End of business adjournment debate (Commons) on Shared Transport: Government Policy Objectives - Mar 9

Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)

I secured this debate because, having joined the Transport Committee about a year ago, I became struck by how little attention is being given to the multiple ways in which car clubs and other shared transport can help national and local governments meet their multiple policy objectives. Shared transport is about giving people access to cars, bikes, and other vehicles, without the need to own them. I should perhaps declare an interest: my husband and I have not owned a car for more than 25 years. When we need one, which is much less often than we thought we would, we use the south-west’s fantastic car sharing scheme, Co Cars, which is a co-operative based in Exeter of which I was one of the founder members.

For those who do not know how such schemes work, they can vary a bit, as can the ownership models. Essentially, however, someone registers, then they book the car or van nearest to them online, using an app in some cases. They pick it up using a smart card, and they drive it away, returning it when they are finished. It is simple, and much cheaper than buying and owning a car oneself, and there are no insurance, maintenance, or parking headaches.

As well as the cost, there are climate change, air quality, local amenity and congestion advantages to car sharing. According to the RAC Foundation, the average private car sits doing nothing for 96.5% of its life. What a waste of money and valuable urban space. As we transition to e-vehicles as a country over the next few years, simply replacing private internal combustion vehicles with electric ones will not be enough to meet our zero carbon targets, and it will do nothing to tackle congestion. In fact, one could argue that with people feeling less inhibited to drive if they are driving an e-vehicle, it is likely that congestion will get worse, without a reduction in the total number of private vehicles on our roads.

Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)

The right hon. Gentleman is making an important point, and this issue concerns us all across the whole United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Does he agree that by not involving and co-ordinating with car clubs and the shared transport sector, we are missing the potential for getting people off the roads and into shared transport? That would benefit the environment—he has referred to that—and it would also help people’s pressed finances.

Mr Bradshaw

I agree with that. Car clubs represent a fantastic resource for both national Government and local government to achieve exactly those aims.

There are currently around 6,000 car club vehicles in the United Kingdom. The number of active car club members—that is people who have joined, renewed their membership or used a car club in the last 12 months— is approaching half a million, which is a massive 96% increase in just one year. Total membership is 784,122, which is a 24% increase on the previous year. The transport sharing umbrella organisation, CoMoUK, has found that for every car club vehicle, 18.5 private cars are taken off the roads, taking into account the reduction in the number of cars owned by members and purchases that do not take place.

Nationally, because car club vehicles are on average just over 1.5 years old, their carbon emissions are an average of 26% lower than the average car in the United Kingdom. In Exeter we are lucky to have more than 50 Co Cars, including 20 electric vehicles, and more than 150 electric bikes—they are somewhere on a street near you. Some 11% of car club cars nationally are electric, compared with less than 1% of privately owned cars across the United Kingdom. That makes driving an electric car not just possible for those who cannot afford it, but easily accessible. Access and social equity are crucial, and 20% of car club members stated that although they could not afford to buy a private car, joining a car club gave them access to one when they needed one.

Car sharing also accelerates modal shift. Since joining a car club, 16% of people said that they had walked more, 10% said that they had cycled more and 26% said that they had cut their car use overall. I stress that shared transport covers a range of other modes including bikes, e-scooters—in trial areas only, of course—demand-responsive transport such as flexible buses and lift share. It also includes so-called mobility hubs: places that enable people to switch easily between public, active and shared transport modes. Bicycle sharing has been shown to be a powerful tool to re-engage lapsed cyclists, with 50% of bike share members in the UK saying that it was the trigger to get them back on a bike again and 53% saying they would have made their last trip by car or taxi if bike share had not been available.

The COP26 declaration on accelerating the transition to 100% zero-emission cars and vans, signed by the UK Government, states:

“We recognise that alongside the shift to zero emission vehicles, a sustainable future for road transport will require wider system transformation, including support for active travel, public and shared transport, as well as addressing the full value chain impacts from vehicle production, use and disposal.”

The Secretary of State for Transport, in the foreword to the transport decarbonisation plan in 2021, said:

“We cannot simply rely on the electrification of road transport, nor believe that zero emission cars and lorries will solve all our problems.”

The Minister—I am pleased to see her in her place—told the conference of CoMoUK in December last year that shared mobility must become the norm across the UK and that the country needed to do more to move away from

“20th century thinking centred around private vehicle ownership”

and introduce

“greater flexibility, with personal choice and low carbon shared transport.”

