I beg to move amendment 3, in clause 9, page 6, line 22, at end insert—

‘(4) The Secretary of State must consult charge point operators and vehicle manufacturers on the prescribed requirements for connecting components (before regulations under subsection (1)(b) are made).”

This amendment requires consultation with charge point operators and vehicle manufacturers on the requirements for connecting components for the charging of electric vehicles.

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. The amendment requires consultation with charge point operators and vehicle manufacturers on the requirements for connecting components for the charging of electric vehicles. As the Bill is currently drafted, the Secretary of State has the power to make regulations in relation to the components of charging points. What the Bill does not do is define what criteria will be used or who will be consulted when making that decision.

The Bill presents a significant opportunity for the UK to lead globally in encouraging uptake of electric vehicles. Making the most of that opportunity will require action in a number of areas. One is the availability and interoperability of charging points. As Members will know, there is some concern about differing design standards for charging points. Those Members, such as myself, who have electric cars, or know constituents who do, will know how frustrating it is to come to a charging point when there is no common universal standard. It is extremely annoying to pull up, try to plug in and then, all of a sudden, realise there is no opportunity to charge. It is important to avoid the situation in which vehicles have a wide range of different connecting components because they will have to be reflected on forecourts. A wide range of different connecting components will be absolutely impractical and create confusion, as we have already discussed. The amendment would require the Government to consult charge operators and vehicle manufacturers on these vital infrastructure decisions.

Sir Edward, I do not intend to press the amendment to a vote. Its purpose is to probe a little deeper to ensure that the Government consult properly and widely on the final form and implementation of those connecting components, specifically consulting recharge point operators and vehicle manufacturers.

My main purpose in speaking to this clause and the amendment is to raise the same broad issue that I tried to raise on Second Reading. I have had a chance since then to talk to some of those involved in various elements of the industry and I am reaffirmed in my view that the scope of the regulations proposed in clause 9(1) and 9(2) is too limited.

It is clear that, if we take clauses 9 and 10 as a whole, they miss out a very important, critical element of the scene, without which we will not succeed in engendering the spread of electric vehicles that we seek. That is the assembly—many thousands in the one case and many hundreds of thousands in the other—of apartment blocks on one side and homes on the other side that do not have off-street car parking. In my own constituency, a very large proportion of the population does have off-street car parking because it is a rural area. Many suburban areas fall into the same category, but in our major cities there are many people who live in homes that do not have off-street car parking. Except at the very top end of the market, almost all people living in apartment blocks do not have full off-street car parking that is particularly associated with them. There may be a place where people park but it is not one that can be guaranteed to belong to a Mr or Mrs X. At the moment there is nothing in the Bill that mandates any off-street car parking under either of these circumstances.

My right hon. Friend the Minister may say, as he is wont to do in the Committee, “This Bill is only the beginning.” Yes, but it needs to be a beginning that is sufficient to bring about the largest part of what we seek to achieve. I urge him to talk to his colleagues in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to work out how, in connection with the clean growth strategy, he can provide, probably in the other place rather than on Report, although either would do, an amendment to clauses 9 or, conceivably, 10, or even a new clause, to provide powers for a Secretary of State—probably the one for Business rather than the one for Transport—to ordain that district network operators have to install off-street parking on some rational basis.

Clearly, a lot of consultation is needed with the manufacturers of the relevant equipment, as the shadow Minister said, but principally with the utilities themselves—the district network operators—to work out the best way through that. My feeling when I was involved in this as a Minister was that there is a great deal of difference between taking this in marginal steps as streets are being broken anyway for the purpose of repair or expansion of the network, and doing it all at once. Asking the DNOs to put in off-street car parking on all city streets and for apartment blocks that have not got it and where parking is permitted would be expensive and overplay what is needed in the first year or two. It is doable, but it is excessively costly for the consumer of electricity on whom the cost would fall—assuming it was allowed into the regulatory asset base, which it obviously needs to be. If, however, it is a programme of work that proceeds as streets are broken—I have done a little investigation, although the Minister’s counterparts in BEIS will be able to do much more, which suggests that over about a 10-year period almost all city streets would be able to have off-street charging installed at the same time as works went on—there will obviously be a marginal cost, but it is small.

