EV Strategy: (ECC Committee Report)
Baroness Parminter Excerpts(1 month, 1 week ago)
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Baroness Parminter
That this House takes note of the Report from the Environment and Climate Change Committee EV strategy: rapid recharge needed (1st Report, Session 2023-24, HL Paper 51).
Baroness Parminter (LD)
My Lords, it gives me great pleasure as the past chair of the Lords Select Committee on Environment and Climate Change to open this debate on electric vehicles. While recognising that the transition to EVs is only one part of the necessary broader transport transition that this country has to make, it is an incredibly important part. Passenger cars account for over half of our surface transport emissions and contribute to the almost 30,000 deaths from air pollution annually in the UK.
It is really important and, as the independent Climate Change Committee said, it is one of the most important actions if we are going to get to net zero. Given that electric vehicles account for only 3% of cars on British roads at the moment, it is an urgent priority. We know it is not going to be easy. ICEs—internal combustion engines—have dominated our roads and popular culture for over 100 years. Even though I am an EV driver and I know that they are clean, quiet and great to drive, it will be a big challenge to bring the British public away from petrol and diesel and into electric vehicles. It will require planning, co-ordination and an awful lot of leadership from the Government.
It was right for our committee to look into the record of the last Government in terms of their approach and success in getting people out of petrol and diesel cars and into electric vehicles. We identified that there had been some progress—certainly there has been an increase in charge point infrastructure, and legislation to ban new petrol and diesel cars from 2035. These were important steps, but overall our committee concluded that an urgent recharge was needed in the Government’s strategy for EVs.
That was, of course, when we reported in February, so it was under the previous Government. It has to be said that, since the new Labour Government have come in, they have hardly put their foot to the floor in terms of delivering on the EV agenda, despite the fact that there were some incredibly welcome proposals both in Labour’s automotive sector plan last year and in the general election manifesto. So it is timely to have this debate today, because the recommendations we made in February are still relevant and, with the upcoming Budget, now is the time to make those strides to bring people with us on the EV transition that is so necessary.
The first thing we identified as a committee is that we are not going to bring the British public with us unless they know where they will be able to charge their electric vehicles. As I said, we identified some progress—when the Minister came before our committee last November, there were 57,000 public charging points; that has now gone up to 70,000. So progress is being made. Indeed, when EVA England did a survey of electric vehicle drivers earlier this month, it identified that two-thirds of EV drivers think that in the last year there has been a big increase—a big improvement—in the public charging point infrastructure. But, as more cars come onto the road, we will need more charge points.
The Government set themselves an advisory target of 300,000 public charge points by 2030. When the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders came before the committee, it said that we needed over 2 million charge points by 2030—so we really have to motor on with getting more charge points installed. That is why we as a committee said that the Government needed to mandate local authorities where there are black holes—and there are black holes around our country—to prepare EV strategies to ensure that we are getting the EV infrastructure where we need it.
We also called on the Government to extend the LEVI fund—the local electric vehicle infrastructure fund—which is funding capacity building within councils and providing direct subsidies for charge points. Both those things were, we felt, critical. I hope that in summing up the Minister will say what his current thinking is, particularly on extending the LEVI fund. That is a particularly important part of where we need to be.
As I said, there were some incredibly welcome comments about the transition to EVs and the need to accelerate the rollout of charge points in Labour’s manifesto. Indeed, it picked up some of the recommendations in our committee report, including removing some of the planning barriers that are stopping charge points being introduced. I ask the Minister, when will we see the consultation on the permitted development rights for charge points? I think this is an issue that the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, may wish to come back to in a moment. Also, are the Government minded to agree that renters need to be given a right to charge? It is quite clear that some landlords are blocking renters installing charge point infrastructure.
Finally in that area, the other thing that we were very clear on is the totemic issue of charge points in motorway service stations. We know that people will not buy an electric vehicle if they do not feel confident that there will be charge points at motorway service stations when they take the family away to see relatives at Christmas. The previous Government set and failed to meet their target for six high-powered charge points at all motorway service stations. This Government need to be very clear in saying when they will be able to meet that really iconic issue of charge points in motorway service stations.
Of course, it is not just where you are going to charge your EV that is an issue for the public. One of the other issues that we found was a real barrier for people was the upfront costs of electric vehicles. EVs are still not affordable enough for all people who need to have a car. They are more expensive than their petrol and diesel counterparts and there are not yet enough affordable models on the market. We looked at examples across other European countries that are starting to move away from early adopters into mass saturation markets. All of them have retained fiscal incentives, normally grants, to encourage people with the upfront costs of EVs. Sadly, the last Government got rid of those grants back in 2022 and we as a committee felt that that may be one of the reasons why EVs are still only 17% of new car sales in this country. We need to do better.
It is not just the upfront costs of cars that we found to be an issue; it is also the ongoing running costs. The biggest concern that I had—I say that, knowing I speak merely as a representative of the broader committee—is that, as someone with off-street parking, I can charge my EV and it costs me 5% in VAT. Anyone who does not have home charging has to pay 20%. The committee identified that up to 40% of the population does not have access to off-street parking and, therefore, the ability to get that cheaper rate of VAT for charging. That is not equitable and I would hope that a new Government—a new Labour Government—would see both the issue of equality as well as the impact on the ongoing running costs for cars.
