Extract from Commons
debate on Grenfell Tower Inquiry: Phase 1 Report
(Glasgow East) (SNP): I
thank the hon. Lady for giving way, and I agree with her about a
mandatory registration scheme. This morning I had a meeting with a
colleague of mine from Electrical Safety First. One of the things
they put on my radar, which I had not necessarily considered, was
that as we move towards electric cars—we covered this in our
climate change debate last week—there are concerns about people who
live in flats and do not have charging points. I say to the
Minister, through the hon. Lady, that we need to have that issue on
our radar. People living in flats who do not have charging points
might try to use more informal mechanisms to charge their car, such
as daisy-chaining, and we have to think about that, particularly as
we move towards electric vehicles...
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Extract from Westminster
Hall debate on Growth Strategy
(Wokingham) (Con):...That
was compounded by the fact that the UK had been incredibly
successful at building a very large diesel car industry, and in
particular a diesel car engine-making industry in the United
Kingdom, just in time for the EU and the UK to become very
hostile to diesels and send out the message that people really
should not buy diesels, and that in future diesels may even be
taxed or regulated off the road. There could also be new controls
on diesels, with the Government, in common with the EU and other
Governments, wanting people to buy electric cars before they felt
confident enough in electric cars or before the prices of
electric cars come down to a more realistic level for them to be
a feasible opportunity for people. So we have seen in the UK, as
in China and in Europe, a big decline in the sale of traditional
diesels, and there has not been an off-set in sufficient numbers
by the new vehicles that are being introduced.
So the Government need to look at the car industry and recognise
that the issues affecting it are a combination of taxation,
availability of credit, and messages about what kind of car
people are allowed to buy and drive. The industry needs to be
given some time to complete the transition that Governments want,
and it is not yet in a state where it can sell enough electric
cars to immediately replace the lost capacity that it is
experiencing on diesels.
(Thirsk
and Malton) (Con): I thank my right hon. Friend for securing this
very important and wide-ranging debate. He mentioned the car
industry, which is largely based in the north-east of England,
but it based itself there because clear incentives for it to do
so were provided by the Government at the time. Does he agree
that if we are going to rebalance this economy and level it up,
we will need some incentives for businesses to start up in or
relocate to some of these areas?
: Yes, I am happy for
there to be attractive reasons why people should go to the parts
of the economy that have been less heavily invested in and that
are less pressurised. However, with cars the issue is demand;
there is not enough demand for the very good cars that the
industry currently makes. The Government want to change the kind
of cars that people buy, but it will take time for Britain, or
anywhere else for that matter, to be able to produce the millions
of electric cars that the Government want us to buy, at a price
and to a specification that people like.
So, this is a top-down revolution and the public are not yet
fully engaged in it in the way that the Government would like
them to be. When polled, the public say that electric cars are a
very good idea. However, when they are then asked, “Well, when
are you buying your electric car?”, the answer is, “Well, not
yet. Not me. I want a better subsidy on the car, I want a lower
price, I want a higher range”—whatever it is...
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