Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill (Second sitting)

Andrew Selous Excerpts

Tuesday 14th March 2017 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

If Members wish to remove their jackets, that would be fine. Let us try to keep questions and answers crisp.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

Q I have a question for Ms Sayers and Mr Woodall. I understand your concerns, because it is quite a change to your business model, but are you not missing out on future potential? Given that we all expect this to be a growing and significant market, do you not want to be part of it, to capture that revenue? Are you not looking at other ways to make money around this, reimagining your business model a bit?

Teresa Sayers: Absolutely. My members are very keen to engage in the development of alternative fuels infrastructure. As I said earlier, they already have some provision, they are actively exploring how best to develop that and they will happily work with the Government on that, but their considerations as to where it would be appropriate to place these additional electric vehicle sites are around convenience, the identification of strategic corridors, the proximity of the car parks to other retail parks, the duration of time that shoppers typically spend within stores and the size of the car park. All of these considerations are around existing car parks, so there is a willingness for and understanding of the potential growth of this. We are playing our part, but we maintain that the forecourt is not the appropriate place to put this emphasis.

Edward Woodall: I agree. This is about whether the development of the market needs to be regulation-led through the Bill, or whether it needs to be led through making the business case for the fact that this infrastructure is going to grow. The question that comes back to the Office for Low Emission Vehicles is about more research to make a business case for businesses to have these on their forecourts, and about looking at using funding to incentivise the introduction of this new infrastructure, instead of enforcing it. That incentivising might be done through business rates relief for people with very large business rates bills who put these on their forecourt sites, or through direct Government funding to think about how to put these on the sites. There is this question of whether it should be regulation or incentive-led.

[Andrew Selous]

Q Thank you. I have a final question for Mr Nash. Hearing about the training needs of the industry, what preparation is going on in schools and further education colleges to set up courses so that we have enough skilled technicians to service these vehicles in future?

Steve Nash: There are plenty of places around the country that can train people in the technology. Obviously, over time, the new apprenticeship standards will evolve, but it has to be remembered that an apprenticeship is a start, not a finish—we are talking about lifelong learning here. Apprentices will not come out of their apprenticeships ready and available to work on the high-voltage electrics. That will take time, and that is additional training that will come as they develop their career. We as an organisation, a professional body, work with a network of 600 FE colleges, training companies and manufacturers’ academies around the country, many of which are capable of delivering this kind of training. As I said earlier on, it is a sort of chicken and egg situation—a question of supply and demand. They are ready to offer it once people have moved in that direction, but it will not happen on its own.

[Rob Marris (Wolverhampton South West) (Lab)]

Q I want Ms Sayers to clarify a bit. The supermarket I go to every week is, I suspect, like quite a lot of them. It has a large car park—it is one of the major multiples—and alongside but distinct from that car park is a petrol station, which is branded by the supermarket but is a Shell station. As my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden) said, the Bill gives “large fuel retailers” certain responsibilities. Would your members prefer the wording, “large retailers”, to make that clearer? In the supermarket car park, people may typically leave their car for 30 minutes. I am thinking of those old westerns where people hitch up their horse outside the saloon—people hook up their car, grab a trolley, go in to do their 30-minute shop and, when they come out and unplug it, they have had a fast charge. The charging points would therefore be better placed in each parking bay for the supermarket proper, which is not a large fuel retailer at the moment. Is that more consonant with the way in which your members are thinking?

Teresa Sayers: Very much so. Our apprehension about the wording is all about the location of the EV charging point on a forecourt, for the reasons we have discussed.

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[Rob Marris]

Q This stuff would not be optional, would it? The software update, effectively, would not be optional.

Ben Howarth: No, where it is fundamental to the car’s safety, it needs to be non-optional. We are hoping for a system where it is impossible not to get the safety-critical upgrades. I cannot really comment on how much to charge for them.

