Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill

Matt Western Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 29th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

I call Matt Warman.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. May I start by—

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. I beg the hon. Gentleman’s pardon. In being carried away by listening to the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes), I called him by the wrong name. Mr Western.

[Matt Western]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It was not an issue.

I start by thanking the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes), the former Minister, for conducting what was my first Bill Committee. I found his style particularly remarkable, welcoming and friendly, and very constructive.

I wish to speak to new clause 3, which is in my name, but also to reference new clauses 1, 2 and 4. When I spoke on Second Reading and in Committee, I highlighted what I thought was perhaps an omission—the Minister picked up on this earlier—with regard to making sure that the Bill is viewed by the public, but particularly by consumers, manufacturers and authorities, as setting the right framework, or groundwork, to bring about a change in our mobility. Critical to all this is why we are looking to make this move and why it is happening not just here in this country but globally. Part of that is looking to address the targets for reducing carbon dioxide that are set out in the Paris accord. Transport is of course an important contributor to CO₂ emissions, particularly with regard to petrol vehicles.

There is also the issue of air quality. In my constituency of Warwick and Leamington, we suffer from poor air quality, particularly as a result of the topography of the towns, but also by virtue of our medieval streets. This is brought about by old vehicles—old buses, old lorries, old vans and old cars. It is not an issue with new vehicles. We have some terrific vehicle manufacturers, as has been mentioned. We have highlighted the investment of Nissan, but we should also consider the likes of Mini and Jaguar Land Rover, which is in my constituency. Jaguar Land Rover is making a move to hybrid vehicles, but its current diesel vehicles are very clean, with such things as particulate filters. The responsible manufacturers have moved very quickly on this already.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Kerr]

Is there not a danger that the lack of these charging points and their lack of visibility in our landscape will drive earlier adopters such as the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) out of the market? It is therefore very important that this Bill and all that comes from it are set in motion, because if we are not careful, we will miss the tide.

[Matt Western]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. This is always the issue when an early adopter picks up on a product in any sector. I remember the first smart products such as the mini-computers of yesterday—PalmPilots and all those things. If one was not careful, one bought the wrong product and got caught out. The crucial part of this is ensuring that Governments take the lead, but there is also an international drive about pushing the agenda and making sure that there is commonality and the upfront investment that pulls manufacturers and consumers along with it.

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

I would like to correct slightly what the hon. Gentleman said. I hope that he will be gracious in accepting this. The problem is not that Orkney has more charging points; it is that Grimsby does not have enough. Rural locations, particularly around Scotland, will, by their nature, need more charging points.

[Matt Western]

I accept the hon. Lady’s point. What I said was factually correct; I was just trying to point out the disparity between areas. Good for Orkney, but this is about getting other areas to come along and invest to set up these infrastructures as well.

At present, there are multiple charging point operators across the UK, each with their own plugs, software, customer charges, billing systems and payment methods. That is clearly one of the issues that we are trying to address in the Bill and new clause 1. Critical to that is that the Government need to standardise charging infrastructure to make the network far more accessible. To draw a parallel, it is rather like the old mobile phones of the early days that some of us will remember. Mobile companies started moving into the sector and establishing their networks, with the investment that had to go with that. We realised that without a Government lead or a national infrastructure, pylons were starting to cluster in certain areas when in fact one pylon would have done, but with a different antenna fixed to it. We must try to avoid that sort of thing, so that we do not have little clusters on our streets or in our town centres when one will do.

It is crucial to ensure not only that we have charging points, but their interoperability for all types of vehicle. By way of parallel, I cite the fantastic thing that is the USB. We all know what it is like when we forget the charging cable for our mobile phones and find we have no means of recharging our phone, because we happen to have a product of a particular brand and a plug does not fit that phone. It is crucial that we not only legislate but work with other countries to ensure there is interoperability. Often when we have these debates, we are thinking about cars, but we also need to think about all the other sectors. That is why it is vital that we have a comprehensive approach to the electrification of all sectors relevant to mobility.

Those of us in London recognise just how much the bus network has improved over recent years. I was amazed to discover that a third of our famous red buses are now hybrid. Something like 73 are electric and about 10 are hydrogen buses. Those hybrid buses are super-quiet and relatively clean, with 30% or 40% less emissions. That has made a noticeable difference to air quality, as I remember how poor that was 30 years ago when I lived in London.

One of the businesses in my constituency is Volvo Buses, which has done a lot of work on electric vehicles and has had all sorts of issues. For example, it has invested heavily in trying to establish a network in Harrogate. The costs of getting the DNO connection have varied considerably, and the project has been extremely difficult. We have to recognise that these businesses are the first adopters. They are the ones trying to get new technologies established, so we need to make the process as easy as possible.

