My Lords, as the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, said, my noble friend Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb signed a number of amendments in this group, so while noble Lords will know that I do not normally speak on transport, I am speaking on my noble friend’s behalf this afternoon.

I begin with the very interesting comment of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas: the efficient use of a charger would mean it being used by more than one person. I would go rather further than that and say that what we want is an efficient use of cars: them being used by more than one person. The practical reality, of course, is that most cars spend the vast amount of their time stationary, occupying public space when they are parked on the road. Coming to an arrangement is where Amendment 66, tabled by the noble Lady Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, comes in, requiring

“local planning authorities in England to publish and regularly update a three-year electric vehicle charging infrastructure plan”.

That charging infrastructure plan would ideally very much look at that car club kind of model, which could potentially free up large amounts of space in our cities to be put to much better use than simply being occupied by a stationary vehicle 96% of the time—that is the last figure I saw of the amount of time that cars are stationary.

It should be noted that my noble friend did not sign any of the cross-pavement charging solutions. I know that Caroline Russell, the Green London Assembly member, would not forgive me if I did not make the point that, whatever we say about charging across the pavement, the first priority has to be pedestrians, particularly vulnerable pedestrians. We must make sure that anything that is installed or allowed does not create even greater difficulties, on what is already a very difficult streetscape on many occasions, for pedestrians, particularly vulnerable pedestrians, with wheelchairs, buggies et cetera. I note, perhaps declaring an interest, that when I was in Camden I would regularly try not to trip over the electric cable that my boss at the time trailed out of his house and across the pavement out to his car on the street. Because he was my boss, I was not quite allowed to do anything about it.

I want to focus mostly on Amendments 64 and 67, which are about heavy goods vehicles. This is a crucial issue for the environment and for public health. At the moment, fewer than 1% of new HGVs sold are electric, and there are 500,000 HGVs in the British fleet. At the moment, they are emitting the equivalent of 20 megatonnes of CO2 equivalent per year—the same as 2 million homes. They are also particularly bad in terms of emissions of nitrogen oxides and particulate matter, which have very significant impacts on public health. That tends to particularly strike in poorer, more disadvantaged areas—think about the homes along busy main roads, which tend to be where people who already have poorer health live. There is also the point that EVs are much quieter, which has significant public health impacts, and they are also better to drive. One of the things we have in terms of HGVs is an ageing driving population, and something that is easier to drive is a significant issue there.

I also note that the Government currently have a plug-in truck grant, with a discount for those who purchase them of up to £25,000. There is a push there, and the Government are spending money on it, but what is lacking at the moment is the general charging infrastructure, and these two amendments seek to have a programme and to make sure that when new depots and other infrastructure is being built, they are covered. I note that at the moment there is still an issue about the speed of charging, but megawatt charging is on the way. When we come to later amendments that my noble friend also signed, we also have to think about the infrastructure of distribution of electricity, to make sure that it is able to cater to that very heavy demand. I think there are very strong arguments here for a concerted, planned and organised approach. What we have now is extremely ad hoc, and in far too many cases we are seeing people literally trailing a cord across the pavement, which is a really bad idea for all kinds of reasons.