Sale of New Petrol and Diesel Cars and Vans

Debate between Jim Cunningham and Peter Kyle

Thursday 4th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House calls on the Government to bring forward the date by which the sale of new petrol and diesel cars and vans will be ended.

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting this debate and the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee for producing the inquiry that inspired it. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) for presenting a report from the Transport Committee. That demonstrates the role that Select Committees are currently having in the life of our politics, and the importance of this Chamber in the absence of a lot of Government business.

Every transition in technology, or indeed social progress, generates resistance. Some people like to focus on the negatives and challenges, and use those as a reason for resisting or delaying change. I want to use this debate as an opportunity to talk about what needs to be and can be done, and shine a light on the many positives that will come from the move to electric vehicles.

Discussion of EVs usually starts with a focus on infrastructure or climate change, but as we are discussing what is ultimately a consumer product in a nation of car lovers, I will start by talking about the driving experience itself. I will start with what, in this day and age, is a confession: I love cars and I love driving. I am a proud member of the Association of Advanced Drivers and Riders, and I love watching Formula 1. Some time ago, however, a conflict began between my head and heart. My heart loved being a car owner and the freedoms that came with that, but my head knew the damage it was doing, and that by living in the centre of a city with a fantastic and award-winning bus service, I could afford to live without driving if I tried.

A decade ago I sold my car, and since then I have been an extremely happy user of the Brighton & Hove bus company, and an often irate user of Southern trains. Crucially, however, I have never regretted the move, particularly as new scientific data emerges on the impact that vehicle emissions are having on the quality of our air and on global warming.

As part of the BEIS Committee inquiry, not only did we undertake the normal avenues of parliamentary investigation, we also got out and about. We travelled to Norway to understand its outlier status as the world’s most successful country in the transition to carbon-free transport. We went to the Milton Keynes’s Electric Vehicle Experience Centre, where anyone can go to try out electric cars for themselves. As somebody who loves driving, I must admit that I was not really looking forward to it. I expected a sluggish, dull experience that pointed to a future in which people who enjoy driving will have to sacrifice their enjoyment for the sake of our environment.

I could not have been more wrong. All questions about range anxiety and charging times go straight out the window once you get going. The first thing you notice is how different the car’s interior is. Losing the need for a driveshaft and traditional gearbox means that designers and engineers have far more freedom to rethink the space used to enhance driver comfort and the passenger experience in an electric vehicle. Then you cannot help but notice how fast they are. There is no need to wait for the process of combustion in an EV, so initial acceleration, even in an entry-level model, is startling. I got a test of this when the hon. Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey), who is in his place on the Government Benches, and I were going down the dual carriageway. I was on the inside lane and he shot past me on the outside lane. He certainly got around the first roundabout in Milton Keynes before me. You then become aware of the noise or, more accurately, the lack thereof. Few of us can afford cars whose engine noise is a thing of beauty, so doing without it altogether is a godsend.

Finally, because of the use of the reclamation engine to reclaim energy when decelerating, all but the most severe braking is done by lifting the accelerator pedal. It makes for an incredibly smooth ride, much smoother than that of the current automatic cars, although I cannot attest to the smoothness of the hon. Gentleman’s journey that day.

In short, we should not guilt drivers into electric cars. We should start by pointing out how brilliant they are. That is also borne out by the evidence.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

When my hon. Friend was on his mystery tour, for want of a better expression, did he visit the Jaguar Land Rover plant and look at the electric cars there, or did he go to look at the black cabs made just outside Coventry, in the constituency of the hon. Member for Rugby, and try a ride in one?

[Peter Kyle]

I am extremely grateful for my hon. Friend’s characteristically generous and insightful contribution. The Committee visited JLR—I was not on the visit—and the London Electric Vehicle Company plant. Indeed, the hon. Member for Rugby was a participant in that visit, for obvious reasons. I will talk a little later about that experience and the contribution that that company is making to the streets of London, our capital city.

The proof that driving an electric vehicle is an exhilarating experience and one that consumers enjoy is also borne out by evidence. In Norway, where 30% of new cars sold are electric, 96% of first-time buyers say that they would never consider going back to conventional cars. Evidence also shows that prior to buying an EV, potential customers have concerns about range anxiety. New electric car customers, however, report feeling liberated from petrol stations. Evidence shows that people who buy EVs love them and promote them to friends. People like me who have experience driving them soon aspire to own one.

Just as electric vehicles provide a great consumer experience, we should also see the opportunity they provide for British business, which has not only challenges but huge opportunities in this regard. British industry has already proven itself a world-leading EV maker with the Nissan Leaf, Europe’s best-selling electric car, which is made right here in Britain, in Sunderland.

Our fantastic start is not being sustained, however, and there is no time to waste if we are serious about using the conversion to electric as an opportunity for British industry. Low domestic demand, Brexit and unambitious policy have meant that Britain has lost out on the world-class manufacturing opportunities we should be snapping up. Honda is closing its car assembly plant in Swindon to make its electric cars in Japan. BMW, Vauxhall and Toyota are shipping their high-value parts, including batteries, from abroad rather than making them here. Once these global patterns are established, it will become really hard for British industry to break in.

[Peter Kyle]

My hon. Friend makes an incredibly important point, which is fundamental to not only saving the industry but exploiting it. It is about not just car manufacturers but the supply chain. It is part of a comprehensive industrial strategy that our country cannot afford to miss out on. We will only succeed in the way she mentions, and succeed in achieving the kind of ambition she has for her local industry and her local businesses, if the Government are an active participant in making that happen. That is the lesson we have learned repeatedly in recent decades and repeatedly in the past year alone.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

Jaguar Land Rover is investing a lot of money in making electric batteries at its research and development centre in my constituency, but not enough has been done to create the infrastructure for electric cars that is badly needed. Does my hon. Friend not agree that more could be done in that area?