Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps his Department has taken to improve infrastructure for electric vehicles.

The Government is working with industry to improve electric vehicle (EV) infrastructure. There are now over 42,000 public chargepoints, alongside hundreds of thousands in homes and workplaces. The Government estimates that by 2030, around 300,000 public chargepoints will be needed as a minimum. The Government expects to see a market-led roll-out for the majority of chargepoints with over £6 billion of investment already committed.

The Government’s funding interventions are focused on two sectors: high powered chargers on the strategic road network through the Rapid Charging Fund (RCF) and local on-street charging through the Local Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Fund (LEVI).

The LEVI fund will support local authorities to work with industry to transform the availability of charging infrastructure for drivers without off-street parking. The Government has announced a further £381 million of LEVI funding (£343 million capital and £37.8 million resource), which will be made available over the next two financial years. The RCF will future-proof the electrical capacity at strategic locations to support ultra-rapid en-route charging.

The Government is also working to improve the experience of people using public chargepoints. In the coming months, the Government will regulate to mandate open data to ensure consumers can locate the right chargepoints for their needs, mandate 99 per cent reliability across each rapid charging network and will aim to introduce contactless payment provision for all new chargepoints over 8kW