Clive Efford
MP for Eltham and Chislehurst · Labour · United Kingdom
“Thank you for allowing me to take part in this statement, Madam Deputy Speaker, given that I was not here at the beginning—I was carrying out my duties elsewhere in the House. I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement. What is she likely to do in my part of south-east London for technical and vocational places?”
“I rise to speak to amendment 97 in my name, which would remove clause 10 from the Bill. Clause 10 gives powers to the Secretary of State to vary the proportion of public and private provision of health services if they consider that to do so is in the interests of the health service.”
“Labour’s 2024 plan to make work pay set out a welcome desire to bring more essential services back into public control—something that is welcomed by health workers across the country, because so far the “biggest wave of insourcing in a generation”, as was promised, has felt more like a trickle when it comes to the NHS.”
“The explanatory notes for the Bill say that this new flexibility is necessary “where there may otherwise be a breakdown in provision of a health service.” Can we imagine a situation where the Secretary of State has concerns about a health service and that an approach to assist a local provider would be rebuffed?”
“There are ample powers to enable the Secretary of State to intervene and resolve breakdowns in the provision of a health service. On clause 10, we must balance what it adds in those situations against its potential misuse by an ideologically driven Government that are determined to privatise our NHS.”
“It was a pleasure to join my right hon. Friend at Greenwich council’s development of 435 council properties in my constituency for the launch of the social and affordable housing programme. Some 70,000 homes are planned, and that is welcome and overdue.”
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“Q On the issue of vehicles being connected in convoy on the motorway, are you saying that there should be a specific reference or clause in the Bill about connected vehicles and how they behave? Rob Johnston: There is a definition that the ITF and a number of organisations such as the European Automobile Manufacturers Association and the International Transport Forum at the OECD have worked to establish. It sets out five layers of automation. We believe that will be a useful reference point for looking at how to define what automation really means. In those five layers are different degrees of automation. The previous evidence alluded to that in some ways.”
“Q Are you satisfied that that is covered in the Bill or should there be reference to those five? Rob Johnston: No, we believe that the Bill should be expanded to cover those five areas. If you look at technological development, it is likely that those layers will come to fruition in their current format.”
“Q Would those five layers cover all forms of transport as time goes on, not just lorries on smart motorways but vehicles that are passing one another, approaching one another in built-up areas and communicating with one another? Would it cover all those areas of automation? Rob Johnston: Yes, it would. The layers run from driver assistance at the lowest level to full automation at the highest level, and everything in between.”
“In September 2017, they came up with some guidance on how they believe these algorithms should be programmed, and that is a useful reference point.”
“Q Is it your understanding that automation governs all aspects of the vehicle, so they cannot speed and will obey the speed limit at all times? Rob Johnston: I think that there is a question, which the Bill tries to deal with, on regulation. In order to accept the fully automated vehicle, you would have to accept a number of criteria around the algorithms that would do that, and they pose some questions. Essentially, the vehicle would need to be able to make choices between certain decisions. For example, if the vehicle was involved in an accident or there was a crash, it would need to have an algorithm that would define which course of action it took. I think that area really needs further regulation. In Germany, for example, they have established a body to deal with that: High-Tech Strategy.”
“The Bill does not cover that, and it would be helpful, certainly for drivers and for the confidence of other road users, if, when I see an automated vehicle on the road, I know that it has been properly updated and the vehicle has a professional driver or worker who has ensured that the updates have been made.”
“Q If, under clause 4, an employer were to compel a driver to take a vehicle on the road that does not comply or have all the safety-critical software downloaded, should that be a criminal offence on the part of the employer? What should be included in the Bill to deal with that? Adrian Jones: I am not sure if it would be included in this Bill. There are already regulations in force through the Traffic Commissioners’ office for operators who infringe on maintenance, for example. The key, for this Bill, is how the driver would know whether or not that vehicle is fit. At the moment, a driver is expected to carry out a daily check to ensure that the mechanical aspects of the vehicle are fit for road use. How can they check that the software has been updated appropriately, and who will be held responsible if it is not?”
“If I were to bet my money, I would say that the guys who are counting every penny will probably be the first in—people running fleets and large numbers of vehicles—but some people are clearly very attracted to the thought of having driverless capability. That could be from time to time, or it could mean freedom and independence for people who are currently denied that by the fact that they cannot drive, and we have just been engaged in a report on what it means for people with disabilities.”
