Among 21 Bills mentioned in today's King's Speech, the planned legislation to create a new framework for the safe deployment of autonomous or automated vehicles (AVs) is probably of the most interest to stakeholders connected to the UK motor insurance market.

The material the government provided with the Speech indicates that the Automated Vehicles Bill is intended to take forward the comprehensive recommendations made by the Law Commission in its final report on AVs published over eighteen months ago, in January 2022.

Despite a promising indication in early autumn 2022 that legislation was on the way - which we summarised here - progress then stalled due to changed political priorities, but we now have the confirmation that there will be legislation during the new Parliamentary session that began today and will end before the next general election. The background material published by the government repeats the statements made in 2022 that the future regulatory framework envisaged will be very closely based on the Law Commission's proposals.

Along with civil liability and insurance - which, to a large extent, are already addressed by the Automated and Electric Vehicles Act 2018 - preservation of and access to driving data generated within AVs and their self-driving systems will be a critical issue for claims processing. It is likely to be one of many matters in this Bill on which the government will very likely need to consult widely on potential options for secondary legislation to deal with important matters of fine detail.

 A broad outline of the main elements of the AV Bill and its impacts on society and industry may be found at pages 21 - 24 of the King's Speech background briefing published by the government earlier today.