Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con) I beg to move, That this House
has considered electric vehicle charging infrastructure. It is a
pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. We had an
important hour and a half debate on electric vehicle charging in
this place less than two weeks ago, led by my hon. Friend the
Member for Winchester (Steve Brine). It was a wide-ranging debate
and we touched on a number of issues, but today I want to define it
slightly...Request free trial
(Wimbledon) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered electric vehicle charging
infrastructure.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard.
We had an important hour and a half debate on electric vehicle
charging in this place less than two weeks ago, led by my hon.
Friend the Member for Winchester (). It was a wide-ranging debate
and we touched on a number of issues, but today I want to define
it slightly more tightly and look at a couple of issues in a bit
more detail. I recognise that there is a risk of repetition, but
this is an extraordinarily important matter for this country to
get right.
Although the country and the Government are making huge
progress—the Government are leading the world, to a great extent,
with the UK’s net zero target of 2050 and the phasing out of the
internal combustion engine by the beginning of the 2030s—it is
hugely important that they set aspirations and lead other
nations.
(Strangford) (DUP)
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on bringing forward this
debate. There just are not enough electric charging points across
the whole of the United Kingdom. As a result, constituents are
unwilling or unable to buy electric cars, which take eight hours
to charge fully. The latest figures indicate that there are now
more than 90 vehicles per rapid charging point. Does he agree
that it is crucial that conversations are had with Departments in
the devolved Governments and other countries to enable them to
align with the rest of the UK in electric vehicle charging
points?
I will later refer to the barriers to greater electric vehicle
uptake, which include accessibility and the number of on and
off-street charging points. There are great regional disparities
across the United Kingdom in the number of charging points per
1,000 people. There are great differences between London,
Scotland and the rest of the world. I am sure colleagues from
more rural areas will talk about access to charging points and
about local councils’ ability to allow people to use on-street
and off-street parking, which sometimes prohibits the movement
from the internal combustion engine to electric vehicles.
Transport represents 27% of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions,
and road transport is somewhat over 85% of that. We should not
underestimate the progress that has been made. There are now
39,000 charging points across the UK and about 1,135,000 plug-in
vehicles. But, as the hon. Member for Strangford () said, the price of those vehicles and the lack of
access to charging points prevent uptake. There is also a lack of
a second-hand market—perhaps unsurprisingly, given the relatively
recent development of the electric vehicle—which would mean more
widespread availability and help the movement to electric
vehicles.
Production levels of electric vehicles, which were greater two
years ago than they are now, means that although there are
1,135,000 vehicles at the moment, the progress of uptake is
slower than we would have expected, given the culture behind
electric and hybrid.
(Havant) (Con)
My hon. Friend rightly made the point about access. Havant
Borough Council has installed several fast electric vehicle
charging points in partnership with a private sector contractor.
Does he agree that local authorities, particularly those in
coastal and rural areas, have a key role to play in expanding EV
charging infrastructure and that others should follow the example
of my local council, and will he say more about that in his later
remarks?
My hon. Friend is right to point out that a number of councils
are exemplars for charging, but a number of other councils are
lagging behind the good example of Havant. I will come to that
issue, because one of my key asks is for the Minister to consider
what pressure the Department is prepared to put on local
councils. I mentioned that we have seen some movement on electric
cars, but there are barriers. Perhaps the biggest is accessing
charging points and the infrastructure that is available. We have
a target of 300,000 charging points by 2030, but we currently
have fewer than 39,000. We therefore need a compound increase of
33% over the next seven or eight years to make that a reality.
Unless we do more, that target looks challenging.
There are also issues with accessing on-street charging points,
of which there is a limited number. We need to change the
culture, and part of that is that, although there are huge
numbers of funds and suppliers, far too many people think only
the public sector should provide charging points. That is wrong.
Also, if someone who lives on a road with a limited number of
charging points gets home at six or seven in the evening and
someone is charging their car, and if it is not a rapid charging
point, it will take anywhere between four and eight hours to
charge that car. I challenge my colleagues here to say who is
going to get up at two o’clock in the morning and move their car
so that the charging point becomes available, and who else is
going to get up and move their car to that charging point.
