Battery Strategy (Science and Technology Committee Report)

Lord Bassam of Brighton Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd November 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been an absolutely fascinating debate, I must confess. I have enjoyed listening to it. It has been fizzing with ideas and important points, and coming away from it I feel I have learned something. I do not think I have ever participated before in a deliberation on a Science and Technology Committee report, but clearly, I should do so more often.

I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Patel, on his brilliance in steering the committee in the way he did, ensuring that the report was as thorough and insightful as it was. As other noble Lords pointed out, the only shame is that the report has taken so long to come before us for debate this afternoon. As somebody pointed out, COP 26 and COP 27 have been and gone, and that time has passed and been lost.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, pointed out, the opening lines of the summary perfectly pinpoint the problem: if we do not alter the current course of UK manufacture to support the car industry’s transition to electric vehicles, we will not hit our net-zero targets. That is a pretty stark observation. As the report says:

“Despite recent announcements … the pace and scale of building these facilities will not meet demand”,


and, as a number of noble Lords explained, industry will simply uproot itself and move overseas.

The report was clear that the Government needed to establish a strategy for transport, hydrogen and wider decarbonisation. The committee argued that the Government should produce their promised hydrogen strategy as soon as possible. In fairness, they have now done that, but does it match the risks that the committee identified? I do not think so. It is the “stark disconnect” that my noble friend Lord Liddle drew attention to.

The committee also argued that the Government should support the development of UK battery industry supply chains and establish a strategy for securing access to the raw materials needed to make the batteries. The noble Lord, Lord Lilley, pointed very carefully and clearly to some of the problems we are encountering in the critical minerals strategy, which is another warning to the Government.

The committee also recommended that the Government should ensure that the automotive industry has access to a sufficiently skilled workforce to support the transition from mechanical to electrical technology. A number of Peers drew attention to that, in particular the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, and the noble Lord, Lord Naseby. The problem here is that we are already far behind our European rivals. As has been said, we have one gigafactory in operation while Germany has five and a further four in construction. France and Italy are set to have twice the number of jobs in battery manufacturing that we are set to have. This simply is not good enough, and it means that our car industry will rapidly become unsustainable.

The committee recommended new research and innovation institutions for fuel cells. It described fuel cells as the Cinderella of UK energy policy, receiving less attention than they deserve, and surely that is right. In response, the Government mentioned the launch of the hydrogen for transport programme to support the development of fuel cell technology and said that they were providing backing through the fuel cell electric fleet scheme. However, these initiatives date back to 2017 and 2016 respectively, so will the Minister say what real progress has been made since?

The committee also called for work with Ofgem to ensure appropriate regulation and incentives are in place to facilitate the expansion of the electricity network. Specifically, the argument was made for the importance of developing smart systems for managing supply and demand. It also said that the Government and Ofgem need to supply the expansion of other more sophisticated services, such as smart tariffs and battery storage. Most importantly, the committee called for the expansion of the public charging network. The fact is that the vast majority of charging points are still located in London and the south-east. The committee wisely argued for the commitment to delivering 325,000 charge points by 2032, as recommended by the Government’s own independent advisory body, the Committee on Climate Change. In response, the Government said that they would deliver £1.3 billion in funding to support the rollout of charge points for homes and businesses and on-street charge points. In March 2022, Taking Charge, the policy document produced by the Government, stated that we would have 300,000 charge points by 2030, but that was rapidly undermined when in June this year the Government ended the support scheme then in place for supporting the electric vehicle grant that focused on charging. Surely this should be the moment where the Government are pulling out all the stops to transition to electric vehicles to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. This is a short-sighted decision that will simply put electric cars out of reach for many. Perhaps the Minister will enlighten us today about the number of charging points now in place and what sort of plan there is for each year to hit the latest target.

I compare this with the attitude of places such as Norway, where I went on holiday this summer. I hired an electric car and experienced no problems with recharge facilities. I was actually stuck for choice when recharging. That was on the Lofoten Islands, their equivalent of the Outer Hebrides. We need the Government to embrace the means and the technology.

The committee also urged the Government to decide whether to phase out the sale of new diesel heavy goods vehicles and recommended that the infrastructure is put in place to support this objective. In a far-sighted proposal, it said that the Government should

“provide a clear timeline for research and development of technologies”

necessary to support this transition, including batteries and fuel cells. Thus far, it seems that the Government have got no further than analysing the responses to their 2020 consultation on banning new petrol, diesel and hybrid HGVs. The sector needs clarity, so when will the Government’s response be published? Will the Government also be spelling out the technologies required to ensure this transition is possible? I know the Government confirmed that they are committed to phasing out the sale of non-zero-emission HGVs by 2024, a welcome move, but surely the announcement in May this year of just £200 million to support this transition is barely adequate as a demonstrator programme.

Finally, the report calls for the acceleration of the rail electrification programme to accelerate the transition away from diesel trains. Will the Minister explain where we have got to on this issue? The Government did not respond to that point when replying to the report. Perhaps they can this afternoon.

Thus far the Government’s response to the report has fallen short of where it needs to be. We need the Government to be speedier in their response to the issues the report raises. We also need them to work in partnership with business better to understand the business perspective in tackling the challenges that getting to net zero imply.

It was drawn to our attention earlier in the debate that we have had a change in leadership, with five Secretaries of State in four years, so we have had plenty of leaders, but not much leadership. Surely, there is a big opportunity for the UK in meeting the challenges. By expanding the manufacturing capacity of battery production nationally we create new jobs and opportunities wherever—the West Midlands, the north-east, the north-west and the south-west. We need an industrial strategy that delivers that promise and opportunity as we move to a greener economy.

For our part on the Labour Benches, we think that the Government lack ambition. It is not just Labour that thinks that—senior industrial leaders do too. In the meantime, this report helps to provide the UK with a useful steer in the right direction and should act as a wake-up call to government. For that, we should all be very grateful to the committee and its members for their wisdom and foresight.