather than reply to the points made in chronological order.
The hon. Member for Hyndburn spoke about where vehicles might be used, and the size and shape of vehicles. He was right to identify that it may be—note the emphasis on “may”—that autonomous vehicles at the beginning of their life on our roads are typically used in certain places and in certain ways. One can easily imagine a vehicle in autonomous mode travelling on a long straight road—a motorway, for example. It could be that that is the way the technology will develop. He is right to draw attention to that because it has been written and spoken about many times in the discussions about autonomous vehicles. He was also right to raise the matter of shape and size. Earlier in our considerations, we discussed vehicles other than private cars. Of course we should not assume that autonomous vehicles will simply be private motor cars. There will be other kinds of autonomous road vehicle and it may be that they will develop first, or at least in parallel with the development of private cars.
The hon. Gentleman is right that that could well be where we are heading, but the essence of his argument is that we might have to have different insurance policies to deal with those different eventualities. That will not result from the measure before us; the size and place considerations—the type of vehicle and where it is used—will be the same as in the current insurance framework, most of which is covered by the Road Traffic Act, so I do not anticipate a huge departure from existing practice.
In essence, insurance works on the basis of insuring people, to some degree taking account of what they are driving—for example, policies take account of the size and shape of vehicles. I do not imagine that that will change and nothing in the Bill suggests otherwise. I anticipate—the insurance industry told us this in evidence submitted to the Committee—that the industry wants enough certainty from the Bill to develop products that are fit for purpose. My judgment, from what we have been told, is that the industry will want such products to mirror as much as possible what is available now. Certainly that is true of where vehicles are used and of their shape and size.
Graham P. Jones
I was simply probing the Minister because the use of automated vehicles on private land is an interesting area on which the Government must be probed. I also made some other small points. I urge him to clarify whether he foresees any situations, beyond what is in regulation or statute now, where automated vehicles on private land may provide a challenge that the Government will need to look at.
Mr Hayes
I will deal with the private land point in a moment.
To re-emphasise: when we insure a vehicle at the moment, the questions we are asked by the insurer are not about where we intend to drive it—we are not interrogated about whether we will drive the vehicle on the motorway, on side roads or only in our village. That is not typically what happens with an insurance policy, although there are exceptions. Someone with a historic vehicle, for example—a classic or vintage vehicle—might well take out an insurance policy stipulating that the vehicle will only be used for a certain number of miles in a given period, paying a lower premium as a result. If people say that they will use their vehicle only on high days and holidays and that it will be driven for less than 100 miles a year, of course they will obtain a different kind of policy, often offered by a specialist provider. That, however, is an exception. As a rule, we are not interrogated about where we are going to drive, whether it be on a main arterial route or a side route, so I do not think that the insurance products that I hope are developed as a result of the Bill will, in those terms, be very different from what we have now.
That is certainly what the Association of British Insurers and others have told us. The evidence to the Committee emphasises not only the insurance industry’s support for the Government proposals, but its wholehearted support for the development of autonomous vehicles. The industry sees it as critical that we get the legislation on to the statute book so that it can develop the products necessary to provide the safety and security we all seek.
Graham P. Jones
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way one last time. To pursue this matter, let us say that an accident occurs on private land while the vehicle is in autonomous mode. Does he think that the existing regulatory framework is sufficient for insurers, or that some changes will be needed for assigning liability should there be an accident on private land? An automated vehicle goes on to a large piece of private land, a track or whatever, and there is an accident, so there needs to be an investigation as to who was in the right and who was in the wrong. On private land where an automated vehicle was making its own decisions, does he not think the Government should conduct some analysis of the potential issues? It may be that no changes are required, but should not the Government consider it? People do drive on private land, and if they are going to take automated vehicles on to private land, it is a legitimate question.
Mr Hayes
The hon. Gentleman’s specific question is about private and public land. The Bill and the products that emerge after it is enacted will follow the Road Traffic Act, which is clear about public roads and other public places. I see no distinction between what we have before us and what is in law now. Because I am not intoxicated by the exuberance of my own verbosity, I will end there.
Clive Efford
I did not hear the Minister—I must have missed it—respond to the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull East and the issue of hacking. We are discussing amendment 14, are we not, Mr Bailey?
The Chair
The hon. Gentleman can decide whether he wishes to make his comments then or whether they would be more appropriate later.
Clive Efford
My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull East has raised an important point. There might be a whole new area of insurance with clauses in the small print of an insurance policy that require people to be covered in the event of an automated vehicle being hacked. If the manufacturer and the designer of the software that drives the automated vehicle, and the insured party who is in control of the vehicle or in the vehicle—I am not sure whether we can say in control of the vehicle now—have all taken reasonable steps to prevent hacking and the software is hacked in some way, and that affects the vehicle’s operation and causes an accident, liability inevitably falls back on the person in the vehicle at the time of the accident, as set out by the right hon. Member for West Dorset.
I can foresee a circumstance where insurers say, “Every reasonable step has been taken to prevent hacking of this vehicle, so the manufacturer of the vehicle cannot be held liable, and nor can the people who wrote the software. It is unlucky, but it is your responsibility as the driver of the vehicle, because your vehicle has been hacked and has caused an accident.” It seems a considerable liability could be taken on by drivers. We have heard a lot about the safety aspect of automated vehicles, which is bound to reduce the number of accidents and therefore the number of claims, but what we can see here is a whole new area of insurance opening up where there are different sorts of claim being made as a consequence.
I think it is reasonable of my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull East to table an amendment requiring every step to be taken to protect the vehicles from hacking. It is right that it should be in the Bill because we need to protect consumers from that potential liability. What is the Department’s thinking? What consideration has it given to vehicles being hacked and liability in such circumstances? What are “reasonable steps” to prevent it happening? We all know that even though we have the highest level of security to protect the software or computers from being hacked, they still are. We have seen numerous examples in recent times, not least the successful hacking of some very high security systems, so we can imagine that this will present a challenge for some of those people who undergo that sort of criminal activity. It could put lives at risk and open people up to considerable liability, so I wonder what the Government’s thinking is about that.
Mr Hayes
Let me see if I can satisfy the hon. Gentleman by way of a brief intervention. I will then respond, as he invited me, to the shadow Minister when he comes to the new clause. The critical thing is to understand that an autonomous vehicle will, in practice, be a combination of sophisticated software and technology—the mechanical components of the car and the software that drives it. If the vehicle is deemed to be liable for an accident, that might be as a result of its software being faulty or because of a mechanical failure. From the perspective of those affected by the accident, that is immaterial because even if the software had been hacked the autonomous vehicle would still be responsible; the consumer’s position does not change. The consumer is protected, as it were, from the reasons why the autonomous vehicle was responsible and whether it might be as a result of a fault in the software.
Clive Efford
If I have followed the Minister correctly, and it is distinctly possible that I have not, the situation I am describing is slightly different. He says that there will be a vehicle that is at fault, that the person who is insured to be in the vehicle will pay out initially, and that there will then be consideration of who is liable.
Clive Efford
That is fine, but if the vehicle has been hacked, the person paying out initially is opened up to a liability even though they are not at fault because they took all reasonable steps to prevent such hacking. However, no one else accepts responsibility because they too took reasonable steps to prevent the vehicle from being hacked. It is not unreasonable to require in the Bill that every measure be taken to prevent the liability from falling back on the insured person, whose vehicle has caused the accident even though they were not at fault. How do we ensure that the liability is not dumped on the consumer?
There is also the issue of the vehicles communicating with each other. If they are hacked and are communicating duff information, who will be responsible? Considerable liability could fall on consumers. Their vehicle is the cause of the accident but they are not responsible for it because of hacking. However, they are ultimately deemed responsible because no one else will accept responsibility.
Mr Hayes
I will make the point more emphatically; I was perhaps being a bit too understated. Understatement is a problem I constantly struggle with, as my right hon. and hon. Friends know.
The simple fact of the matter is that if the autonomous vehicle is “responsible” for the accident, and its software is at fault, whether that fault be caused by malevolence or some failure, the consumer’s interest will be unaltered. In the Bill, the consumer is protected in the way I have described, regardless of why the vehicle was at fault. That will then be a matter to determine during the course of the events, but it will not affect the person or persons affected by the accident.
Sir Oliver Letwin
I think this is a conversation somewhat at cross-purposes. Use of the term “consumer” by the Minister is confusing the issue. Let us distinguish between the injured party and the insured party. The injured party is protected in the way my right hon. Friend the Minister and I have described, and the hon. Member for Eltham, my right hon. Friend and I are all in agreement that that is okay.
The hon. Gentleman is asking about the insured party. He is really asking whether anybody will be willing to buy an autonomous vehicle level 4 or 5 under circumstances in which, having taken out the insurance policy, the insurer then discovers that they are liable to some injured party. Then, having paid out to the injured party—tick—they come back to the insured party and say “Because the manufacturer had taken reasonable steps and because the hacking went on despite that, and because nobody including the manufacturer is responsible, and because your insurance policy excludes—you may not have noticed this—in the small print a hacked case, you, O insured party, are now responsible.” I hope I am correctly interpreting the hon. Gentleman.
Sir Oliver Letwin
Yes, good. He is raising a serious point. I do not know whether it is about the Bill, but it is certainly a serious point about what the Bill is trying to achieve, which is to get to a situation where people buy autonomous vehicles because they are able and willing to insure themselves to own them and drive them. They would not be if they thought this was a realistic possibility. Somehow, that problem needs to be solved, whether in the Bill or otherwise.
Clive Efford
Again, I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. I have a feeling of déjà vu because he is putting my points better than I can. I have little to add to that. There is an issue there that my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull East has raised in his amendment that the Government should go away and consider.
Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)
It strikes me that there is potentially a grey area between the software company and their design and the hacker and where the responsibility begins and ends, and how any court or technical expertise will be able to determine where ultimate responsibility lies. A software company could readily say “We designed it. We were perfectly happy with it and there were all these protections and safeguards in place,” and they will blame the hacker, but who can determine if it was down to a hacker or the failing of the software designs? I just throw that out because sometimes these things are very difficult to determine and I am not sure where the responsibilities lie.
Clive Efford
I will finish on this point and I will not take much more of the Committee’s time. The Bill is designed to ensure that the injured party is paid out swiftly in the event of an accident, with blame subsequently apportioned either through agreement or by a court. In this case, however, there is another consumer—the insured party—who could be open to enormous liabilities through no fault of their own where nobody else can be found to be at fault because they have taken all reasonable steps. There is a grey area, as my hon. Friend has just said, where the Government need to go away and give that some further consideration.
Mr Hayes
It seems to me that we are risking going on a flight of fancy by trying to anticipate exactly what the insurance products that develop as a result of this legislation will look like. My right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset described a policy that might qualify the protection offered in the way that he set out. We cannot, at this juncture and certainly not in debating this Bill, start a debate about what those policies might look like down the line.
The essence of the Bill is that the insured party will only potentially be liable if they are responsible and the insurer does not cover that risk. If someone deliberately failed to maintain their vehicle, deliberately failed to update their software, even interfered with their software for some reason I cannot imagine, clearly there would be an issue of responsibility. The important thing is that the debate that takes place on why the vehicle failed—assuming it is an autonomous vehicle—is one that the individuals concerned should not have to know about unless there is a palpable reason for their doing so, because of the negligence or even malevolence that I describe.
We could have a long debate about the kind of insurance policies that might emerge. I am not an expert on insurance and I do not know if there are any in the room.
Craig Tracey
The set of circumstances described by the hon. Member for Eltham actually exists in current insurance. If someone had a car that was parked up and somebody else stole it, drove off in it and hit a row of parked cars, then for insurance purposes the onus is currently on the owner of the vehicle. The whole point of insurance is to protect the insured person against unforeseen circumstances, and hacking would come under that process, because we do not presently know how it could affect the systems.
