Transport Decarbonisation Plan

Alexander Stafford Excerpts

Wednesday 16th June 2021 Westminster Hall

[Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Nokes. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington (Felicity Buchan) for raising this important issue. I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

I rise today to speak on an issue on which I feel strongly. My hon. Friends will know that much of my work in the House has focused on bringing the green revolution to left-behind areas across the United Kingdom, including Rother Valley, and that green transport has been a focus for me. In fact, I sponsored the first two debates on hydrogen and the first debate on critical minerals in the UK Parliament, and I shall speak about those topics today, as I firmly believe that they are vital in the context of our transport decarbonisation plan.

Critical minerals are incredibly important to our green energy and low-carbon transport needs. On average, each electric car uses 100 kg of copper, rare earth for the magnets, and lithium, nickel, cobalt, manganese and graphite for the batteries. To meet the Prime Minister’s vision for wind power, we also need more than 26,000 tonnes of rare earths and more than 4 tonnes of copper. Importantly, seven points in the Government’s 10-point plan for the green recovery are dependent on a secure green supply of critical minerals. The UK Government must acknowledge that the construction of renewable energy technology and low-carbon electric vehicles is inextricably linked to the supply of our critical minerals. We must take action accordingly to protect our energy sector, the generation of clean power and the future transport technology for low-carbon vehicles.

The challenge to the UK is not just that rocketing demand will leave shortages, but that our suppliers of critical minerals—namely the People’s Republic of China—are unsustainable and unreliable. More than 75% of the world’s lithium-ion component manufacturers are located in China, resulting in more than 72% of lithium-ion batteries and 45% of all global electric vehicles already being produced there. My hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) mentioned Shenzhen and other areas in China with huge electric vehicle networks. That is a positive in some ways, but also a concern, as they are almost hoovering up the critical minerals that we need to decarbonise here in the UK and across the globe. In December 2020—only a few months ago—the Chinese legislature passed a law on export control allowing the Chinese Government to ban exports of strategic minerals and advanced technology whenever they wished, so they have a stranglehold on the supply of essential minerals.

I have been active in persistently calling on the Government to adopt a comprehensive critical minerals strategy and to collaborate with the Five Eyes and Commonwealth partners on a unified supply network. I am pleased to hear that my call has been heeded and that Ministers and Whitehall are waking up to the urgency of this policy sector. Time is of the essence, and we must move now.

Furthermore, I submitted questions to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy on the role of assured data in mineral supply chains and the role of the Government in the stimulus and advancement of deployment of technology, including distributed ledger technology, used in the distribution system for critical minerals. I was a bit disappointed that the Department chose to group its responses together and provide, frankly, a very short and unresponsive answer. I hope the Minister can speak to her colleagues in BEIS and get them to commit to look at the questions again, because they are essential to our future critical mineral needs.

I wish to devote the rest of my speech to hydrogen. Some great work has already been undertaken by the Government on this issue, and I have spoken a lot about it in the House. However, with COP26 coming up in the UK, we must seize the opportunity to steal a march on the competition and become a pre-eminent world leader in hydrogen technology. I would like us to go further by introducing a vehicle capital financial support mechanism that applies to vehicle types where hydrogen has the potential to significantly reduce emissions. We should also introduce a financial support mechanism per kilo of hydrogen sold. That can be achieved quickly through the liberalisation of the renewable transport fuel obligation, which has recently gone out for public consultation. Further, we hope the hydrogen strategy will enable the development of a more refined scheme, such as, potentially, contracts for difference.

In addition, we should urgently develop hydrogen train schemes and use the 4,000-strong zero emission bus scheme to buy a large number of hydrogen buses to help kickstart investment in UK-made buses, as well as hydrogen production. We must modernise the bus service operators’ grant to align with the UK’s net zero ambitions and favour zero emission fuels over and above fossil fuels. We must commit to an explicit medium-term, zero emission freight deployment programme with vehicle deployment targets, and relax and clarify the conditions for hydrogen projects to qualify for the renewable transport fuels obligation, which will support the entire production and supply chain infrastructure needed for full hydrogen mobility. Combined, those policies have the ability to accelerate progress to net zero, stimulate private investment and create jobs across the Union, all with minimal taxpayer spend.

