Public Charge Point Regulations 2023

Baroness Vere of Norbiton Excerpts

Wednesday 20th September 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

That the draft Regulations laid before the House on 11 July be approved.

Relevant document: 48th Report from Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. Considered in Grand Committee on 13 September.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Vere of Norbiton) (Con)]

My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords, I wish to say something about the regulations before we approve them. I speak as an electric car driver. I note that it has taken about five years for this House to come near to installing a couple of points.

The regulations are welcome, but they are only a tiny step forward. We will not be able to persuade the public to take up electric vehicles when the charging and the infrastructure are so lacking. These regulations do very little to improve the situation. They will not apply to anything that has less than an 8 kilowatt charge, workplace charge points, points for a specific car make, or use by a visitor to residential premises or micro-businesses. They do not apply to blocks of flats and they exclude slow charge points. They will take us only a step forward towards contactless. Most people, if they use charge points, still have to go around with a wallet full of membership cards of different organisations.

In the spirit of the Question put by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, earlier, will the Government promise that there will be more pressure to bring on board uniform electric charging points all over the country speedily?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for intervening. She reiterated the same points that she made when this statutory instrument was debated in the Moses Room. I covered all the points she raised in my response; noble Lords might want to look at that. I very much hope that she will listen to the Prime Minister’s statement in a few minutes time and feel reassured that the Government are absolutely behind zero-emission vehicles and recognise the need to build the infrastructure such that uptake is ever increasing.

Motion agreed.