Transport Decarbonisation Plan

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Wednesday 16th June 2021 Westminster Hall

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see you in your place, Ms Nokes. I congratulate the hon. Member for Kensington (Felicity Buchan) on securing this important debate. She made an excellent speech and I agreed with almost everything that she said. I say “almost everything” in case there was something in it that I did not spot and will come to regret. Certainly on the key points, she was very much on the same page as the Labour Front Bench. One of the most important things that she said was that too often there are very ambitious end goals, but they are far into the future, and unless we have clear interim targets and ways of monitoring and scrutinising progress towards those targets, and a plan as to how we will get there, there is a danger that everything will get pushed into the long grass, as we have seen with the 25-year environment plan. As the Environment Bill goes through Parliament, there is a real concern that with a 25-year plan, how do we make sure that we do ambitious things in the next five years and not just put things off?

It was really interesting to hear the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown), and also the SNP spokesperson, the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands), talk about the progress that Scotland is making. There is a lot we can learn from that. The point was made about how many more EV charging points we need to get to where we need to be. I speak as an EV driver, and what the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said resonated with me. I have learnt not to travel on a bank holiday because of queues at the service station. I cannot charge at home, so I rely on public charging points and have learnt to make trips in the wee small hours because I know I can get to the charging point then.

Also interesting was what the SNP spokesperson said about how this needs to be part of the planning system. Another speaker talked about new housing developments and how important it was to have charging points built in. This cannot be left to the market; it cannot be left to chance. It is something that we have to plan for.

I agree with what the hon. Members for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) and for Rother Valley (Alexander Stafford) said about the importance of electric buses, hydrogen, and the sourcing and manufacturing of batteries. These are real issues that we have to grapple with now. As has been said, decarbonising our transport sector is one of the most pressing challenges that we face as a nation, and we need more ambition and more action from this Government if we are to meet net zero. At the moment, whether it is the lack of a green recovery plan for our post-pandemic recovery or carbon budgets that will not be met through current policies, we are not seeing enough ambition or action from this Government. As the Scottish National party spokesperson, the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North, said, the rhetoric is great—we cannot disagree with that—but where is the road map? Instead, we have a Prime Minister who talks green but then flies to the G7 in Cornwall, where climate change is high on the agenda, in a private jet rather than taking the train. What kind of signal does that send to world leaders ahead of COP26?

As has been said, transport is now the largest contributor to UK emissions. There has been real progress in areas such as energy, but we have not seen similar progress on transport. There has been a decade of inaction by this Government. According to the Climate Change Committee, surface transport contributed 24% of UK emissions in 2019, with aviation accounting for 8% and shipping 3%. I am glad that the Government have now said that they will look at including international aviation and shipping emissions when measuring our carbon footprint and on the agenda for COP.

I am also glad that one speaker in this debate has withdrawn and the other speakers, if anything, came in under time, because there will be lots of time for the Minister to answer questions, and I have quite a lot of questions for her. Obviously, the first one is, “Where is the transport decarbonisation plan?” We expected it to be published last year, and then we were told throughout this year that it would be published in spring. This Sunday marks the start of the summer solstice, so unless the Minister has a very big surprise up her sleeve for us in a few minutes’ time, it looks like that is another missed deadline. The hon. Member for Rother Valley talked about his frustration at constantly being told, “Soon, soon, soon.” That is something that we have come to expect from this Government: “Soon, shortly, spring.” When are we going to see the plan? I hope that it is very soon. Could the Minister also say whether, when the plan is published, there will be an oral statement in the House to accompany it? I certainly hope that there will be, so that MPs have a chance to ask questions.

We know that we urgently need to get polluting vehicles off our roads, get more people into zero emission vehicles, and get people back on public transport once it is safe to do so. Importantly—we have not heard very much about this so far this morning—we need to get people to engage more in active travel, whether that is cycling on conventional bicycles, e-bikes or e-cargo bikes, or walking. All of that will improve air quality, help lower emissions, reduce congestion, and improve physical health. With all the focus on technological developments, sustainable fuels and so on, I hope that people-powered travel—active travel—will not be overlooked.

Unfortunately, what we have seen from the Government recently does not inspire confidence. Subsidies for EV plug-in grants have been slashed yet again, and although the Government have tried to say that that is because they want more people to benefit—that was the answer I got when I challenged the most recent cut—based on the figures we have seen from the Government, the overall pot for plug-in grants has reduced too. Leaving it to the market, as has been said by the hon. Member for Kensington and others, will not get us to where we need to be by 2030. Funding for public charging infrastructure has so far been piecemeal, to put it mildly. There are at least four different pots that councils can apply for, but lots of local councils have not had anything from the Government.

When I have asked the Government which local authorities have not had any public funding at all, I have not had an answer; what I have had is a list of councils that have had money, and I have tried to extrapolate from that how many have not. It is a very significant number. That might be because of a lack of political will on councils’ part: maybe they do not feel the need for public charging infrastructure, and assume that people can charge at home, or that it can be left to the market. It might be because they have not been successful in putting together bids, but there are really significant gaps, and that needs to be addressed. We need a strategy to ensure consistent coverage throughout the country.

We also need to deal with grid connection costs, because the private sector has told me that there is an expense to putting in public charging points, and it could take quite a long while to recoup the costs before ownership reaches critical mass. In rural areas or tourist destinations in particular, it would take a while to recoup those costs. The actual cost of connecting to the grid is the thing that really deters companies from doing so.

