Electric Vehicles: Transition by 2030

Sam Tarry Excerpts

Thursday 9th December 2021 Westminster Hall

[Sam Tarry (Ilford South) (Lab)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I will briefly touch on some of the useful contributions by many Members from across the House, who have obviously taken the time to contribute to this forward-thinking, progressive debate on such an important subject.

I thank the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) for securing the debate and putting forward so many interesting ideas. I will also briefly mention my hon. Friends the Members for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi), for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel)—I hope to be able to go for a spin in his Tesla at some point soon—and for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western). We also heard about the meandering experience of the hon. Member for Rushcliffe (Ruth Edwards). It would be remiss of me not to mention my former colleague and hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame Morris), who made some important points, as did the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon).

Surface transport accounted for 24% of emissions in 2019 and remains the largest contributor to UK emissions to date. After a decade of failing to reduce the UK’s transport emissions, it is good that the Government are finally recognising the scale of the problem. I will touch briefly on the point made by my other former colleague from the Transport Committee, the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands), on the 4,000 zero emission buses that are still missing from action. If we were to speak to Alexander Dennis in Falkirk or, indeed, Wrightbus in Ballymena, we would hear that not a single British manufacturer has an order for those buses on their books, so I want to know whether those 4,000 buses are apocryphal. We will not let this go until British manufacturers have those buses on their books. I do not want to find out that they are suddenly being given to China or another country when we should be supporting British manufacturing.

I am glad to hear, though, that the Government have adopted the Labour policy of phasing out sales of new petrol and diesel vehicles by 2030. However, why are hybrids allowed to be sold until 2035? Hybrids are highly polluting when they use their petrol or diesel engines due to their weight and poor fuel efficiency. They are, unfortunately, a lifeline to the fossil fuel industry, and the policy should be reversed immediately.

The Government have also announced that they will help smooth the transition to zero emission vehicles by introducing a zero emission vehicle mandate, which will gradually increase the level of vehicle sales required to be zero emission up to 100% by 2030. Labour fully supports the move, but when will the legislation actually be introduced? Will the Minister confirm whether hybrid electric vehicle sales will be included within that mandate?

Fully electric and hybrid vehicle sales have surged this year, with over a quarter of new vehicle sales being either hybrid or fully electric in 2021 so far, according to the SMMT. However, the UK’s charging infrastructure is falling behind, as we heard from the hon. Member for Rushcliffe. Overall funding for charging given out to local authorities has fallen from £15 million in the previous financial year, 2019-20, to £6.5 million in 2020-21. As many local authorities are not able to use those funds for the remaining schemes, it does need to be addressed, and addressed quickly.

Regional inequalities for charge points are also huge. If the Government are genuinely committed to levelling up, why are they doing nothing to address that regional inequality? The Government have promised a charging strategy by the end of the year, so where is it? Councils have rightly expressed serious concerns that there is no coherent Government strategy about what to build and where. We need urgent action to address regional inequalities, a quick ramp-up of charging, and making charge points easier to use and accessible for consumers. Can the Minister provide an update on this?

The Government have said very little on how the transition to electric vehicles will impact on fuel duty revenues. Does the Minister have a plan to mitigate the loss of that revenue? Furthermore, as the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) said, Transport for London must have a sustainable long-term funding package, so that there is no delay to extending EV charging across the network in London as well.

Although it has been great to see surging sales of electric vehicles, they are still unaffordable for many consumers. Labour has a plan to fund interest-free loans for electric vehicles for low-income households and to trial a scrappage scheme for polluting vehicles. That would ensure that the transition to clean, green transport is possible for everyone, not just the privileged few. In contrast, the Government have repeatedly slashed the plug-in grant for electric vehicles. Again, what are the Government going to do to address the affordability of electric vehicles, so that low-income families are not left behind in the transition?

The transition is also an opportunity to create thousands of good, green, unionised jobs in the UK. If the UK is going to remain a hub for automotive manufacturers, we need to ensure that the components for electric vehicles can be built in the UK. Labour has committed to part-financing three battery gigafactories by 2025, but the Government have done little to encourage investment in UK gigafactories. We welcome some of the points made by the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Darren Henry): they just need to be accelerated and extended as quickly as possible. That is important due to the new rules of origin requirements in the Government’s Brexit deal. If we want to continue tariff-free trade in electric vehicles with the EU, we urgently need to establish manufacturing capacity in the UK.

We also need to avoid a reliance on imported rare metals such as lithium and cobalt as global demand for them grows. The environmental implications of mining those critical minerals are a serious concern. Furthermore, the mining of those rare metals has highlighted the use of slave labour and the severe abuse of workers’ rights in countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo. That is profoundly tragic, and concrete action must be taken to address those concerns. We cannot go green while people are losing their lives to get those materials to us.

We would be able to ease the pressures on supply chains if rare metals such as lithium and cobalt, of which there is currently colossal wastage, were recycled quickly. That could be a quick win for the Government. Significant natural deposits of lithium in the UK could be utilised by ensuring that electronics can be easily disassembled and recycling—that needs to be an immediate Government priority. Unfortunately, there is a wealth of those materials in UK electronics, but they are not currently being recycled. That must change, and it must change rapidly. Will the Government do anything to encourage the urban mining and recycling of those rare metals? Are they considering new standards to require that electronics be easier to disassemble and recycle?

The transition to electric vehicles is a huge opportunity for cleaner air, lower emissions and thousands of good, green and unionised jobs, but the Government must think bigger when it comes to charging infrastructure, affordability and battery supply chains. The Labour party has serious plans to address those issues, and it is time that the Government listened. It is time for a green new deal for the UK—one that is real, supports the poorest, and boosts British manufacturing.