One issue with commercial vehicles and buses is the need for pantograph-type systems to charge vehicles from above. European manufacturers, including Mercedes, Fiat, Renault and Volvo, are looking at how to recharge those vehicles when they are at a bus stand or in a garage. We need to ensure that such infrastructure is generic and standardised across all manufacturers.

[Iain Stewart]

I absolutely agree that we need to look at the technology for charging buses and other vehicles en route. May I invite the hon. Gentleman to look at the pilot scheme that has been running in Milton Keynes with an induction charging system for a bus route that is wholly electric? That could represent the technology for recharging, rather than expensive overhead line equipment.

[Matt Western]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his invitation, and I would certainly be delighted to take him up on it. That is one for the future.

[Mr John Hayes]

I have no desire to prolong the hon. Gentleman’s speech unduly, as the Financial Secretary to the Treasury is waiting for his dinner. However, on the hon. Gentleman’s point about buses and local support for electric vehicles, he will know that the Government have done a great deal to support the provision of low emission vehicles by bus companies. Indeed, workplace charging has also been supported strongly by the Government. Does he agree that perhaps we need just to broadcast that more, so that more people know they can benefit from the support that is available? The Government have done their bit, and I am extremely grateful for the great work that my officials did on that in my time. Does he think it is about more publicity?

[Matt Western]

It is. It is about motivating and encouraging change through consumers.

I would like to move on finally to electric bikes and mobility vehicles. That might seem like a less glamorous or glossy sector of the market, but we have some terrific bike manufacturers in this country. We have Pashley and Moulton, and Brompton here in London. Brompton’s first e-bike is about to roll off the production line. However, our sales of electric bikes are way behind those of other countries. We are something like seventh in Europe, with 5% of its total sales, way behind Austria, Italy, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany. Germany has 36% of the total sales for Europe.

In 2016, the city of Munich started a subsidy scheme for electro-mobility that includes electric bikes. The subsidy for the purchase price is granted to private companies and non-profit organisations, with a contribution of, say, €500 for electric bikes or €1,000 for electric cargo bikes. In Sweden, there is a 25% Government subsidy for all e-bikes until 2020, which has led to a 50% surge in electric bike adoption in the country. It has been hugely successful in the past 12 months, and that shows what leadership can do to change consumer behaviour, which the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings referred to. The same thing applies to commercial vehicle fleets, whether they be for haulage or local delivery.

I urge the Government to adopt new clause 3, which is simple and straightforward. It puts forward a framework to identify all the vehicle sectors that need to be considered, so that we ensure that they are very much in the front of our minds.

[Wera Hobhouse]

I shall speak to new clause 2, which I tabled. We have already had a good discussion about making it as easy and quick as possible for consumers who are considering buying electric vehicles to do so. That is why I very much encourage the Minister to reconsider whether new clause 2 should be included in the Bill.

Let me set the scene for this urgency. Air pollution in the UK is a big killer, contributing up to 40,000 deaths a year and costing the NHS £15 billion. As a country, we have been slow for a long time to comply with EU limits on pollution. We have been very slow at tackling high levels of pollution in the past.

These issues are incredibly relevant to my constituency. Bath is officially one of the most polluted areas in the country. Bath and North East Somerset was named among 29 local authority areas with high levels of nitrogen dioxide. According to the council’s own data, 92% of air pollution in Bath is caused by traffic. The swift take-up of electric vehicles is therefore very important.

I welcome the Government’s proposal to create universal charging points, which was also a Liberal Democrat manifesto commitment. However, as we have said several times, the Government should be more ambitious. The Bill must go further to ensure that it is as convenient as possible for people to own electric cars and to help consumers to make decisions that will benefit the environment and, particularly, public health.

New clause 2 would give the Secretary of State the power to make regulations requiring owners and operators of certain public facilities to work with local authorities to provide public charging points and to ensure that public charging points are maintained and easily accessible to the public. Again, a number of points have already been made about why local authorities have not picked up voluntary schemes. I believe that the carrot and the stick is the right approach, and I again say that the Government must consider using a little bit of stick.

The Bill allows the Government to regulate petrol stations and motorway service stations to provide electric charging points. The new clause would ensure that people with electric cars could easily charge their cars on shorter journeys as well as when travelling longer distances. I am considering whether I should buy an electric vehicle, but I do not fancy sitting around for eight hours in a service station on the motorway to charge my car.

Local authorities should have powers to require new commercial and industrial developments to provide electric charging points and, for example, to pilot the use of lamp posts as charging points in residential areas where homes do not have driveways. All this is about encouraging creative ways of making sure that charging our vehicles is as convenient as possible and increasing take-up among people who want to acquire electric cars.

If the Government are serious about reducing transport emissions, far more radical measures will be needed, but this Bill is a step in the right direction. I believe that new clause 2 would improve the Bill even further.