We need to make more on-street charging points available. We also
need to make some of those on-street charging points accessible
to households that are unlikely to be near places where the
public installation of on-street charging can happen. I will make
the case in a few moments that local byelaws should be changed so
that that can become a reality for many people, particularly
those in rural areas.
(Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)
My hon. Friend makes a good point, which I am sure the Minister
will respond to in detail in a moment. On rural charging for
electric vehicles, it strikes me that in very rural areas, such
as many parts of Suffolk in my constituency, the only solution is
to make the availability of home charging for each and every
household economically viable. Even in a village, it can still be
one or 1.5 miles from one end to the other in terms of
connectivity. Will he speak more about home charging and what he
thinks the Government should do to promote it, particularly in
rural areas?
My hon. Friend will be pleased to hear that I will make some
remarks on that issue and particularly on what can be done. He is
right: according to the RAC, the cost of home charging for a
rapid vehicle is about 13p per kWh, yet those who use public
chargers have seen a 91% increase to something like just over £3
per kWh. That is quite a big discrepancy. Although we have seen
progress on on-street charging, the reality of home charging is
important.
I want to make some key asks of the Government, some of which
will involve direct Government intervention and some of which
will involve Government pressure on local authorities to set
targets. My first direct ask of the Government is a lobbying
point for the Budget. As my right hon. Friend the Minister will
know, there is currently a huge discrepancy between the VAT
charged when people charge electric vehicles away from home and
that charged when people charge them at home. The VAT on public
charging is currently 20%, so the inequality between home
charging and away-from-home charging is a major impediment. Will
the Government look, not only in the forthcoming Budget but in
future Budgets, at equalising the VAT rates for on-street
away-from-home charging and home charging?
There also needs to be a change in the planning presumptions. We
all agree that we need more on-street and on-site parking in
terms of retail leisure parks and new in-town developments. The
presumption should now be that any and all development comes with
the right infrastructure that will allow a far greater number of
not only charging points but rapid charging points for electric
vehicles. That requires the Government to put some pressure on
local authorities, or my right hon. Friend the Minister to work
with his colleagues in the Department for Levelling Up, Housing
and Communities to change the planning presumption.
Currently, local authorities are responsible for deciding the
locations in their area and securing funding for the delivery of
on-street parking. The clear problem at the moment is that only
28% of local authorities have complied with the requirement to
have an electric vehicle charging strategy. As I have said, even
fewer are working with the large number of infrastructure funds
and the providers of funds that would happily work in
public-private partnership to work out the number of charging
points that can be easily delivered in one year. Some local
authorities have made huge progress on that—for example, under
its previous Conservative leadership, Wandsworth worked with a
major supplier to deliver a huge increase in on-street
parking.
Local authorities need to have a strategy and to commit to work
with the people who can supply the funding, so one of my asks of
the Government is that, with the Department for Transport and
DLUHC working together, they put some pressure on authorities to
have such a plan in place. We should be pretty clear about what
those plans cover: they should cover, as I said, the change in
planning presumption and commit to an increase in on-street
capacity.
The plans should contain another commitment. Let me address
directly the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Central
Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter). All too often, local
byelaws prevent home charging. We allow a huge number of utility
companies to put wires and pipes across streets, and they do so
safely; one of the great local campaigns I have run in my area is
to change a local byelaw to allow people to run cables safely
across pavements. It could easily be done, via either cable
gullies or other protective measures, to allow people to
home-charge who do not have access either to off-street
parking—because they do not have their own driveway—or to
on-street public facilities. A simple change in the byelaw could
easily be applied. There are of course safety challenges and
public liability challenges, but the reality is that we let
utility companies do it every day of the week, all over the
country, and a simple change in byelaws would allow a huge number
of extra people to access charging infrastructure.
I am trying to set out how, if we want to make the movement to
electric vehicles a reality, there are some things in respect of
which we as a country need to change the presumption and the DFT
and colleagues in DLUHC need to change the culture. I have set
out a number of asks for the Government. Changing the byelaws and
planning permission is a relatively simple thing they could work
on.
