Net Zero Targets and Decarbonising Transport

Debate between Damian Hinds and Ben Lake

Tuesday 4th February 2020 Westminster Hall

[Damian Hinds]

That is perfectly worthwhile and reasonable. In preparation for this debate, I looked at countries such as Norway and other Scandinavian countries. It is usually instructive to start with the more comparable countries—those of a similar size and complexity, with a similar industrial base, traditions and so on—but the hon. Gentleman is quite right to identify that Norway in particular has a high penetration rate of sales, which is also linked to very high differences in the taxation regime.

I want to talk briefly about the shift to electric vehicle technology and what I would say is overwhelmingly a consumer acceptance challenge. The shift in the way people own cars, towards personal contract hire, is a great opportunity to convey how the whole-life cost compares for different groups of consumers, rather than comparing the sticker price of one car against another. It is also a way of allaying fears about residual value and battery performance. Allied to that, when it comes to cost, it would be helpful—I realise this is not in the Minister’s gift—for the Treasury to give a clear forward view on the vehicle excise duty regime so that people can project into the future.

Clearly, these technologies eventually have to be subsidy-free. It has to be business as usual, so subsidies will have to be withdrawn, but doing so smoothly will be of great benefit to the industry and the consumer. The experience from elsewhere shows that if subsidies are suddenly withdrawn, there tends to be a massive spike in demand just beforehand, followed by a return. That is obviously not good for meeting production schedules.

On the infrastructure network, there is a lot that the Government can do through a mixture of regulation and their convening power. We need to do better and go further on full roaming and interoperability. We can do a lot better on the visibility of charging points. There has been a lot of focus on visibility to users of electric cars, but I am actually less worried about them right now than everybody else. The point is that to get consumer acceptance, non-users of electric cars need to know that there are plenty of places to charge them.

[Ben Lake (Ceredigion) (PC)]

The right hon. Gentleman is making a very important point. It is especially important in rural areas, such as those that he and I represent, that people who have not looked at electric vehicles in the past know that it is feasible for them to make that shift.

[Damian Hinds]

That is absolutely right, and showing it on sat-nav tech is important. There are some good sat-nav applications, such as Zap-Map, but it is difficult to guarantee that such things are absolutely comprehensive. There is some old-fashioned technology that could be improved, such as common signage. National brand partnerships mean that people know that whenever they go to any branch of supermarket X, if it has a car park, they will always find a minimum of x number of charging points.