One other small point I want to touch on in relation to the low-carbon transport strategy is the nature of our technology and the batteries. Let me talk briefly about oil, as someone who used to work for Shell in the oil industry. Many people do not know the amount of oil that goes into an electric car. It is a huge amount, mainly for cooling the batteries, because at the moment that is the best way to cool them down. As battery range increases, batteries will get hotter and will need more cooling, therefore needing more oil. We cannot get away from the fact that, even in a low-carbon future, we will still need oil in the engine. It is not burned; it is first fill, so it is sealed in the engine, but when the engine battery is recycled or destroyed, that carbon will be released.

In future strategies, the Government need to acknowledge that there is carbon that we will have to get rid of at some point, and there needs to be a true way of recycling it. They also need to realise that some of that oil will get lost and carbon will be released, so we need to invest in offsetting that carbon usage. We will never get to zero carbon—net zero, but not zero carbon. In the strategy that is hopefully coming up, we need nature-based solutions and, potentially, carbon capture and storage. That needs to be at the heart of the strategy. We cannot ignore the elephant in the room: there is oil still in electric vehicles.

I commend the Minister for the work the Government have already done on critical minerals and hydrogen. However, without further decisive steps in both sectors, we risk losing out to the rest of the world, putting our net zero, energy security and economic growth at risk. We must see the rapid publication of the transport decarbonisation plan and the hydrogen strategy, which I think we are still waiting on. Every time I raise that with the Government, they say it will come soon. I hope it is sooner rather than later. We also need the critical mineral strategy. Industry, politicians and international partners are waiting. Now is the time to rise to the challenge and set the gold standard for transport decarbonisation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alexander Stafford]

Tarmac is made of oil, so when making roads, we need to go back to offsetting some of our emissions because we will always need that oil. Does the hon. Lady think that should be part of the plan as well?

[Kerry McCarthy]

We need the environmental impact assessment from the Department so that we can assess the carbon footprint of road building, and look at whether more sustainable materials can be used and whether the extent of the road building programme proposed by the Government is compatible with reaching net zero, or whether other decisions need to be made.

We desperately need a comprehensive strategy to guide the Government’s approach. We do not want to see in this plan only platitudes and declarations of intent; we need clarity about how the Government intend to boost zero emission vehicle sales, speed up the transition to sustainable fuels, including for aviation and maritime, and encourage more people to use public transport, which we must ensure involves clean, greener vehicles.

We need a bold vision, linked to planning, housing and economic policy, on what role transport will play in the future, with post-pandemic adjustments to the way we live, move around, buy goods and access services—for example, the idea of the 15-minute city, which has been championed in Paris, and the role of the logistics sector. Many more people have resorted to online deliveries during the pandemic. I believe that pattern of behaviour will continue, so what is the strategy to keep heavy polluting vehicles out of urban centres wherever possible and rely on more sustainable forms of transport, whether electric vans, e-cargo bikes or other alternatives? The other day I visited Magway, a company that is looking at an underground delivery system, which it will be trialling in west London soon; that is really quite exciting stuff. Will we see ambition on that sort of thing in the plan?

I would welcome any insight from the Minister as to what concrete measures we can expect to see. Are the Government considering a zero emission vehicle mandate, as recommended by the Green Alliance and Policy Exchange, to ease the transition to 100% new zero emission vehicle sales by 2030? Are they considering a sustainable aviation fuel blending mandate to incentivise production and the adoption of stable fuels derived from waste? Will we finally see the timeframe for the production and roll-out of the 4,000 zero emission buses promised by the Government? How does the Government’s consultation on cutting air passenger duty for domestic flights square with all of this?

There is huge potential for jobs, and for the UK to lead the way in technological development. What we really want to hear from the Minister is a real strategy to get us there.