Mr Hayes
One of the delightful things about the House of Commons, and indeed about Committees such as this, is that there is always expertise that one did not know about previously and that emerges as a result of the discourse. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his expert advice on that particular subject. The point raised by the hon. Member for Eltham is that he wants to be certain that an innocent party is not adversely affected by the development of products that do not afford the same kind of protection that people now routinely rely upon.
I share the hon. Gentleman’s view. My view is straightforward: it would be intolerable for a situation to develop in which people, through no fault of their own, and with no negligence or irresponsibility in what they have planned or done, were to find themselves uninsured because of the development of some perverse policy. In the end, that is a matter for the insurance industry, but I have made my views clear and put them on the record, and they reflect the views of the hon. Gentleman and my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset, who, among his many distinguished and eminent achievements, has today added another: becoming a spokesman—or perhaps I ought to say the interpreter—for the hon. Member for Eltham. And so it is that such unions are formed in Committees such as this.
Karl Turner
I want to speak briefly to new clause 18. Before doing so, I want to put on record my thanks to the Minister’s officials for the work they have done with my office. They have been extremely helpful.
New clause 18 covers the issue of cyber-security and the hacking of automated vehicles. It would require the Secretary of State to consult with such persons as he considers appropriate within 12 months of the Bill receiving Royal Assent. I am not planning to push the new clause to a vote; its purpose is mainly to probe a little deeper to ensure that the Government properly and widely consult in this area. I would be grateful if the Minister indicated how that has already been done. I know that a great deal of work has gone on behind the scenes; will he assist the Committee by setting out who the Department has consulted with thus far?
Sir Oliver Letwin
I actually do not think that this matter can be dealt with in the Bill, but I agree with the shadow Minister that we should seek an assurance from the Government that they will spend the time that needs to be spent, once the Bill is out of this House, trying to deal with what is a very, very big problem.
It is easy to imagine that this is just science fiction, but it is not. It is more than imaginable that, as part of the convergence of networks and as the transport system becomes automated, the single biggest security vulnerability of the UK—and, while we are at it, of any other advanced economy—will be the ability of state or non-state actors to intervene in a whole series of its convergent networks. Obviously, there may also be threats from exogenous things such as space weather, which may affect convergent networks, including electricity, transport, communications and so on, but state actors and some non-state actors are employing serious and highly developed methods to intervene in our cyber-security, as the Government are well aware.
The capacity to do damage to the UK by bringing the transport system to a grinding halt, amidst thousands or perhaps hundreds of thousands of simultaneous crashes, is a delicious prospect. I absolutely guarantee the Minister, although I am sure that he does not need my guarantee to believe it, that someone sitting somewhere—if not several people sitting in several places—is planning that kind of offensive cyber-activity at this very moment. Many of those people have access to many of the people who will be involved in developing the software that will be used in the very machines that we want to be used on our roads.
That is an irony of the globalised world. This is not like the 18th century, when people sat behind huge national barricades and we did not use their technologies but they tried to use them against us. We are now in a position where the people who may use our technologies against us supply some of those technologies to us. That creates a degree of risk out of all proportion to anything we have witnessed before. I am a believer in automated vehicles—I do not think that we can resist this trend—but we need to ensure that an immensely higher level of cyber-security is built in from the start than we might think necessary under other circumstances.
I want to make one further point. This is one of those cases where externalities will not be internalised. It is not in the interests of particular manufacturers to worry very much about this issue. If I am a specific manufacturer of a specific automated vehicle, my interest is in producing something that is good to drive, cheap and normally safe, because that is the way I will sell the maximum quantity of it. If somebody tells me that I could make it safer from hacking, which is unlikely to occur, in the sense that there is a one-in-1,000 or one-in-10,000 or whatever chance of it being hacked, by making it significantly more expensive, my natural and commercial response will be not to add that protection, because it would make me less competitive. I am not particularly worried that Britain may be brought to a halt, because I am not Britain; I am a manufacturer, and I am answerable to my shareholders, not to the electors of the UK.
There is a clear area of intrinsic market failure here, where, however pure a free marketeer one is, Adam Smith principles apply and it is for the state to ensure that the externalities are internalised by legislating or regulating, or by reaching agreement with manufacturers. As I say, I do not believe that the Bill can be the vehicle for creating a whole new structure of invigilation of the cyber-security standards of automated vehicles, but the Minister, in conjunction with Ministers in parallel positions in other jurisdictions, needs to get to work on that rapidly. If that is not done, the Bill will be useless, because it will provide a framework for something that no rational Government will ever allow to occur.
We cannot allow the UK’s transport system to be put in peril by being easily accessible to hackers in a way that could cause hundreds of thousands of accidents simultaneously. It is a necessary concomitant to the Bill that there should be a serious attempt to create that degree of universal cyber-security for level 4 and level 5 vehicles. I hope that the Minister will be able to tell us that he is at this very moment getting the plane tickets to go and talk to all the other relevant Ministers and set up the international systems required to do something similar to the protocols that govern the GSM standard, which make it not unhackable, but much less hackable than previous mobile systems.
Mr Hayes
Perhaps I should say a word now about my personal and professional relationship with my right hon. Friend, in as much as it relates to what he has just said. When we worked together in Downing Street, we discussed these kinds of issues many times. I was the Minister responsible for cyber-security at the Home Office, and I take what he and the shadow Minister said very seriously indeed. My right hon. Friend is absolutely right that cyber-security is a pressing, present and immensely great threat. It is vital that the work on this technology, like all the work we do across the House and across Departments, takes account of the scale and nature of that threat and that it does all we can to counter it. My right hon. Friend was involved in that at the Cabinet Office.
On a more personal note, I am not surprised that my right hon. Friend raised the issue. I am rather more surprised that he—with an absolute, but none the less surprising, frankness—emphasised the limits of the market and the constraints on commerce, because he has always been more inclined to a liberal perspective than I am. But then again, who is not? I know he is a great admirer of the power of the markets to shape our futures, so I am delighted—perhaps it is my influence or that of his dear late mother, who, I think it is fair to say, was more on my wavelength on these subjects—that he has been encouraged to take the view, which he has articulated so forcefully and persuasively today, that the industry will not do this alone. It is right that we should work in partnership with the industry. The Government must take their place and have their influence in that respect, and that brings me to new clause 18.
If anything, I regard new clause 18 as an understatement of how significant the issue is. If it were accepted—although I am grateful that the shadow Minister has said he will not press it to a vote—it would impose a requirement to consult on security risk. I do not regard that as a requirement; I regard it is as an obligation. It is absolutely essential that we do that. The work that we are already doing, which he asked me to briefly summarise, is advanced but ongoing. We are working with UK security agencies, the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure and the new National Cyber Security Centre—which was set up while I was the Minister responsible, by the way. This issue is a real challenge for Government and for Parliament. It stretches well beyond any particular Government or political party, as has been made clear by what has been said. We will need to engage directly with industry and raise awareness.
We are already discussing the issue with industry. As part of that, we have consulted, developed and published a document, “The key principles of vehicle cyber security for connected and automated vehicles”. It is a guidance document for the automotive industry on good cyber-security and the connected and automated vehicle ecosystem. I do not know whether the Committee has access to that, but I will happily make it available in hard copy form. It is available electronically, if Members wish to take a look. We have also set up the automotive information exchange to promote the sharing of intelligence and best practice for effective cyber-security across the industry.
This issue has been identified as a top priority by the new National Cyber Security Centre. The work will continue and our understanding of how we can counter the risks will grow; but more than that, I would say—as a result of the contributions from my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset and the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East—that we should consider seeking additional powers over time. I do not think that this Committee is the right place to debate that, or indeed that the Bill is the right vehicle to bring those powers forward, but a commitment to considering additional powers, should they become necessary, is an important one to make. Furthermore, I think my right hon. Friend is right: we need to ensure good cross-governmental work on this. I will take that away, because a further dialogue across Government is necessary. It is happening, but we can always do more, and when it happens at ministerial level, as he will know from the meetings we have had over time, a great deal can be achieved rather more quickly.
Clive Efford
The Minister says that the Bill is not the appropriate place for us to legislate on that, but that is exactly what new clause 18 says. It says that consultation should happen separately from the legislation and really only sets the timescale. On that basis, will he accept new clause 18?
Mr Hayes
I charged my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset earlier with being the hon. Gentleman’s spokesman and interpreter, but now the hon. Gentleman has put the boot on the other foot. He added further sophistication to my right hon. Friend’s argument in his last contribution. He is right that the Bill begins to address this issue; the point I was making is that, given the ongoing work I described through the agencies I mentioned, it would not be right to set that out in further detail in the Bill. I am arguing against an addition to the Bill, rather than what is in the Bill already.
There is another aspect to this that I want to add. It is very important that we work internationally. Of course, many of the manufacturers are, by their nature, multinational organisations that therefore work across national boundaries. We talked earlier about the development of standards, and how that is happening at UN level and as a result of international dialogue. There is an international dialogue as well on cyber-security, and it is important that we marry our conversations on vehicle standards with our conversations on cyber-security, to ensure a synergous approach to the two.
With those commitments, that absolute assurance of the Government’s understanding of the significance of this matter and my heartfelt support for the strength of the argument made by the shadow Minister and my right hon. Friend, I am delighted that the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East will not push his amendment to a vote. We will report back further as time goes on. I will commission the work across Government and, as I have said, I will make available to the Committee some of the documents we have already published.
Sir Oliver Letwin
Before my right hon. Friend sits down, and at some risk of adding to the antiphonal relationship with the hon. Member for Eltham, I wonder whether he will also consider clause 1(1)(b). At the moment, it gives the Secretary of State the power to list vehicles capable of “safely driving themselves”. It might be appropriate to consider changing that to “safely and securely driving themselves”, or making some such other amendment, to ensure that he has the power already in the Bill when making the list to include on the list those vehicles that conform with whatever set of standards for cyber-security he eventually develops as a result of the work he is talking about.
Mr Hayes
Every member of the Committee should cherish the moment they are about to enjoy, because I accept that proposal and I will consult with my officials on making a minor and technical amendment to that effect, barring any absolute reason why it cannot be done. If we are advised by parliamentary draftsmen that it cannot be done for any reason, we will not, but barring that exception, I will do exactly what my right hon. Friend has described.
Karl Turner
I have listened very carefully to what the Minister had to say and to the discussion between right hon. and hon. Members from both sides of the Committee. I am satisfied that the Minister will do everything he can to achieve what the amendment hoped to achieve. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
The Chair
My instinct is that the issues in clause 7 have been fully debated, so I will now put the Question.
Clause 7 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 8
Definitions
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Mr Hayes
As we move to a new part of the Bill, it seems important to say a few words of introduction about it. The first part of our consideration was dedicated to gaining a clearer understanding and addressing the provisions in the Bill that relate to autonomous vehicles. The second part of the Bill, which we come to now, deals with electric vehicles and in particular electric charging infrastructure. With your discretion and indulgence, Mr Bailey, perhaps I may say why that matters.
It matters because the Government are committed to promoting low emission vehicles. I have always argued that that is not because of a high flown view about what might happen to the climate in centuries to come; rather, it is much more about the effect of particulate materials, which are the result of petrol and diesel vehicles and which have a day-by-day, here-and-now effect on the wellbeing of our people. I have no prejudice about this, as is well known. I made the point on Second Reading to my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire—who as ever made a passionate but measured case for those older vehicles that we enjoy on our roads—that we certainly would not want to prohibit their use. However, the Government are clear that by 2050 we expect new vehicles to be low emission vehicles. That will very largely be achieved by promoting and encouraging the use of electric vehicles. Our approach has always been technology-neutral, but electric vehicles are bound to be an important part of achieving our ambitions.