[Andrew Selous]

Q I just want to return to two groups that miss out on the freedom and opportunities of being able to drive. We talked about older people and disabled people but also young drivers, for whom insurance is often prohibitively expensive, running into many thousands of pounds. What analysis have you done of the advantages of connected and autonomous vehicles over and above taxis, private hire vehicles, getting an Uber? What extra benefits do you see those two groups being able to derive once this technology is established and there is widespread take-up? Have you done any analysis or thinking on the social benefits for those two particular groups?

Iain Forbes: We have not done a research project on this, but I am aware that new products enabled by connected systems are opening up the ability to drive to a wider range of people. For example, younger people now have access to a wider range of insurance products enabled by telematics than was the case previously. Certainly, there is innovation within the industry that I am aware of, which is opening up options for accessing insurance to younger people as well as to some other groups as well.

[Andrew Selous]

Q Has the insurance industry thought about these two groups?

Ben Howarth: The potential limitation is that we do not know when this completely automated technology is going to come to market. We are assuming about 2021, but we cannot be 100% certain. There is quite a gap until then.

Telematics, which Iain mentioned, are not directly linked because it is a plug-in the insurer gives you that is not necessarily built directly into the car, but that is probably the first step towards an insurance policy tailored much more around tracking what you as an individual do, rather than broader risk factors.

Longer term, we are talking about cars that will take away the most common human errors and make the road safer. Increasingly, insurance is going to be tailored around the vehicle rather than how the individual behaves. Where you are talking about younger drivers particularly, their behaviour is going to become less of a factor. So you would not necessarily be thinking about age as a relevant risk factor when you look forward into the future. For older people and people who are vulnerable and do not have access to cars at the moment, this is transformational. We probably have not done any more work than any other witnesses on the evidence of that.

[Alan Brown]

Q I have a couple of questions. The first one is for Ben. We have conflicting information about insurance cost. Insurance cost could be much higher because of the repair cost and the lack of people qualified to do the repairs, as well as the cost of the car itself, but there are also expectations that insurance costs will come down because there will be fewer accidents. Is it fair to say that at the moment there is just not enough information to do accurate modelling to understand what insurance figures are going to look like?

Ben Howarth: I think that some people have tried to do modelling, but there is that uncertainty between those two things. We don’t actually know what the cars are going to cost on the market, and that is obviously going to be a factor in the insurance premiums as well. That said, our members are really enthusiastic about the technology. I think they all recognise that it is the future of driving. We don’t know exactly when it is going to come to the road, but it is going to happen. I think they are going to be very keen to be involved in it from day one, and to therefore be offering competitive products that people will want. So there is a market incentive to say, “Don’t make this too expensive.”

In terms of really detailed modelling on the exact price, we do not know enough. On the technology side, a lot of that is developing now. We are going to get many more assisted cars. They might not be fully autonomous and self-driven, but that technology is the same kind of technology that will eventually lead to automated driving. We have already started work on resolving the questions around how good the repair network is going to be, so it is not just a question of waiting for automated driving and then it switching over.

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[Drew Hendry]

Q Some UK operators have stated that they feel that passenger rights go too far. Which passenger rights do you feel are most contentious in the industry?

Richard Moriarty: A number of airlines have expressed concern not about the principle of compensating consumers for delays, but about the tariff—the amount that is charged. It is important to get the balance right. It was not so long ago that airlines did not take the issue at all seriously. We saw long delays and a lot of consumer detriment as a result. I hear from a lot of chief execs of airlines that although they would wish for a lower tariff, because it is clearly straight off their bottom line, this is not front and centre of their urgent priorities. I do not know whether John would take a different view.

John de Vial: I think that our members would agree. If you look at the package travel directive—that particular piece of work has been updated to allow for a new directive—there is broad industry support for it. I do not think there are any great concerns about it. The EU regulation 261 regime on denied boarding and flight delays is a different issue. A much smaller number of airlines have concerns about the denied boarding piece, but the concerns are principally around the delay regime whereby, through the European Court of Justice process, the same sort of tariff for delays has been adopted as existed and was intended for denied boarding. That is viewed as a rather blunt and sometimes counter-productive regime. The loudest voices are heard around that and there is considerable merit in it being revisited.