“Q What is the incentive to develop the automated car technology? Is it large fleet owners who employ a lot of drivers wanting to cut down on their overhead staff costs? Or is it the private car industry? Steve Gooding: From a consumer perspective, I would have to say that we do not really know yet, but there is a broad spectrum of what might happen next. For example, there is a clear incentive for a fleet operator who is counting every penny to be thinking, “How could I reduce my costs of operation?” Whether that is a fleet of vans or trucks, the operator would be looking at automation as a way of, first, saving money, and secondly, sweating the asset of that truck for longer hours. In turn, we are seeing a huge amount of investment in the auto sector in vehicles for the private market.”
“Q Are we not a long way off from those sort of automated vehicles? Steve Gooding: I think David would say we are four years off. Personally I think it is probably nearer 10. Steve Nash: Ten.”
“If level 5, which is without a steering wheel, is not going to be as far off as 10 years, it is likely to be deployed in the first instance for first and last-mile journeys, perhaps even in pedestrianised areas—on pavements—as we have seen with some of the trials in Greenwich, as well as in Milton Keynes. As to when those level 5 vehicles without steering wheels are capable of performing end-to-end journeys—from my house in the village to my office in the city—that is anybody’s guess. That will probably be some time in the 2030s. It is quite complex.”
“Q There is a difference between an automated vehicle that can undertake a journey on a motorway and a vehicle that would have to drive around the roads here in Westminster. If it is going to provide that sort of access for someone who cannot drive at the moment because of a physical disability, it has to be that high level—level 5—of automation. David Wong: Correct. In the first instance, when I referred to 2020-21, I was referring to level 4—vehicles that will still have a steering wheel. That means under the right conditions, in the right use cases—for example, from junction to junction on a motorway—someone could let the system drive the vehicle, but could take back control outside that use case.”
“Q Can I ask about the figure of 95% of accidents caused by human error? Who else can drive a car and cause an error? At the moment we do not have automated vehicles. Is that not a bit of an obvious point—most accidents are caused by humans because cars, de facto, are driven by humans? David Wong: I suppose you could—”
“I mean that in the sense that it is not mechanical fault, lack of road markings or slippery roads, but the human being that caused the accident, perhaps by being inattentive or sometimes even perhaps by doing things that they are not supposed to do.”
“Q Can we expect that figure to go down as a proportion of the accidents, as we increase the level of automation? David Wong: Yes. In principle, one would not argue that a computer is less safe than a human being. Obviously, the capability of a human being to perceive and perform the driving of a car is limited and depends on the human being’s condition and the road conditions, as well as the environment in which the human being has been conditioned to perform the dynamic driving task. Lots of evidence has been published. The figures range from 90%; some are at 97%. We are taking the average figure, which is that 94% of all serious road accidents involving fatalities are caused by the human being.”
“The learning from that was that Google had to tweak the algorithms to ensure that the self-driving vehicle—the computer—behaved a little bit more like the human being. They succeeded in doing that, and today you do not get so many of the rear-ending accidents. Steve Nash: It is also important to say that these vehicles will be connected. When one experiences something, the knowledge is passed to all of them, which does not happen today.”
“But even the slow-moving vehicle in Greenwich hit a plastic chair when it was put in front of it, did it not? We are going to see accidents during a journey where the vehicle is being driven by software. Those accidents are going to happen. The periods when a vehicle is not driven by a human are going to increase, so we are likely to see an increase in the number of accidents that are not human error. Is that right? David Wong: We think that overall the number of accidents will fall, but if anything can be learned from one of the trailblazers of the self-driving car experiments and trials—Google—it is that the earliest accidents that they encountered a number of years ago when the car was being trialled were the result of the cars being rear-ended by manually driven vehicles.”
“Q I was going to come to that, if the Chair indulges me. You touched on the issue of the vehicles making decisions. In an incident where a vehicle is being driven by software on an automated journey and a child runs out in the road in front of the vehicle, the vehicle can either veer to the left into oncoming traffic or to the right on to the pavement, or it can knock down the child, because the child is too close for it to be able to stop. How do we make a moral judgment about how a vehicle should behave in those circumstances? David Wong: This is the classic trolley problem question that we get asked almost at every single conference that we attend—”
“At the end of the day, someone who writes the algorithm will have to decide. If you insist that the car must decide, it is incumbent on the engineers to programme that into the algorithm.”
