Self-driving event review: APPG Future of Transport, 3 February 2025
On the afternoon of Monday 3 February, we were delighted to attend the Joint APPG Future of Transport Event, featuring parliamentarians and senior representatives from the self-driving, electric vehicle, cycling and road safety industries.
Organised by public affairs specialist Hanbury, and held at Portcullis House in Westminster, it was chaired by new Self-Driving Vehicles All-Party Parliamentary Group chair Chris Curtis, who last year won Milton Keynes North from Ben Everitt, chair of previous incarnation, the APPG for Connected and Automated Mobility.
New Self-Driving APPG Chair
In his opening remarks, Curtis reflected on the Buckinghamshire city’s achievements in pioneering self-driving in the UK. Just days before, he and the Rt Hon Pat McFadden MP had been treated to a ride in our reigning Self-Driving Industry Vehicle of the Year, the Ohmio shuttle, as part of the flagship StreetCAV project.
Encouraging attendees to “find common ground”, the agenda included legislative priorities, technological advancements, and the societal benefits of innovation in transport.
The high-profile panel featured new Self-Driving APPG vice chair Richard Holden (former Under Secretary of State for Roads and Local Transport, now Conservative MP for Basildon and Billericay), Fabian Hamilton (Labour MP for Leeds North East and chair of the APPG for Cycling & Walking), Brian Mathew (Liberal Democrat MP for Melksham and Devizes and officer for the APPG for ClimateTech), and Matt Adams, of the Association for Renewable Energy and Clean Technology (REA), representing the EV APPG.
Curtis highlighted Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ recent keynote speech, “How the UK will kickstart growth”, in which she namechecked Wayve, saying: “Investment and innovation go hand in hand. I want to see the sounds and the sights of the future arriving, delivered by amazing businesses like Wayve and Oxford Nanopore. They are the future and Britain should be the best place in the world to be an entrepreneur.”
Hamilton recounted his experience of riding in an automated vehicle at Tokyo airport, but voiced “legitimate safety concerns, especially for vulnerable road users”. He went on to reference the “careful and competent human driver” benchmark, proposing that AVs should be held to a higher standard – that of “a driver with no faults on their driving test”.
That would be a high bar indeed. According to the Driving Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) of 1,945,225 tests carried from April 2023 to March 2024, just 2% were zero fault drives.
Self-driving discussion
Thereafter, the discussion broadened, touching on EV charging point rollout (Adams noted that all targets have been missed so far!), the urgent need for e-scooter regulation (Hamilton pointed to Germany where they display stickers to show they’re insured), and the benefits of more local decision-making on transport issues (something Holden said he’d pushed for when in office).
Then, there were questions from the audience, which pleasingly included a healthy number of Self-Driving Industry Award winners – Brian Wong of Burges Salmon, Dr Nick Reed, Jamie Hodsdon and Oliver Howes of Oxa, Daniel Quirke and Sarah Gates of Wayve – plus Nick Fleming of BSI, Kelly-Lee James of AXA, and reps from Motability, The Motor Insurers’ Bureau, Tech UK and more.
One point made repeatedly was the need for AV Act secondary legislation to be in place by 2027-28, ahead of widespread roll-out, in stark contrast to the tricky situation we find ourselves in with e-scooters.
It was asserted that self-driving could learn a lot from the aviation industry in terms of regulation and accident investigation. It was also asserted that, as commercial vehicles are involved in a high percentage of road deaths and injuries, especially to pedestrians and cyclists, research into this use case should be prioritised.
Closing, Chris Curtis noted general agreement that self-driving can be gamechanger for safety and mobility in the UK.
For further updates from the Self-Driving Vehicles APPG, you can follow them on Twitter/X – at @SelfDrivingAPPG – and receive a free quarterly newsletter, which you can sign up to here.
![[L-R] Pat McFadden MP and Chris Curtis MP on an Ohmio self-driving shuttle in Milton Keynes](https://sp-ao.shortpixel.ai/client/to_webp,q_glossy,ret_img,w_800,h_600/https://carsofthefuture.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/McFadden_Curtis_Ohmio_Jan25.jpg)
