Electric Vehicles (Smart Charge Points) Regulations 2021

Baroness Deech Excerpts

Monday 6th December 2021 Lords Chamber

Until the Government take the leadership that we need on this issue, we will not solve these problems. The legislation before us today is fine as far as it goes, but it is about squeezing a little bit more out of the grid, which is already overstretched. We need greater leadership from the Government.

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords—My Lords, I agree with previous speakers. I took a short journey last week in my electric car to a hotel where there were six charging points. Three of them were for Tesla only—that is not me—and of the other three, one was occupied, one did not work and the other I could not make work. I will not detain your Lordships’ too long by saying that I nearly had a heart attack trying to get home worrying what was going to happen.

I should also add that in a new multi-storey car park in Botley, west Oxford, where I live, there are 14 charging points. Every single one is out of order—every single one. The building is operated by Savills, but I have had no response from it other than saying that it does not have a legal obligation to turn on these points. Not only that, but if you were able to make them work, you would have to be a member of a particular company that supplies the electricity and would need to have working wi-fi. This will not do. We do not want competition—we want uniformity and contactless payment.

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

We had a discussion on interoperability when we debated these regulations last Tuesday in Grand Committee. There were questions asked; the Government were asked to say in their response whether the wording in the Explanatory Memorandum—to which my noble friend Lord Berkeley has referred—in paragraph 7.6 constitutes in reality a requirement for all charging points to be interoperable. I expressed the personal view that it did not, but I asked for clarification on that point.

Later in the Explanatory Memorandum, the Government say that they have

“chosen not to mandate device-level requirements”

relating to demand-side response interoperability

“at this time … because the smart charging market remains nascent, and because delivering interoperability would require broader powers than those set out in”

the Automated and Electric Vehicle Act 2018. That comment was despite the fact that the Explanatory Memorandum states:

“The ability of consumers to freely switch energy supplier is a fundamental principle in the energy market”,


which makes it rather surprising that we seem to have this delay over interoperability.

The Government, in the Explanatory Memorandum, also went to say that they

“intend instead to consider how best to deliver interoperability as part of a second phase of legislation, by looking at placing wider requirements on the entities … which could deliver DSR through charge points. Government aims to consult on this second phase of policy measures in 2022.”

I suggested that that was a somewhat vague timescale that contained no target date for actually legislating. I asked the Government whether they could be more specific in their response. The noble Baroness the Minister was good enough to say—which I appreciated—that she could not give specific answers to these questions when we were debating this last Tuesday and that she would write to answer all questions that had been asked. Irrespective of what the Minister intends to say in response now, I hope that we shall still be getting that written reply to questions that were not responded to last Tuesday.