Electric Vehicles: Infrastructure

Wera Hobhouse Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd February 2023 Westminster Hall

[Steve Brine]

I agree with that point. I would expect the hon. Member for Luton South (Rachel Hopkins) to raise van production for obvious reasons. The mandate is a fine idea, but we need the response to the consultation on the mandate. I suspect the companies that the hon. Lady talks to in her constituency want to know the rules of the game before they can work with those rules. I am sure she is looking forward to that point being raised.

The transition to electric vehicles brings into question fuel and excise duty. It is well known that the Treasury is set to lose a lot of money and a new source of revenue will be required. Fuel duty revenues pre-pandemic were about £28 billion per year, and vehicle excise revenues were approximately £6 billion. I cannot believe this has not been discussed in the hallowed halls of the Treasury, but does that mean that road pricing is a serious possibility? There has been no mention of that as a solution from the Government. Does the Minister concur?

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

It is interesting to hear the hon. Member talk about road pricing. Does he actually support something like “pay as you drive”, in order to charge people for the miles that they drive rather than anything else?

[Steve Brine]

No, and before the Liberal Democrats try to produce another attack leaflet to say that is what I was saying, the hon. Lady can strike that from the record. That is certainly not what I was saying, but I am asking the Minister whether the Government are considering it. Surely the Treasury are considering that loss of revenue. From his previous role as Chair of the Transport Committee, the Minister will know that that was laid down as a challenge to the Government. I know that the Committee is still waiting for a response to that. I am rather cheekily asking the Minister whether he has yet to respond to himself. Could he do so today?

I will raise some more concerns about the availability of electric vehicles. Certainly in my constituency, consumers are embracing the change to electric vehicles as people are understandably more and more concerned about the environment. However, we have already heard about the supply available to buyers. The current average waiting time for an EV is seven months, according to the Library. Companies such as Volkswagen have at least a 10-month wait from the time the car is bought to its delivery. I would suggest that that is a barrier to purchase. It is concerning, because forcing people to make the change to EVs will once again increase the waiting times as demand increases. People cannot be expected to bear a cost that is due to factors out of their control.

There is a current fall in demand for EVs because of the dip in the economy and the spike in inflation. I asked a previous Minister in the Department about this. What conversations are the Government having with industry to try to help them meet demand? I realise that the pandemic has hugely got in the way of that, but what conversations are the Government having with industry to try to stimulate demand?

Tesla has recently smashed the cost of EVs by a reported £7,000. There has been an expansion of EVs, but only 24 models are priced under £32,000 due to the cost of the battery technology. Even the UK boss at Kia, Paul Philpott, has said that car makers are finding it “economically difficult” to bring affordable smaller vehicles to market due to the high cost of batteries, despite the ban on the sale of all new petrol and diesel cars looming in 2035.

I will gently remind the Minister about the up-front cost and a serious lack of a second-hand market for electric vehicles. That is a whole other subject, with only 3% of used car transactions involving EVs in 2021. I hope that that market will start to emerge as we make the transition, so that many lower-income families will not be priced out of even having a conversation about switching to an EV. It is hugely unfair that they want to do the right thing, but they know they cannot.

In closing, I support the move to electric vehicles, and I know that my constituents do. I see more and more EVs on the streets of my constituency. The phasing-out of all new petrol and diesel cars by 2035 has my support, but it is clear that the infrastructure is far from fully developed, with many complaining about teething problems. It is obvious that to meet the target, and seriously increase the rate at which the infrastructure is being implemented, especially the distribution of charging points, we need to see a step change to meet the current ambition.

--- Later in debate ---

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

Owning a car is a lifeline for many people. We need to encourage people to use their cars less and public transport more, but I am not blind to the need for cars. Car journeys are here to stay, but they need to become net zero. The transition from petrol and diesel to electric vehicles is at the heart of this effort, and it is an important step towards decarbonising the transport system and getting to net zero.

The Government’s pledge to end the sale of all petrol and diesel cars by 2030, and hybrids by 2035, has acted as a powerful signal to the car industry and the markets, but the failure to prepare the ground for the transition to EV charging infrastructure is now threatening that target and, indeed, our net zero targets. Like the hon. Member for Winchester (Steve Brine), I am absolutely in favour of the transition to EVs, but we need to prepare the ground. We cannot say, “The target cannot be achieved, so let’s just throw it out altogether.”

Until now, drivers have charged at home around three quarters of the time. However, as we shift from early adopters to the mass market, policy needs to support people who do not have the space for their own charge points. We have already heard about the regional disparities: there are many more charging points in London compared with the rest of the country, and yet two thirds of the new infrastructure is proposed for London. The lack of EV chargers is a concern for more than half of motorists. Volkswagen has noticed that, apart from the cost, the key concern for buyers today remains charging anxiety.

