Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will make it his policy to introduce subsidies that bring the retail value of electric cars in line with their fossil fuel counterparts.

The Government has committed to introduce a zero emission vehicle mandate setting targets for a percentage of manufacturers’ new car and van sales to be zero emission each year from 2024. The Government announced a further £620m towards the electric vehicle transition as part of the Net Zero Strategy. This will have a particular focus on targeted plug in vehicle grants and local on-street residential charging. This is in addition to the Government’s existing support to drivers making the switch to electric vehicles through the Plug in Car Grant (PiCG), which provides up to £2,500. Government has already previously committed £582m towards for cars vans, motorcycles and taxis to 2022/23, following the Budget in 2020. This will support greater uptake of zero emission vehicles for greener journeys. Once fuel costs and tax incentives are factored in, we expect the total cost of ownership to reach parity during the 2020s, compared to petrol and diesel cars. It costs from 1p per mile to run a new electric vehicle, compared to around 10p per mile for new diesel or petrol vehicles. We are also supporting the second hand market, through charging infrastructure support and zero road tax for zero emission vehicles.