Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Baroness Grey-Thompson Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 22nd October 2025 Lords Chamber

It is my hope that this will not go to a vote and that the Minister will accept the pragmatic measures presented in this amendment, but I reserve the right to divide the House if I am unhappy. This is about fairness and foresight, making sure that, as we move to electric driving, no one is left behind, least of all the 1.35 million disabled drivers who already face greater challenges in their daily mobility. I hope the Minister will recognise that this is not an onerous burden on industry but a prudent and compassionate step to ensure a charging network that works for everyone.

[Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)]

My Lords, I rise very briefly to support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Borwick. I am absolutely delighted that he has tabled it. As a disabled person, I have to say that the guidance on accessible charging is not worth very much, as it has not made an impact on my ability to move to an electric car. I totally agree about the barriers that the noble Lord mentioned of raised kerbs, gravel or, indeed, poorly lit charging stations, or even lack of accessible bays.

To use a charging station, I need to be able to open the door of my car to the widest possible point. My chair comes apart—the wheels come off, and the frame and the wheels sit on my front seat—and I do not want to damage any other cars while I am getting in and out. It does not take me much longer than a non-disabled person to do so, but when I tried, very hard, several times to move to an electric vehicle it proved impossible.

The first time I tried, I was close to signing the paperwork but had a look around my local area. There was no accessible charging station within at least 30 miles of my house, which was not particularly useful. The advice from the garage was that perhaps I should just take someone with me wherever I went, and they could get in and out of the car to charge it for me.

The problems go deeper than that. As we are seeing charging stations develop, they are taking over accessible bays. One time I was sat in a queue at a service station—admittedly, it was at a busy time—and looked at how much longer it would take me to charge my car, because I need a wider bay. It was a significant amount of time, compared to my place in the queue. What I am worried about is the impact this is going to have if we do not do something now for disabled people.

I recognise that there are probably changes coming to the Motability scheme. I do not have a Motability car, but I do receive personal independence payments. There are an increasing number of electric vehicles on Motability’s books, and Motability is removing cars that a lot of disabled people can drive. This is cutting down people’s choices and options. There is also a lack of wheelchair-accessible vehicles that are electric and allow a tailgate lift, so if someone has an electric wheelchair, that policy is shutting down their options and making things really difficult.

I recently visited Newport, and I offer some praise to Newport Council. It has done an amazing job of providing not just accessible charging stations but lots of different options in its car parks. This is a real model that we should take forward. The council has looked at the guidance, recognised that it is not going to help disabled people, and gone above and beyond. But that is one council; sadly, there are gaps all over the rest of the country. Ultimately, I do not want disabled people to be blamed for not caring about the environment, as they were when plastic straws were banned. Disabled people experienced a massive backlash: they were told they were going to be murdering turtles and dolphins, but plastic straws were the only means by which many people could drink. We can already see that disabled people have been accused of not caring about the environment and not making the switch. Rather, they want to but are unable to do so.

With that in mind, I strongly support the amendment. We have to do something to make it possible for disabled people to switch to electric vehicles.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I support Amendments 53, 54 and 55 but express some concern about Amendment 52. My noble friend Lord Moylan is absolutely right to call for an impact assessment before local authorities go overboard with removing non-electric car spaces in an obsessive drive for electric vehicle charging points. There are 2.6 million plug-in cars in the UK, including hybrids and fully electric— 5% of the total. But there are 33 million petrol and diesel cars in the UK. AutoTrader issued a report in July this year, stating that the current sales trajectory of new electric cars would see just 45% market share by 2030, well below the 80% projected and mandated target set by the Government. Personally, I prefer to trust AutoTrader’s expert analysis rather than government wish-list projections.

What are the Government’s projections? They believe there could be between 8 million and 12 million hybrid vehicles and electric cars by 2030 if uptake aligns with their targets. By 2040, the number could reach 25 million according to the Local Government Association. Some projections, aligned with the UK’s net-zero goals, estimate up to 37.4 million electric vehicles by 2050 if we go flat out on net zero. So we might have 11 million hybrid cars if—I repeat, if—the uptake aligns with government targets. But we see that those targets are 100% out already, just as the Government’s heat pump projections are about 500% out. In the nicest possible way, it is all wishful thinking.

