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.

We recognise that putting in place a joined up, easy to use and reliable network of public chargepoints is essential to overcome a key barrier for motorists considering switching to electric cars, and we will continue to work with industry to establish one of the best electric vehicle infrastructure networks in the world.

In collaboration with industry, the Government will invest an additional £1 billion in charging infrastructure, ensuring that everyone is within 30 miles of a rapid charging station for electric vehicles. To date, Government and industry have supported the installation of over 17,000 devices providing over 24,000 publicly available?chargepoints. This includes over?2,500 rapid?chargepoints?– one of the largest networks in Europe.

The Automated and Electric Vehicles Act gives the Government powers to improve the customer charging experience and increase the provision of electric vehicle infrastructure. This includes powers to regulate the technical standards of infrastructure to ensure easy compatibility with vehicles, to ensure availability of data on chargepoint locations and availability, and to require provision at motorway service areas and large fuel retailers.

To improve customers’ experience of using chargepoints, the Government announced in July 2019 that it wants to see all new rapid and higher-powered chargepoints provide debit or credit card payment by spring 2020, and that it expects industry to create a roaming solution across the charging network allowing electric vehicle drivers to use any public chargepoint through a single payment method. The Government continues to monitor industry’s progress in these and other areas.