On Richard’s point, it is about the level and proportionality of the tariff, where compensation for a few hours’ delay can be a multiple of the purchase of a low-cost ticket. That is seen to be an injustice—it is not the principle of providing the protection, but the way in which it operates.

[Andrew Selous]

Q I would like to come to NATS, which I understand expressed concern about economic uncertainty and market volatility following the Brexit vote. It thought that air travel demand and, therefore, its revenues might suffer. Has there been any evidence of that to date?

Richard Moriarty: Not that I can tell from the financial numbers that I look at. Indeed, in terms of the assumptions that we made with it for the last regulatory settlement, traffic has been better than we predicted.

[Andrew Selous]

Q So that we can have a better understanding of how NATS works, let me ask about the ability to extend the length of its contracts to give them greater financial certainty. What sort of length of contracts do they typically operate with London airports at the moment? What levels of extra investment would you be looking to see NATS make with longer-term contracts, because presumably it is unable to put that in at the moment?

Richard Moriarty: The position is different at different airports and in different regulatory regimes. The issue is the minimum notice period that is required before the Government can terminate the franchise, if you like—for want of a better expression. That minimum notice period counted down. NATS quite rightly, in our view, said, “We need to make long-term investments, and we need to raise debt on the open and private markets.” People looking at a shorter, shorter franchise find it quite difficult.

We did quite a bit of work to look at this. We spoke to financial advisers and looked at other regulatory regimes. Our advice, after looking at the asset price of the business and other regulatory regimes, was that 15 years feels like the right number for NATS. NATS is a slightly different business from some of the asset-intensive industries. It is operational based, rather than capital intensive. Having done the analysis, we very much support the Government provision to move this out from 10 to 15 years.

[Andrew Selous]

Q To clarify our understanding, can you elaborate a little on how the CAA will take action swiftly to protect passenger and staff safety when there is a serious system failure or when some aspect of NATS’s performance is worrying to you?

Richard Moriarty: One of the most important and significant aspects of the Bill is the provision enabling us to take action on past licence breaches. One feature of NATS is that if the systems have an outage, as they did in December 2013, you do not need a lot of time to create a lot of disruption to passengers. For instance, a 24-hour outage led to disruption for nearly 250,000 passengers, and there were 300 cancelled flights. Of course, you can put the system back very quickly—it is a 24-hour event—but if we do not have the power to look at past breaches, there is a risk, on behalf of consumers, that we are going to look toothless. That is one reason why I support the provisions that the Government are putting forward in this regard. I think that is one of the most important aspects of the package.

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[Alan Brown]

Q We have heard that lasers are becoming more common, and you obviously support the proposed legislation. It is similar with drones, which are becoming more accessible and more common. Would you like to see proposals to ensure better regulation and safety with regard to the use of drones?

Steve Landells: From BALPA’s point of view, we would certainly like to see more regulations and toughening up around drones. We understand that a lot of work is going on at the moment and there is a DFT consultation, but yes, it would be good to see drones in there.

Simon Bray: Likewise, whatever regulation comes out and whatever changes there might be to navigation orders and so on, we would like a simple set of regulations for the police to get involved with enforcing.

[Andrew Selous]

Q Chief Inspector Goodwin, I think you were expressing some concern about the increase in sales of lasers recently, and the possible need to regulate their sale. Do we have any figures on recent sales of lasers? Has there been a significant increase recently, and do we have any sense of the split in sales between legitimate use—such as for eye surgery, which we just heard about—and illegitimate use?

Richard Goodwin: I think what we are talking about is laser pens in particular. I suspect my colleagues from BALPA are probably better placed to go into the detail, because they have done some of their own market testing.

