Decarbonising Rural Transport

Debate between Simon Lightwood and Jonathan Edwards

Tuesday 7th March 2023 Westminster Hall

[Simon Lightwood (Wakefield) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies, and to speak for the Opposition in a Westminster Hall debate for the very first time.

I congratulate the hon. Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) on securing this debate and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting it. The hon. Member’s opening remarks underscored the importance of decarbonising our transport, especially in our rural communities, and the contributions from Members throughout have demonstrated why we need to take urgent action in this area. Indeed, decarbonising our transport sector is one of the most pressing challenges to overcome if we are to meet our net zero goals.

I am proud to represent the Wakefield constituency, which has both the city of Wakefield and a large rural community, with villages such as Netherton, Middlestown, Durkar, Hall Green and Woolley. I know first hand the challenges those areas have in accessing transport, and I understand that many of the solutions that work in cities may well not work as well in rural communities.

I will address a number of the various transport sectors that Members have referred to, but I will start with active travel, which is a sure-fire way of improving air quality, reducing congestion, improving physical health and, of course, lowering carbon emissions. Research shows that the benefit to cost ratio of investments in walking and cycling are estimated at 5.62:1.

However, one of the biggest barriers to active travel, especially in our rural communities, is safety. A recent survey found, unsurprisingly, that most people prefer to cycle where it is safe, and the same can be said for walking. Improving real and perceived safety is an effective way of encouraging more people to walk and cycle, and the Government and local councils must do what they can to improve routes and roads to facilitate that.

The Government really need to step up. In 2017, the Department for Transport provided guidance for local authorities to develop local cycling and walking infrastructure plans, but there was no funding available for that. I am pleased that many rural authorities have developed such a plan. However, my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Gill Furniss) recently asked a parliamentary question to find out how many councils had developed one, and the answer was just 78, which is only around a quarter of all local authorities. That is simply not good enough and the Government must do more to ensure that rural areas have these plans in place.

Another example is the Government’s consultation on personal safety measures on streets in England, which specifically covered rural streets, to seek views on how street design, maintenance and operation could be improved to make people feel safer. The consultation closed in August 2021, yet 19 months on the Government have not responded. I hope that the Minister will be able to shed some light on that.

As the hon. Member for North Devon said, many people in rural communities are very dependent on cars, and we must continue to encourage the transition to electric vehicles. We have some good momentum as we transfer away from petrol and diesel cars to electric vehicles. That is one of the primary ways to decarbonise our transport. The RAC estimates that there are now 712,000 zero-emission electric cars on our roads, along with more than 400,000 plug-in hybrids.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) is right that charging points are few and far between in rural areas. However, people might not think that, given what the Government talk about. The latest figures show that we have just 37,055 public chargers in the UK at the moment. Rural communities are lagging far behind.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a very valid point. As we make the transition towards electric vehicles and electric heating, there is a big issue about grid capacity and resilience in rural areas; I just do not believe that it will cope at the moment. The Government have enabled challenger companies to the traditional distribution network operators—they are called independent distribution network operators—to bring in their own infrastructure. The issue in rural areas is that metal pylons for electricity transmission are extremely controversial. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that this is going to happen very quickly and that, as we push the transition, decisions will have to be made about where to locate the infrastructure? We have to work with local communities, and in rural areas we need to work on the basis that the infrastructure needs to go underground.

[Simon Lightwood]

The hon. Member makes a valid point, and if the Government are serious about installing 300,000 charging points, they need to redouble their efforts. At this rate, we would not get to even 100,000 by the date they have set. Monthly installations would need to rise by 288% to meet that ambition.