Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill

Lord Tope Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Thursday 17th May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords, I wonder if I might take the Committee back to some elementary aspects here. Under my apartment in London, there is a garage and in the bay next to me there is a plug in the wall, with a wire leading into a motor car. It is an electric car being charged. On the previous amendment, I argued the need for the Government to be far more open about the question of taxation in future, in substitute for the revenue loss arising from less reliance on the fuels of today. We cannot raise revenue in conditions where people simply stick a plug in the wall. There has to be a meter.

Amendment 76 goes on to refer to regulations. I presume it is implied that these are building regulations. I am not sure but I think that is the suggestion. Perhaps in placing this requirement in the building regulations, we should set a requirement to fit a meter even though it will not be raising revenue in the early years. The reason I say that is only because of my experience over smart meters. Are we not changing the rules in some ways on those, because we have learned? We are almost in a period of regret, as we have been discussing in Committee in recent weeks. We think, “If only we’d known that a few years ago, we might have done it in a different way”.

All I am suggesting is that in the event that we were to introduce regulations—building regulations, I presume—we should be thinking at that stage in terms of a meter. You would not just have your plug and socket; you would have a plug, a meter and a socket, but in the early stages the meter would be registering only for your information. The other advantage of it is this. In the event that you have a meter of that nature, with a particular socket, you can be sure that you can raise the revenue by charging a higher rate for the metered electricity than the rate charged for electricity going generally into the residence. There would have to be a differential rate to ensure that you could raise the revenue and you would have to have the equipment. I say: let us go from our experience with smart meters in another context.

Perhaps I may move on to Amendment 74, which has just been spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington. Can I express a reservation, since she asked for comments, on subsection (2) of that proposed new clause? It says:

“Any leaseholder who pays for a charge point to be installed as in subsection (1) retains ownership of the charge point”—


they retain ownership of it—

“and all the associated works that the leaseholder has paid for when the lease ends, but the landlord may acquire ownership of them by paying the leaseholder one sixtieth of their cost for each month that remains of the five years since they were installed”.

What happens if you are in a small block with a shared freehold, and someone puts in a meter? Are we saying that the balance of the freeholders have to pay to the person who installed a meter money to compensate them for the fact that they have left the lease at an earlier stage? That would be an unfair imposition on the balance of the leaseholders—if they have a share of the freehold, they are basically leaseholders. They might have 99-year leases but they are leaseholders. If I might say so, that provision is wrong. I think that if you have put in the equipment, you do so at your risk and if you leave, you lose.

I have a suspicion about what would happen. In the flat that I own near to the property of the noble Lord, Lord Young, we have a committee arrangement and I can imagine circumstances in which some members of that committee might say, “I’m sorry but we don’t want to pay to compensate you when you leave for equipment you’ve put in”. I do not know whether it might cost hundreds or thousands of pounds. All I am saying is: let us be a little careful about that provision. I do not want to rubbish the noble Baroness’s amendment because the rest of it is excellent but I would enter that minor concern.

[Lord Tope (LD)]

My Lords, as this is my first contribution to the Bill, I should say that my knowledge of, and interest in, electric vehicles is more limited than most of the Committee here. However, I suspect that I might have been the first to drive an electric vehicle when I drove from this House back to the London Borough of Sutton, at least 20 or 25 years ago, and came last in a race with our two MPs. One was riding a bicycle and the other was travelling by public transport. The reason for that was nothing to do with electric vehicles; it was to do with traffic on a Friday, which affects electric vehicles as much as every other car. Nevertheless I caused great amusement by arriving some time after our two Members of Parliament.

I am here to speak, in particular, to Amendments 54 and 57. I agree with much of what the noble Lord, Lord Borwick, said about his amendment, and very much with the sentiments behind the amendment spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington. My interest in this—and, indeed, the reason why I was driving the electric car—is that for the 13 years that London was without a strategic authority I was leader of a London borough council, and therefore actively involved in trying to run Greater London without a strategic authority. After 13 years I stepped down as leader—voluntarily, I might add—to stand for election to the Greater London Authority, then about to come into being, and spent eight years as a member of that authority.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Worthington]

Transport for London and the GLA have been actively trying to consult the boroughs on this issue over a six-month period. I emphasise the fact that we are talking about rapid chargers here, not slow and fast charging. That needs a strategic overview, because those are what enable people to travel long distances and recharge on their journeys, so they are more akin to motorway infrastructure than to charging at home, or at destinations where cars are parked for long periods. This requires a citywide strategy, which is why TfL is so interested in getting one for that particular class of charger.