I made an error in my remarks on Second Reading, because I thought at that time that the rational way to do this was to provide for fast charging off-street through what Hansard, with a delicious benevolence, transcribed as “free-phase charging”. That is a lovely idea, but I hope what I actually said, and I certainly meant to say, was 3-phase charging, which is fast charging. I thought that would be necessary off-street to provide for people to come home from work, charge off-street and then set out for supper or whatever. I have now been told by three different groups of manufacturers, so I begin to believe it, that that is not judged to be necessary and that low-voltage charging would do. That is because, in experience so far, almost everyone who engages in off-street parking or indeed any kind of charging at home does it overnight, in which case low-voltage does perfectly well.

That makes the proposition I am making considerably cheaper. If it is just a question of putting in lamp posts and bits of street furniture that have plugs, it is not complicated. It would be much aided if what the shadow Minister is requesting happened and there was a universalised plug system—but in any event it is perfectly doable at reasonably low cost if done over a period when streets are being broken anyway. If that does not happen, we will not see anything like the spread of electric cars that we would otherwise see, because about half the population does not have access to off-street parking, so it is a very important thing to do.

I want to anticipate one thing that I know from experience the Minister will be told by people in BEIS if his officials ask its officials. That is why I ask him to talk directly to our mutual friend, his counterpart Minister there, about it. He will be told that it is okay because Ofgem has powers within its current regulatory regime to modify licences in order to bring this about and it has powers to allow things to be charged to the regulatory asset base. Those propositions happen to be true, but I do not think that they are a good basis for not taking the power, because the next thing, which the Minister may or may not be told but is also true, is that Ofgem is an independent entity and one cannot guarantee that it will actually use the powers, because if we look at its duties in the underlying primary legislation, we see that it does not have the duty to promote the use of electric vehicles. It may interpret its duties to the electricity supply industry, in terms of balancing and economics, as meaning a large amount of renewables and the prospect of a large battery for the nation residing in its cars. It may interpret its duties as meaning that it ought to do this, but it might interpret its duties differently. It may say that the electricity consumer should not have to bear this cost, and therefore I think that Ministers need the powers directly. They may well never need to exercise them, because they may be able to say to Ofgem, “Look, we have a regulation-making power here. Rather than us using it, why don’t you just enforce this?” But one way or the other, I think that the power should be taken, and it could be taken in a form that allows a very moderate, slow roll-out over, say, a 10-year period. That would broadly do, because I do not think any of us imagines that tens of millions of our citizens will have these kinds of cars 10 years from now. We want there to be able to be tens of millions of our citizens with these cars 20 or 30 years from now, so it would do if this was done gradually as streets were broken.

I hope that that is clear and the Minister is willing to consider it, in conjunction with BEIS, between now and the final passage of the Bill through the other place.

I rise briefly to seek the thoughts of my right hon. Friend the Minister on clause 9(2), which deals with the potential regulations covering the payment methods for charging points. During an evidence session, one of the most powerful pieces of evidence that we got was from Robert Llewellyn, who pointed to the chaotic situation that existed in California and Ireland, where different providers had different payment cards and methods and there was no standardisation until they legislated for it. My reason for speaking is to hear a little more about what the Minister intends under clause 9(2). Is it his intention to seek a common payment mechanism, and if so, is the current wording of the clause sufficient? The evidence that we had from Robert Llewellyn was that the industry itself will not come up with a common payment mechanism and that will require Government intervention. The Minister may argue, and I will be perfectly happy to accept, that the clause as drafted does it, but perhaps he will wish to consider a slight alteration in the wording to set out that expectation.

I want to amplify the points made by the right hon. Member for West Dorset in talking about the opportunity we have—I think he was saying this—to be more ambitious and to mandate more for the provision of public charging points on our streets, and the challenge that we face particularly in urban areas. Many of us will appreciate the financial pressures that local authorities are under, and we need to look at introducing LED street lights, whereby we invest in order to save in the budgets employed by councils in the provision of street lighting. Linked to this is a huge opportunity for those authorities to invest in and provide street charging points, and for electric vehicles. I want to broaden the thinking. We are talking in the main about electric cars—that is the mindset we are focused on. However, particularly in urban areas, other forms of electric mobility will offer us a huge opportunity. We need to be cognisant of that, especially electric bicycles—I think that will be a huge growth area.

