Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps he is taking to (a) increase the number of electric vehicle charging points in Wiltshire and (b) help people to purchase electric vehicles.

Government has committed £2.5 billion since 2020 to support the transition to zero emission vehicles, with funding to offset their higher upfront cost, and to accelerate the rollout of chargepoint infrastructure.

Government has pledged at least £500 million to support local chargepoint provision. As part of this, the Local EV Infrastructure (LEVI) fund will provide approximately £400 million of capital and £50 million of resource funding to support local authorities to work with industry and transform the availability of charging for drivers without off-street parking.

The Government is also supporting local authorities through the On-Street Residential Chargepoint Scheme (ORCS) which has £20 million available this year. To date, Wiltshire County Council have not submitted an application to the ORCS, we would encourage them to take advantage of this funding.

Local authorities, such as Wiltshire County Council, will have a key role to play in the rolling out of chargepoints as they are best placed to consider local needs. In the UK’s EV Charging Infrastructure Strategy, published in March 2022, Government announced it will require all local transport authorities in England to develop their own chargepoint strategies, subject to consultation.

To support drivers across the UK to switch to cleaner vehicles, Plug-in Vehicle Grants will continue until at least financial year 2023/24 for taxis and motorcycles, and 2024/25 for vans, trucks and wheelchair accessible vehicles. We have also put in place generous tax incentives including: favourable benefit in kind tax rates out to 2025, all zero emission cars are exempt from vehicle excise duty (VED), and, zero emissions vans pay a nil rate of tax on the van benefit charge.