“Q Yes, but we have to legislate. David Wong: Not at this point, but at some point certainly. First, if you take a cue from the ethics commission report that was published in Germany just a few months ago, it suggested that in any case, human life should always be prioritised. If it is a decision between a human and non-human, obviously the human life would have to be prioritised. That is No. 1. Secondly, we should not expect the car to do anything massively different from how a human being would behave. The car should perform a minimal risk manoeuvre to stop and brake in such a way that the impact will be minimal. To expect the car to make an ethical decision to kill A or B is probably not the right approach. I would suggest that none of us has the divine power to decide who to kill.”
“Q So no evasive action would be taken. The vehicle would just— David Wong: There would be a minimal risk manoeuvre, depending on the situation. There may be evasive action in such a way that it would be the safest possible option. If it needs to stop, it will brake and stop. May I point something out? I mentioned autonomous emergency braking. It has been demonstrated that the technology is improving all the time. Previously, autonomous emergency braking worked perfectly at 30 mph, which is urban speed, but it is becoming increasingly sophisticated. AEB can work well even at 50 mph. It would not surprise me if the technology improved in years to come to the stage where autonomous emergency braking could kick in at motorway speeds of 70 mph to prevent an accident or lessen the impact of an accident.”
“Q Anyhow, this is about automated vehicles. When automated vehicles and conventional vehicles share the roads, will the question of who is liable for accidents become more complicated? Quentin Willson: Enormously complicated. It is not my area of expertise, but the question I would ask is: can they co-exist peacefully? Can the connected and the unconnected in the UK’s very limited road space exist? Can those cars that drive themselves be allowed to co-exist with the cars that are driven by human beings? Will there necessarily be some friction during that period? I think that in the short to medium term, it is going to take some time.”
“Q Do you think that the legislation goes far enough on that? Do you think that there should be more in the Bill? Quentin Willson: I think we need to be very careful that we know exactly who is liable, because there will be quite a few accidents, whether it is the manufacturer, driver, network provider or road provider. It has to be established very early on.”
“Q Can I move on to this issue about the transition from automated vehicle to a person taking over? We have heard various descriptions about the length of time that might take. You say that we need to be clear about the moment that the driver becomes responsible and the software is not, but is there an issue around safety caused by that transition? Quentin Willson: Inevitably you will get a feeling of complacency, of reliance on the technology, and if there is an emergency situation or you leave the automated road system to the non-automated road system, you will have to have that moment of what we call extreme alertness. Consumers need to be trained for that and we need to be ready. If that is a legal transitional moment, where you take the wheel having been driven autonomously, that could be an issue as well.”
“We are not trained to do that and we cannot. It is a split-second thing that happens and legislating for it would be enormously difficult.”
“Q On the moral issues that are raised by algorithms that control these vehicles at a time when there is an accident, a scenario I used earlier on was that of a child stepping out in front of an automated vehicle, and to the left there is oncoming traffic and to the right there are pedestrians on the pavement. How do you legislate what you require of the vehicle in those circumstances? Quentin Willson: I do not think that artificial intelligence will ever be trained to be able to make those moral decisions, and when we take a driving test we are not trained to make them either, so it is a difficult area to think we can resolve. Can we ever expect artificial intelligence in an automated car to make that split-second moral decision between the child in the pushchair or the old people in the Nissan Micra? I do not think we can.”
“Q So what will happen? Quentin Willson: I am not an expert on artificial intelligence in cars at the moment, but it will be, depending on the sensors, the object that has the least resistance.”
“The golden era of getting pleasure from driving cars has gone, and I say that with some regret, but it is a fact. There was a survey by Catapult in Milton Keynes which asked this question: if you were to replace your current car with an autonomous car—we are not going to tell you what it is or what it looks like—would you be prepared to change to that autonomous car? Some 58% said that they would change to the autonomous car without knowing what it was, simply because of the liberation of not having to make those decisions and sit impotently in snarling traffic. It is partly driven by commerce and partly by the public.”
“Q I will leave it there. One last question on what is driving this forward—that was not an intentional pun. Is it the desire of companies that employ large workforces that drive vehicles which are striving for automated vehicles, or is it the demand from the public, which wants to sit comfortably behind the wheel and not have to think too much for long journeys? Quentin Willson: It is driven, I guess, by the fact that there is a huge world of opportunity here and that is predicated on the fact that people do not like driving anymore—there is congestion, it is expensive and it is difficult—and on the rent economy, whereby you summon an automated car on your smartphone and it comes to your door. When you look at the research, that is very attractive to the public.”