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the private sector will undoubtedly play its part in providing charging places? I am thinking in particular of pubs, which are always looking for ways to increase their takings. In Yorkshire there is one pub, near my constituency, which has introduced three electric charging points that are there now, ready for use. Many supermarkets have their own car parks, and it seems to me natural for a supermarket to start providing charge points in their car parks.

I totally agree. There is an opportunity both for the market and for authorities to seize this. It is really about showing leadership and ambition in the sector.

I am thinking about the planning implications of all this for the provision of off and on-street charging points. Do we need to think more widely and, again, more ambitiously, in terms of stipulations that surround planning permissions?

Planning is not my specialism, but I agree that that does come into it, as we recognise what the opportunity is. I think that in China there is already significant progress in electric mobility. Certain cities are adopting this in its entirety. Of course, they are starting from a green field to develop these new eco-cities. It is within our remit to consider these things and to think about planning new elements under local plans that are going through many of our local authorities right now, and how that might be provided for. It is something that we need to do now. Perhaps I can only speak from a Warwickshire perspective, where I know there is a wholesale plan. The right hon. Member for West Dorset spoke about the renewal plan—the accelerated plan to start putting in LEDs and all sorts of other street furniture. It is a terrific opportunity. If we put the framework in place we could help to accelerate, if the Committee will excuse me using that term, that introduction, which would be a very healthy one.

What a delight to sit under your chairmanship again, Sir Edward, to participate in this exciting exchange of views. As I mentioned informally earlier, we moved from autonomous vehicles to electric vehicles apparently seamlessly, but with equal determination and diligence.

This clause provides powers to improve the consumer experience for gaining reasonably straightforward, easy access to all public charging infrastructure, regardless of where motorists are driving in the UK. The aim is essentially to improve confidence in the purchase and use of electric vehicles, which in itself is part of our efforts to reduce emissions by encouraging people to buy those vehicles that emit fewer NOxic things. We spoke earlier about particular material, the effect it has on human wellbeing and our determination as a Government to take action to counter its effects.

At the moment drivers face myriad different charge points, as we have heard in the course of the debate. I suppose that partly because the industry is developing, the technology is evolving. Like all technological change in its first phase, a variety of different options is still available to the consumer. Perhaps that is the inevitable consequence of the early stage of the development of technology. Usually technology settles around a few common standards and often around a single common standard. That may be the natural consequence of a rationalisation in the market.

I had an interesting conversation about two pervasive and—by the fact that they are widely believed—apparently persuasive myths with two members of the Committee over lunch, not from the Government side, by the way. The two myths we discussed were the misconception that the market would necessarily and automatically settle these matters itself. That is not my view. The second myth was that all technological change is, by its nature, intrinsically efficacious. That is not my view either. It is a lazy assumption that all change is for the better and an even lazier one that all technological change, by its very nature, because it is exciting, fresh and enthralling, must be in the interests of the people. That is not so. It is our job to ensure that these things are encouraged where they are indeed virtuous but constrained where they are not, and, as my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset and others have mentioned, to shape change for the best effect. That is precisely what the Bill tries to do with electric charge points.

I have many notes ahead of me, some of which I will use and some of which I will not because I want to address directly the points that have been raised. There seem to be four points. The first point is about access to charge points and making that access, as I described it a moment ago, straightforward, readily available and widely understood. That is not the case now, as the shadow Minister said of his own experience as an electric car driver. The Bill creates powers for us to achieve what I think he wants. The powers will be sufficient to allow us to define a single means of access and to link to that a single payment method. The problem at the moment is not only about interoperability—although it is about that—it is also about how you pay. Some power points are paid for in advance, some are pay-as-you-go. There are different systems; some are paid by card. There are different payment methods, which adds to additional doubts—for the purposes of Hansard, that was alliterative; it was tautological as well as alliterative, to be precise, Sir Edward.

I am afraid the Minister cannot rewrite Hansard.

Quite. I know the Hansard writers are wonderful people.

The aim of the Bill is to create greater clarity and consistency about access and payment. We are confident that the powers are sufficient to do that. It is necessary to consult the industry on this and I commit to doing so. We want to do this as much as we can as a result of that collaborative, co-operative dialogue, but we will take powers as necessary to provide the certainty that we all seek. That seems to me to be important and urgent and it is very much in tune with what the shadow Minister said.

The second point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset was about the location of charge points in those places where it is less straightforward and where there is not easy access.

