Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what proportion of vehicles rented by her Department are electric vehicles.

0.11% of cars rented by the department were electric vehicles over the past two years, which equated to a total of five.

The department will have a new vehicle hire contract in place from 2026 and, working with suppliers and other government departments, it is our intention to update our current vehicle hire policy to include a strategy of ‘electric first’. This will direct our drivers to seek electric vehicles as a first option, hybrids as a second option and finally combustion engine vehicles where there are no alternatives available.