Martin Drake: Yes, indeed. When we realised that lasers were becoming an issue, we decided to spend some time looking at what was available. In some parts of the world—in fact, just down the road here—you can go into the local market and buy a laser that purports to be 500 milliwatts. We bought three of those and had them tested, and they varied between 280 and 650 milliwatts. They are about $20, give or take, and they are readily available.

At the higher end—you tend not to be able to buy those on the street; you have to go to the internet—a quick search will show you that they are available. The price has fallen considerably. When we started 10 years ago, £700 would be what you would pay for the most powerful laser. You can buy a 5-watt laser today off the internet for around $269. I do not think anyone has done the numbers, but experience tells me they are probably out there and being used.

There are certain countries where you cannot post a laser to over the internet; the USA springs to mind. You can only buy legitimate lasers from legitimate sources in the US. One of the companies we have investigated clearly says on its website: “We cannot post these products to the USA”. They are out there and they are relatively easy to buy. The advertising is up there and if you are of that mind, you can burst balloons, set fire to matches and do all these lovely things, make your cat chase around the room with it. They are up there. The advertising is there, so there is a market.

[Andrew Selous]

Q As a supplementary, if the legislation before us does not provide the redress that we are all urgently seeking, given the seriousness of this problem outlined by Mr Baker and others, what would be the appropriate follow-on action and within what timescale?

Martin Drake: We would like to see some import control on the recreational lasers, if I can refer to them as recreational lasers rather than legitimate lasers. That is possible; we restrict the importation of all sorts of things, so I think that is doable. We have got the problem of the ones that are here already, but that is something we can address.

[Andrew Selous]

Q Do I detect there is a slight sense of urgency on this and we probably want to see how this legislation goes and if there is not an improvement, you would be looking to Government to review the situation again, with a view to taking further action? Is that a fair summary?

Martin Drake: Absolutely. We started off with a laser that was about 1,200 milliwatts—we purchased one at 2,500 milliwatts. We sent it up to the University of Manchester and had both the power and collimation checked and it did what it said on the tin. We are seeing lasers today at 3.5 watts, 5 watts, and there is somebody claiming to sell you a 10-watt one. I am not quite sure how legitimate that particular advert is. Every so often, we are seeing the technology double—I am sure there is a rule for that. What gives us cause for concern is that as the power of these lasers goes up, the dazzle and distract effect on my colleagues could be such that you might not only incapacitate one pilot; you might incapacitate both of them. Then you have a problem on your hands.

At the moment, the laser normally comes through a side window and the pilot who happens to be sitting on that side is the one who takes the brunt of it and it is possible to hand over control to the other pilot and put some compensatory measures in place. We have shone the really bright ones at aircraft windows we have in the office—windows that have come off aeroplanes out of service—and it is really impressive to see what you can do even with the power of lasers that we have. We do see some urgency in this and we see the development going in the wrong direction. We would be seeking powers for the Government to do something.

[Andrew Selous]

Q Can I come to the police and the operational aspect of this? With the extra powers in this Bill, what confidence do you have as police officers in your colleagues’ ability to swiftly apprehend culprits?

Simon Bray: There are limitations, come what may. There are delays between us getting the information from air traffic control through the pilots to being able to identify the people on the ground and the locations of the premises where people might be. It is difficult anyway, if you are in an aircraft coming at that speed and height, to identify specifically where that will be. That is why we have benefited from police helicopters getting involved. This will be a better reactive set of options than is currently the case. However, it does not allow us to be preventive and proactive in the way we would like. That is where we come into not just powers around stop and search—as I say, judiciously used—but also the whole bit about possessing these things and being able to access them in the first instance.

If our police officers come across a group of youths who have got these things, what are they there for? What are they going to be doing with these items? Playing with them, but in what way? There is potential harm among friends, let alone people they do not like. If they have got them, there is the potential use for damage and mischief.

