Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of the (a) adequacy and (b) availability of charging infrastructure to help the public transition to electric vehicles.

In 2022 the Government published its electric vehicle (EV) infrastructure strategy setting out its plan to accelerate the rollout of a world-class EV charging network.  The majority of EV drivers charge at home and the Government expects this to continue, but a reliable public chargepoint network will be needed to support drivers making long distance journeys and those without off-street parking.

A diverse mix of chargepoints will be needed across the UK, not a ‘one size fits all’ approach. Local chargepoint planning is an essential part of the strategy. By 2030, the Department estimates that 300,000 public chargepoints will be needed as a minimum, the majority of which will be market-led. ChargeUK members have publicly committed to investing more than £6 billion in charging infrastructure before 2030.

To date the Government and industry have supported the installation of over 42,000 publicly available charging devices including more than 7,800 rapid devices. There has been a 35% increase over the last 12 months (May 2022 – May 2023).