Decarbonising Rural Transport

Debate between Jonathan Edwards and Jesse Norman

Tuesday 7th March 2023 Westminster Hall

[Jesse Norman]

It is important to put this into perspective. One advantage of rural areas is that, in many cases, more so than in urban areas, people have driveways or accessible areas where they can put in charging points. Of course, domestic charging points are growing rapidly—vastly faster, as one might expect through private investment, than in the last year or two. It is a rapidly escalating curve, and rural areas have a great advantage over urban areas when it comes to charging electric vehicles. Rural areas will also benefit as improvements in technology increase vehicle range and reduce costs and range anxiety. It is a picture that we have reason to be optimistic about without in any sense being complacent about the need to continue to make rapid progress.

[Jonathan Edwards]

I want to reiterate my initial intervention on the Labour Front Bencher, the hon. Member for Wakefield (Simon Lightwood), and the point made by the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) on behalf of the Liberal Democrats. The concern is that the grid as it is will not accommodate everybody charging their cars at home; it will not cope. It would require significant extra infrastructure to transmit the electricity into rural areas. If we did that, we would put pylons everywhere and that becomes controversial. One solution in the United States is to use transport corridors—roads and rail—and go underground along those routes, which can be far more cost-effective. Of course, going underground is far more expensive than overground pylons.

There needs to be strategic thinking. These issues are devolved in Wales. Planning matters are devolved, as they are in Scotland and Northern Ireland, but there needs to be co-ordination and some thinking about how we can create the resilience and capacity for rural areas without desecrating them.

[Jesse Norman]

I completely agree with the hon. Member that any solution needs to respect the beauty and integrity of the area concerned. That is absolutely right, and I thank him for his suggestion, which I believe has received some consideration, but I will check with my officials.

There is a wider point. Of course, the demands on the grid are changing over time, but we have been given no reason to think that they are unsustainable. The attraction of much modern technology is that it allows much more load balancing in the timing of when cars are charged. We expect that to be a valuable source of strength and stability in the grid as we go forward.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Devon is a passionate advocate for active travel. She knows that the Department published the second cycling and walking investment strategy in the summer of last year, which includes new and updated objectives, such as increased levels of walking, including walking to school and doubling the levels of cycling. We expect to invest over £850 million in active travel between 2020 and 2023, which is a record amount of funding. As she knows, last month we announced an active travel fund of £200 million to improve walking and cycling routes and to boost local usage and economic development.

The benefits are not just economic, as has been rightly highlighted. There are also the benefits of air quality and improved health, and they play a vital role in decarbonisation. Funding is important, and we have talked about that, but it is only one part of the solution in rural areas. We also need to support increased capability in delivery, and that is why the Government are providing Devon County Council with capability funding to support the development of its county-wide rural trail—its cycling and walking infrastructure plan.

I was delighted to open the offices of Active Travel England in York a few weeks ago with Chris Boardman, our national active travel commissioner, and Danny Williams, the chief executive. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon will know from her APPG, those are people of the highest quality and the ATE is a very important development—indeed, a milestone—in how we think about the adequate and highly effective provision of active travel infrastructure and standards.

There is a mixed picture in terms of need, but not a mixed picture in terms of the commitment, energy and drive that we are trying to bring to the entire portfolio across the range of the different interventions and modes in the cause of decarbonising our country and our economy.