Finally, the Government need to think carefully about the 300,000
target. I accept that it is ambitious and difficult to achieve;
however, in the second half of this decade, as the culture among
vehicle owners moves more rapidly as price barriers are removed
and production levels go up, it may well be that the target of
300,000 public charge points is simply inadequate. I ask the
Government to commit to looking at that internally in the
Department, and to make a written public statement on the need to
be more flexible with the target and possibly to increase it.
I said that I would try to concentrate my remarks because we had
a wide-ranging debate less than two weeks ago on the expansion of
infrastructure, including in respect of home infrastructure,
off-street parking, on-street parking in residential areas and
on-site parking in non-residential areas. Removing the barriers
to the expansion of those facilities would dramatically increase
the opportunity for more people to switch to electric vehicles. I
look forward to hearing from the Minister.
4.16pm
The Minister of State, Department for Transport ()
It is a delight to see you in the Chair, Mr Pritchard, not least
because you are a man educated in Hereford. It is a pleasure to
respond to the interesting comments made by my dear hon. Friend
the Member for Wimbledon (). I congratulate him on the
indefatigable way in which he has pressed this issue in this
Chamber and in the House of Commons over the years on behalf of
his constituents in Wimbledon. He is absolutely right that the
issue is important and has wider repercussions. I thank other
colleagues who have made interventions in the debate.
It is interesting that this debate follows not just the debate
that my hon. Friend mentioned, which took place a few weeks ago,
but this morning’s 90-minute debate on rural decarbonisation,
secured by my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (). That is testament to the
level of concern and interest among our colleagues in the
House.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon knows, the Government
are committed to achieving their climate change obligations.
Decarbonising transport is a key part of that. I hope we will
make some important announcements fairly shortly about the zero
emission vehicle mandate, which will be a massive driver of
investment in new charge points and new electric vehicles. We are
doing that not only to help to decarbonise the atmosphere but to
improve air quality and the quality of life in our towns and
cities, while supporting a sustainable path of economic growth.
We are committed to phasing out the sale of all new petrol and
diesel cars and vans by 2030, and to ensuring that all new cars
and vans are zero emission by 2035. We have already put in
something like £2 billion to support the transition process.
As part of that process, almost a year ago the Government
published their landmark electric vehicle infrastructure
strategy, which comprehensively set out their vision and
commitments in this policy area. In particular, the strategy put
in place an expectation of around 300,000 public charge
points—not just charge points, as my hon. Friend said, but public
charge points. That is important because sitting alongside that
are hundreds of thousands of charge points being put into private
premises through the normal process of investment that goes
alongside the purchase of electric vehicles. That may happen
under a previously funded scheme or come as part of the package
of buying the vehicle or via a number of other methods. Even that
300,000 is just a part of the overall picture. My hon. Friend is
right to flag the ambition inherent in the target. As technology
changes, as the market becomes more competitive and as the zero
emission vehicle mandate kicks in, we expect that target to come
into view.
The Minister will know that throughout history the use of
technology has accelerated when there is greater
interoperability, common standards and open protocols. Does he
feel that is an important aspect of our race to increase the
deployment of electric vehicle charging infrastructure in this
country?
Yes. I do not think there is any doubt about that, and my hon.
Friend is right that that has been the pattern in the past. Of
course, one cannot just regard technology as a panacea.
Technology will improve, and it will stimulate competition and
increase growth at certain rates, but one has to be careful as to
what the rate is. There is a moment in all market development at
which markets go from being a collection of competing standards
and potential franchises to becoming a standardised,
all-embracing place in which different rivals can compete. That
is what we are seeing with charging. We are seeing individual
networks yielding over time to networks that can be accessed
using credit cards, for example, in a network-neutral way. The
Department is supporting that.
It is worth pointing out that, as my hon. Friend the Member for
Wimbledon highlighted, local authorities are going to be and will
remain a central part of the nearer-to-home provision for
charging, and possibly the nearer-to-business provision. What
there will be less of in some areas is rapid charging on the
public strategic road network, because that has different demands
and is being handled in a slightly different way.