The reasons cited for why people do not buy electric vehicles in greater numbers now—I ought to caveat that by saying that their number is growing impressively—range between, first, the cost, which will to some extent be a feature of their number: as more are sold, the more the price will fall. Secondly, there are doubts about the battery technology and battery life. That is improving as battery technology moves on apace, with good work being done to improve the quality of the product. Thirdly, there is the availability of charge points. Most people, of course, charge at home, but people want to be able to charge away from their residence. As a result, in the Bill the Government are doing more work to put in place provisions that will allow the development of more charge points around and about the United Kingdom.
That is what the clause begins to do, by providing definitions of electric vehicle charging and in particular a precise definition of what a charge point is, as well as what a hydrogen refuelling point is. It goes further and defines a public charging point. It is important that those definitions are set out clearly, so that the effect of the power matches the intent and the intent of the power is made clear to the public. Clearly, any other, more detailed definitions can be set out later in secondary legislation, but in essence this part of the Bill is about defining electric charge points and, in later clauses, which I look forward to debating, going about the business of how we can increase their number.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 8 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Andrew Stephenson.)
Nuclear Safeguards Bill (Fifth sitting)
Tuesday 14th November 2017
(6 years, 5 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Nuclear Safeguards Act 2018 View all Nuclear Safeguards Act 2018 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 14 November 2017 - (14 Nov 2017)
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 8 / Noes: 10 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 8 / Noes: 10 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Chair
Welcome back to the Committee stage of the Nuclear Safeguards Bill. I am a very old-fashioned sort of Chairman, but in the old days we did not bring coats, bags and things into the Room, and if we did we secreted them away in such a manner as not to make it obvious that we did not know where the cloakroom was. That is just for the future. It is a very small matter of no significance.
Schedule
Minor and consequential amendments
Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)
I beg to move amendment 9, in schedule, page 6, line 37, leave out subparagraph (2)(a).
This amendment, together with 10 and 11, would change the Parliamentary procedure for regulations made under Clause 1 to come into force. Currently regulations under this section are only subject to the affirmative procedure on first use. This amendment would ensure this is the case upon every use.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 10, in schedule, page 7, line 3, at beginning insert—
“(zaa) nuclear safeguards regulations under section 76A(1)”.
This amendment, together with amendments 9 and 11, would change the Parliamentary procedure for regulations made under Clause 1 to come into force. Currently regulations under this section are only subject to the affirmative procedure on first use. This amendment would ensure this is the case upon every use.
Amendment 11, in schedule, page 7, line 6, leave out subparagraph (3).
This amendment, together with amendments 9 and 10, would change the Parliamentary procedure for regulations made under Clause 1 to come into force. Currently regulations under this section are only subject to the affirmative procedure on first use. This amendment would ensure this is the case upon every use.
Dr Whitehead
If I do have a bag on me this morning, it is very well secreted. You would expect nothing less, Mr Gray.
These amendments are essentially combined amendments, inasmuch as their effect—although it is achieved in slightly different ways—is to ensure that the regulations are made effective by the affirmative procedure on all occasions, so that they can be discussed. At the moment, through various measures in the Bill, regulations will be agreed by the affirmative procedure in the first instance only. Should further regulations be introduced, they will not be agreed by the affirmative procedure.
Hon. Members may think that is not a particularly important distinction. The “Memorandum concerning the Delegated Powers in the Nuclear Safeguards Bill for the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee” —the departmental memo—says:
“The first set of regulations made under this power will be subject to the draft affirmative procedure in order to allow both Houses of Parliament to debate the technical details of the new regime in full.”
In other words, new regulations will be introduced to bring into being a new regime, as we recall from our previous discussions in this Committee, to replace that which was previously undertaken through Euratom’s oversight.
“Subsequent regulations will be subject to the negative resolution procedure unless they create new criminal offences or they include any provision amending or repealing the Nuclear Installations Act 1965 or Nuclear Safeguards Act 2000, in which case the draft affirmative procedure will apply (pursuant to section 113(3) of the 2013 Act).”
That is so. There is an exception to using the negative procedure for subsequent regulations in those instances, but the impression that one gets from the memorandum is that the difference, other than on the matter of repealing the Nuclear Installations Act 1965 or the Nuclear Safeguards Act 2000, is very slight.
I suggest to the Committee that the significance of subsequent regulations can be considerable, inasmuch as they are new regulations that will replace Euratom’s regulations, and will not necessarily be fully formed in the first instance. As far as I can see, it is not the case that they are likely to be minor tidy-ups that are of no consequence and therefore can safely be provided for under negative resolution.
Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)
With the affirmative procedure, it is not as if we have any great scrutiny power, but it at least allows us to have a debate in a Committee Room such as this. Has my hon. Friend had any indication that the Minister is opposed to debates about future regulations relating to nuclear safeguards?
Dr Whitehead
My hon. Friend makes an important point: the affirmative procedure is actually fairly limited. What we discuss in Committee is unamendable and our scrutiny is often pretty perfunctory. Nevertheless, it at least guarantees that something will be brought to somewhere in Parliament, and the opportunity to discuss it is not dependent on the Government’s largesse. It is at least a minimal protection, as far as Parliament is concerned, and it guarantees that something will be brought to the Floor of the House. Importantly, the negative procedure does not do that.
I hope the Minister will reflect on the fact that, because we are introducing such a wide-ranging enabling Bill, it is important that the regulations have proper scrutiny subsequently. We must not simply sign a blank cheque for the future and allow anyone making the regulations to do what they want. It is an important principle in this House that we do not do that under anything but the most minimal circumstances, and in this instance I suggest that those minimal circumstances do not exist.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Richard Harrington)
Good morning, everybody. I thank the hon. Member for Southampton, Test for his contribution relating to amendments 9, 10 and 11. I have spent quite a lot of time thinking about them and about how practical his suggestion is.
I apologise to the hon. Gentleman and the Committee as I do not have the draft regulations for the Committee. We discussed them the week before last, but I was eager to secure this slot so that the Bill could progress. Discussions with the Office for Nuclear Regulation are well advanced, and I hope that, before we discuss the Bill further—definitely by January—they will be published for all hon. Members and a wider audience to see. They are not secret regulations or anything particularly devious. It is simply because of the logistics of organising them along with the Bill that we have not published them in time.
I should set out this provision in the same way as the hon. Gentleman did. Clause 1(2) creates new powers to enable the Secretary of State to make regulations for the purpose of ensuring that qualifying nuclear material, facilities or equipment are available only for the use for civil activities. To do that, clause 1(2) inserts new section 76A into the Energy Act 2013. Section 76A provides the Secretary of State with new regulation-making powers relating to nuclear safeguards. The regulations will set out the detail of the domestic regime for civil nuclear safeguards.
It is appropriate to make provision for a nuclear safeguards regime in delegated legislation, simply because the subject matter is highly technical and the substantive provisions necessary to give effect to the regime will be very detailed. That is why we believe that it has to be in secondary legislation.
Dr Whitehead
I am not sure that we are able to withdraw them. The Minister has helpfully set out the line of thinking behind putting in place affirmative procedure the first time round, and negative procedure subsequently, but he has not departed in any way from the memorandum that was set out in the first instance, from which I quoted this morning. Therefore, no reassurance has been given that the Opposition have wrongly interpreted particular procedures, or that the regulations that the Minister has talked about really will be of the very minor nature that he suggested. He has not addressed that point at all.
Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
Having listened to the discussion on affirmative procedure, does my hon. Friend agree that it is not inevitable—indeed, given the complications, it is quite unlikely—that every subsequent decision would be merely technical, and could be safely dealt with under negative procedure?
Dr Whitehead
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is underlined by the fact that, as has been alluded to on several occasions, we are not talking about a common or garden piece of legislation that simply places something on top of something else and thereby moves us forward. We are talking about a complete replacement for something that existed previously and will no longer exist. It will have no back-up or reference if we have not got everything in new regulations, replacing the previous regulations that no longer exist or have any currency as far as the UK is concerned.
With this legislation, we would be placing it on trust that everyone had got everything right first time as far as the new regulations were concerned, yet it has been stated in Committee that it is quite possible that there will be further amendments to those regulations, because we will need to be ready on exit day for the basic provision—
Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)
Is it not true that the aspects of the Bill that the Minister described as “non-controversial” would be so were we staying in Euratom? However, because we will have to move to a new system and there can be no guarantee, as the Minister himself said, of having the professionals in place to deliver the regulations, there are likely to be new regulations. We must therefore have these protections in order to scrutinise them.
Dr Whitehead
The hon. Gentleman is quite right. The procedure that we are looking at is very likely, in my view, to lead to far more than technical changes. Because there is a body of existing legislation, technical changes can be made, and to some extent I agree with that, because that is how the House works on occasion. If the Government are considering minor or technical changes, simply updating legislation to make it compatible with other pieces of legislation, or proposing to make the regulations in one Bill compatible with new regulations in another, that goes through under the negative procedure, and everyone accepts in the House that that is how we do it.
Lots of things go through in that non-controversial nature. I accept that, but it is not the case here. That is not what we are doing. As the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey said, we are not tweaking or amending something, but providing something absolutely new. We hope it will be okay, but I think we freely agree that there will be a number of occasions when quite important subsequent regulations will need to be made to beef up the procedure, because even though it is on the road on day one, it is not necessarily as good as it might be. Indeed, the Committee heard that in evidence. We have not had any assurances this morning that we have misunderstood how the new regulations will work or that guarantees can be given that they will be of the technical nature we are more used to in ordinary dealings.
Dan Carden
Will people outside not be slightly surprised that we are leaving Euratom because of a Brexit decision? The leading lights of that campaign told us it was all about parliamentary sovereignty—
Dr Whitehead
Perhaps I could deal with my hon. Friend’s intervention, and then I am happy to give way again.
Dr Whitehead
Of course, Mr Gray. Within the context of the Bill, an associated issue is the extent to which Parliament has a hand in ensuring that the regulations are as good as they should be. In taking this grave step by reinventing a complete set of regulations, a complete regime and a complete landscape, parliamentary sovereignty has to be respected. It is important that we get that right in the legislation, and it is important that we get the regulations right subsequently.
Richard Harrington
The hon. Gentleman is perfectly at liberty, as he knows, to press this to a vote. I have tried, as he has, to find common ground, but obviously he feels that I have not done so in this case. It is true that our positions are much the same as they were before we stood up to speak today. Although he has the ability to press this to a vote, I wonder if he would be interested instead in talking about this in other discussions before Report to see if there is common ground. I feel that the majority of the regulations are technical, and the affirmative procedure is perfectly acceptable, but if there were a way of separating the two issues so that he and I could discuss it with colleagues, I would be very happy to.
Dr Whitehead
I thank the Minister for that intervention and for what I think—I am reading the tea leaves a little bit here—is a slight softening of the position that it is all okay and there is nothing to worry about.
Richard Harrington
This is not a softening of the position. I am genuinely trying to explore whether there is a way of separating the vast majority of technical regulations, for which it would be very impractical to do what the hon. Gentleman wants, from things he has mentioned that may be of a different nature. My position remains the same. As I say, he is perfectly at liberty to press this to a vote, but I am happy to talk with him at one of the meetings we are having on other matters so that he can explain further his position and we can see if we can reach an agreement.
Dr Whitehead
Well, let us see whether we can talk about a mellowing of the position rather than a softening of the position.