Hear, hear to that.

So everyone agrees that shared transport is a positive thing that can help us meet multiple policy objectives. The challenge is to create a coherent cross-Government departmental policy framework and support for it. I will give a few examples.

First, on electric vehicle charging, car clubs are explicitly excluded from on-street residential charging schemes and are not positively included in any public funding framework or guidance. We have been told that an EV infrastructure strategy is coming “soon” for a while now, and there is also potentially a new EV infrastructure fund, but again we have not had any publication or details about that, and we have had no indication of whether any of that will necessarily improve the current position. That is despite, as I said earlier, car clubs having 11 times the proportion of EVs in their fleets as the general UK car fleet and providing access to EVs at a fraction of the cost of leasing or owning one.

Secondly, on guidance to local authorities, the transport decarbonisation plan promised a local authority toolkit in 2021, but that has yet to appear. It also stated that the Department would support car clubs to go fully zero-emission, recognising that, as car club fleets contain newer vehicles, they can lead the transition to zero-emission vehicles. However, again, we have not yet had any further details on that.

Thirdly, national planning policy still does not do enough to favour decarbonising options such as shared transport in spatial planning. Shared transport is not usually included in scheme design at all, and the national planning policy framework makes it difficult for councils to refuse applications that do not go far enough on shared transport proposals. Many good councils such as my own in Exeter want to limit parking provision and require mobility hubs and transport sharing schemes as well as good cycling and walking provision in development plans, but the planning system neither recognises nor encourages that. Mobility hubs play a particularly valuable role in areas with high levels of pollution and low sustainable transport accessibility levels, and they should be pursued by national and local government.

Local government should also be required to actively support shared transport to achieve modal shift, placing it at the heart of its transport strategies. It should also develop sustainable transport hierarchies to recognise the different role that shared cars play as opposed to privately owned vehicles, and include data from shared transport in official transport statistics for the area.

Fourthly, traffic regulation orders are cumbersome and expensive. A consultation on improving the system to make it quicker and more innovative and adaptable was promised, but again it has not appeared.

Fifthly, public transport accessibility levels should be updated to sustainable transport accessibility levels, which would encompass all forms of sustainable transport, including shared transport.

Sixthly, on taxation, the current system is based entirely on the private ownership of cars, with shared transport paying the same full rate of VAT as privately owned ones. The Treasury could help a lot by tweaking the tax regime in a revenue-neutral way, if needs be, to incentivise vehicle sharing.

Seventhly, we would like to know where the future of transport Bill is. It appears to be stuck somewhere in Government, meaning that we will soon reach the second anniversary of the e-scooter trials at a time when every other developed nation has either legalised and regulated them or has committed to doing so.

I know that the Minister shares my enthusiasm for shared transport as a multiple solution to her transport challenges and those we all face, and I look forward with interest to her response.

7.15pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Trudy Harrison)

I am delighted to be speaking about shared transport, but I was even more delighted to hear the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) refer to his co-forming the car club in his local area. I would welcome a meeting to discuss in more detail exactly how he went about that and the lessons learned, and perhaps that can inform how we help other areas. I am thinking particularly of rural areas, because I represent my home village in the Lake District, and I see an opportunity for car clubs to be of great assistance to people living in rural and urban areas.

I congratulate the right hon. Member on securing this debate on shared transport. He clearly set out seven measures relating to how we could improve shared transport and make it more accessible to everyone. I listened to the issues that he raised and I will do my best to address them all. As he knows, we are committed to creating a future transport system that works for absolutely everyone. My Department and I are making sure that transport is accessible to all, meaning that people in our cities, towns, villages and everywhere else have greater choice and greater freedom to get around. We want to see safer streets, more accessible and fairer travel, smoother journeys and better infrastructure to create the cleaner, quieter and less congested transport system that we all want.

Before I talk about the work that is already under way in my Department, I want to mention why we are doing this. Shared transport has the potential to improve choice, creating greater freedoms when travelling. Shared transport such as car clubs and lift sharing is about using what we have more efficiently. I love cars. I have been driving for 28 years, would you believe, Madam Deputy Speaker?

Jim Shannon

I do not believe that; the hon. Lady is just too young.

Trudy Harrison

I thank the hon. Member for that comment.

