Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what recent steps his Department has taken to incentivise uptake in the ownership of electric vehicles.

The Government has committed £2.5 billion since 2020 to support the transition to zero emission vehicles. This provides funding to offset the higher upfront cost of electric vehicles and more than £1.6 billion to be used to support charging infrastructure.

Plug-in Grants, to reduce the upfront cost of vehicles, will continue until at least 2024 for taxis and motorcycles, and 2025 for vans, trucks and wheelchair accessible vehicles. In addition, generous tax incentives are in place, including zero road tax and favourable company car tax rates, which can save drivers over £2,000 a year.

We want to ensure drivers who make the switch to an electric vehicle can charge easily. In March the Department for Transport published the UK electric vehicle charging infrastructure strategy. The strategy sets out the Department’s vision and commitments to make electric vehicle charging cheaper and more convenient than refuelling at a petrol station so that drivers can make the switch to an electric vehicle wherever they live.