My Lords, I echo many of the comments that have been made, and I strongly welcome the intention from the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, in bringing this matter to the Committee towards the end of the day and considering the issue in depth through a range of amendments. She was admirably supported by my noble friend Lord Lansley. I think the Government will have taken on board the widespread enthusiasm for doing everything possible to move forward against some of the serious practical difficulties that exist.

I declare my interests as set out in the register. I am chairman of Amey, which provides facilities and maintenance work for the public sector, including road and rail projects. That also covers some litter projects—which we will come on to in a moment, so I will declare my interest now—and EV work, which is central to our work for the Government. I was also Minister for the Environment in Another place, with responsibility for litter campaigns, and the Minister for Energy in the early 1990s when we began the energy transition work which led to the development of electric vehicles relevant to the amendments we are considering. My intention is to draw on that experience to try and assist the Committee with its deliberations, since the amendments I am speaking to are important political priorities for the Government. I expect we will hear from the Government their support for the intentions of many of the amendments and will raise some of the practical challenges which we need to address, if not in this Bill then certainly in the near future.

As I see them, the key questions, which come on from the question of permitted development rights, are as follows. There is the question of who funds and maintains the cross-pavement solution; if a resident funds it, then their expectation is that they have a right to use it, but in reality that is not going to happen on every occasion. The resident has no right to park outside their property on the public highway, and the local authority will not police that space. If the local authority licensed a cross-pavement solution and the resident moves, then the asset and the associated risk and maintenance would go back to the local authority. Cyclical or preventative maintenance of the highways under the New Roads and Street Works Act—NRASWA —will increase in cost due to the complexities of excavating and reinstating the cross-pavement solutions.

None of that is to deter us from trying to address the issues; it is to highlight some of the important issues, because there is an increased risk profile and cost to the local authorities, which we should also consider. For example, if someone slips, trips or falls over a cross-pavement gully, they will immediately turn—and understandably so—to the local authority as the perceived liable party, which in turn takes time, cost and effort to defend and mitigate. We need to address all these issues; I am sure we will overcome them, but they are important to place on the record.

A further issue is whether it would help to extend permitted development rights to electric vehicle charging points. Of course, currently what is required follows the planning process for larger-scale installations, which is timely and costly, so any support and relaxation of planning consents for larger hub-type installations would be helpful.

Another question that has been raised is whether we need an installation programme for electric charging points suitable for HGVs, on which my noble friend Lord Lansley commented. There is still a question mark as to whether EV or hydrogen or synthetic fuel will be the right solution for HGVs. Then there is the question of whether we should mandate HV charging infrastructures in newly built or substantially renovated freight depots and HGV operation buildings. My experience at Amey, as first-place provider on the procurement services framework for depot and fleet charging, is that I believe the mandate would be welcome, but the practicalities and affordability may prohibit the mandate due to the significant capex costs. Larger-scale installations need significant network reinforcement and infrastructure investment, and I suspect that trying to balance the optimum logistics hub locations versus the DNO network may pose a challenge. I looked at the First Bus initiative in Norwich, which has been excellent in electrifying the bus fleet; however, its DNO HV supply came from 2 kilometres away, resulting in a connection cost of some millions of pounds. These are some of the issues that we need to address.

The sentiment behind all the amendments is absolutely right; this is definitely the direction in which we should be travelling. However, we should be grateful to the Government and particularly to the Minister for his letter to us in advance of our consideration of these amendments. When he wrote to us on electrical vehicle charging, he was very clear about some of the challenges, but he equally shared the enthusiasm of the Committee. That was an excellent letter and a good example of its kind; we should place on record our gratitude to the Government for their consideration of these issues.