Transport

Debate between Ian Paisley and Trudy Harrison

Thursday 19th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Trudy Harrison)]

It is my absolute pleasure to close this debate and I welcome the spirited contributions from hon. Members on both sides of the House. It is clear that transport elicits strong feelings across the House, and indeed across the country—and rightly so. The frequency of people’s local bus or train services, the road congestion that poisons our air and slows our economy, and the ability to walk or get on a bike safely all affect not just our quality of life, but the quality of our life chances.

Transport links connect us to economic opportunities, education and training. We know that talent is distributed right across this great country, so we must ensure that opportunity, which is often enabled by transport, is also realised. The Government want to deliver world-class low-carbon transport infrastructure across the country, because that is how we will level up and reduce the inequalities that have persisted for too long. The Minister of State, Department for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle (Andrew Stephenson), outlined the significant transport investment that the Government are already making, as well as our ambitious plans for reform. He described the measures that are essential for building back better and fairer.

I will set out how we are reducing transport emissions, which are our largest contributor of greenhouse gases and make up 27% of our total UK emissions. The Government have made world-leading pledges: we want all new road vehicles to be zero emission in the next two decades, from the largest HGVs to the smallest motorcycles. Electric vehicles are key to that ambition, along with general electrification, sustainable fuel and hydrogen production.

The transport Bill, which was announced last week, will help to drive an electric vehicle revolution and deliver 10 times the number of public charging points by 2030. It will give us powers not only to ensure that local authorities plan and deliver EV charging, but to address private charging, including for those living in multi-occupancy buildings.

[Ian Paisley]

If all the charging points that are being demanded are delivered, will there be sufficient capacity in electricity production to charge and drive those vehicles? My fear is that there will not, so we will need other solutions as well as electricity.

[Trudy Harrison]

The generation of electricity is a matter for the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, with which I work closely on exactly that point. The Prime Minister has set out that all electricity generated in this country will be low carbon in future, which is also incredibly important.

We already have one of the largest charging networks in Europe with 30,200 publicly available charge points, of which 5,400 are rapid.