With regard to the consultation, you will remember that this work has taken a number of years; it was the Scottish Law Commission that did the work and conducted the consultation, and there is probably a list somewhere of the people whom it consulted.

We should remember that this is a UK Government bill. Quite often legislation comes out of Law Commission reports, and this legislation has come out of its recommendations, too. However, I will bring in Jim Wilson to talk about the issues and what I suspect will be a need for on-going attention to be paid to licensing issues with regard to the taxi and bus industry in this respect.

It could have been better, but I recognise that this is a complex area. At the heart of this is a failure to differentiate between the technology of the automated vehicle and the rules of the road. The rules of the road are, in effect, devolved, whereas the monitoring of the technology is, as we appreciate, a reserved matter under the provisions in the Road Traffic Act 1988 on standards of vehicles. The issue is that now there is this bridge to the vehicle becoming the driver as opposed to what happens in the cars that you and I drive, regulation of which is reserved. The issue is the interaction with the rules of the road.

I do not want to put officials in the position of having to say where they are with that discussion. To be fair, it is a challenging area.

Yes, and that is exactly what clause 50 could lead to. I am not saying that it will lead to it, but it could.

Some local authorities have requested to increase the amounts of fines for bus-lane infringement in Scotland, which are a devolved matter. What you have described is a good example of what the UK Government bill, as it is currently drafted, would enable. If you had a judgmental view about trying to drive the market towards use of automated vehicles, for example, you might want a differentiated system, but I do not think that that makes sense.

On the point about the rules of the road, it would be easier for everybody if they are consistent and there will be a period where there will be hybrid use. There will be us, then there will be everybody else as well as user-in-charge vehicles and so on. There will be a period of hybrid activity and I do not think that it would make sense for that differentiation between rules of the road, fines and so on, to happen.

I am not saying the UK Government would do that, but it is exactly what clause 50 would enable and allow.

Yes. George Henry may want to come in on that. Is that a good explanation, George?

We will all have to consider those things as we go forward, as AI and automated vehicles increasingly become part of our everyday life. As I say, it is a journey for everybody to go on. Is that sufficiently short for you, convener?

I assume that they have, but you asked me about what their view is about clause 50 and I do not want to misrepresent them on that.

We will get the correspondence to you right away. We will check what we know about the Welsh position and if we do not know about it, we will also let you know that.

Whether we are talking about the current system or any other system that is provided under the Transport (Scotland) Act 2019, we would want to be able to implement and operate smart ticketing. There is not an interdependency, but there is a correlation.

It makes sense that we optimise what we can do, which everyone is up for. I understand that the Glasgow tripper ticket was introduced, which works between different operators and can be accessed on a mobile phone. We know from research that more people want to use their mobiles as opposed to a card for tickets. We need to ensure that there is an understanding of what technology is commonly used so that we can develop those systems in order for there to be a common interoperability, whatever the type of operation.

It is really important that we have industry experts. On the board, Strathclyde Partnership for Transport is represented, and we have Alex Hornby, whom many of you will know is the group managing director at McGill’s Buses. Those people, who run organisations, are providing their expertise. I do not want to put them off their membership by saying that they will be on the board forever.

We want to ensure that the board’s output is timely, to help us to move forward with technology and smart ticketing. I am due to meet the chair shortly to look at its work programme.

Members of the board can be reappointed, but we want to make sure that they can get on with the job. They are very keen. If you have not seen them, reading the minutes of the board’s first meeting last November might be helpful background. That shows their enthusiasm in scoping the challenges in relation to getting a more operable and interoperable system, which is what we all want.

I am considering your question. Regardless of the powers in the 2019 act, we would still be able to have interoperability, and we already do under the current system in many areas. We have integrated tickets on a more regional basis. Should any issues arise, we have someone from a local transport authority represented on the board; she is also the chair of the Association of Transport Co-ordinating Officers.

Different local authorities or regional transport partnerships will want to do different things. We will want to ensure that whatever they do is compatible with smart ticketing. However, 2.5 million people are using smart cards through the ITSO concessionary scheme separately anyway, so I do not think that there is a dependency issue. The board does not have oversight, if that is what you are implying, but I suspect that it can provide advice to me if any practical issues arise from the implementation of separate parts of the Transport (Scotland) Act 2019.