The lack of charging infrastructure is leading people towards do-it-yourself charging, and I want to throw that in. Electrical Safety First has found that 90% of EV owners have used domestic multi-socket extension leads and three quarters have daisy-chained extension leads. That is highly dangerous, because daisy-chaining, whereby multiple extension leads are used together, can increase the risk of socket overload and electric shock, so we are putting people at risk. Don’t do it, guys! It is really dangerous, and we need to make sure that this is not happening.

In last year’s EV infrastructure strategy, the Government made no firm commitment to ensure that EV infrastructure roll-out is in line with EV market uptake. The main problem is grid capacity. The Liberal Democrat council in Bath has worked hard to build more charging infrastructure, but it is constrained by the weak grid in the region. National Grid wants to upgrade the grid in the west of England, but Ofgem has not accepted the funding proposals. The Government need to encourage Ofgem to be part of the solution and not the problem. We need a reform of Ofgem’s remit to allow for pre-emptive investment in grid infrastructure.

A publicly funded network needs to prioritise fairly priced and equitable access. If we simply prioritise capacity over the number of locations and usefulness, we risk locking lower-income drivers, who rely on public chargers, into the most expensive rapid charging options. The Government must stop penalising people who are not able to charge their EVs at home. These people currently have to pay 20% VAT to charge their vehicles at a public charge point, compared with the 5% VAT for people charging at home. The Government must end this unjustifiable discrepancy and equalise the VAT rate at 5% for all electric vehicle charging.

Transport is responsible for nearly a third of the UK’s carbon emissions, with more than half of emissions from domestic transport coming from private cars and taxis. The quicker we get people using EVs, the closer we get to meeting our net zero targets. The benefits of owning an electric vehicle must outweigh the costs. From infrastructure to incentives, the Government need to meet words with actions and drive the electric vehicle revolution forward.

[Mr Peter Bone (in the Chair)]

I am very grateful to Members; you have been very good. I will now call Gavin Newlands, the SNP spokesman, who will also be very good.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Huw Merriman)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) for securing this important debate, and I thank every participant for their words. It may not be possible to answer all their questions, but I hope we can cover the bulk of them.

The Government are committed to decarbonising transport and to phasing out the sale of new petrol and diesel cars and vans by 2030, becoming the first G7 country to do so. The benefits of zero-emission motoring are there to be won: improved air quality in our towns and cities, economic growth through our automotive industry, and ultimately cheaper and cleaner driving for all. Getting to that point will require Government and industry to furnish this country with an accessible, affordable and secure charging infrastructure network.

Perhaps I can give you some reasons to be cheerful, Mr Bone; I fear the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi) also needs cheering up. Industry data shows that in December 2022, 32.9% of new cars sold were fully electric. That was the best ever month for new battery electric car registrations, with more sales than in all of 2019 combined. The UK had the second highest battery electric car sales in Europe in 2022, with Germany being first and France third. A survey by Zap-Map found that only 1% of EV drivers want to switch back to a petrol or diesel vehicle. One in five public charge points in the UK are rapid or ultra-rapid, and under our plans, new homes and non-residential premises undergoing renovation will have to install charging infrastructure at the point of construction. That should lead to 145,000 further charge points across England every year. Those are some reasons to be cheerful.

Last March, we published our strategy and set out our plans to accelerate the roll-out of the network. To answer one of the questions posed by my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester, the Government expect at least 300,000 public charge points to be installed across the UK by 2030. We do not regard that with the same cynicism as my good friend from the SNP, the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands). A recent industry report by New AutoMotive, “On the Road to 2030”, found that the charge point roll-out is

“progressing at an adequate pace, growing by a third every 12 months, and the UK is on track”

to meet the expected 300,000 public chargers by the end of 2030. So do not just take my word for it.

That will all be achieved thanks to billions of pounds of investment by industry. There are more than 37,000 open access public chargers already on UK roads, hundreds of thousands of charge points in homes and workplaces, and more than 600,000 new chargers added to our road network each month on average. In fact, public charging devices have more than tripled in the last four years. We are on track to meet expectations.

On electric vehicle uptake, Government grants have supported drivers to buy plug-in vehicles for over a decade, with more than £1.4 billion already having been invested in the early market. Colleagues at the Treasury are committed to ensuring that motoring tax revenues keep pace with the changes brought about by the switch to electric vehicles, while keeping the transition affordable to consumers.

I will touch on local charging infrastructure, which has been raised. This debate is a timely one. Lack of access to off-street parking should not be a barrier to owning a plug-in electric vehicle. We are working with local authorities to ensure local provision meets local needs. Just yesterday, as my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester mentioned, we announced that drivers across the UK will benefit from a further £56 million of public and industry funding to support the roll-out of electric vehicle charge points across the country.

[Wera Hobhouse]

Will the Minister give way?