I do not personally own a car, and it is perhaps not a car club that I have with my husband, who does own our car. However, when I think about my personal circumstances—we drive a seven-seater, primarily because I have four daughters, although nowadays it is more about the pub run than the school run—I ask: do I always want to drive a seven-seater? Sometimes it might be more appropriate to drive a smaller car or maybe, living in the Lake District, a convertible car to really enjoy the scenic views in my community. That is the choice. This is not about people not being able to own cars. We welcome that ability, but this is about the opportunity to do things differently.

As the right hon. Member for Exeter mentioned, the average car is parked at home for 80% of the time. It is parked elsewhere for 16% of the time and is on the move for only 4% of the time, on average. That shows the massive potential for greater sharing to allow people without cars greater access to the economy and flexibility in how they travel. Some 7 million front gardens—the equivalent of 100 Hyde Parks—now contain concrete and cars, rather than flowers, grass, bees, butterflies and biodiversity. We also know that about 25% of adults in England do not hold a full driving licence, and only a quarter of people aged 17 to 20 are in that category. In our area, learning to drive is often considered a passport to adulthood, but it should not have to be. It is about flexible choice.

New transport options can mean greater access for those who are not able to travel independently or who do not currently have many choices. Car clubs can provide a cheaper alternative; 20% of car club users say that they joined a club because they could not afford a car. If we can show that sharing is a safe, efficient and cost-effective alternative, it could be a major benefit to our communities, meaning less isolation, less loneliness and greater access to the economy and services.

Major changes are already under way in the transport sector. Services are becoming more digital and more data-driven, with apps to plan and pay for journeys becoming the norm. Electrification and the move towards zero-emission vehicles is well under way as we roll out charging infrastructure across the country. We are already seeing early self-driving vehicle technology on our roads, and the UK is a world leader in the testing and deployment of self-driving vehicles.

Business models such as car clubs, and a greater emphasis on sharing, provide greater choice to the public while helping to cut emissions and decongest our roads. As the right hon. Member for Exeter mentioned, we are also trialling rental e-scooters across the country, including in my constituency of Copeland, which can help to decongest our roads and reduce emissions, particularly for shorter journeys. In making regulations to enable trials of rental e-scooters, my Department had significant support from local areas keen to trial them in a safe and controlled way. The trials supported my Department’s green restart of local transport and helped to mitigate the reduced capacity on public transport that resulted from the pandemic. They also enable us to gather robust and meaningful data to decide whether e-scooters should be more widely and permanently legalised, as well as assessing their safety and their wider impact.

Shared bikes are now a common UK service available in cities, providing us with more choice and flexibility in getting from A to B. I was delighted to hear that the right hon. Member’s local club provides bikes as well as cars.

These are just some of the ways in which transport is already changing. We can expect the transport system of tomorrow to look radically different from today’s. As things expand and evolve, the changes will present opportunities for more people to have access to training and jobs. They will also enable businesses to have access to highly skilled staff, which will help to level up places that are left behind. The ability for people and goods to move around efficiently and cleanly is a key driver of the change that we want to see, and more access to shops and services will provide a boost for the economy. That is why we are determined and are working to support businesses and communities to ensure that the changes are positive and make a genuine difference to the way we travel.

The right hon. Member mentioned our transport decarbonisation plan. Supporting the changes under way in transport will improve how we get around, but there are major environmental challenges ahead and we need to make the most of those changes to meet the challenges head on. That is why we have set such high ambitions for the future of transport in this country. Last summer, my Department published the first TDP in the world, which sets the transport sector on the path to net zero by 2050, and in which we have set ourselves a wide range of ambitious commitments across all modes of transport. The plan also shows the benefits of decarbonisation that are there to be seized: significant economic growth, job creation and the emergence of new technologies to improve transport in the UK.

Our commitments to supporting shared transport mean greater choice and freedom and more efficient ways to travel. We have committed to measures that will ensure a better, more flexible transport system while delivering on our net zero ambitions. We are helping businesses to see the benefits of shared transport and more sustainable transport, and are providing guidance to help local authorities manage and deliver schemes to support businesses and communities.

Let me update the House on the progress that the Department has made on shared transport, and respond to the points raised by the right hon. Member. We have worked closely with leading stakeholders since the publication of the transport decarbonisation plan to start delivering on our commitments. I have met leading shared-transport organisations such as CoMoUK—which the right hon. Member mentioned—Liftshare, which I understand was instrumental in the commissioning of the car club in Exeter, and the Urban Mobility Partnership, which represents leading operators including Enterprise and Stagecoach. In November I visited California, where I signed a memorandum of understanding between the UK and the city of Los Angeles to foster co-operation on the challenges of decarbonising transport, supporting innovation and growth, and accelerating the deployment of emerging technologies that can improve our communities.

