Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of the availability of charging points for electric vehicles.

The Government’s vision is to establish a UK-wide, easy to use and reliable electric vehicle charging infrastructure network to give more drivers the confidence to switch to electric and zero emission driving.

To date, the Government and industry have supported the installation of over 28,000 publicly available charging devices, including more than 5,100 rapid devices. The UK already is a global front-runner in supporting provision of charging infrastructure and we are investing over £1.3 billion in accelerating the roll-out of charging infrastructure. This is targeting support on rapid chargepoints on motorways and major roads and installing more on-street chargepoints near homes and workplaces. Our grant schemes and the £400m Charging Infrastructure Investment Fund will see thousands more electric vehicle charge-points installed across the UK.

We have also consulted on improving the consumer experience at public chargepoints which including improving the reliability of chargepoints and opening data to ensure consumers can locate the right chargepoint for their needs and to identify whether it is available to use. We intend to publish our Government response shortly and lay legislation later in 2022. We recently announced that we intend to mandate reliability standards to give consumers confidence in the public charging infrastructure.

Our forthcoming electric vehicle Infrastructure Strategy will define our vision for the continued roll-out of a world-leading charging infrastructure network across the UK. It will focus on how we will unlock the chargepoint rollout needed to enable the transition from early adoption to mass market uptake of electric vehicles and establish the Government’s expectations for the roles and responsibilities of key stakeholders in the planning and deployment of charging infrastructure.