Committee members will know that we conducted an inquiry a couple of years back on mobilising behaviour change for net zero and the environment. One of the things we found was that people really wanted to get towards net zero, but they wanted the decisions and the policy actions to get there to be fair. Having VAT at a differential rate if you do not have the advantage of owning your own home and your own parking space is not fair. Our committee made it very clear, following the almost unanimous evidence that we had from people, that the VAT rate should be equalised and that fiscal policy should follow net-zero policy. So I hope that the Government will look at that issue in the upcoming Budget. The Minister may also wish to comment on the need for fiscal incentives when buying EVs.
But it is not just charging and upfront costs. The third big barrier the committee identified was the need to give people clear information. This is a really big societal change, yet the information for people about EVs—the benefits to them and to society—just is not there. If you looked in the papers, you would not know that nine out of 10 EV owners would not go back to petrol or diesel, or that the lifetime costs of an EV are currently cheaper than for petrol and diesel. What the committee found was a blatant amount of misinformation. Very interestingly, we looked at a number of the broadsheets and other media outlets and found an awful lot of focus on the fire risks of electric vehicles, so we went away and looked into the evidence. They are no more of a fire risk than petrol and diesel cars—so we concluded that there was a blatant campaign of misinformation.
When we launched our campaign in February, a number of the newspapers, including the Daily Telegraph, again showed their fossil fuel-soaked colours. Anthony Browne, the then Minister, came before the committee. We asked him whether there was a concerted campaign of misinformation, and he agreed with us. He said that there was—it was just that the Government were not going to do anything about it. In fact, not only did they not do anything about it, when they pushed the date of the ban on new ICE cars back from 2030 to 2035, the message the public got was that going to EVs was not a priority and that we can afford to wait, whereas they should have been clear with people that this is an urgent priority. Indeed, the then Prime Minister Rishi Sunak went further: when he made that announcement, he said that going to net zero was going to be hard.
We cannot get to net zero without EVs, and we need our Government to face down people who do not believe in net zero. We may not have a Conservative Government, but we certainly have Reform UK down the other end who see this as a rallying cry, and there are siren voices in this House and beyond who need to be called out. The Government need to take every opportunity they have—they have one coming up in the Budget in a couple of weeks—to make it clear to the public that they are on this journey and they are going to support people on it and make some critical interventions, including the equalisation of VAT and a clear statement on not watering down the ZEV mandate, so that people know where they stand and the direction of travel. As our committee said, that should be allied with a 10-year road map which gives car companies policy certainty, investors the confidence to invest and people the information they need.
I am going to stop fairly shortly, but our report covers many other issues, including the need for better recycling facilities for batteries, battery health checks and, critically, decarbonising the grid so that the electricity cars use helps us move towards net zero. I am relying on the many of members of the committee I see in the Chamber today to pick up one or two of those issues. I thank them for their support today and, indeed, throughout the committee. It was a great privilege to chair it. I also thank the staff for producing the report.
I also thank the six schools and colleges which supported us in our youth engagement programme and gave us their wisdom, thoughts and reflections on this issue, which is going to be as much about their future as it is for some of us. I put on record my thanks to Boroughmuir High School in Edinburgh, Loreto Sixth Form College in Greater Manchester, Barnsley College, Langley College in Slough, the London School of Excellence and St Louise’s Comprehensive College in Belfast. They were a great support to us all.
Finally, I hope the Minister, who will be listening to all the comments noble Lords make this afternoon, will be able to make it clear that this Government are committed to a fast track to EVs. We cannot get to net zero without it. Our report was very clear: an urgent recharge of the EV strategy is needed, and we need to make sure that we go in the fast lane to net zero in electric vehicles.
Baroness Parminter (LD)
My Lords, I will briefly thank the Minister for putting on record how important this policy area is to the Government, for confirming that they accept their responsibility to grow confidence in this market and for saying that they have heard the calls from around this House on the issues of the costs and subsidies that will be necessary if we are to grow this market. The Budget is coming very soon—we will see whether the warm words we have heard tonight will be translated into the necessary action. I beg to move.
King’s Speech
Baroness Parminter Excerpts(4 months, 1 week ago)
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Baroness Parminter (LD)
My Lords, at this late stage in the debate, I will merely add my voice to the cacophony of congratulations to the new Front Bench and Government at this important time in our country’s history for those of us who are concerned about the environment and nature.
We have heard from other noble Peers about the announcements today by the Climate Change Committee that we are off-track on net zero, which go alongside the announcements in the recent past by the Office for Environmental Protection that we are also off-track on our nature targets. Time is not on our side. We have a new Government, who are already showing commitment in this space, and therefore we welcome them to the job. Although I do not wish to sow dissent with my new partners on the Opposition Benches, I slightly took issue with the comments by the noble Lord, Lord Roborough, that he saw the previous Government as the greenest Government ever. I merely respond that he should have gone to Specsavers.
