Electric Vehicles

Baroness Deech Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I am grateful to my noble friend for raising two important issues, over both of which I have very limited power. Obviously, London roads come under the remit of TfL and the Mayor of London. However, as my noble friend will know, we are in deep discussions with TfL and the Mayor of London, given their financial situation at the moment, and I am sure the conversation will at some stage turn to roads and their closure. As for my noble friend’s first point, about installing a charging point in the House of Lords car park, I will indeed join his mini-campaign.

[Baroness Deech (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I too have an electric car and have been unable to park in the House of Lords because of bureaucracy and expense that we need to sweep away. In general, as you travel around the country and you need to recharge, that requires uniformity. Everywhere one goes, there are different credit card-type of memberships. Imagine if every time you went to a petrol station you found different sized pumps and that different memberships of organisation were required. We need uniformity all over the country. Will the Minister encourage that?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

The noble Baroness, Lady Deech, has raised an important issue. It is a fact that some cars cannot use certain chargers. However, the Government also recognise that a huge amount of innovation is taking place in this field at the moment. We are very clear that all charge points should accept debit and credit cards and be freely available to people. We want the data, on whether charge points are up and running and where they are, to be freely available. We will consult on the powers we have through the Automated and Electric Vehicles Act 2018 to mandate minimum standards for charge points which will include things like contactless provision, transparency in pricing and, as I have said, access to information.