Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill (Second sitting)

Greg Knight Excerpts

Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 31st October 2017 Public Bill Committees

[Stephen Kerr]

You are shaking your head.

Steve Gooding: I would say that the definition in the Bill is adequate because of what David has said. It contemplates a world in which the vehicle can operate in autonomous mode without the driver being responsible. That is fine. It does not facilitate level three and that is fine too.

[Sir Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)]

Q Do you think that there is a case for the Government to introduce rules requiring the providers of these electric charging points to have to advertise the price they are going to charge the motorist, with the price visible before the vehicle actually parks up to the charging unit, as it has done for autogas, petrol and diesel sales?

Brian Madderson: I have no problems with that.

[Sir Greg Knight]

Q It is necessary really, is it not?

Brian Madderson: Yes. It is definitely a good idea. We do that all round—on autogas, diesel, petrol, super-unleaded or whatever it might be—at the present time. The price is displayed, and I think it is a fine idea to do that with electric charging as well. It must be said, however, that since April 2016, when some of the charging point providers moved to pay as you go, the demand on motorway service areas for those chargers has dropped by 50%.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

Q I was interested in Mr Madderson’s point about not mandating. The car industry has often reacted well when it has been mandated to do things; when things such as Euro NCAP were introduced, it followed suit and made dramatic improvements. Given the ambition of the Government and across all parties to see more adoption of ultra low emission vehicles, and given that markets such as Norway’s are much further ahead than ours, what should we be doing to ensure that we are in a leadership position in electric vehicle technology?

Brian Madderson: It is also about providing the carrot by way of funding. That is going to be the big spur to encourage firms, in a rapidly changing market, to take that investment decision and to ensure that such decisions are supported by their banks, lenders, shareholders and others. At the moment, you do not appear to be mandating hotels, leisure centres or workplaces, all of which are admirably fine locations for charging points; you just seem to be mandating motorway service areas and large fuel retailers, whatever that description means. We do not think that is fair, reasonable or necessary.