I welcome a number of Bills in the gracious Speech, the first of which is the new Great British Energy Bill, which has been mentioned by a number of colleagues. We need to move at pace to get the renewable energy our country so desperately needs. As the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, mentioned, it is fantastic to see the appointment of Chris Stark. He is focused on delivery and has a good reputation in the business and political spheres. That can only be to the good, so we welcome that Bill and look forward to it coming before the House.
The other Bill that I particularly welcome, which will come as no surprise to colleagues around the House, is of course the water Bill. For those of us here and elsewhere who have focused for so long on the quality of our rivers, lakes and seas, it is important and good to see the Government picking up this issue. However, like the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, and the noble Lord, Lord Gascoigne, I think that the Bill might need to go a little further. I look forward to playing my part in ensuring that that job is done; we will be constructive in our role in opposition on that.
In the time I have here today—I do not want to take up my nine minutes because noble Lords are getting fed up—I will focus on three issues. The first is about building nature restoration into the Government’s welcome plans to build new homes and infrastructure. On these Benches, we know that we need new homes in this country and people need places to live. However, if we are to meet our nature targets, nature needs places to live, feed and breed—which means space. We can do that by clever building specifications—in the same way that we can have zero-carbon specifications to move towards our net-zero goals—and we can have swift boxes and hedgerow highways, but we also need space. So it is encouraging to see that the Government have committed to this new mechanism for developers to fund nature restoration.
Unlike some other noble Peers who have spoken today—including the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, with whom I rarely disagree—I was pleased that this House stood up so strongly to defend the nutrient neutrality position last year, in the face of the proposals that the previous Government were bringing forward to water it down. We were right to do that, and I am pleased to see that this Government are committed to the idea that developers need to look to paying towards nature restoration at the same time as building much-needed homes. I am pleased that they are also looking to consult with wildlife delivery groups as they look to possible alternatives. The old system is not perfect—we all said that when it came before us—and needs amending, but we must be careful that we do not throw the baby out with the bathwater and that, if we are to replace it, we really deliver for nature. As a party, we look forward to being part of that discussion.
In the spirit of the noble Earl, Lord Russell, who said that as a party in opposition we will be only too delighted for the Government to nick good ideas that we have, one of the good ideas we have is around biodiversity net gain, which was introduced by the last Government—and welcomed—but which had its ambitions viciously curbed in that major infrastructure projects were excluded from having to abide by the biodiversity net gain obligations. That is a missed opportunity. Equally, our party believes that the 10% requirements on biodiversity net gain need to be ratcheted up. Therefore, for larger housing developments, over 25 homes, there should be a sliding scale upwards with an increasing percentage of biodiversity net gain. I urge the new Government to look at our proposal around biodiversity net gain, which will help deliver the homes we need but also ensure that developers pay their rightful amount.
Secondly, there is plenty in the gracious Speech on improving public transport, which is extremely welcome both for economic growth and delivering on our net-zero targets. However, given the contribution of transport to our emissions, if we are going to meet our net-zero targets we must also look at passenger cars, which means speeding up fast now on EVs. Although the Government had some very welcome commitments in their manifesto around EVs, as we move from the early adopter phase to mass market there is a glaring omission around fairness.
I note with great pleasure that one of the three principles in the King’s Speech was that issue of fairness. However, I urge the Government, as they look to scale up the country, and as we have to move towards more electric vehicles, to look at the VAT disparity on the costs of charging your electric vehicle. If you live, as I do, in a home with a garage, you can charge your EV with a 5% VAT rate. People on a lower income are charged on the streets at a 20% rate. We know how individuals and political parties will stoke up these issues to create division, and I can see this as an issue coming down the track when more people are buying EVs and realising that they pay a higher rate for their EV charging compared with those people who have the luxury of doing it at home. This is a real issue of fairness and I hope that the Government, who I think are genuinely committed, will look at it and do it quickly before people in other places start using it as a means to create division on the whole net-zero agenda.
Thirdly and finally, on something that I hope this Government will do, it was fantastic to see the noble Lord, Lord Vallance, in his place a moment ago because this was an issue he raised when he came before the House of Lords Select Committee on Environment and Climate Change when we did an inquiry into mobilising behaviour change for net zero. We were looking at the whole issue of how we get people to change behaviour and do things that they are not used to doing, picking up new technologies, changing the way they live their lives and buying new products. Yes, you can do that through introducing new Bills, as the Government are doing here today, and through fiscal incentives, but you also have to tell people what they need to do. The words to the committee of the noble Lord, Lord Vallance, were, “We need to tell people what they need to do”.
This Government, at the start of their mandate, have a very clear vision about net zero—unlike the previous Government, I am sad to say. They are on one track and they are moving us forward in the right direction. However, we need to take the public with us. They need to be informed and there needs to be consensus. That requires a public engagement strategy by this Government now, at the start of their term, making it clear to people that we are all in this together, all government departments are singing from the same hymn sheet, and we will help people overcome the barriers, but we will get there. If we do not do that, we will miss a major opportunity and we risk not getting to where we need to be on net zero.