[Lord Tope]

I well understand the difference here, and the fact that we are talking about rapid charging. If I misspoke, I am sorry: I am referring to the amendment and the proposal to give TfL permitted development rights. I think that the noble Baroness is referring to the mayor’s draft transport strategy, which was indeed widely consulted on and widely welcomed, in work with the boroughs.

Be that as it may, the fact is that the 32 London boroughs and London Councils are strongly opposed to giving TFL permitted development rights. This is a very bad way to start on what we all want to achieve, which is the rapid implementation of rapid charging points. If it is to work effectively, it has to be a co-operative partnership between the GLA, TFL and the London boroughs.

I quote from what I believe is a public letter dated 29 March from the chair of London Councils’ transport and environment committee to the Mayor of London. He begins:

“London boroughs share your enthusiasm and urgency to tackle the poor air quality experienced by Londoners and therefore look to ensure that there is an efficient and effective network electric vehicle charging infrastructure to aid this”.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

Can we clarify the position? Are they opposing rapid charging arrangements?

[Lord Tope]

No, not they are not opposing rapid charging points at all. Quite the opposite—they are very enthusiastic supporters of them. This is my view, not one that has been expressed to me, but one reason that there has been so little installation is that most of the resources that come to boroughs for this comes through what is known as LIP funding which, if I remember rightly, stands for “local implementation strategy”. All the funding comes from the Mayor of London and there has been no provision in my borough and, I think, many others, for the installation of rapid charging points. But we are getting into more detail than I wanted to at this stage, because I know we are moving quickly, and I want us to move on.

I go back to the letter that I was quoting from London Councils. The chair goes on to say:

“We recognise that engagement between TFL and the boroughs on rapid chargers has not been as effective as it could be and are eager to address this issue collaboratively to enable better delivery”.


He goes on to speak about one measure taken, which was to establish,

“a cross party sub-committee solely focused on rapid charging infrastructure. Its task is to enhance the provision of rapid charging points in London across boroughs”,

and to work together with TfL, the GLA and other interested parties. He concludes:

“Collaboration between boroughs, TfL and the GLA is what will deliver an effective and efficient network of charging infrastructure in London”.


I wholly endorse that sentiment, and I hope that all of us on all sides who wish for success here will also endorse it.

[Baroness Worthington]

I think we all have the same objective in mind, but does the noble Lord concede that 10 weeks to get permission for installation of charging, working with boroughs, is not exactly the swiftest of processes? The amendment that the GLA and TfL seek is merely to take a power to enable that collaboration to be given a bit of a supercharge, because different boroughs will have different speeds and different priorities and it seems sensible to be able to have a citywide strategy. It could help out boroughs which are insufficiently staffed to do this quickly. Ten weeks seems like a long time, no?

[Lord Tope]

My Lords, we must recognise, first, that there is a resource problem for TfL, boroughs and everyone in the public sector. That is possibly the greatest inhibition to rapid implementation. I must say that, in my experience, giving permitted development rights to TfL, while it would be intended to speed things up, would in practice have exactly the opposite effect, because it simply cannot have—this is not a criticism but a statement—detailed local knowledge. I could cite the example of proposing to put a charging point in a parking bay reserved for hearses for the local church—but we can get into too much detail here.

My key point is that the way in which to make rapid progress with rapid charging and all the rest of the infrastructure is not to set up something strongly opposed by the London boroughs, which is going to lead inevitably, sadly, to more conflict and disagreement, more objections and less public support—because that is where the objections will come from. That is not the way to go: the way to go is to give a kick-start, or whatever word the noble Baroness used, and say that we want to see greater active co-operation between TfL and the London boroughs. What we would like to see in particular is not an agreement to pursue permitted development rights for TfL but a requirement—or not a requirement, because we cannot require, but a request—that TfL and the London boroughs and councils, if possible, come back to us for Report, which I know is only a few weeks away, with an agreed amendment, if that is necessary, to achieve the objective that we all share. I think that that is a much more positive approach, and one that is far more likely to succeed in achieving the objective, which I think that I share with the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, and everyone else, than the one now, which is being opposed by the people who will actually have to do most of the implementation.

[Lord Tunnicliffe]

My Lords, as a generality I support the thrust of these amendments, but I worry about whether this is the right place for them. Clearly, there is a case for some overall strategic planning, and there is a need for it to happen everywhere. There is also a possibility that that may require some powers to be provided for TfL. But we are trespassing into dangerous waters, because we are getting into sovereignty—and there is no more delicate area in a sovereignty debate than between an area or regional authority and constituent members. I worry whether this Bill is the place to make such a profound move.

I am genuinely open-minded about whether we should press in this direction, but I join the noble Lord, Lord Tope, in urging the department to do all that it can between now and Report to get a negotiated settlement between the boroughs and TfL that, if necessary, we can put into the Bill.