The Automated Vehicles Bill has hit a roadblock as MPs have highlighted the potential weaponisation of driverless cars as well as the impact on the UK job market.
Proposals included in the Bill forms part of the Government's plans to make travel greener as the country looks to transition to a fully electric world.
Despite driverless cars being described as a “game-changer”, during the second reading of the Bill in the House of Commons, MPs expressed concerns over safety and the potential weaponisation of the vehicles.
Transport Secretary Mark Harper, who is sponsoring the Bill, told MPs that driverless cars are part of the Government’s plans to make the UK a self-driving vehicle industry.
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Transport Secretary Mark Harper told MPs that driverless cars are part of the Government’s plans
PA
The Bill aims to regulate the use of automated vehicles on roads and in other public places and to make other provisions in relation to vehicle automation.
Harper said in the Commons: “Despite Britain having some of the safest roads in the world, it is a reality that the levels of serious injury and road deaths remain too high.
“That could soon change, as I said, if we can eliminate driver error which is involved in 88 per cent of road collisions, you could actually get to the point where self-driving vehicles were a game-changer for road safety.
“They don’t drink and drive, they don’t get stressed, they don’t get distracted, they don’t speed, they don’t get tired and they don’t bend the rules of the road or push their luck.”
Harper added that self-driving cars could help improve accessibility, giving the 340,000 people who are registered blind or partially sighted a new option to travel independently.
He explained how the Bill could help open doors to economic and social opportunities that so far have remained closed.
However, Shadow Transport Secretary Louise Haigh said the mistakes of deindustrialisation cannot be made with the introduction of self-driving cars.
She warned that the Bill does not address the potential impact on jobs from automated vehicles.
As a South Yorkshire MP, Haigh outlined how far too many towns and cities across the north have already suffered enough from lost livelihoods as the new economic model left them behind.
She said: “We simply cannot afford to make those same mistakes again.
“What steps will [Harper] take to ensure this is a technology that creates jobs rather than destroys them, especially in those areas of the country where low-paid work dominates?
“Because it is exactly those areas that are still feeling the ravages of deindustrialisation where driving jobs, warehousing, logistics, all those jobs that bear the highest risks from automation, dominate.”
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The Bill aims to regulate the use of automated vehicles on roads and in other public places
PA
Chairman of the transport committee, Conservative MP Iain Stewart, rebuffed Haigh's concerns by stating that driverless cars could generate new jobs in the UK rather than replace them.
Data from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders showed how 12,000 new direct jobs were created in automotive manufacturing and over 300,000 additional jobs in the wider economy.
Steward added: “So there are economic opportunities, job opportunities, from this new technology.”
The Bill will move onto the committee stage as it progresses to becoming legal where it will undergo further scrutiny by MPs.
