Electric Vehicles: Transition by 2030

Matt Western Excerpts

Thursday 9th December 2021 Westminster Hall

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

It is great to see you in the Chair, Mr Twigg. I congratulate the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) on securing this debate.

The UK’s transition to EVs looks like it is about to stall. Those are not my words, but those of the automotive industry. The Government have set a clear legal end date for the sale of petrol and diesel cars and vans by 2030. By 2035, they want to see the complete switch to zero-emission sales. We have got nine years to go. We need much more urgent action than we are seeing. We are a long way from achieving what we need to. On the one hand, we see car manufacturers and the motor industry right behind the EV revolution, but the critical infrastructure supporting EV cars is, I am afraid to say, not as developed as it should be.

I want to look at what the industry has actually achieved and succeeded in. Against the 188 new plug-in cars registered in 2010, we are up to 300,000 for 2021. There is now the choice of around 150 zero and ultra-low-emission vehicles available to buy. That will double by 2025. In terms of production, BEVs are now up 64% to account to for 7% of car output in the UK. There is a growing urgency to deliver on gigafactories. The one in Coventry has to be secured, and I hope we will hear an announcement on that very soon.

While vehicle development and supply is good, it is the infrastructure system that we need absolute priority on. We talk about HS2 and the integrated rail plan, but there is nothing like the scale of ambition that we need for the charge point infrastructure for this country. We are one of the worst among the top 10 global electric vehicle markets, at some 16:1 ratio a year ago. I chair the all-party parliamentary group on electric vehicles, and the sorts of stories we heard from the hon. Member for Rushcliffe (Ruth Edwards) are very much the topic of debate at our meetings.

Between January and September, just 4,000 new standard public charge points were installed, compared with 212,000 new plug-in car registrations. That is one new standard charger for every 52 new electric vehicles. As we have heard, there is huge regional disparity: in the midlands, as cited by the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Darren Henry), we need to install something like 11 charge points every day, but we are doing something like two a day.

So what do we need to do? According to a recent Savanta ComRes survey, the message is loud and clear from consumers. Some 37% of those surveyed were optimistic about buying a full EV by 2025. There is consumer demand, and we are getting many more EVs on our roads, but the survey also showed that the barriers faced by consumers are significant. Some 44% said that the lack of local charging points was significant barrier to buying an EV, while 38% were concerned about fears over charging access on long journeys, whether to Northumberland or elsewhere.

That is the main issue. The Government need to empower and assist local authorities and distribution network operators to develop urgent and comprehensive plans for integrated charging networks. They need to identify the sites, work with charging providers and tender for regional networks, ensuring that the mistakes that were made over mobile phone telephony are not repeated with vehicle charging infrastructure.

The Minister heard about the most pressing issue loud and clear from the industry just a couple of weeks ago: there needs to be a massive focus on infrastructure for charging and for manufacturing and recycling batteries. The Government’s rapid charging fund, with £950 million to rapid and ultra-rapid charge points, is welcome, as is the requirement for all new build homes to include EV charging points—although we should have been doing that for the last five years. That is something that the last Labour Government talked about. Sure, the current investment is welcome, but it does not go far enough. The SMMT estimates that a minimum of 689,000 charge points are required, although the real figure is more like 2.3 million. We need significant expansion in delivering binding targets and introducing regulation and enabling support.

One solution is interoperability or roaming platforms, which would allow the consumers of individual charge point operators to charge on other networks that are associated with that hub. We have only to look at the Netherlands, which is leading the way on that—it is really not rocket science. The Netherlands has been doing it for years.

Of course, we have heard about smart charging, and I appreciate that regulations are being proposed by Government. Finally, we need better battery technology; I just hope that the Government’s ambition is there to deliver on a gigafactory in Coventry.

We need incentives. While there is a clear appetite from consumers for EVs, we need to persuade more to get behind this market. As others have said, the Government should maintain the plug-in car grant. Lastly, we should also consider tax breaks, free or reduced costs for parking, generous long-term plug-in grants and reliable, fast EV charging points on the street.

In conclusion, it is not enough for the Government to simply ban new petrol and diesel cars from 2030. We have to have the scale of ambition and—as we are seeing with the rail infrastructure—a comprehensive plan delivered for EV charging, which needs to be delivered urgently to get the 2.3 million charging points that have been identified. Finally, we need to ensure fair pricing for consumers, so that all can access cheap and clean motoring, not just those with domestic charge points.

[Derek Twigg (in the Chair)]

I ask Front-Bench Members to keep their speeches to about 10 minutes, so that the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) has time to wind up.

--- Later in debate ---

[Trudy Harrison]

I will comment on Members’ queries now.

The hon. Member for Bath asked about energy provision. That is a matter for the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, as I am sure she knows, but making sure we have the clean electricity is vital. She will know as well that the Prime Minister’s 10-point plan sets out the commitment towards 40 GW of wind by 2030 and 5 GW production capacity for hydrogen. We have also passed the regulated asset base for gigawatt-plus nuclear power stations, so we are not shy of taking action on energy.

The hon. Member for Bath also referred to fairness. I think that is really important, because in this transport revolution we have an opportunity that we perhaps did not have 150 years ago, which is to ensure that everybody is involved, this time in charging vehicles. We are working with organisations such as Motability to make sure that the charging infrastructure can be used by all, including disabled people. This is about ensuring through the regulations we are bringing forward that people know where charging infrastructure is; that they can be sure the infrastructure will work; that they will not need to use a selection of apps, but instead can use contactless, for example; and that we have the interoperability across different providers to provide a really comprehensive network, as is needed as we transition from fossil fuel to a decarbonised transport economy.

[Matt Western]

Will the Government legislate for interoperability? Will they publish a plan showing the milestones of how many public charge points will be built every year between now and 2030?

[Trudy Harrison]

I will take away that request, but I can tell the hon. Member that 26,000 public charge points are available and that of those 4,900 are rapid chargers. We also have a plan to install 750 kW as a minimum in all the 117 motorway service areas—and that absolutely includes the motorway services on the A1(M) at Ferrybridge at junction 41 and those at Wetherby at junction 46.

I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Darren Henry). A couple of weeks ago, I had the absolute joy of visiting HORIBA MIRA in Nuneaton, where I saw the technology and innovation that is supporting not just decarbonisation but the connected and automated vehicles—they were was abundant with UK content, as the hon. Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel) said—that the country will need to be at the forefront. The technology that I saw at Nuneaton will be critical to the transition, and the midlands engine is at the forefront of it. I am delighted that my hon. Friend came to the debate to talk about that.

I am running out of time, but I want to address the lack of driveways. We want to ensure that no driveway is no problem. We understand the need to roll out publicly available charge point infrastructure, and local authorities are key to that. We are therefore putting together a toolkit with advice and, most importantly, resources for where local authorities are struggling to deliver. My message to hon. Members across the House is to work with me and with local authorities, because they will know their local areas best. The Department wants to ensure that we have fair, accessible, affordable, reliable and transparent charging infrastructure right across the UK.