I thank the Minister for giving way and for mentioning our brief conversation at lunch time; it is very good of him. On his point about the location of charge points, as someone who represents a constituency with poor quality air—we suffer greatly from air pollution in Reading, as do many other urban areas, even relatively small or medium-sized ones—I not only commend his interest in encouraging charge points but urge him to speak to his officials and other partners, including the industry and local authorities, to see whether areas with air pollution problems can be prioritised as we roll out this new technology. Residents in those areas would be very grateful and appreciative if thought were put into whether that is possible.

The hon. Gentleman, with great courtesy, gave me notice as part of the civilised conversation we had at lunchtime that he would raise that very point. When he mentioned it to me informally, I said that it was an interesting thought. It is not incompatible with the zonal approach we have taken to air quality. As he knows, we have developed an approach that focuses on areas that are particularly severely affected by poor air quality. I cannot give a definitive commitment to do exactly what he says, but I am certainly prepared to think about it. It would not be out of tune with the Government’s approach; as well as raising the quality of air for everyone, we have done extra work in parts of our country—typically urban places—that are particularly badly affected. I think he can take that as a small win, in that he has made his point, which I have acknowledged and committed to going away to think about more.

My right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset made a point about existing powers. He will be aware of the powers granted by the Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Regulations 2017, which I think he referred to. They have just been introduced in the UK and will go part of the way to solving the problem. Those regulations require that all charge points offer ad-hoc access without requiring people to have membership, as some existing systems do. They are about creating the greater consistency that he seeks.

In a former life I was the Energy Minister, and I remember dealing with Ofgem and others, as my right hon. Friend will have done in the roles that he has had. I hear what he says about the practical business of ensuring that the appropriate powers are employed in the way that we seek, and I will think more closely about that, too. It might be necessary to do that in primary legislation in the way that he described, but there may be other ways of achieving that end, and I want to give it further consideration.

It is certainly essential, if we are going to make this multiplicity of charge points as widely available as possible, to address the issue of off-street charge points. As my right hon. Friend and others will know, some local authorities have already made progress in that regard. I am delighted to be able to tell the Committee that just this weekend, London boroughs took the lead. Wandsworth approved a plan to convert all lampposts so that they have charge points, which is notable and important, and Kensington and Chelsea announced the conversion of 50 lampposts as a first step to converting all its lamp posts. So, there is some progress in London.

It is indeed encouraging that those things have been done, but does my right hon. Friend agree that the scale of the ambition is wholly different? Fifty charge points is fine, but I am talking about something like 10 million. I think that I am right in saying that there are about 20 million cars in this country, so about 10 million will be owned by people in places where there is off-street car parking. I do not think that local authorities, Ofgem or utilities companies have got the idea at all that we need to build the infrastructure far in advance of the cars if we are ever going to have the cars. That is why I beg him to consider primary legislation that puts it beyond doubt that Ministers could, if necessary, just make this happen wholesale. That way, they will probably avoid ever having to use those powers.

Well—

rose—

Before I give way, I will quote Ruskin. I know that the hon. Gentleman will want to be informed by that before he contributes. Ruskin said:

“Quality is never an accident. It is always the result of intelligent effort.”

The effort required is of a scale and of the kind that my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset mentions. I shall be able to offer extra, exciting news in a few moments.

I am more likely to quote Rousseau than Ruskin. To take the point made by the right hon. Member for West Dorset and talk about it practically, in my constituency 50%-plus of properties are terraced and the lamp standards are set back, not kerbside. That causes a difficulty, because even if we were to fit charging points, we would still have trailing wires. We therefore have all sorts of issues about how we interconnect a property with the kerbside when the lamp standard is set back towards the property, not the road.

By 2040, of course, all vehicles will have to be electric vehicles. The houses will still be there—we are not going to demolish or reconstruct them—so there will have to be a process of adaptation between now and then. The right hon. Member for West Dorset was talking about 10 million charging points and 20 million cars, and I do not think he is too wrong. Who knows? With smaller vehicles, there may be more vehicles than that. How does the Minister envisage resolving that?

One thing the Minister could do, though it would not bridge the problem of open wiring and cabling from a property to the kerbside, is on parking bays. One of the problems in terraced areas will be the competition for parking outside. If a person has a charging point on their property, with the Government having alleviated the problem of cabling across the kerbside, they still have the problem of accessibility when they come home. The Government need to consider how the charge is transferred from the property to the roadside and how to prioritise, because someone who has just bought an electric vehicle will want to be able to park outside their house to connect the cable up at the shortest point. Those are issues the Government need to consider. When we look at the scale mentioned by the right hon. Member for West Dorset and where the volume of terraced properties is like mine at 50%-plus, we see there is a major challenge for the Government.

