Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment his Department has made of the financial incentives that will be required to support large fleet owners with the (a) cost of electric vehicle charging units and (b) infrastructure upgrades which will be needed to install rapid electric vehicle chargers.

The Government recognises the scope for fleets to be at the vanguard of the transition to zero emission driving, including the recently announced 2030 phase out of new petrol and diesel cars and vans and the phasing out of the sale of new diesel heavy goods vehicles, which we will be consulting on. We will continue to work with fleet operators towards this. Fleet operators are able to take advantage of a range of grant funding schemes for cars and vans which are provided through the £1.5 billion the Government committed to support the early market.

To continue to accelerate the transition we have now pledged a further £2.8 billion package of measures to support industry and consumers to make the switch to cleaner vehicles. This includes £1.3 billion to accelerate the roll out of charging infrastructure over the next four years, targeting £950m support on rapid chargepoints on motorways and major roads to around long journeys, and £365m for installing more on-street chargepoints near homes and workplaces to make charging as easy as refuelling a petrol or diesel car. We will consider what additional support might be appropriate to support large fleet operators and publish a clear delivery plan in 2021.