But the big danger here—and this is where my noble friends’ amendments are spot on—is the Local Government Association’s projection of 25 million electric cars by 2040. Where on earth does the LGA get this information from? What does it know about forecasting electric car uptake? The only ones who can do that are car manufacturers, dealers, others in the trade who have their finger on the pulse of buyer motivation, and those who understand battery replacement costs, Chinese cheap car penetration, trade-in values and so on. If local authorities take up the Local Government Association’s projection and take it seriously—as they are likely to do—we will see twice as many non-electric car parking spaces ripped out, and we will have electric car places instead, so that projection will be wrong.

I simply ask noble Lords to cast their minds back to 2020, when everyone thought that electric vehicles were the bee’s knees and would rapidly replace petrol and diesel cars. In 2019, the Department for Transport forecast that there would be 1.5 million electric cars by the end of 2020. In fact, at the end of 2020 there were approximately 431,000 ultra-low emission vehicles, and that includes battery-electric and fully electric. That is one-third of the Government’s projection. What would have happened if local authorities had had the money and resources to implement that flawed projection? Thank goodness they did not have the money to do it; otherwise, they would have removed thousands of conventional car parking spaces and installed three times more electric charging points than there were cars. That is why it is essential that local authorities follow the measure in my noble friend’s amendments.

We must have a parking impact assessment before permitting EV charging points that would replace general use parking, and businesses and residents must have the power to request a review when EV installations reduce conventional parking. We have seen local authorities ride roughshod over local residents, closing roads and imposing ridiculously low speed restrictions, but I have no doubt that many will ignore the needs of petrol car drivers in the fanatical pursuit of electric cars.

I also strongly support my noble friend Lord Borwick’s Amendment 55. I congratulate him on all the work he has done with London cabs over the years to make them accessible. I and thousands of other people in London would not be able to move anywhere around this city were it not for the ramps that he insisted be built into London cabs; the new, longer ramps are just superb. Most charging points that I have seen seem to be about one metre above the payment. Theoretically, they should be accessible for disabled motorists, but many charging points are not usable for motorists with wheelchair-adapted vehicles. I congratulate my noble friend Lady Grey-Thompson on her excellent speech setting out many of the deficiencies she has faced.

In 2018, it was calculated that about 400,000 vehicles had been adapted or converted for wheelchair users, but that includes drivers and passengers. It is a relatively small number in comparison to the 30 million other vehicles on the road. However, if you are a wheelchair user, there first needs to be a dropped kerb. Imagine that you are a wheelchair user, a driver, in a car: there are only two ways to use it. You either get a ramp at the back to get out and in, or a little hoist to get out of the driver’s seat. The first decision you have to make if you see an electric charging point is whether to drive up in such a way that you are exiting on to the street and taking a risk there, or whether to turn the vehicle round so that the driver’s seat is next to the kerb. In the latter case, there needs to be a dropped kerb nearby so that you can get out of the vehicle and on to the pavement. I am not suggesting that every charging point must have a dropped kerb, but there needs to be one nearby. Then, the charging plug must not face the street or car, since the wheelchair user cannot get round to that side to use it. It is not rocket science. It is not expensive to make sure that all plug-in points either face the pavement or are at right-angles to it, or at least do not face the street.

While I have no solution for the scenario where the plug for the car is in the middle of the bonnet or the boot and the wheelchair user can plug in okay, but then cannot get on to the pavement to plug in at the other end, the latest statistics show that most plugs on cars are at the rear. Some 37% of electric vehicles in the UK are configured with the plug at the right rear; the left rear is the second most common location, found on 31% of vehicles. The left front is less common still, accounting for 18% of vehicles. The wheelchair user therefore has to get to the left rear, the right rear or the front to plug in, and then has to get on to the pavement to plug into the socket there. I therefore believe that my noble friend Lord Borwick is absolutely right. If the Government do not make this simple concession, I hope that he will push his amendment to the vote.

Finally, I flag my concern at the mention of cross-pavement charging points. Suffice it to say that, in my short journeys to the House of Lords in my trusty chariot, I battle daily with e-bikes and scooters dumped or parked anywhere on the pavement. Then one contends with temporary construction work, which necessitates cables and pipes crossing the pavement. To be fair, in nearly every case, the construction companies cover them up with temporary cable ramps or protectors but, in about 50% of the cases, they are so high, lumpy and protruding that I cannot get a wheelchair over and sometimes get grounded trying to cross them. However, these construction companies know the law and they try to safeguard pedestrians.