What the Minister has importantly alluded to is the fact that if subsequent amendments to the regulations that we have highlighted are really just issues of a wholly technical nature and are, as I have described them, part of the bread and butter machinery of this House in terms of undertaking things by negative resolution, Members can simply say, “Yes, that is fine. Provided they are published and one sees them, one has the opportunity, perhaps informally, to say, ‘Well, actually, maybe these are not drafted as well as they should be, but in general there is no controversy attached to those technical changes.’”
However, if subsequent changes to these regulations are clearly not of a wholly technical nature, perhaps they could be flagged in the Bill as being an exception to those arrangements of a purely technical nature, as indeed there already are in the Bill two instances where negative resolution procedure does not apply. So, it is not the case that there is no precedent for this change, because it has already been envisaged that there are circumstances under which the negative resolution procedure will not apply.
If, let us say, on Report it might be possible to add a line to those particular exceptions, then we might have the basis for something we could discuss further. If that is the sort of thing that is possibly in the Minister’s mind, I would be happy to discuss it further with him, to see whether something could be drafted in the Bill that is able to make the distinction that he quite rightly and properly made between what is technical and what is not technical, subsequent to the first regulations being laid.
Richard Harrington
I would like to confirm to the hon. Gentleman that I do not want to make him an undertaking that I cannot carry through, because I would like to discuss this matter further with him, but in good faith I am perfectly prepared to—I would not really use the word “mellowing”. I cannot think of another word at this time of the morning. However, in the spirit that he knows, I am happy to fully explore the matter. Perhaps lawyers might say, “without prejudice” or “subject to contract”, but it just seems to me that there might be a way in which we could be in agreement.
Dr Whitehead
On that basis—and clearly we need a lexicographer here this morning as we discuss these circumstances—I am happy not to press the amendment to a vote, and I hope that we can discuss these issues during the passage of the Bill, to see whether we can make any progress.
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Dr Whitehead
I beg to move amendment 14, page 7, line 13, leave out from “provisions” to end of line 16
Paragraph 3(5) of Schedule 8 to the Energy Act 2013 exempts inspectors’ powers from provisions related to nuclear safeguards. This amendment includes nuclear safeguards in inspectors’ powers.
This amendment looks like a tiny amendment, but I will suggest that in practice it is a substantial amendment, and I will spend a little time explaining why.
The amendment is about the paragraph in the schedule where amendments are made to schedule 8 to the Energy Act 2013 concerning the powers and duties of inspectors. We will all recall that we have already talked about inspectors at some length in this Committee, but what we have talked about is their existence, their skills, their training and their appropriateness for undertaking inspection on nuclear safeguards in replacement of the inspections by inspectors under the auspices of Euratom.
At the moment, the vast majority of inspectors involved in nuclear safeguarding in this country are not under the auspices of the ONR. A small number of people are involved in that process, but the majority work under Euratom and Commission Regulation (Euratom) 302/2005, which, among many other things, sets out the terms under which inspectors work as far as Euratom is concerned. Inspectors go into establishments for the purposes of safeguarding, and they have a number of powers regarding what they can do, look at, and require to be provided, and what changes they can make. All that is done under the auspices of Euratom. The Bill effectively proposes that all those powers, and the authority of inspectors to undertake those inspections, is transferred bodily from Euratom to the oversight of the ONR, and that the ONR will subsequently be responsible for the exercise of those powers and the supervisions of the inspectors as they go about their business.
In every area other than nuclear safeguarding, the powers, duties and responsibilities of inspectors are laid out as far as the ONR is concerned in schedule 8 of the Energy Act 2013. Paragraph 2(1) of schedule 8 contains a brief description of how those powers are organised and invested in the inspectors, and how they are carried out. It states:
“An inspector’s instrument of appointment may authorise the inspector to exercise any relevant power.
Authority to exercise a relevant power may be given—
(a) without restriction, or
(b) only to a limited extent or for limited purposes.”
It then states:
“For the purposes of this Schedule, an inspector is ‘authorised’, in relation to a power, if and so far as the inspector is authorised by the instrument of appointment to exercise the power.”
An instrument of appointment must be provided by, in this instance, the ONR, and as far as I can see—[Interruption.] I am so sorry, Mr Gray. That was a phone-a-friend moment—I was short of inspiration. The instrument of appointment is, in the provisions for inspectors in the Energy Act, more like a passport held by the inspector. The Act states:
“When exercising or seeking to exercise any relevant power, an inspector must, if asked, produce the instrument of appointment (including any instrument varying it) or a duly authenticated copy.”
An inspector has an instrument of appointment that is proof that they have all the powers, duties and responsibilities set out in the legislation. Those duties, powers and responsibilities are also set out in subsequent legislation. An inspector can authorise the issuing of improvement notices or issue prohibition notices. An inspector in pursuit of those notices has a power of entry. They have a power to take persons and equipment into premises. They have powers to cause articles or substances to be dismantled or tested and they have powers to take possession of any article or substance. They have powers to require information and to receive accounts and various other things.
Inspectors therefore have fairly extensive powers authorised under the legislation, except that all those powers, as currently set out, do not apply to nuclear safeguarding. They do not apply to nuclear safeguarding because they were specifically excluded, certainly as far as issuing prohibition notices and having the power to issue improvement notices are concerned, in paragraph 3(5) of schedule 8 to the 2013 legislation.
Paragraph (5)(a) states:
“In this paragraph “applicable provision” means—
(a) any of the relevant statutory provisions other than—
(i) a provision of the Nuclear Safeguards Act 2000, or
(ii) any provision of nuclear regulations identified in accordance with section 74(9) (requirement for provisions made for nuclear security purposes or nuclear safeguards purposes, or both, to be identified as such),”.
So it is quite clear that, as far as a substantial part of the work of nuclear inspectors is concerned, the intention of the 2013 Act was specifically to exclude any concerns about nuclear safeguarding from those inspectors’ powers and responsibilities. That is quite reasonable, because those powers and responsibilities were carried out by Euratom inspectors. A clear distinction was therefore made that ONR-based inspectors would not have any jurisdiction over nuclear safeguarding.
Now all that is going to change and there are two big questions in front of us. First, is it reasonably possible to translate those powers and responsibilities of inspectors which at present do not refer to nuclear safeguarding into a position where they do refer to nuclear safeguarding? Secondly, is it the case that if we simply hand over en bloc to nuclear inspectors who are undertaking nuclear safeguarding activities, the powers and responsibilities that are set out for purposes other than nuclear safeguarding in the 2013 legislation—which set up the ONR in the first place—those provisions will be wholly adequate for that purpose? Those are the two big questions about nuclear inspectors that we need to ask ourselves.
Would it be desirable, as was the case with the 2013 legislation, that the powers of the inspectors were laid out fully in the Bill? They were not set out in subsequent regulations, because they are such important powers and limitations of powers that it was clearly felt in the 2013 legislation that they should be set out in a separate schedule. It was not something that would be looked at in a Committee Room, subsequent to legislation being passed.
The first question that might arise after addressing how we translate the powers of inspectors into UK legislation is whether we should be conducting an exercise similar to that carried out in the 2013 Bill—that is, whether the legislation should include a schedule that contains the powers of the new inspectors who are carrying out their duties in respect of nuclear safeguarding.
The Chair
Order. While the hon. Gentleman is finding that page, I will interrupt for a second. I think it is the will and flavour of the Committee that we are seeking to make good progress on consideration of the Bill today and, if necessary, Thursday. I hope hon. Members will take note of the fact that we are seeking to do so. Maybe that has given the shadow Minister a moment to find his reference.
Dr Whitehead
It has not, actually, Mr Gray. Because I was listening so carefully to you, I did not entirely get my reference sorted out. I have now found it, so I am grateful for your admonition. I am hopeful that we will make speedy progress in Committee today.
However, I am sure we need to pay attention to this section because it is important in getting the regime right for the wholesale change that we are making to how the provisions for nuclear inspection will be carried out.
The deflection that the Government make in their amending of the 2013 Act relates to section 74(9). I would be pleased if anyone could clarify this for me.
“Nuclear regulations which include any provisions to which any paragraph of subsection (10) applies must identify those provisions as such.”
As in the honoured Marx Brothers “tootsie-frootsie ice cream” sketch, with different form guides and various other things, one must now look at subsection (10).
“This subsection applies to any provisions of nuclear regulations which are made for—
(a) the nuclear security purposes,
(b) the nuclear safeguards purposes, or
(c) both of those purposes,
and for no other purpose.”
They appear to half switch off the prohibition of inspectors from undertaking activities for nuclear safeguarding as well as for non-nuclear safeguarding. They apparently refer not to regulations but to provisions of nuclear regulations. I am not sure whether, by deflecting to that paragraph, the responsibilities of nuclear inspectors are wholly translated into what is in the Energy Act 2013. I would appreciate clarification about whether, in the Minister’s opinion, the Government’s proposed amendment to the 2013 Act actually does that. Is there a clear line that shows that everything that is there is what a nuclear safeguards inspector has the power to do as a result of the deflection to that clause? It is by no means clear that that is the case.
With our amendment, we are trying to do that by means of a much simpler procedure. Instead of deflecting it to another clause, the amendment simply states that the inspectors’ powers relate to any of the relevant statutory provisions, and excises the rest of the paragraph. The relevant statutory provisions include nuclear safeguards, and therefore what was there previously would be fully translated into what a nuclear inspector pursuing nuclear safeguards can do. My view is that that is a simpler, more straightforward and clearer way of ensuring that the powers are fully translated.
The second point I alluded to is the question whether, even if one did that, there would be a complete transfer of powers and authorities from what was previously done under Euratom to what is done under ONR. The current Euratom treaty—the 2005 regulations—which I am sorry to admit I have actually looked at, appears to talk about more extensive powers and responsibilities than those in the 2013 Act. Although they are not set out in the same way, there appear to be various things in the Commission regulation that are not mentioned in the powers of inspectors in the 2013 Act, such as the requirement for inspectors to install and maintain equipment, an offence of interfering with equipment, special reports on unusual circumstances and special reports on inventory change.
I am very keen to hear from the Minister—I am sure he has had a good look at the Euratom regulations, too—whether he thinks that, even if he were minded to accept our amendment, the process of translating what is in the 2013 Act to ONR-supervised inspection really does the job, in respect of giving inspectors the safeguarding powers and responsibilities they had under Euratom and those that they need under ONR supervision. I am sure that the Department has looked at that closely. Is he completely satisfied that that is the case, or might he look at that again to see whether the moment of transmission set out in the Bill really does the business in respect of both making the nuclear safeguarding regime secure and the powers of inspectors for the future?
Richard Harrington
I shall do my best to implement the wise advice you gave us, Mr Gray.
In summary, I believe that the intentions behind amendment 14 are entirely good, but I would argue that it is defective because it would turn on the improvement notice power for nuclear security. That does not need to be turned on because there are existing, stronger direction-making powers. I shall briefly try to make that argument—hopefully with some success—to the Committee. Of course, I share the hon. Gentleman’s concern to ensure that the ONR inspectors have the right powers to fulfil their responsibilities. That is the whole purpose of the Bill.
This issue was raised by the Prospect union. As a result of its evidence, I asked it for a meeting, which I have arranged for the next couple of weeks, to discuss all the issues it raised, together with the other union that gave evidence at the same time.
Paragraph 11(2) of the schedule to the Bill amends paragraph 3(5) of schedule 8 to the Energy Act 2013, extending the power to inspectors who are appointed. That is important so that inspectors can issue improvement notices for non-compliance in relation to nuclear safeguards. Therefore, I would argue that the Bill already achieves the purpose of the amendment.
Paragraph 4 of the schedule amends section 82 of the 2013 Act such that relevant statutory provisions will include nuclear safeguards. That is the key to switching on the ONR power. I hope that that reassures the hon. Gentleman, and colleagues on both sides of the Committee, that the Bill achieves the purpose of the amendment.
