Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill (Fifth sitting)

Greg Knight Excerpts

Tuesday 21st March 2017 Public Bill Committees

[Richard Burden]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That example from the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) makes the point very clearly: there is huge potential to communicate with vehicles—for people who own or rent them, but equally for people who we would not want to be able to communicate with them.

Amendment 14 relates to charge point cyber-security. Clause 12 contains a range of non-exhaustive specifications that a charge point must comply with, and it appears that 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), but I ask the Minister to 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.

New clause 7 is more broadly focused on the cyber-security of automated and electric vehicles themselves. The Bill does not seem to touch on that, but it will be a significant barrier that will need to be addressed if these vehicles are to be deemed safe, secure and reliable. The example that my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South West gave illustrates that point absolutely.

[Sir Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)]

When we talk about hacking, we tend to visualise a spotty youth on a computer in a bedroom, but it can also mean commercial hacking. The company that has provided the charging point may want the data of people who use its facility.

[Richard Burden]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The nature of hacking is that it can come from anywhere if someone knows how to do it. As he says, that can be the individual spotty youth in a bedroom, but hacking can also be done for commercial purposes, which is equally a risk. That is why manufacturers invest millions of pounds putting systems in place to protect future vehicles from being hacked.

That is welcome, but the Government must also play a role, particularly if we are seeking to encourage development and uptake of such vehicles in the UK. Cars will also be particularly vulnerable when serviced. Somebody put it to me the other day that the nature of the information systems in our vehicles are becoming such that taking them to be serviced is a little like taking a laptop to be serviced and handing it over with all its passwords. We need safeguards. It is not beyond the realms of possibility that if those safeguards are not in place, information could be uploaded to or 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 function.

In the case of an automated vehicle, the obvious risk is when driving. In extreme scenarios, people could find themselves going somewhere they do not want to go, travelling at a speed they do not want to travel at or, in the most dangerous case, not stopping when they need to stop. I would welcome an indication from the Minister whether his Department has discussed the issue, and what the assessed risk was of those vehicles being hacked. Furthermore, in line with new clause 7, I ask him to consult the industry on what steps might need to be taken to address that risk and whether Government action will be necessary as part of that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Burden]

I am grateful to the Minister for his comments. On the issue of process and the powers that Ministers will take, I fully accept his point that they are not yet in a position to know the exact regulations for which they will want those powers. We will discuss that issue of process when we consider the next group of amendments. Nevertheless, I accept what he has said, namely that powers are necessary and that regulations cannot yet be drafted.

I am also grateful to the Minister for the commitments that he has given today, first to the publication of the principles on which cyber-security will be addressed—that is really important—and, secondly, to consultation of the kind envisaged by the amendment and new clause 7, and, thirdly, to making the laying of regulations a mandatory issue, not simply a discretionary issue.

I get the impression that the Minister feels passionately about this issue; I think we transported him back for a moment to his previous job as the Minister with responsibility for cyber-security. I have absolutely no doubt that he takes the matter seriously. On the basis of what he has said, I will not press the amendment to a vote. We will reflect on what he has said and on whether to withdraw the new clause when we come to consider it, but for now, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 12 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 13 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 14

Exceptions

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[Sir Greg Knight]

Mr Gray, I know that you are more interested in horses than in brake horses. I always find the Minister intriguing, but I find what he is proposing in this clause particularly intriguing. In subsection (3), he is asking the Committee to agree that regulations may exempt a person or public charging point specified in the Bill. Can he give the Committee an example of the circumstances in which he envisages an exemption being applied?

[Mr Hayes]

I am always delighted to hear from my right hon. Friend on such matters. It might be helpful for me to set out the purpose of clause 14 and, in doing so, address the specific point that he made.

The purpose of the clause is, first, to provide the power to make exceptions to the obligation set out in the regulations and, secondly, to provide a safeguard against situations in which the requirements set out in the regulations flowing from the powers in the Bill have unintended consequences. These include where the regulations risk placing unreasonable requirements on businesses in order to comply, or where technological innovation advances in ways that could not have been anticipated at the time of drafting the regulations. Those are some of the reasons why the clause was drafted in this form.

The effect is to give the Secretary of State the ability to decide that the obligations contained in the regulations made under the Bill do not apply in particular or given circumstances. To ensure transparency, the Secretary of State will be required to publish any determination made using the powers. Being a veteran in all such legislative matters, my right hon. Friend will understand that the purpose of that is to ensure that the clause is used consistently and in a way that is open to scrutiny.

My right hon. Friend asked me about the types of situation in which the power might be used. They include where it would be unreasonable for a person to comply due to their particular circumstances—a good example would be a remote service station with very limited access to grid infrastructure—and where the aims of the regulation may be achieved by means that do not necessarily meet the exact requirements of the regulation—for example, where smart functionality is delivered through an innovation that could not have been anticipated at the point when the regulations were drafted.

Those are two areas where exceptions might be applied of the kind that I have described. Although, I am confident that I have satisfied my right hon. Friend with that assurance; maybe I have not, but that is for him to judge. At least, I hope that he will now understand the purpose of the clause as drafted.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 14 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 15

Regulations

--- Later in debate ---

[Rob Marris]

The hon. Gentleman is quite right that technology develops. I made a caveat at the beginning of my remarks about how I was projecting a scenario 20 or 25 years down the road, but we have a responsibility as legislators to look at that, including all the uncertainties of course.

I think it was Quentin Willson who talked about people in the States using their Tesla cars as repositories of electricity and feeding it out, but said that electricity had to get into the car in the first place, so we had to be a little careful about some sort of perpetual motion machine approach. It is true that if consumers used solar panels during the day to charge their car and dumped the electricity at night when other people were charging their cars, that would be a helpful process for evening out demand. However, it is precisely the sort of thing, I hope encouraged by amendment 15, that Her Majesty’s Government would be working on with National Grid. Trying to forecast human behaviour bedevils all of us as politicians, but it behoves us all to try to do so.

[Sir Greg Knight]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that regulation is not the only way to deal with this? It can be dealt with by incentivised pricing. In the 1970s, many households were encouraged to have night storage heaters in their properties because such units took electricity when no one else wanted it and the consumer paid less for operating one.

[Rob Marris]

I entirely agree. Amendment 15 would give the Government a statutory duty to consult on such matters with National Grid. Assuming that the amendment is accepted, the result of such consultations might indeed be a market-led mechanism. I am not prejudging the outcome, but we need to face up to some facts. I am sure that the Minister will assure us that Her Majesty’s Government are not doing this, but for them simply to sit back and say that because of CO₂ emissions and so on we want lots more people to be driving electric cars—with that already public policy, incentivised in purchase prices, with rebates and so on—and to assume that there will be sufficient electricity generation without actually talking to the National Grid about it, would be very foolish.

A regulatory solution may be required, or part of the solution may be regulatory and part not, but simply hoping, as some might do, that the market will sort it out is a triumph of hope over experience, given for example the vast cost of nuclear reactors and the very long lead time in building them. Nuclear reactors are not the only source of new electricity generation, and there will be technological developments as well, but we need to take that factor into account, and to think about it now.