On funding for local councils, the £2 billion for active travel that was announced last year—in fact, it was announced several times last year—is being released far too slowly. We have had a couple of tranches but I understand that there will be no more money until the next spending review, so we have missed the crucial window to embed the positive behavioural change that we saw during the lockdowns, when people were wary of using public transport but were quite keen to take advantage of the reduced traffic on our roads to take up cycling.

I also challenge the Minister on the £27 billion that has been pledged to road building by this Government, and on the fact that the Transport Secretary overruled the advice of his own civil servants to conduct an environmental review of the policy. I hope that the transport decarbonisation plan sheds some light on how and if such carbon-intensive construction projects can be made compatible with our net zero emissions target.

[Alexander Stafford]

Tarmac is made of oil, so when making roads, we need to go back to offsetting some of our emissions because we will always need that oil. Does the hon. Lady think that should be part of the plan as well?

[Kerry McCarthy]

We need the environmental impact assessment from the Department so that we can assess the carbon footprint of road building, and look at whether more sustainable materials can be used and whether the extent of the road building programme proposed by the Government is compatible with reaching net zero, or whether other decisions need to be made.

We desperately need a comprehensive strategy to guide the Government’s approach. We do not want to see in this plan only platitudes and declarations of intent; we need clarity about how the Government intend to boost zero emission vehicle sales, speed up the transition to sustainable fuels, including for aviation and maritime, and encourage more people to use public transport, which we must ensure involves clean, greener vehicles.

We need a bold vision, linked to planning, housing and economic policy, on what role transport will play in the future, with post-pandemic adjustments to the way we live, move around, buy goods and access services—for example, the idea of the 15-minute city, which has been championed in Paris, and the role of the logistics sector. Many more people have resorted to online deliveries during the pandemic. I believe that pattern of behaviour will continue, so what is the strategy to keep heavy polluting vehicles out of urban centres wherever possible and rely on more sustainable forms of transport, whether electric vans, e-cargo bikes or other alternatives? The other day I visited Magway, a company that is looking at an underground delivery system, which it will be trialling in west London soon; that is really quite exciting stuff. Will we see ambition on that sort of thing in the plan?

I would welcome any insight from the Minister as to what concrete measures we can expect to see. Are the Government considering a zero emission vehicle mandate, as recommended by the Green Alliance and Policy Exchange, to ease the transition to 100% new zero emission vehicle sales by 2030? Are they considering a sustainable aviation fuel blending mandate to incentivise production and the adoption of stable fuels derived from waste? Will we finally see the timeframe for the production and roll-out of the 4,000 zero emission buses promised by the Government? How does the Government’s consultation on cutting air passenger duty for domestic flights square with all of this?

There is huge potential for jobs, and for the UK to lead the way in technological development. What we really want to hear from the Minister is a real strategy to get us there.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rachel Maclean]

I thank the hon. Member for his comments, but I have addressed them already with the roles that local authorities, the private sector and Government have to play. I also point him back to what I said about our delivery plan, which will, absolutely, set out how we intend to ensure that every resident of the United Kingdom, no matter where they live, has equal access to this electric and low emission revolution. We will continue to monitor the market, and where it is not delivering, it is right for central Government to step into those areas of market failure.

Members mentioned the experience of public charging. We have consulted recently on measures to improve that experience, including opening up public charge point data, improving reliability and streamlining the payment methods for drivers—they should not have to have multiple active apps and accounts on their phone. We want to increase pricing transparency. I have done a huge amount of work with charge point operators as part of that vital work. We also plan to lay legislation later this year.

We want people across the country to have the opportunity to move to being electric vehicle drivers.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Am I right in thinking that that would be legislation requiring charge point operators to meet certain reliability standards? Is that what the Minister is suggesting?

[Rachel Maclean]

Absolutely right, it is that. We already have those powers in legislation, and we intend to use them.

The vast majority of electric vehicle drivers choose to charge their cars at home overnight or, increasingly, at the workplace. We plan to support people to charge their cars at home, as my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington said. We are working closely with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government at the moment and we have consulted on plans to introduce a requirement for every new home to have a charge point, where there is an associated parking space. We will publish our response soon. We aim to lay regulations in Parliament in 2021—this year. That will make England the first country in the world to introduce mandatory charge points in new homes, again cementing our position as the global leader in the race to net zero.

My hon. Friend spoke about R&D, and we are world-leading in the automotive manufacturing sector. We have prioritised securing investment in battery cell gigafactories. That is key to anchoring the mass manufacture of electric vehicles in the UK, safeguarding green jobs and driving emissions to net zero by 2050. We must also create a circular economy for electric vehicle batteries to maximise the economic and environmental opportunities of the transition to zero emission vehicles. That is why we support innovation, infrastructure and a regulatory environment for the UK battery recycling industry. The £318 million Faraday battery challenge is about tackling those technical challenges of reusing and recycling battery components with the aim of making them 95% recyclable by 2035—up from 10% to 50% today.

My hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley mentioned many of the critical minerals. He will have to forgive me, that topic is not my direct brief, but I assure him that a lot of the work on the Faraday battery challenge is to address such critical challenges, of which Ministers are well aware.

We must also continue to support public transport as one of the most sustainable ways around. On rail, we are building on our Williams-Shapps plan for rail to decarbonise the rail network. We have already completed 700 miles of rail electrification in England and Wales, and we will continue to electrify more of the network in the years ahead. In the past year, there has been a meteoric rise in cycling and walking, and all of our policy development is aimed at embedding that shift. As I said, we are investing £2 billion to enable half of all travel in towns and cities to be cycled or walked by 2030.