I shall leave it at that, Mr Gray, in keeping with the advice you gave. I would like to discuss this matter in greater detail, but that was the sentiment of your instructions to us.
The Chair
Before the hon. Gentleman speaks, I should perhaps remind him that he may not withdraw the amendment, even if he wishes to. That must be done by the Member who proposed the amendment. He may, by all means, speak to it.
Paul Blomfield
Thank you for that clarity. Do not worry, Mr Gray, I was intending not to usurp my colleague’s role, but simply to underline the point that the Minister made.
An important part of our proceedings are the public evidence sessions that precede consideration of the Bill. Speaking on behalf of inspectors, Sue Ferns gave powerful evidence on a range of issues, but she was very clear on this one, as the Minister mentioned. She stated:
“As warranted inspectors, they feel that it is important to have those powers in the Bill. It is important for purposes of parity, to ensure continuity”—
and this is a crucial point in relation to safeguarding—
“also, as we have discussed, for external confidence in the way the job will be done.”
She went on to say that she had heard no argument to say
“why, if it is good enough for the 1974 Act”—
the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act—
“and the 2013 Act, we should contemplate a change in practice for this piece of legislation.”––[Official Report, Nuclear Safeguards Public Bill Committee, 31 October 2017; c. 35, Q71.]
That was powerful evidence on behalf of warranted inspectors that should lead the Government to think again. The Minister has been very accommodating and positive in trying to achieve consensus and agreement on issues where we share common concerns. I wonder whether he is able to reach out in the way that he did on earlier amendments to see whether an accommodation can be reached.
Dr Whitehead
I appreciate the Minister’s wish for brevity on these occasions, but I do not think that this is an issue on which we can be completely brief. By the way, there is plenty of time for the Committee to get the rest of its business through, so I am not concerned that by having a proper debate on this clause we will run out of time—I am certain about that.
I have not heard anything about the second point that I made in my contribution. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central emphasised that point. Indeed, the evidence from Sue Ferns and Prospect emphasised the question of whether the inspectors will have the powers, through straight translation into oversight by the ONR of what is presently oversight by Euratom, that they actually need.
I mentioned comparing and contrasting what was in Euratom and what is in the Energy Act 2013. The Minister may well be right that although the translation of the requirements in the Energy Act 2013 into nuclear safeguarding may not be as elegant, it does the job. However, that does not at all address the point of what is going to be translated and whether that is fully fit for purpose as far as the new inspection regime is concerned. Will the Minister give an assurance that he has looked at this matter carefully and is completely assured that that is the case? Has he considered, or might he consider, whether combing through the material that was there previously might lead to anything further being added to inspectors’ powers and responsibilities, either by regulation or by further legislation, perhaps on Report? [Interruption.]
Dr Whitehead
I was seeking to tempt the Minister into standing up and saying a few more things.
Richard Harrington
I was not quite sure whether the hon. Gentleman had finished his comments. I stick to my point that this is obviously a complex area and I think that the Bill does exactly what he wants. I will consider his points carefully and, if further drafting is necessary, will bring forward proposals on that subject.
Dr Whitehead
This is going quite well. I thank the Minister for that consideration and it meets our concerns that, although I have not yet been able to spell them out, additional powers may be needed. If the Minister looked at that I would be very grateful. I therefore beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Schedule agreed to.
Clause 2
Power to amend legislation relating to nuclear safeguards
Dr Whitehead
I beg to move amendment 5, in clause 2, page 4, line 8, leave out
“may by regulations amend any of”
and insert
“must by regulations amend relevant provisions of”.
This amendment would require, rather than enable, the Secretary of State to make regulations in consequence of a relevant safeguards agreement.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 6, in clause 2, page 4, line 13, at end insert—
“(1A) The Secretary of State may only exercise powers under this section at the point at which amendment of any of the legislation in subsection (1) becomes necessary in order to complete the process of transposition of responsibility for nuclear safeguarding from EURATOM to the Office for Nuclear Regulation, and for no other purpose.
(1B) Upon exercising the power set out in subsection (1) the Secretary of State shall report its operation by means of a report laid before both Houses of Parliament.”
This amendment limits circumstances under which the Secretary of State may exercise certain powers in this section and requires a report to be laid before Parliament.
Dr Whitehead
This proposal is serious and requires substantial discussion in Committee. Amendments 5 and 6 address a particularly egregious part of the Bill: clause 2, which provides the power to amend legislation relating to nuclear safeguards.
As I am sure hon. Members are aware, the clause suggests that we amend not only secondary legislation relating to nuclear safeguards but a series of other pieces of legislation: the Nuclear Safeguards and Electricity (Finance) Act 1978, the Nuclear Safeguards Act 2000 and the Nuclear Safeguards (Notification) Regulations 2004. Two of those are pieces of primary legislation that have gone through the whole parliamentary procedure on the Floor of the House, received Royal Assent and become legislation. The clause suggests that those pieces of legislation should not only be amended by regulation but be amended on the basis of discussions about an agreement with the IAEA that we know nothing about at the moment and have not agreed.
One might think that these are not Henry VIII clauses but Henry IX clauses. I think there was a Henry IX in France, so it is possible to make that point without too much interruption in history. These powers are very substantial and exceptional and, to my mind, run wholly counter to what we should be doing in the House as far as legislation is concerned.
I will come to what the Government have to say about the particular circumstances in a moment. Henry VIII powers were obviously used substantially during the reign of Henry VIII, but subsequently have not been used quite so frequently. Although they have been used a little more frequently in recent years, the idea that the Executive—by Executive action, effectively—can overturn, amend or take in a different direction what Parliament has decided through legislation is something the House has fought against for many years. When such powers have been sought in the past, they have been in some instances successfully challenged, and on many occasions strongly challenged on both sides of the House.
We want to make an initial statement of principle that the Opposition do not like Henry VIII clauses. We think they are an overturning of the sovereignty of Parliament in dealing with these issues and that they give powers to the Executive that are unwarranted on virtually all occasions. A piece of legislation should be written in this form only in a dire emergency, where a calamity will befall the nation if that action is not taken. In all other circumstances, the idea is that legislation should properly appear before Parliament to be debated. If it is legislation replacing or substantially amending primary legislation, that process should be one of primary legislation as well.
In this instance, what might be envisaged as far as primary legislation is concerned would not detain the House forever or be particularly complex or difficult to achieve. Yesterday in the Chamber, we saw how it is possible to take a Bill through in an afternoon. Where changes are made with a consensus in the House, the procedure is pretty rapid, straightforward and achievable. Why can that procedure not be adopted for these pieces of legislation? Is it because there is a national emergency or the sky will fall in if we do not make the amendments? Is it because it has not been possible to find parliamentary time to undertake what would be neat and precise Bills to make the amendments? Indeed, on the basis of what has previously been achieved, would not a brief piece of primary legislation on the Floor of the House have agreement from all parts of the House?
I am not persuaded, nor do I think I will be persuaded easily, that that is not possible in these circumstances. The clause as drafted is therefore not something that has to be done, but something the Government have chosen to do in support of their legislation. It may well be that the Minister will say, “Yes, we have chosen to do this because, as far as we are concerned, these things have to be done.” As far as previous legislation is concerned—let me find a copy of the document that I just gave to the Clerks.
The Department’s delegated powers document on legislation, to which I have referred, states at paragraph 78:
“It is essential that the specified safeguards legislation is amended to make correct reference to the new agreements that the UK envisages concluding with the IAEA”.
Furthermore, paragraph 79 states:
“Without amendment, the existing provisions will become ineffective”.
The Henry VIII clause emergency is simply that any legislation that has not been amended after an IAEA agreement has been decided—we would enter a different arrangement from the one we had with Euratom—would render the new procedure ineffective. The relevant Acts therefore need to be changed. However, that is not the case with secondary legislation; it is only the case with those Acts, which I think we can all agree need to be amended. Of course, when all those proceedings have concluded, legislation will need to be in line with new procedures elsewhere on the statute book. That is not an issue at all. The issue is whether, in order to bring those bits of legislation in line with whatever we have agreed, we effectively declare a national emergency and say that we have to adopt Henry VIII clauses to do it. That is quite wrong, both for this piece of legislation and indeed for most other pieces of legislation that try to include those Henry VIII clauses.
Drew Hendry
I will make a few short comments to indicate Scottish National party support for the amendment. The shadow Minister referred to our being in new times; indeed, we are in uncharted territory. The SNP has great concerns about the possible use of Executive powers, particularly the prospect of a lack of scrutiny. Let us consider how the decision to leave Euratom came about: representatives found out about the decisions via a bit of small print in the Bill. That does not give the Government a good track record in how transparent they are willing to be. No warning was provided and no indication was given of the impact. Frankly, there was a blatant lack of transparency.
We call on the UK Government to ensure that future decisions are taken in a transparent and consultative way and in an inclusive manner. At the moment, the set-up does not give anyone reassurance that that will happen, so we support the amendment.
Richard Harrington
I have been very interested in our tour around Henry VIII and the French royal family and its possible member, Henry IX, which you did not rule outside the scope of discussions, Mr Gray, but you are entitled to use your judgment. However, neither Henry VIII nor Henry IX had to come up with a nuclear safeguards regime; I wonder what would have happened if they had.
In all seriousness—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Southampton, Test is on great, humorous form, as well as making serious points, which I will try to answer, I hope, in a suitably serious manner. The fundamental difference between us, forgetting the “may” and “must” difference for the moment—we will come on to that—is about the actual powers and why we need them. I find the Henry VIII expression a bit misleading—not that the hon. Member for Southampton, Test is trying to mislead the House—given the way it is always referred to in the press and so on. We are talking about very limited non-primary legislation here.
Changing minor references, whether saying that that calls for Henry VIII powers or not, would not be a good use of parliamentary time, given that Governments have to govern and Parliament must in some way ration its time so that it can deal with the fundamental matters that it has to deal with. I know the Opposition’s view generally on Henry VIII powers, but I think there should be some leeway within that for what genuinely needs to be delegated, and which is comparatively minor in nature, so that we can act quickly. I am sure the hon. Gentleman and the Opposition Front Bench recognise that in practice. Sometimes principle is a great thing in life, but it has to be adapted pragmatically to deal with circumstances. I will park that for the moment.
As it stands, clause 2 will create a limited power, enabling regulations to amend the Nuclear Safeguards and Electricity (Finance) Act 1978, the Nuclear Safeguards Act 2000 and the Nuclear Safeguards (Notification) Regulations 2004. It will be a narrow power to amend references in those laws to provisions of the existing agreements with the IAEA. Those references enable the IAEA to carry out its activities in the UK, including, importantly, by providing legal cover for the UK activities of its inspectors. The references and the legal cover they have will need to be updated after the new agreements have been concluded with the IAEA; it cannot be done before.
At present, our nuclear safeguards regime complies with international safeguards and non-proliferation standards agreed between the three parties—ourselves, Euratom and the IAEA. The UK applies those standards primarily through its membership of Euratom. They are set out in two tripartite safeguards agreements between the UK, the IAEA and Euratom: the voluntary offer agreement and the additional protocol. At the moment, they rely on the UK’s membership of Euratom. Following our withdrawal from the European Union and Euratom, these agreements will become ineffective. That is why the Bill has to ensure that a domestic civil nuclear safeguards regime is put in place. The UK will need to conclude new agreements with the IAEA to detail the international safeguards and nuclear non-proliferation standards with which the UK agrees to comply. Without those, no regime we could have will be recognised by the international community.