“The idea is that we are operating in normal streets with normal road signs at normal road speeds and obtaining and exceeding human levels of safety.”
“Q What will be the limit of the speed that your vehicles can travel at in an urban area? Stan Boland: We are kind of hoping that we can operate at normal driving speeds. To be able to do that, it is important that we can predict behaviours. We cannot have a system that is collision-avoidance only, because that would result in frozen robots all over the city and would make congestion worse. What we humans do is anticipate human action. We actually run more than one world in our heads, and are constantly looking to see whether that world is turning into reality or some other world is going to happen. That allows us to merge on to full lanes of traffic, for instance. We cannot just have a system that is collision-avoidance only, because we would make traffic worse.”
“Q In 2019, your vehicles would be the only automated vehicles on the road. Stan Boland: At that point it is a trial, so there is a safety driver in the car. The safety driver is able to take control of the vehicle immediately.”
“We are building a system where the cognitive capability of the car is in control, but for the purpose of testing, until it is actually legal to offer that service, there will always be a driver in the car who can take over instantly.”
“Q All the research that I have seen in preparing for this Committee shows that there is a time lag in the transition from the vehicle being under automated control to being under driver control. Your vehicles will not have that. Stan Boland: You are describing what is called level 3 autonomy, which is a system where the car is under automated control and then there is a warning to give a human driver time—there is a debate about what that warning time should be—and then the human is meant to take over. We think that system is intrinsically unsafe. It is much better if either the human is in control or the system is in control—that is a fully automated, level 4 or level 5 system.”
“Q But there is an issue about when drivers take over from automated vehicles: they are over-cautious and slow down. There are concerns about whether that is dangerous at that moment in time and also it increases congestion because you suddenly have loads of slow-moving vehicles. You seem to be suggesting a flick of a switch and that it goes from driver to automated. Stan Boland: While we are testing it. We are talking about a period when we are testing the capability of the vehicle in our existing cities. It is level 4—a highly automated or fully autonomous system—but for the period between now and a regulatory capability of doing this and, moreover, underwriting the risk of it, we have to have a driver in the car to take over.”
“Q As the legislation is drafted, as long as somebody insures you, there is nothing stopping you putting that vehicle on the road for an experimental period in 2019. Stan Boland: As long as there is a safety driver who can take over the car. That is not the same as somebody watching a Harry Potter movie while the car is self-driving. We are talking about a qualified driver who is paying full attention to the road scene all the time and can take over.”
“The best contribution to the negotiations that the Government can make is the Prime Minister having a deep and special relationship with her fellow Cabinet members. If we are within touching distance of a common agreement, as she has said several times, it is surprising that there are so many different positions coming from her Cabinet colleagues so close to the recent summit. Can she get a grip of her Government, because that would be the most significant contribution to our negotiating position?”
“Is the Minister going to set out the scope of the intelligence and decision making of the vehicles that he is describing? For instance, some automated vehicles are capable, in the event of an accident, of assessing the situation and deciding which course of events is likely to cause the least amount of injury. To what degree does the Bill cover the decision-making process of those vehicles?”
“If in making a moral decision—for instance, between hitting a child on the road and careering into a bus—a computer decides that hitting a child is the less dangerous option, what comfort is that to the parents? These are major issues to which we need answers before we allow vehicles with these capabilities on to the roads.”
“May I pursue the issue of insurance policies and who will be liable? In the event of a collision between a human-driven vehicle and a vehicle that is being driven by its computer technology, will the insurance company assume, given that 95% of accidents are due to human error, that the computer is right and the human is wrong and is therefore at fault?”
“What happens if a vehicle is under the control of the software and has an accident with a vehicle being driven by a human or with a pedestrian, and the technology is then checked and is found to have been in perfect operating order? Is it the case that the human is assumed to be at fault? We need an answer to that question because it will have an enormous impact on how insurance companies approach decisions about who is at fault and who should get a payout.”
“One of the impact assessments that accompanies the Bill refers to “connected and automated” vehicles, but the Bill is silent on connected vehicles, and I wonder why. Maybe the Minister will touch on that. Perhaps I am being too much of a conspiracy theorist, but the topic of “connected and automated” vehicles opens up a whole different range of issues from the straightforward automated vehicles as I understand it. The Minister will correct me if that is not the case. The issue that concerns me is that the software has to make a whole load of decisions when it is operating or driving the vehicle. We have heard from the Minister, and it is accepted, that somewhere between 90% to 95% of vehicle accidents occur due to human error.”
