Electric Car Ownership

Debate between Lord Callanan and Baroness Deech

Wednesday 12th July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Deech]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to promote electric car ownership.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Lord Callanan) (Con)]

My Lords, we have a number of initiatives in place to encourage ownership, and are investing more than £600 million up to 2020 to make the UK a leader in the development, manufacture and use of electric vehicles. We are cutting the up-front costs of purchase with our plug-in car, van and motorcycle grants, and helping meet the costs of installation of charge points in homes, on residential streets and in workplaces right across the UK.

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

I declare my interest as the proud owner of a new all-electric car. May we seek guidance from the Government on this question? Is the future to be all-electric in order to reduce pollution and a reliance on Middle Eastern oil, in which case we need more infrastructure and more points, including right here in the House of Lords car park: or is the future not so good because there are downsides to driving all-electric vehicles—for example, the cost of extra electricity? We need an answer because we do not want to find ourselves with another diesel débâcle—good yesterday but not so good tomorrow.