Zero-emission Buses and Air Quality in Sheffield

Debate between Anthony Browne and Clive Betts

Tuesday 5th December 2023 Westminster Hall

[Anthony Browne]

I will come to the hon. Member’s point. The retrofitting programme was only ever going to be an interim scheme, because those were the buses we had at that moment. As basically all other hon. Members have said, the ultimate long-term ambition is to go to zero-emission buses, for reasons of both climate change and air pollution. In the national bus strategy in 2020, the Government committed to 4,000 zero-emission buses; 1,600 of them are on the road at the moment. We have been pushing that in a variety of ways. We are also committed to announcing a date for the phasing out of non-zero-emission buses, which will be done in the near future.

There are two schemes for zero-emission buses at the moment. First, there was ZEBRA 1, which provided £270 million of funding. The beneficiaries included Sheffield, which got four buses, which will start in January, and the South Yorkshire metropolitan area, which got 27 zero-emission buses. We then opened ZEBRA 2. I know that the hon. Member for Sheffield Central wrote to one of my predecessors expressing interest from Sheffield in that scheme, and that Sheffield has lodged expressions of interest, which is great. The deadline is 15 December. I cannot announce the results, because the applications are not in yet.

On the request from the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley), we want to act as quickly as possible. I will certainly urge officials to announce the outcomes of the bid as quickly as possible because, as I said, we want to act quickly for reasons of both climate change and air pollution.

Various hon. Members mentioned hydrogen buses. The UK Government are technologically neutral: we have been very careful to try not to say that one technology will work and another technology will not, not least because we do not know how technology is going to progress. There are also very varying conditions, and one type of technology might be better in one situation compared with another.

The hon. Members for Sheffield Central and for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) mentioned hills and the challenges they pose for battery buses. For longer ranges—there are buses in rural areas that have to go far longer distances—hydrogen buses may turn out to be more suitable than battery buses. However, I know that battery technology is advancing very rapidly. If we compare the debate now with a few years ago and five years ago, certainly from a manufacturer’s point of view, there is a lot more emphasis on batteries as the ultimate solution, rather than hydrogen. The price of batteries has dropped by 90% since 2010 and the range is increasing by about 10% a year—it has increased by about 45% over the last four years. Hopefully, those technological improvements will continue and help us to decarbonise all forms of transport in cost-effective ways.

We are supporting hydrogen. There are various Government programmes supporting hydrogen buses. The Government provided £30 million to support the West Midlands Combined Authority’s scheme for hydrogen buses, which are about to be launched there. The ultra-low and low-emission bus fund is supporting 20 hydrogen buses in Liverpool, and there are other hydrogen buses elsewhere. We will carry on supporting that, because hydrogen could end up being the absolutely appropriate technology for certain situations.

[Mr Betts]

rose—

[Anthony Browne]

I was going to talk about the point that the hon. Member raised about ITM production, but I will give way.

[Mr Betts]

I hope that the Minister will respond to this point as well. Given that the Government want to be technology-neutral, they ought to explore hydrogen as well as simple battery buses. Would Sheffield not be a very good place to expand their understanding of how hydrogen buses can work, because of the topography and ITM Power, and to try to roll out more hydrogen buses in a fleet, to see whether that delivers what everyone wants?

Alternative Fuelled Vehicles: Energy Provision

Debate between Anthony Browne and Clive Betts

Tuesday 6th October 2020 Westminster Hall

[Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

Thank you, Chair. I thank the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) for securing a debate on this important issue. We are all committed to combating climate change and getting down to net zero. As chair of the all-party parliamentary environment group, I spend a lot of time pushing for that. When I was environment editor of The Observer and The Times more than a decade ago, electric cars were just a pipe dream. I drove some early models, but they are now a reality. I have long seen the internal combustion engine as a dirty, smelly and polluting Victorian technology. The sooner we see the back of it, the better.

I only have two and a half minutes, and there are eight things I think the Government should do. I will have to keep this brief. First, we should commit to 2035 rather than 2040. It is the minimum under the Committee on Climate Change recommendations and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recommendations for meeting net zero by 2050. Indeed, we should consider whether we can bring it even further forward. There is huge industry support for that, from a wide range of different people, and it will probably be cheaper for motorists in the long run.

Secondly, we should continue the subsidies for the schemes. They are not self-sufficient yet, and we definitely need to carry on providing the money to help people to buy them, install charging points and so on. I know the Government are doing that, but we should not turn off the taps just yet.

Thirdly, the Government should provide real clarity, certainty and absolute conviction to industry that this is the direction we are going in. For the big investment decisions from energy companies on charging points and so on, there has to be a real sense of national mission that we can all buy into.

Fourthly, we must make sure that charging is provided for all properties. Consultation is taking place about requiring charging points in new build, and that should be mandatory. Huge numbers of houses are being built in my constituency of South Cambridgeshire, and they should all have charging points, otherwise they will be outdated within a decade or so. How do people living in flats access charging points? Some 30% of homes do not have driveways. Are we saying that people in those homes should carry on driving petrol cars? Clearly not.

Fifthly, we need to get from 18,000 charging points to more than 200,000. That must be done in a way that is as consumer-friendly as possible; we must make sure that they are interoperable and put them in supermarket car parks, or in all car parks. Sixthly, we must unleash the private sector. That is happening already, but I have followed very closely the roll-out of cable, mobile and 4G. That was done by unleashing the dynamism and investment of the private sector, and we should carry on doing the same here.

Seventhly, do not make us an island that is incompatible with the rest of the world. We have different electrical sockets from everywhere else, which is an accident of history, but let us make sure that when drivers leave the UK and drive over to France, they can still use their electric cars.

Eighthly, as the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington said, smart charging is the way to go. I know that we are doing that but it should be key. It improves energy efficiency, reduces costs and is good for our energy resilience.

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

I thank all Members for their co-operation, including Anthony Browne. Over to the Front Benchers.