Lord Birt
Main Page: Lord Birt (Crossbench - Life peer)(5 days, 19 hours ago)
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Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
I have a feeling that the noble Lord might be speaking from experience given the depth of his knowledge. I met my neighbour—not that we live in a particularly rural area—who had these issues. That is why the Government are investing so significantly into the whole area of charging. One of the issues that really aggrieves me, living in a city such as Leeds where we have a lot of terraced houses, is that back-to-back houses do not have the potential for a garage. But that is why I really welcome the £25 million specifically going into that work. We know this is challenging and we know that there are a whole variety of different circumstances, but with proper consultation and engagement through local authorities in our local areas, I think we can move forward.
Lord Birt (CB)
My Lords, I readily acknowledge that the EV charging network in the UK is growing very rapidly, but none the less there are issues. Some parts of the UK are significantly underserved: public charge points are often not sited close to where people live; grid connections can be unavailable; some motorway service areas lack rapid charges. Given the strategic importance of the move to EVs, do the Government not need an organisational focus to bring real coherence to the development of our national EV charging infrastructure?
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
The noble Lord hits on a very important point, but I emphasise to the House just how seriously the Government are taking this point. We have 88,000 public charge points in the UK and 920,000 domestic charge points, and all motorway service stations have them—I take the noble Lord’s point about rapid charging. That is why the Government are investing £400 million in the local electric vehicle infrastructure fund and are working with local authorities, which are in a position to look at the coverage in their areas, to co-ordinate with providers and make sure that we get the coverage that is required.