Amendment 5, as tabled and eloquently articulated by the hon. Member for Southampton, Test, intends to require—rather than enable—the Secretary of State to make regulations under clause 2. I welcome the Opposition’s change of position on clause 2 since Second Reading. Amendment 5 clearly recognises the need to have the power in clause 2 to ensure the necessary legislative amendments are made in time to give effect to the new IAEA agreements, and to therefore ensure that the UK has a civil nuclear safeguards regime that gives effect to international standards on the UK’s withdrawal from the Euratom treaty.
However, making the Secretary of State’s power in clause 2 mandatory does not provide any additional value. Following the negotiation of the new agreements, the references to the old agreements in the legislation mentioned in this power automatically become ineffective —they will not work. The inspection of UK facilities by IAEA inspectors is a vital part of our agreement with the IAEA. It is not in anyone’s interest to fail to make the necessary consequential amendments to existing safeguards once new agreements with the IAEA are agreed. Requiring the exercise of the power in the Bill is therefore unnecessary.
I want to assure hon. Members that we are currently negotiating new agreements with the IAEA on the same principles as the existing agreements and that the consequential changes are expected to be minor. That will ensure that the IAEA retains its right to inspect all civil nuclear facilities and continues to receive all current safeguards reporting, ensuring that international verification of our safeguards activity continues to be robust.
Dr Whitehead
I am disappointed by the Minister’s response to the amendments this morning. He is right to point out that they in some ways represent what might be construed as a little bit of a change, perhaps a mellowing, from our position on Second Reading on the Floor of the House. It is not that we have changed our positions on Henry VIII clauses, but that addressing what is in the Bill is the important thing to do in Committee. We need to decide whether to amend it rather than try to chuck the whole thing out. That is the difference in our discussion this morning. I thought the amendments were constructive.
Although the Minister has mentioned that Government changes to these pieces of legislation would have to be reported to Parliament, that is a very different procedure from the procedure being suggested this morning.
Drew Hendry
The Minister himself has said that principles sometimes have to be adjusted pragmatically. The problem is that the Minister cannot tell us at the moment which principles and for whom they would have to be pragmatically adjusted.
Dr Whitehead
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right because we are in the dark as far as what is going to come out and the IAEA are concerned. We think that an agreement will be reached and that there will be a new voluntary treaty arrangement. We think that when that new arrangement has been reached, it will be suitable for the purposes for which we have made all these legislative changes. Indeed, the legislative changes will be scrutinised effectively by the IAEA before that treaty can come about. The IAEA wants to be sure that we have put a regime in place that does the job in changing the relationship of this country as far as nuclear safeguarding is concerned from Euratom to ONR.
Richard Harrington
Does the hon. Gentleman agree—and I am also trying to answer the Scottish National party’s spokesman about the principle and the way it might be changed—in practical terms, forgetting principle for the moment, that we cannot be sure exactly when the agreements with the IAEA will be finalised? Certainly, it is in our gift but it is also with the IAEA. We may well be under great time pressure to make sure that the new inspectors—who might even be the same inspectors—have the legal cover to maintain the safeguards we all want. There are times when some things have to be delegated and moved very quickly to deal with an expediency. I felt that was an example.
Dr Whitehead
I appreciate what the Minister says, but that does not knock away the fundamental principle that, except under very exceptional circumstances of national emergency, things that amend primary legislation by secondary legislation should not be before this House. Essentially, the Minister has summed up the case from his point of view that he thinks this is essential. It is just that there could be some time constraints.
Drew Hendry
On time constraints, as the Minister has just said, is it not the fact that when Governments have to act in haste, it is even more important to have the scrutiny of the decision they are taking?
Dr Whitehead
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I accept that in cases of dire emergency, where the enemy is about to invade or some such, action needs to be taken that may not necessarily carry out the full intent of the parliamentary procedure. We are not in that position. As the Minister has said—he put it very well—there could be time constraints, that’s all. The limited time available for us to get this done could be problematic.
Richard Harrington
I do not want to be dramatic, but not having a nuclear safeguards regime because of the lack of an inspector’s legal power to inspect, as far as we are concerned, would be pretty much a national emergency.
Dr Whitehead
Indeed, the Minister is right, in principle. That may be something we might address with one of the amendments we may discuss this afternoon.
The fact of the matter is that putting something in this legislation simply because it might be a little inconvenient to have it any other way, given time constraints, is not a justification for using Henry VIII clauses. As I have mentioned, it is not beyond the wit of Government under those circumstances to introduce primary legislation that can be carried through this House very quickly indeed. If the Minister is so concerned about time constraints, he should also understand that other people will be concerned about time constraints as well and would be willing to make sure that that kind of legislation went through speedily.
This morning, he is giving assurances that this will all be done in the proper way and that it will be okay. We can give assurances on the other side that yes, if he did it in a proper way, we would make sure that this was done properly. Those assurances are of about equal weight. He simply has not made the case that the arrangements are necessary for the purpose of translating all the stuff in question into UK law. I remind the Committee that the Department, setting out the context and purpose of the clauses, has emphasised that it is necessary to take the action in question, but there is no mention in the document of the necessity to do it in time that is not otherwise available to Parliament. The document does not make that argument.
Because we have tried to be so reasonable and careful in our approach, but have not received anything coming the other way—
Richard Harrington
I remind the Committee that the changes under the Henry VIII power are about changing references to specific articles in the existing legislation. They are not changes to substance or principle.
Dr Whitehead
Indeed, which is why it would be easy to take a new Bill through the House, to make that evident with respect to the relevant provisions. Everyone would agree that that Bill should move through the House quickly. I think I could get an absolute assurance of that from the Opposition. For that reason, it is not necessary to cast the measure in its present form.
Richard Harrington
Is the hon. Gentleman saying that he would rather there was a brief period with no safeguards regime because there were no inspectors with the legal cover to inspect, so that the Bill could be brought through the House under an emergency procedure?
Dr Whitehead
No. I should rather that the Government organised their business so that it could be done properly in the time available, and that we could then carry out proper parliamentary procedure, to make sure that the power of Parliament was behind whatever was agreed.
Richard Harrington
But the hon. Gentleman would accept that, as it takes two to tango, a lot depends on timing with the IAEA, which is another organisation.
Dr Whitehead
Yes, indeed. The Minister is straying slightly, I think, into concerns that we may well address this afternoon: it is true that there are time constraints, and there are ways to sort that out.
Paul Blomfield
My hon. Friend is right to underline the importance of the point. I am sure that he, like me, would accept the Minister’s point about urgency in good faith, but is not there a problem in that the provision could apply to a range of issues? It is central to the Government’s argument about Henry VIII powers in general—
The Chair
Order. That is going well beyond the scope of the Bill. Mr Whitehead is, I think, about to wind up.
Dr Whitehead
I could have said, Mr Gray, that he makes an entirely out-of-order but nevertheless strong point.
The bottom line is that we have not received this morning the assurances that we hoped we might, about the circumstances in which we could move ahead with the amendments, rather than simply sitting on our hands and demanding that the Henry VIII clauses be struck out. Therefore I think we are going to have to divide the Committee on both amendments this morning. I hope that we can proceed to do that.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Nuclear Safeguards Bill (Sixth sitting)
Tuesday 14th November 2017
(6 years, 5 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Nuclear Safeguards Act 2018 View all Nuclear Safeguards Act 2018 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 14 November 2017 - (14 Nov 2017)
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 7 / Noes: 10 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 7 / Noes: 10 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 7 / Noes: 10 - Question accordingly negatived.
Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)
I beg to move amendment 7, in clause 4, page 5, line 6, at end add—
“(5) Regulations under subsection (2) may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.”
This amendment would prevent the commencement of clauses 1 and 2 without the regulations made under this section being subject to the affirmative procedure.
This is a simple amendment that repeats the requirement suggested in other amendments for secondary legislation to be subject to the affirmative, rather than negative, procedure. I made the case this morning for the power of the affirmative procedure. As hon. Members can see, the amendment would ensure that regulations under subsection (2) could not be made unless a draft instrument were laid before Parliament and approved by a resolution of each House—that means an affirmative resolution.
I do not think we need go over the difference between an affirmative and a negative resolution and why we think affirmative resolutions are always better. Through the amendment, we simply seek to ensure that regulations made under subsection (2) are subject to the affirmative procedure. I do not think we need to detain the Committee too much further with detailed discussion. We think this is important and consider that it should be included in the Bill, to ensure that matters properly come before the House when these issues are discussed.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Richard Harrington)
Good afternoon, everybody. I thank the hon. Gentleman for not repeating what he said about affirmative and negative procedure, because those points were well made this morning. I have sympathy, of course, with his broad aims of strengthening parliamentary scrutiny, but I argue that this is not an appropriate process to put in place. Parliament will have already passed the Bill and approved the legislation. I am confident that there are appropriate processes in place to ensure proper parliamentary scrutiny of the substantive powers in the Bill.
Clause 4 contains a commencement power. It is entirely conventional for the commencement power not to be subject to any parliamentary procedure because, as I say, it brings into force law that Parliament has already enacted. Clauses 1 and 2 contain delegated powers that must—I know “must” is one of the hon. Gentleman’s favourite words in the English language—be exercised before the UK’s new nuclear safeguards regime can be brought into effect. The regulations necessary to do so will be subject to the draft affirmative procedure. It would serve no useful purpose, in the Government’s view, to make the power to commence those delegated powers subject to the draft affirmative procedure.
I would like to reassure hon. Members that draft nuclear safeguard regulations are currently being worked on in close collaboration with the Office for Nuclear Regulation, and we will provide drafts during the passage of the legislation. The precise arrangements for the future safeguards regime and the details of the regulations will be subject to further consideration and detailed consultation with the regulator, industry and other interested parties.
Dr Whitehead
I am grateful to the Minister for mentioning that detailed regulations will be available during the Bill’s passage. Would he perhaps be more specific about that and say when those draft regulations might appear? I assume it will not be in Committee, but it should certainly be before Report.
Richard Harrington
As I said, my hope is that that will happen soon. I cannot confirm that it will be before Report, because I do not know when that will be—unless the hon. Gentleman has any information. I certainly hope that it will happen by the end of this year or very early in January, but that is allowing myself a bit of wiggle room. There is no great secret going on; we are just ensuring that all the detail and everything is in place. With that in mind, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will feel able to withdraw the amendment.
Dr Whitehead
I thank the Minister for his explanation of the circumstances under which commencement would take place, and what regulations would proceed under that. Although I am not completely convinced that it provides exactly the safeguards that we require, it does go a long way towards reassuring us on the status of the Bill, so we will not press the amendment to a vote. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
The Chair
Amendment 8 was debated previously, but I do not think that the hon. Gentleman seeks to divide the Committee—I think not, from his lack of response.
Clause 4 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 5 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
New Clause 1
Purpose
“The purpose of this Act is to provide for a contingent arrangement for nuclear safeguarding arrangements under the terms of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in the event that the United Kingdom no longer has membership or associate membership of EURATOM, to ensure that qualifying nuclear material, facilities or equipment are only available for use for civil activities (whether in the United Kingdom or elsewhere).” —(Dr Whitehead.)
This new clause would be a purpose clause, to establish that the provisions of the Bill are contingency arrangements if it proves impossible to establish an association with EURATOM after the UK’s withdrawal from the EU.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Question put, that the clause be read a Second time.
Dr Whitehead
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
The new clause refers to the possibility of seeking a transition period prior to the UK leaving Euratom of not less than two years. It states that during that transition period,
“conditions under which the UK is a member of EURATOM before exit day shall continue to apply…obligations upon the UK which derive from membership of EURATOM before exit day shall continue to apply…structures for UK participation in EURATOM that are in place before exit day shall be maintained”—
and most importantly—
“financial commitment to EURATOM made by the UK during the course of UK membership of EURATOM before exit day shall be honoured.”
Nothing in the new clause suggests that we shall be members of Euratom in perpetuity.
