Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps he is taking to ensure that apartment blocks can receive signals for smart meters so as to allow for the charging of electric vehicles.

Energy suppliers are working on solutions to extend the range of the smart meter Home Area Network, and are already rolling out a “dual band” communications hub which can operate on two different frequencies and therefore serve many previously hard to reach flats and tower blocks.

The Government is working with industry to ensure a technical solution is developed for the small minority of properties that cannot be served by the new “dual band” communications hub.