We have already launched a consultation on Mobility as a Service, and we aim to publish new guidance to help shape the emergence of these platforms in the UK. This will mean that planning and paying for a journey will be easier, quicker, and more accessible.

The right hon. Member mentioned the transport decarbonisation toolkit, which my Department will publish soon. We recognise that local authorities are key partners in rolling out the infrastructure, developing and implementing new policies, and learning from best practice, and the toolkit will enable them to start delivering schemes that will benefit local communities. It provides practical advice on setting up car clubs and other shared transport schemes, and on helping to improve transport planning by putting shared and sustainable modes at the heart of local transport plans. That means support for zero- emission car clubs too, so that communities throughout the UK can benefit from electric vehicles. My Department, through the Office for Zero Emission Vehicles, is supporting charging infrastructure rollout to meet this demand. There are currently about 27,000 public charge points in the country, of which 5,200 are rapid. We know that the process needs to be accelerated, and we are working apace to do just that. Project Rapid, for example, will ensure that we have at least six rapid chargers of at least 150 kW in all 117 motorway service areas in England.

The right hon. Member referred to the on-street residential chargepoint scheme, which supports public on-street electric vehicle charging. While it does not fund chargepoints dedicated to car club vehicles, such vehicles can and do use the infrastructure, which means that they are still able to benefit from the roll-out of the infrastructure. Officials are currently developing the scope and design of the upcoming local electric vehicle infrastructure scheme, and we will be able to say more about that in the infrastructure strategy, which the right hon. Member also mentioned and which we aim to publish very shortly in the coming weeks.

We are developing the Commute Zero programme with the aim of reducing the number of single-occupancy journeys. Reducing it by just 10% could remove half a million tonnes of carbon dioxide each year, the equivalent of doubling rail use. We published “Future of Mobility: Urban Strategy” in 2019, setting out clear principles for the development of our transport systems in cities and towns. This year we will publish a “Future of Transport: rural strategy” to ensure that the benefits of innovation are felt by our rural and remote communities.

On accessibility, I am committed to the inclusivity of our transport networks, and our inclusive transport strategy is intended to create a transport system that is accessible to all. Our future of transport strategies highlight the need for future transport technologies to be inclusive by design, designed with disabled people in mind from the outset. We have been working with organisations such as Motability. We know that shared transport can provide more opportunities and options, helping us to meet our ambition for disabled people to have the same access to transport as everyone else and to be able to travel confidently, easily and without extra cost.

The national planning policy framework includes policies to facilitate access to high quality public transport and indicates that all development should address the needs of disabled people in relation to all modes of transport. We are also considering how we can empower local authorities to locate development around areas of high levels of access to sustainable transport modes, and where high quality walking and cycling routes can be developed, actively promoting sustainable transport and active travel as the first choice for journeys. As the Prime Minister has set out, we want half of all journeys in towns and cities to be walked or cycled by 2030, and to do just that, we have appointed Chris Boardman as the interim chief executive of Active Travel England to work with the Department and local authorities, and to support and—in his words, I believe—not just encourage but enable people to walk and cycle.

With regard to the consultation on the proposed reforms to the traffic regulation order process mentioned by the right hon. Member, I am pleased to say that that consultation was launched on Monday. Digitisation of the TRO process will bring an archaic system up to speed with the modern world while providing rich geospatial data to support the better management of traffic, deliveries and parking. He also mentioned legislation. I am pleased to say that, as soon as parliamentary time allows, we intend to bring forward legislation that will bring about wider reforms to prepare the UK for the future of transport in the technological revolution that is under way.

On the matter of taxation, this is a matter for Her Majesty’s Treasury, as the right hon. Member knows, and I will follow up on his points on taxation with the Financial Secretary to the Treasury. I want to conclude by thanking the right hon. Member for securing this debate. As I hope I have explained, shared transport is a vital part of how we secure a future transport system that is sustainable, accessible and available to everyone in society. Today he has raised a number of important issues that my Department and I are working hard to tackle through our transport decarbonisation plan and our future of transport programme. We are working to ensure that all parts of the country benefit from the innovations in transport, building on the rich heritage and the motor industry through which the UK is proud to have played a part in the global way that people have got from A to B. We are working to ensure that the people have greater freedom and choice in how to travel, and we are doing our part to make our communities cleaner and safer.

Question put and agreed to.