Sir Robert Syms (Poole) (Con)
As I understand it, the hon. Gentleman is suggesting that we continue to be a member of Euratom for two years, during which time we would presumably continue to pay our contribution, while at the same time employing inspectors in the UK— we are actually trying to recruit people at the moment. Would it not impose additional costs on the industry if we are both recruiting inspectors and staying in Euratom? Is that not double jeopardy?
Dr Whitehead
No, because the idea of a transition period would be, among other things, to give greater scope for precisely that sort of recruitment, training and other arrangements to take place, so that the new regime is assuredly in place by the time we leave Euratom—assuming we do. There would not be any duplication because the positions after Euratom would be fully in place.
The transitional period would be used for the purpose of making sure those final arrangements were in place. Unless a series of magical events occur and everything is completely and easily in place before March 2019, I cannot see anything other than good things coming out of a transition period, including the things we have discussed in making a transition from Euratom to a nationally determined inspection regime complete, waterproof and fully operational.
In that sense, the Bill is straightforward:
“It ensures that, when the United Kingdom is no longer a member of…Euratom…we will have in place a legal framework that meets our future international obligations on nuclear safeguarding. Nuclear safeguards demonstrate to the international community that civil nuclear material is not diverted into military or weapons programmes…Our current nuclear safeguards obligations arise from our voluntary offer agreement…with the International Atomic Energy Agency”—
which I will come on to—
“The IAEA is the UN-associated body responsible for the oversight of the global non-proliferation regime. The first requirement flowing from the UK’s commitments on safeguards is to have a domestic system that allows the state to know what civil nuclear material it has, where it is and whether any has been withdrawn from civil activities.”
As we have discussed,
“the Bill has been prepared on a contingency basis. The discussions around our continued arrangements with Euratom and with the rest of the European Union have not been concluded, but it is right to put in place in good time any commitments that are needed in primary legislation. Euratom has served the United Kingdom and our nuclear industries well, so we want to see maximum continuity in those arrangements.”—[Official Report, 16 October 2017; Vol. 629, c. 617.]
I cannot keep this up any longer; those are the words of the Secretary of State on Second Reading.
It appears that the Secretary of State at least is pretty much onside with the idea of wanting maximum continuity of the arrangements with Euratom, that Euratom has served us well, and that we have no objections in this country in the past to the working of Euratom, what it does and how it works. For “maximum continuity” of those arrangements, as the Secretary of State clearly wants, seeking associate membership or arrangements with Euratom under article 206 of the existing Euratom treaty—the Secretary of State was pressed on that on Second Reading—is something we would positively seek as an alternative to the contingency that the Bill represents.
From what the Secretary of State stated on Second Reading and from his introduction to the Bill, it does not seem to require a great deal of construction to conclude that that is something that the Government have in mind and would like to achieve.
Drew Hendry
We support the new clause, which would put in place a transition period during which the UK would have the option to seek and secure an association with Euratom. The Scottish National party does not support the decision to exit Euratom, and the Bill continues to fall significantly short of answering vital questions about the UK’s nuclear future, particularly given the fact that the skilled and trained inspectors are at best unlikely to be in place in time. This Government have put nuclear energy at the heart of their energy strategy, and yet they are leaving the agency that oversees the security of markets, businesses and workers in that sector. Given that the UK Government have poured resources into costly and ineffective nuclear power projects such as Hinkley C, the Euratom divorce leaves questions unanswered and threatens to prove highly complex. That is why a transition deal is not only desirable but may turn out to be essential, and we will be supporting the amendment.
Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)
I just want to make some suggestions. The concern is that to import fuel and parts from existing nuclear reactors into the UK—as we have already heard—we shall need to have established a regulatory and inspection structure, obtain approval from the International Energy Atomic Agency and then negotiate and ratify nuclear co-operation agreements with a number of Governments. There is an assumption that we should not make: we cannot be sure that nuclear co-operation agreements will just be nodded through, because we know some of the complexities that we already have with other countries, such as the USA. Therefore, I do not think it is sensible to leave Euratom until these agreements are actually in place, and that is why I support these amendments.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Richard Harrington)
I thank hon. Members for their contributions. I am particularly speechless at the shadow Minister’s widespread quotation of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State; were he here today, I am sure he would personally thank him. The truth behind it—I was obviously making a flippant comment—is that most of us actually agree on most of the things the Secretary of State said. I would endorse them and I thank him for formally doing so. However, the Secretary of State also said—I think I am correct in saying it was in his evidence in the Select Committee—that article 50 for the main exit from the European Union and for Euratom were interleaved together and therefore we have served the article 50 notice. That was yesterday’s argument, but it was obviously something the Secretary of State was well questioned on at the time. I mention that because the hon. Members spoke of their desire to ensure that the current position remains for as long as possible, but maximum continuity, which is what we have said we are aiming for, and which was quoted by the shadow Minister, is not the same as pretending that article 50 has not been triggered. It has and we are leaving, so the debate is really about what is next rather than turning back the clock. I have said this repeatedly, and I hope everybody accepts the fact that it is our intention to have a regime as robust and as comprehensive as that provided by Euratom.
Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
Speaking of that collective desire, I am sure the Minister will recall Dr Golshan from the ONR saying that we will not be able to replicate those same Euratom standards on day one. Does that not make a compelling case for a transition period?
Richard Harrington
I do remember the evidence and Dr Golshan spoke also to Select Committees that I have appeared before, but she did make it clear that while she could not guarantee that we could exactly replicate, we could have a safeguards regime that was very serviceable in working very quickly towards what Euratom is. I do respect her and the institution she works for, but there is no precedent for this.
I accept the gist of what the hon. Gentleman is saying, but the same argument might be as true at the end of the transition period as it would be at the beginning of it. However, I am certain and satisfied that we can do the necessary recruitment and make the necessary agreements—which the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston mentioned in her contribution—but actually within the time period required. I am sure that if we are not able to do that, I will be hauled before the Select Committee, the Chamber and everything else, and quite rightly. It is the job of Government to make decisions and it is our full intention and belief that we will be able to achieve that. I accept the fact that there is no precedent; I accept that people are entitled to their expert opinions. I do not at all deny that she said it, because I was here and it is on the record, and anyway I respect her too much to say that she is not correct in her view. I suppose I can say that, not being an expert, but my colleagues at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy spend a lot of time with all her colleagues, and it is our job to ensure that it does happen.
Dr Whitehead
I am not sure that, for the sake of the apparent administrative convenience of leaving the two institutions on the same day, everything will be better served. We have discussed in this Committee precisely why things probably would not be better served regarding the process of ensuring that we have everything in place to replace what we acknowledge that we have received well from Euratom in the past. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston, in a brief but important contribution, raised the question of how likely it is that the various bilateral deals that we will have to make with various states around the world will be concluded in a timely fashion. Indeed, I suggest that the opposite is the case—they are not likely to be concluded in a timely fashion, not least because, for example, agreements with the United States would have to go through both Houses of Congress.
It is unlikely that there will be anything other than a rather messy tail hanging around for quite a long while if we stated that we were leaving Euratom on the same exit day the Prime Minister is suggesting in amendment 381 to the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill. I do not know whether this piece of advice will be welcome, but if that is what the Prime Minister wishes to do, I think it might be a good idea for her to add the words “and Euratom” to that amendment. I say that because although Euratom and the EU are effectively conjoined, Euratom did not come into being at the same time as the European Union, and therefore it is not necessarily the case that if one puts in place an exit day for the EU, one automatically transfers that exit day to exit from Euratom. That may well be what the Government want to do, but it is by no means clear that that is what would actually have to happen.
It is possible to consider, without in any way undermining the idea that we leave Euratom, a different form of leaving day from that from the EU, in my opinion. That has not particularly been tested in terms of the arguments about whether the Euratom treaty was separate from the EU. The Minister may well be getting wise advice that that is not the case, but it seems at least arguable that there is nothing in stone, and nothing in the amendments tabled to the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, that points in the direction of having to leave Euratom at the same time as leaving the EU.
If it were possible to negotiate an arrangement whereby the aim was associate status of some description and the means were a transitional period, with the clear aim that that associate status would be in place at the end of it, that would seem to be a prudent thing to do, as far as our future relationship with Euratom is concerned, bearing in mind all the things we have said about how it has served us and what we could get from it during that transitional period, with that eventual aim in mind.
It would be not only desirable but very wise, in the present circumstances, to state on the face of the Bill that that is what we will try to do, and to require the Secretary of State to try to ensure that it happens. That does not undermine our future relationship with Euratom or with the EU; it merely puts in place something that is possible to achieve and that could be of considerable benefit to this country and to our partners in the nuclear community around the world.
It would enhance considerably the value of the Bill if that transitional arrangement did not succeed, because it would, among other things, show our partners in Euratom and the wider international community that we were intent and absolutely serious about wanting the best possible regime for the future. That surely would be a considerable boost to the idea that we can survive well in an international and closely conjoined nuclear community while not being a member of Euratom in the long term. If the Minister is not prepared to accept the amendment, I would like it on the record that we tried to divide the Committee this afternoon.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
Dr Whitehead
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time. The clause reflects what we have discussed in Committee about the process of securing an agreement that is voluntarily entered into with the IAEA to replace the previous agreement that was essentially mediated by Euratom, and hence has to be replaced.
One might think that the agreement should, in principle, be reasonably easy to arrive at. If we have a contingency nuclear safeguarding regime in place that we can demonstrate to IAEA fits the bill as a replacement for Euratom, the new voluntary agreement with IAEA should proceed reasonably straightforwardly. My understanding is that it is a voluntary agreement made by nuclear-possessing powers, and this is clearly about entering into an agreement as a nuclear-possessing power alongside other individual nuclear-possessing powers outside the ambit of Euratom. This would be something that we and the IAEA would want to conclude.
As we have heard, that agreement is still some way off being concluded. We are effectively in a position of preliminary discussions with the IAEA about what an agreement might look like, and how it should proceed. As we have heard, we are being asked to agree to put legislation on the statute book as if that agreement had been concluded. We are to take on trust the fact that the agreement can be concluded in reasonably good time, so that the Henry VIII clauses we discussed this morning could be put in place. We discussed those clauses without knowing when or whether an agreement with the IAEA would be forthcoming, what stage of negotiation we were at, and whether there were particular obstacles in the road, or whether indeed those obstacles had been substantially resolved. It does not look as if we are going to hear anything about the agreement until its conclusion. However, we are part of a Parliament that is putting legislation in place as if we had heard about it.
Richard Harrington
I hope I can help the hon. Gentleman in his quest to answer his grandchildren’s questions about what he did during Brexit and the great time when we were leaving Europe and so on. We all hope that for ourselves and our grandchildren. I completely understand the sentiments behind his new clause, which is reasoned and well argued. I intend to consider it carefully, and will come on to that in a moment.
For the record, new clause 4 seeks to require quarterly updates detailing the progress towards the conclusion of “relevant international agreements”, which is a defined term set out in the Bill. As he said, it means an agreement, whether ratified or not, to which the United Kingdom is a party, which relates to nuclear safeguards and is specified in regulations made by the Secretary of State. I appreciate the objective of the new clause is for hon. Members, both on the Committee and generally within the House, to receive frequent updates on the status of international negotiations in this area. I will begin providing an immediate update on our international agreements relating to safeguards.
The hon. Gentleman said that he had been briefed informally, hopefully by me and others as part of general communications, but I would like to place it on record that the UK has begun formal negotiations with the IAEA on the future voluntary agreements for the application of civil nuclear safeguards in the UK, so that they are ready to be put in place by the time of our withdrawal from Euratom. We are seeking to conclude a new voluntary offer agreement and a new additional protocol on a bilateral basis with the agency. Our intention is that those agreements should follow exactly the same principles as the current ones. The discussions that began last September have been constructive and fruitful, and substantial progress has been made. I fully expect that the new agreements will be put to the IAEA board of governors for ratification in 2018. They will be subject to the usual ratification procedures, including parliamentary consideration.