On 21 February, the Government announced an additional £56
million in public industry funding to support the local electric
vehicle infrastructure programme, which includes a capability
pilot designed to improve local authorities’ capacity to
commission and implement the infrastructure, recognising the
concern that there was not necessarily a completely consistent
picture of expertise or capability on the local authority
network. In turn, that capability will enable what my hon. Friend
the Member for Wimbledon rightly pressed the Government on. He
asked whether we will continue to incentivise, encourage and
press local authorities to do more; of course, we can do that as
their capabilities improve.
My right hon. Friend the Minister is clearly right about what the
Government should be pressing local authorities to do. Given that
they are giving additional funding for the capacity for local
authorities to outline their strategy, might it not be good and
sensible for the Government to ensure that there is a timeline
for when local authorities should have strategies in place?
We can look to the incentives provided by public funding and
public pressure, and pressure from car owners, to drive that
process. I would not rule out a more engaged attitude towards
local authorities. Indeed, I have met plenty of local authorities
in the relatively short time I have been in this job, precisely
because I regard charge point infrastructure provision as a very
serious issue. It is one that involves not only the charge point
operators and the electricity providers but the local authorities
themselves, as the providers of infrastructure. I take on board
my hon. Friend’s point. The funding I have described sits
alongside funding already being provided through the on-street
residential charge point scheme.
I have talked a little about rapid charging; I do not need to
spend too much more time on that. It does not directly affect the
situation. Members will be aware that the current situation is
that a driver is never more than 25 miles away from a rapid
charge point. We need to increase and accelerate the level of
charge points we have put in and we have a commitment to do so,
to around 6,000 ultra-rapid devices by 2035.
My right hon. Friend is incredibly generous to give way again. I
made a glaring omission in my remarks. Although he rightly says
that rapid charging points are perhaps the next follow-on, the
reality is that rapid charging points are hugely important for
commercial vehicle transition to electric vehicles, including in
respect of taxi cabs and others. I had some remarks to make about
that but somehow missed them out. We speak a lot about domestic
vehicles, but we need to recognise the transition in commercial
activity as well.
My hon. Friend is right to make that adjustment. I assumed that,
given the confines of a Westminster Hall debate, he was
compressing an otherwise comprehensive speech into a narrower
compass, and rightly so.
Given the time available, let me pick up on a couple of things
before I have to sit down. To strengthen consumer confidence, the
Government will lay legislation in the coming months to reduce
charging anxiety still further. To address the point made by my
hon. Friend the Member for Havant (), that legislation will mandate
open data; 99% reliability across each rapid charging network; a
24/7 helpline for when something might go wrong; contactless and
payment roaming; and a pricing network to improve and increase
transparency. That will improve competition rivalry and therefore
investment. We have also made significant further investment.
The hon. Member for Strangford () asked about changing planning permissions for
developments. He is not in his place, but I should say that last
year the Government implemented legislation to require new builds
and buildings undergoing renovations to install charging points
for domestic and non-domestic vehicles during construction. Part
of the solution is not just further public investment alongside
the rapidly escalating private investment; it is also about
better regulation.
My hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon asked about the Budget
and VAT on charging. As a former Financial Secretary to the
Treasury I remind him that, as he will know, I will be skinned if
I attempt to commit the Government on this issue, least of all in
respect of tax policy a few days before a fiscal event. But I am
sure it is on the public record and it will be well noted in No.
1 Horse Guards.
My hon. Friend talked about pressure on local authorities with
regard to long-term plans. It is right that good local
authorities think about longer-term plans. Not all the
infrastructure originally installed was long term in its
inspiration; it was an early technology that has since been
superseded. I think local authorities are getting better. We have
plans to assist local government in thinking about gullies, which
are a useful long-term way to providing for on-street charging
that will make a big difference.
My hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich
(Dr Poulter) asked about home charging in rural areas. He is
right that such areas suffer particular drawbacks, but they have
the advantage that there tends to be more available parking space
there for people who buy electric vehicles. We would expect to
see that as we see more longevity improvements in technology, but
that then requires people to be able to charge. That capability
is increasingly provided as part of the commercial package of
buying a vehicle. As we see technology and competition take over,
we can expect the price of vehicles to fall over time. I believe
that the problem my hon. Friend raised will start to address
itself over and above the considerable investments that we are
already making.
Question put and agreed to.
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