Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill

Chris White Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Carry-over motion: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Monday 6th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

Well, I would not put a forecast on it. Suffice it to say to my hon. Friend—he has been a diligent follower of this issue and is keen to pursue it, and he has been engaged in discussions with my Department about it—that our ambitions remain strong. We have good incentives in this country. We have measures in the Bill to make an electronic vehicle charging network much more transparent and visible. These things will accelerate the production and sale of these vehicles in the United Kingdom. Of course, with the Nissan LEAF in Sunderland, we have the world’s first mass-production car of that kind.

[Chris White (Warwick and Leamington) (Con)]

Car sales are projected to rise from somewhere in the region of 74 million today to 100 million in 2030, helped not least by the launch of the fourth-generation Range Rover, the Velar, which my right hon. Friend the Minister of State, Department for Transport, saw with me last week. The hon. Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) made a good point about the infrastructure being in the right place for the battery technology and the plants to be developed. We need that infrastructure in place near Jaguar Land Rover, so will the Secretary of State please tell me what his plans are for that?

[Chris Grayling]

Indeed, we do need that infrastructure. As I have said, I am excited about what JLR is doing in the field of electric vehicles. The Government car service is already a customer of the company, but I look forward to it also becoming an early customer of those electric vehicles as they are manufactured and sold. The company has specifically said that it needs infrastructure improvements to help it with those developments and its ambitions for electric vehicle manufacturing in the United Kingdom. I assure the House that it will receive that support. The autumn statement provided extra funding for electric charging points. This Bill provides for much greater transparency of data, making it much easier for those who own and drive electric vehicles to identify the locations of the best charging points. That is part of a strategy that will, in my view, drive forward substantially the sales of those vehicles in this country.

We should not, however, be entirely technologically biased. We will also take further steps to encourage the development of hydrogen vehicles in the United Kingdom and, of course, we provide tax incentives for hybrid vehicles. We must drive for a higher quality of vehicle in this country when it comes to the propensity to pollute, and we must provide the right support for that market to emerge. However, we must allow the technologies to win those battles themselves, rather than have the Government winning them for them.