Yes, and one might say, paradoxically, that the challenge is both urban and rural. In many urban areas, people may not have convenient roadside parking, while in many rural areas people may live remote from main arterial routes and therefore major retailers. The Bill mentions major retailers, and I want to deal with that in greater detail. The point was made by the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun in considering the previous incarnation of the Bill—the first Bill that dealt with these matters, which never came to fruition because of the general election—that rural areas in the north of England and Scotland and elsewhere could be disadvantaged if charging points are focused on main routes and urban places. I want to deal with that in my remarks and the subsequent actions I take.

The hon. Member for Hyndburn is right that there is a technical challenge in making sure that the infrastructure is in place to deliver the charging points. There is also the planning challenge. My right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset describes the efforts of Wandsworth and Kensington and Chelsea as just the beginning. Those were not his words, but I want to ensure that no one felt he was being critical of those brave local authorities.

Yesterday, I met the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government and discussed this with him. In two respects, planning is critical. It is very important that we ensure that, first, electric car charging points are part of any application for new housing—an implicit part of new developments—and secondly, in respect of local authorities, we achieve greater consistency in the provision of charging points for the very reason that my right hon. Friend gave. The numbers involved require all local authorities to consider them and act on those considerations, or we simply will not get enough charging points—or, just as seriously, we may get them clustered in certain places and absent in others. That will not build the confidence we require to encourage the purchase and use of electric vehicles.

I agree with the principle that we need to expand the infrastructure as quickly as possible to create the space for the development of these vehicles. However, when we legislate for these things, as we must, there is the risk of hidden consequences. For instance, in an area where there is a high demand for kerbside parking spaces, particularly in central London, if these parking spaces are exclusive to electric vehicles that reduces the number of spaces for other road users. That may be one of the reasons why some of the boroughs in central London are resistant to creating large numbers of spaces, because they are going to lose the revenue from the car parking on the kerbside and the parking meters. These are the hidden consequences and we have to consider how we roll this out, because it could inconvenience a great many people. It certainly would in my constituency.

Yes. It is possible, as the hon. Gentleman says, that there could be contradictory needs, and incentives and disincentives such as those which he describes. We need to be careful about how we put in place those additional requests and requirements. That is about the conversation we will have with the Department for Communities and Local Government. I am writing to the Secretary of State as a direct result of my conversation with him about this yesterday evening. I knew the Committee would want to know about it and I made sure I had it before we met today. I anticipated that the Committee would want reassurance, which I am now ready to offer, that I intend to take this as far as we need to go. This would be done not only by taking these pretty extensive powers, which allow us to make regulations to ensure the easy accessibility of charge points to a common access method as a minimum, but also through the work of other Government Departments. I include BIS, where I used to be a Minister—now called BEIS—and DCLG.

This exchange across the Committee is important. We need collectively to adjust our view of what we are trying to achieve. Hitherto, we have been talking about putting in—if I can put it in these terms—a few charge points here and there in the hope of getting some useful experimentation with electric vehicles, which has all been good. We now have to move into an entirely different world, in which we, by no means exclusively reserve places for electric vehicles, nor do we have a few of them. We have to build out the infrastructure, just as with mobile telephony we have to build out the masts and therefore the capacity to deliver long before people will buy the machines to use it. We have to build out charge points everywhere, right across the country. Every parking place must be a place where you can park an electric vehicle and charge it, because that is the only way we will move quickly as a country from next-to-zero to millions and millions of electric vehicles.

We have a choice as a country. We could be a laggard; we could pass nice Bills, preen ourselves that we are interested in these matters and watch the countries that are going fast go fast. We have done that with some technologies and it is always catastrophic to our competitive status, but we could do it. I do not think that is what the Minister wants, I do not think it is what the Government wants, I do not think it is what the clean growth strategy demands and I do not think it is what the Committee wants. If we do not, we have to envisage regulatory powers that will force the build-out right the way across the street so every on-street car parking place is an on-street car charging place.

Order. Interventions are becoming longer and longer and more and more discursive. So, interventions should be short—anybody in these Committees can speak whenever they like—and to the point.

