Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps he plans to take to ensure that people who own electric cars but do not have access to off-street parking will be able to charge their vehicles at home.

The Government is supporting local authorities to deploy chargepoints for their residents without access to off-street parking to ensure this is not a barrier to drivers being able to realise the benefits of owning an EV. The On-Street Residential Chargepoint Scheme (ORCS) is available to all UK local authorities, and has so far awarded funding to over 135 different local authorities, to install over 5,000 chargepoints. This year, £20 million is available under this scheme to ensure more local authorities and residents can benefit from the scheme.

A new Local EV Infrastructure fund will be made available to local authorities later in the 2022-23 financial year, which will facilitate the rollout of larger-scale chargepoint infrastructure projects across England.

Drivers without off-street parking at home can also take advantage of the Workplace Charging Scheme, which provides Government support of up to £350 towards the cost of installing a charge point socket for staff and fleet use, with a maximum of 40 sockets available per business. To date over 8,000 businesses have used this scheme to install over 19,000 chargepoint sockets. There are a growing number of solutions for drivers without private parking, such as initiatives like community charging, where those with personal chargepoints can share access with other residents.

The Government’s forthcoming EV Infrastructure Strategy will define our vision for the continued roll-out of a world-leading charging infrastructure network across the UK. The strategy will focus on how we will unlock the chargepoint rollout needed to enable the transition from early adoption to mass market uptake of EVs. We will set out our next steps to address barriers to private investment, and level up charge point provision. The strategy will clearly establish Government’s expectations for the roles and responsibilities of key stakeholders in the planning and deployment of charging infrastructure alongside how we will intervene to address the gaps between the current market status and our vision, and how we will monitor progress.