[Andrew Selous]

Q Are you satisfied that the means you have to influence Government are sufficiently robust and flexible that if you were to speak to Ministers in a few months’ time, or after this legislation has gone through, because it was still a problem, that the system would react with the degree of seriousness that you suggest it should?

Simon Bray: Both the Home Office and the Department for Transport have been keen to engage with us and to listen to what we say. They have worked with us closely on this, so I am confident that they will be listening and asking us questions.

[Andrew Selous]

Q My final question—I do not know if you have a copy of the Bill in front of you—is on clause 22(2), which is about the defence that could be offered if someone did not intend to commit an offence and was exercising all due diligence. I am struggling a bit to imagine an astrologer near an airport or a surveyor working late at night on some building project. Who do you think clause 22(2) has in mind? It is probably right that it is in the Bill, but I am struggling to see who might legitimately use that defence.

Paul Watts: We have seen lasers used in light displays. I could see a laser being used in a light display and someone not realising that it is in proximity to an aircraft flight path.

[Andrew Selous]

Q Does that happen often? Are there light displays that are permitted to take place near airports or flight paths?

Paul Watts: Not necessarily near airports, but certainly in cities and large urban areas. You would not expect them on the flight path into a major airport, but you do see lasers used by nightclubs and the like.

[Andrew Selous]

Q Are light displays a current issue for pilots?

Martin Drake: Generally speaking, no. The laser displays tend to be very broad beam—there is little collimation to the lasers. Displays tend to be licensed if they are close to airports, and we are usually told when they are there, so that is not really the issue. Paris has a laser that spins around the Eiffel tower, and Greenwich has one that goes up the Greenwich meridian at the moment. Those are not a problem to us at all. They tend to be low-level and pointed down across the heads of the crowd rather than up into the air.

One thing the measure would address is search and rescue. They have a thing called a laser flare, which has a fan of laser that, again, is not well collimated. The search and rescue aircraft can see those things for miles, so if someone is bobbing around in a little dinghy or is stuck on the top of a hill it is really useful. Obviously someone would not be intending to dazzle and distract—they would be intending to be rescued. I think there are legitimate uses that would be absolutely fine.

Steve Landells: Airliners tend to be going into a predictable place, whereas helicopter operators tend to operate in areas where you might not normally expect air traffic. It is probably not such a big issue for the airlines.

Simon Bray: But for people who, for example, have a laser and want to shine it on the clouds, the big question is whether they have exercised all due diligence and taken all reasonable precautions. That is going to be the crux of it at court.

[Richard Burden]

Q May I move on to another subject? In the previous panel I asked Mr Moriarty to comment on the fact that there is nothing in the Bill relating to the regulation of drones. It is an omission from the Bill that has been commented on in a number of quarters. Do the rest of you have any observations on whether the Bill could be usefully extended to say something about drone safety? If so, what?

Steve Landells: From BALPA’s point of view, we would like to see the Bill extended to include drones. The prime thing we would like to see is a mandatory registration process for drones. At the moment, anyone can buy a drone and fly it anywhere, and they do not have to take any responsibility for it. At the moment, if the police find a drone inside the environs of an airport or on the runway, they have no idea who that drone belongs to. We would really like to see a compulsory registration process.

Perhaps before first flight you would have to go online to get an unlock code. During that process we could get exposure to the rules and an online test for a drone operator. That would also mean that the operators would have an idea of what the rules were. A lot of the problems being caused by drones are through ignorance— 17 near-misses were reported between manned aircraft and drones last year—so we need to educate the people flying the drones that there are rules and regulations in place. It is a dangerous thing to do, and we think that a compulsory registration scheme would address a lot of the problems.

Simon Bray: We would not disagree with that. We are mindful that there need to be restrictions around particular locations, as there are currently. However, in the case of aircraft, it matters not hugely where you put in those restrictions; it is the whole bit about the flight paths in and out that we have concerns about.