The subject of electric vehicle and bicycle take-up was raised in
Westminster Hall today by , Conservative MP
for South West Bedfordshire. It was
the third time he has had a debate on the take up of
electric vehicles.
He said the UK sold £5 billion of conventional vehicles overseas.
in 2016 a fifth of all electric vehicles in Europe were produced
by Nissan in Sunderland. The UK had a genuine opportunity to
capture a significant part of the global market.
The key point was that EVs needed to be cost-competitive, which
he hoped would happen by 2022. The 2040 target was too far out
and we needed to be bolder in order to be a world leader. He
called for 100% of the government fleet to be electric by 2022.
On the subject of electric bicycles, he said the UK was lagging
behind Europe in sales. He called on the Cycle to Work scheme to
include users of EBs.
DUP MP for
Strangford, questioned claims that there would
be extra demand of EVs on the national grid. He pointed out there
were 336 public charge points in Northern Ireland. He commended
the use of tax breaks to encourage greater use of EVs.
Kirstne Hair, Conservative MP for Angus and chair of the Fair
Fuel APPG, encouraged improvements in the infrastructure for EVs
in rural Scotland.
, Labour MP for Leeds North West,
said power supply was a great barrier to increasing charge
points, but there were incentives that could be given for
increasing charge points.
, Conservative MP for
Stirling, talked about the merits of electric bikes, especially
for people for disabilities, a view shared by , Labour MP for Brentford and
Isleworth. She said OLEV - the Office for Low Emission Vehicles -
should recognise e-bikes as low-emission vehicles.
She said she had test-driven a Tesla - it was fantastic, but too
expensive for her. But Tesla’s big concern was the shortage of
three-phase electricity.
, SNP MP for Kilmarnock and
Loudoun and the SNP’s transport spokesman, agreed the 2040 target
was not ambitious enough.
Rachel Maskell, MP for York Central and Labour’s transport
spokesman, questioned the lack of consistency in government
policies and the lack of connectivity between different
government announcements. She said Labour would be more ambitious
on development, manufacture and use of EVs.
Transport Minister responded to the debate,
saying the government wanted the UK to lead the world in the use
of EVs. He disagreed that 2040 was too far out as a target. He
said e-bikes could play an important part to play in
de-carbonisation and the government was particularly looking at
the potential of cargo e-bikes to replace delivery vans.