“I welcome the Bill. I will concentrate my remarks on the issues surrounding automated vehicles, but I support all the points that have been made about electric vehicles, particularly those regarding compatibility and infrastructure. We do not want people to be inconvenienced by different connectors and things like that. That is an obvious point to make, but one that has been overlooked in the past and that was well made today. Clearly, it is a technology for which the time has come. The batteries have a longer life and the vehicles can now travel further as a consequence. The environmental benefits are obvious and the cost of the vehicles is starting to come down, making them much more accessible, so I very much support that element of the Bill.”
“The part of the flight that is controlled by a pilot only lasts for a few minutes. Many people do not appreciate the fact that most of their flight is now controlled by a computer. We are only a fraction away from technology whereby a plane could be flown without a pilot at all. If there were an incident and the plane had to be taken over by someone who is capable of flying it, that could be done from an air traffic control centre. We do not have to have the pilot on board. That technology exists, but the air industry is not imposing that upon us by removing pilots from aeroplanes because public opinion is so much against the idea of fully automated flights.”
“We must try, as much as possible, to be ahead of the technology, because one thing is becoming quite clear in the debate around emerging technologies: the huge companies are getting ahead of the regulators and legislators, and driving the barriers backwards. Take, for instance, the recent situation with Uber in London, where the Mayor of London had to step in and take action. There are other examples of technology driving regulators to distraction and forcing us to catch up, such as Airbnb. In some cities, rents have been driven up because of the sudden availability of businesses and people hiring out their properties. Legislation has consequences and so does this Bill. Automated planes fly on a daily basis; most of the flights that we all take are fully automated.”
“But let us imagine an incident where there is an automated vehicle on the road that is capable of making a decision about how to evade an accident. If a child suddenly ran out in front of the vehicle, the software would be trying, in a split second, to make a decision about the safest evasive action, if any, to take in order to avoid running the child over. We are then immediately in the situation where a machine—a piece of computer software—is making a moral judgment. If we are to open ourselves up to the situation whereby connected and automated vehicles have to make such judgments when incidents or accidents are about to happen, we legislators have to be aware that such eventualities will come around.”
“I will not, if the right hon. Gentleman does not mind. I am trying to make a little bit of progress, but I may give way in a while. The Minister said that he has visited the site in Greenwich that is testing automated vehicles. I was not there, but I heard of an incident where somebody threw a chair in front of the automated vehicle and the vehicle smashed into the chair. That raises the question of what would happen if a child ran into the road. Now, the accident with the chair may have happened even if the vehicle had been driven by a human. The chair may have flown out in front of the car far too late for the car physically to be able to stop, whether driven by a machine or by a human being.”
“Yes, but driverless trains drive on a dedicated track. My point is that such technology is not being implemented in an area where the possibilities already exist—pilotless planes. Yet we are prepared to roll out that technology on our streets and our roads, where quite a complex range of incidents could occur and where vehicles being driven by software will come into contact with humans. I accept that the technology is here. We will have to accept that there will be demand for these types of vehicles, not least driven by the huge companies such as Uber, which already has driverless cabs on the streets of Pittsburgh. We are seeing technology driven forward by these large companies, but we as legislators have to start looking at some of the issues that arise around the moral questions that may have to be answered by machines.”
“I am not arguing against the technology, or arguing that it should never be applied. I am not suggesting for a minute that we should hold it back or deny the opportunities for our economy that developing such technology will open up. However, it is unavoidable that there are moral questions for us as legislators to answer about where we are going with this legislation and this technology, and I hope the Government are listening.”
“I would therefore like the Secretary of State to have to list in clause 1 the types of technology that can be attached to these vehicles, so that we have some idea of where we are actually going and some control over that. This general reference to an automated vehicle does not allow us to consider the situation where this technology is placed on our roads and where moral judgments are made by a piece of software. We as legislators have to pay great attention to that. I do not want to see the door opened wide to this technology by default as a result of this Bill. As the barriers are pushed back by this sort of technology, I would like the moral questions that are raised about machines making these decisions to come back to us, so that we can judge whether we are going in the right direction and whether that is where we want to go.”