Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure

Debate between Alan Mak and Stephen Hammond

Tuesday 7th March 2023 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Hammond]

I will later refer to the barriers to greater electric vehicle uptake, which include accessibility and the number of on and off-street charging points. There are great regional disparities across the United Kingdom in the number of charging points per 1,000 people. There are great differences between London, Scotland and the rest of the world. I am sure colleagues from more rural areas will talk about access to charging points and about local councils’ ability to allow people to use on-street and off-street parking, which sometimes prohibits the movement from the internal combustion engine to electric vehicles.

Transport represents 27% of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions, and road transport is somewhat over 85% of that. We should not underestimate the progress that has been made. There are now 39,000 charging points across the UK and about 1,135,000 plug-in vehicles. But, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said, the price of those vehicles and the lack of access to charging points prevent uptake. There is also a lack of a second-hand market—perhaps unsurprisingly, given the relatively recent development of the electric vehicle—which would mean more widespread availability and help the movement to electric vehicles.

Production levels of electric vehicles, which were greater two years ago than they are now, means that although there are 1,135,000 vehicles at the moment, the progress of uptake is slower than we would have expected, given the culture behind electric and hybrid.

[Alan Mak (Havant) (Con)]

My hon. Friend rightly made the point about access. Havant Borough Council has installed several fast electric vehicle charging points in partnership with a private sector contractor. Does he agree that local authorities, particularly those in coastal and rural areas, have a key role to play in expanding EV charging infrastructure and that others should follow the example of my local council, and will he say more about that in his later remarks?

[Stephen Hammond]

My hon. Friend is right to point out that a number of councils are exemplars for charging, but a number of other councils are lagging behind the good example of Havant. I will come to that issue, because one of my key asks is for the Minister to consider what pressure the Department is prepared to put on local councils. I mentioned that we have seen some movement on electric cars, but there are barriers. Perhaps the biggest is accessing charging points and the infrastructure that is available. We have a target of 300,000 charging points by 2030, but we currently have fewer than 39,000. We therefore need a compound increase of 33% over the next seven or eight years to make that a reality. Unless we do more, that target looks challenging.

There are also issues with accessing on-street charging points, of which there is a limited number. We need to change the culture, and part of that is that, although there are huge numbers of funds and suppliers, far too many people think only the public sector should provide charging points. That is wrong. Also, if someone who lives on a road with a limited number of charging points gets home at six or seven in the evening and someone is charging their car, and if it is not a rapid charging point, it will take anywhere between four and eight hours to charge that car. I challenge my colleagues here to say who is going to get up at two o’clock in the morning and move their car so that the charging point becomes available, and who else is going to get up and move their car to that charging point.

We need to make more on-street charging points available. We also need to make some of those on-street charging points accessible to households that are unlikely to be near places where the public installation of on-street charging can happen. I will make the case in a few moments that local byelaws should be changed so that that can become a reality for many people, particularly those in rural areas.