As hon. Members will be aware, our aim is to maintain our mutually successful civil nuclear co-operation with the rest of the world, and we are working to ensure that arrangements are in place to allow that. Where action is required to ensure that civil nuclear trade and co-operation with non-European partners are not disrupted by our exit from Euratom, the Government are already entering into negotiations to ensure that nuclear co-operation agreements will be in place. Our team are in negotiations with key partners such as the USA, Canada, Australia and Japan. I met Ministers from those countries in Paris last week. The UK has a range of bilateral nuclear co-operation agreements in place with several countries, and we expect those to continue. The work highlights our commitment to ensuring that all arrangements are in place to allow our mutually successful civil nuclear co-operation to continue.
Turning to the specific requirements imposed by new clause 4, as I said, although I appreciate the sentiments behind the clause, I cannot agree to the proposal. As I have just explained, “relevant international agreement” is a defined term referring to agreements already negotiated, and the specification of an agreement as a relevant international agreement is subject to a clear and open process. I fully appreciate the important role that parliamentary scrutiny plays. We have been and will continue to be open and honest with Parliament about ongoing negotiations.
Negotiations on international agreements relating to safeguards are progressing well, and the intention is to present those agreements to Parliament before ratification, before the UK’s withdrawal from Euratom, so that they will come into force immediately on our exit. Incidentally —as I know you will be aware, Mr Gray—international treaties are already subject to the ratification processes laid out in the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010.
Richard Harrington
Thank you, Mr Gray. I note that, in accordance with provisions in the Bill, an international agreement may be defined as a relevant international agreement for the purpose of Bill only if the Secretary of State specifies that agreement in regulations. The Bill provides that such regulations will always be subject to the draft affirmative procedure, providing the opportunity for parliamentary scrutiny of whether an agreement should be a relevant international agreements as defined by the Bill.
As I have established, relevant international agreements are already subject to an open and transparent process. My fear is that imposing an additional reporting requirement would provide little added value and might hinder negotiations, which I know the hon. Gentleman would not want. Indeed, requiring such frequent updates on negotiations could risk weakening our position and might compromise our ability to build rapport and trust with our negotiating partners. I am concerned that that should not happen, but I recognise fully the importance of transparency and the need for Parliament to be able to provide input into the negotiations, so I am sympathetic to the sentiment underpinning the new clause. If the hon. Gentleman is prepared not to press this to a vote—in fact, even if he does—I would like to give the matter some further thought, because I think I can come up with a proposal that strikes the right balance and maximises the transparency that he wants and that I am not afraid of at all. I do not want to impede the progress of these time-sensitive and vital negotiations, which of course involve other parties.
Dr Whitehead
I thank the Minister for giving a constructive response to the new clause without going quite as far as saying that he agrees with it. I hope that he will be able to come up with something that, while not necessarily this proposal, maximises the transparency of the process. We are not only talking about the outcome and a report of the outcome that will come to Parliament. Because of the unique circumstances in which we are legislating while the treaty is being discussed and legislating for something that is quite central to that treaty coming about, it is important we have transparency on the journey as well as the conclusion. If the Minister can work out a device that allows that to happen, which I think he indicated he wishes to think about seriously, we would be happy not to press this. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 5
International agreements: devolved authorities
“(1) The Secretary of State must consult the persons or bodies listed in subsection (2) before concluding—
(a) a relevant international agreement, or
(b) any agreement with EU Member States relating to nuclear safeguarding.
(2) The persons or bodies are—
(a) Scottish Ministers,
(b) Welsh Ministers, and
(c) a Northern Ireland devolved authority.”—(Drew Hendry.)
Brought up, and read the First time.
Drew Hendry
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
New clause 5 states that the Secretary of State must consult certain persons or bodies—the Scottish Ministers, Welsh Ministers or a Northern Ireland devolved authority —before agreement with EU member states relating to nuclear safeguarding.
As mentioned earlier, without confirmation of a transitionary deal, the Government leave a host of unanswered questions about nuclear safeguards. Falling back on World Trade Organisation rules risks the UK breaking international law. As a nuclear weapons state, the UK currently meets some of its safeguards obligations under international nuclear law through a voluntary offer agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency, to which the Euratom community is also a signatory.
A report by the Nuclear Industry Association UK found:
“Falling back on World Trade Organisation (WTO) arrangements in the absence of a replacement safeguards agreement with the IAEA and/or an implementation period with Euratom risks putting the UK in breach of its obligations under international nuclear law and would have a significant impact on the UK nuclear sector.”
Those unanswered questions are big issues. Will the UK Government ensure that the UK’s nuclear facilities are subject to Euratom’s safeguards regime? If they are not to be monitored by Euratom’s inspectors, will the UK negotiate a replacement for the voluntary offer agreement with the IAEA to remain in compliance with international law? How will the UK Government design, resource and implement new UK safeguarding arrangements in line with accepted international standards?
We have already heard that the Minister cannot guarantee that fully trained, certified professionals will be available. What good are safeguards if there is nobody qualified to implement them? While safeguards and safety are reserved, areas of regulation such as waste and emissions from nuclear sites are devolved.
In the light of the Minister’s earlier comments on issues of national security that could arise, the Scottish Government must be involved in the negotiations regarding nuclear safeguards, and the UK Government must involve the Scottish Government at every stage of the negotiation process to ensure that the deal reached works for the people of Scotland. That is equally important for the other devolved Administrations in Wales and Northern Ireland.
Conservative Governments have a poor track record on Scotland and nuclear programmes. They must ensure that Scotland is not turned into a dumping ground for nuclear waste. I say to the Minister that as matters proceed in the House, there is an opportunity for his Scottish colleagues in the Tory party to help us stand up for Scotland’s interests. We look forward to seeing what they do. I hope the Minister accepts that it is only sensible and proper that the Scottish Government and the other devolved authorities are involved in this process in a meaningful way and involved in the negotiations, particularly given that the stakes are so high.
Richard Harrington
I thank the hon. Gentleman for contributing new clause 5. It might surprise him that although I cannot accept what he asks for, I have a proposal for him and the Committee to consider. The new clause addresses the issue of consultation with the devolved Administrations on new international agreements relating to nuclear safeguards. As hon. Members will be aware, the UK Government are responsible for negotiating and signing these international treaties. The ratification of treaties is subject to the Act I mentioned before, the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010, which requires them to be laid before Parliament.
The Government have the power to conclude international treaties under prerogative powers but cannot automatically change domestic law or rights and cannot make major changes to constitutional arrangements without parliamentary authority. That will remain the case for international agreements relating to safeguards that are currently under negotiation, such as the new nuclear co-operation agreements with the US, Canada, Japan, Australia and so on that we have mentioned, and the agreements with the IAEA.
The measures put forward in the hon. Gentleman’s new clause would be a significant departure from the usual position—I know he knows that; it is why he proposed it and it is the policy of his party—and I do not consider it appropriate to accept them. As I said, nuclear safeguards are not a devolved matter, but I nevertheless reassure hon. Members that the Bill already ensures an appropriate level of transparency and scrutiny in respect of international agreements relating to nuclear safeguards, which I have been through before.
New clause 5 refers to “relevant international agreements”, which is a defined term as set out in the Bill. The existing drafting of Bill allows for the inclusion of any relevant international agreements as designated by the Secretary of State, so it is unnecessary to detail individual agreements in the Bill. While I appreciate the sentiment of the new clause, the role of relevant international agreements is already subject to a clear and open process under the Bill. I have explained that before and I do not intend to repeat it all again, unless any members of the Committee wish me to. It is a clear and open process.
On the specific focus of the new clause—consultation with the devolved Administrations, which I know is the hon. Gentleman’s main interest—it appears to require formal consultation with the devolved Administrations prior to our concluding international agreements relating to nuclear safeguards or any agreement with EU member states relating to nuclear safeguards. As I am sure hon. Members are aware, the Bill extends to and applies to England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and in the case of amendments, to the same extent as the provision amended.
As I have said, nuclear safeguards are not a devolved matter. Despite the responsibility legally being the UK Government’s, I hope that our general approach of having an open and transparent process, which is evolving, would be described as reassuring. The Government are acutely aware of the value of consultation in developing this new regulatory regime—obviously with the ONR, but also with the industry generally and formally and informally with parliamentary colleagues. As I have explained before, the nuclear safeguards regime regulations will be subject to detailed consultations with the regulator and industry. Industry stakeholders across the UK, which of course includes Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, will be widely encouraged to take part in that consultation. The outcome of the consultation will then be made public, in line with the Government’s general policy on consultations.
The public consultation on the draft regulations will not be the first or only opportunity for stakeholders to be made aware of our intentions, and it will not be their only opportunity to provide the Government with their views. We have had detailed discussions with the nuclear industry since the referendum, and we will continue to work closely with it and other stakeholders when taking the development of the new regime forward, including the development of regulations. My officials have already been in discussions with colleagues from across the devolved Administrations and the relevant environment agencies, such as the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, Natural Resources Wales and so on, to ensure effective collaborations on key Euratom-related policy areas—including the domestic nuclear safeguards regime—and will continue to do so.
I have been clear that the relevant international agreements will be subject to a clear, open and transparent process involving a high degree of consideration, scrutiny and external engagement. However, I do appreciate the concern behind new clause 5, which is why I already committed to the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran to address her query on consultation with the Scottish Government by writing to her on the subject. I would therefore propose instead, if it will be satisfactory to the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey, to write directly to Scottish Ministers, Welsh Ministers and the Northern Ireland devolved authority on the subject for consultation. In the light of these explanations, I hope the hon. Gentleman feels able to withdraw his amendment.
Drew Hendry
I thank the Minister for his attempts at reassurance. I know that the Minister is genuinely trying to concede some ground and I appreciate that. However, his attempts at reassurance do not really hit the mark. There should be negotiations with the Scottish Government and the other devolved authorities in the light of the devolved responsibilities. It just is not good enough that after the deal is done a consolation might be undertaken with Ministers. That is not the way that this should happen at all. There are significant impacts on the nuclear industry and those devolved responsibilities.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
Richard Harrington
On a point of order, Mr Gray—it is the first point of order I have ever raised. I want to thank you as Chair, and Mr McCabe, who is not here today. I would like to thank the Clerks. I would like to thank hon. Members on both sides of the Committee for their patience, time and valuable contributions. I look forward to seeing the Bill progress in terms of the discussions we shall have before Report and then on Report and beyond. I hope the Bill’s progress continues to be characterised by the spirit of co-operation and conciliation that we have enjoyed. I particularly thank the shadow Minister for that, but also everybody else who contributed.
Dr Whitehead
On a point of order, Mr Gray. I join the Minister in thanking you for your exemplary chairing of our sessions. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] I thank Mr McCabe, too, for his assistance with chairing.
I would also like to thank all Committee members for the constructive and helpful way that we managed to proceed. We had our disagreements. We put those squarely in the open and discussed them, and as a result of those discussions we had a number of exchanges that look to be constructive for the future. I am grateful for the spirit in which Committee stage has been conducted, and I look forward to Report and to the stages that follow with some optimism for the Bill. I am pleased to have taken part in such a constructive endeavour on all our parts.
Drew Hendry
On a point of order, Mr Gray. May I, very simply, associate myself with the remarks made by the Minister and the shadow Minister?
The Chair
All three points of order are of course entirely bogus and out of order, but they are none the less very welcome.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill to be reported, without amendment.