Let me be crystal clear: I have no intention of being behind the curve. I am not satisfied to be on the curve, we are going to be ahead of the curve. That is why we must think about housing developments and local authorities but, more than that, about workplaces. I want the Committee to know that the Government have already put into place grant funding to encourage workplaces to put charge points in place, so that people who do not have easy access to a charge point on the street and have not charged at home can charge at their place of work.

I want every local authority in the country to know that there is grant funding available for on-street charge points and I encourage them all to apply. We are not simply speaking of regulations or guidance that encourages or obliges them to consider these matters. We are prepared to help to fund this roll-out.

Workplaces, homes, local authorities, on-street, working across Government—this will not simply put us ahead of the curve, it will make us a leader in this field. I personally am not a laggard, and neither are the Government.

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. He raises a good point: it is desirable to have charging points in workplaces, and I hope the Government will follow through on the Minister’s advice. People do not want charge up at home. There is obviously an issue there: the energy is coming from their own power point and, even if they have solar panels, they will be at work during the day when the sun shines and their vehicle is more likely to be at work. So the workplace is a great place for people to charge electric vehicles. That is desirable in the UK because if we are charging during the day—most people work during daylight hours—it will be from a renewable energy source.

Let me will just return to the Minister’s point about local authorities. My local authority is about to implement a planning policy making charging points automatic in every new build. They are progressive, but they are still left with this legacy. I put this to the Minister today, in my constituency of Haslingden and Hyndburn—where 50% of homes are terraced houses and the lampposts are set back—what incentive do people have to buy an electric vehicle when they cannot charge it at their property? Either they cannot get an access space, or they would have to run a cable. There is the technical problem of running a cable from the property to the car. What is the Minister’s response today, to get the electric vehicle market growing, and to get it growing in constituencies like mine?

It is straightforward: greater interoperability, greater shared and common access, consistency about payment method, and much greater availability—in homes, on streets and in workplaces. We simply have to have a step change in volume, but a fundamental change too in the ease of use of charge points.

It is true that most people who currently have an electric vehicle, for most the time, charge at home, and typically they charge overnight. That point was made earlier in the debate. But unless people have the confidence that they can charge straightforwardly elsewhere—with a system they understand and a payment method that is easy to use—they will not have the confidence to purchase or drive an electric vehicle. We see this as absolutely critical to our bigger ambitions for low emission vehicles, which is why we introduced the Bill. The whole purpose of the Bill is to address one of the principal reasons people might cite for not switching to an electric vehicle.

What scoping have the Government done of alternative charging methods? I ask because there was a scheme run in Israel, which admittedly did not work, but it failed because of lack of critical mass of electric vehicles. The technology was in place for service station-type set-ups where the entire battery could be replaced within five minutes. A car would go in, and come out with a fully charged battery. That would seem to get round quite a few of the problems we talk about in terms of roll-out and range, but also cover the areas that do not currently have any electrical charging points.

I do not know about the Israeli experience but I am more than happy to ask my officials to explore it and to see what we can learn from it. Other countries are engaged in the same process: electric vehicles are becoming increasingly popular across the world, so most Governments are looking at the barriers to entry to the market and what they can do to remove them. Certainly we should learn from the best international examples and see if it is right to emulate them.

The scale argument is well made by my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset, the accessibility argument well made by the shadow Minister. Neither one is the more important. As I have said, accessibility, interoperability, ease of payment and scale all matter, but they must also sit alongside an appropriate consideration of design. The Committee would be disappointed were I not to say more about that, because part of the problem with charge points at the moment is that they are not easily recognisable. One could drive past the Department for Transport’s electric charging point and not know it was there, because it does not stand out like a beacon. Perhaps it should. Anywhere in the country, it would be better to know what an electric charging point looked like, particularly a roadside one in an unfamiliar place. People know their own locality, but this will be a national network of charging points and we have to consider people who are driving outside their locality.

I have mentioned previously, and am happy to cement today into our consideration, the idea of a competition. We will launch a competition in December for an iconic design for publicly accessible electric vehicle charging points, which would be widely deployable across the United Kingdom. We have already attracted the interest of the Royal College of Art, the National Transport Design Centre and the Design Council, with whom we have had early meetings. I will describe the competition in greater detail when I launch it but it will happen in concert with and alongside the progress of the Bill, and certainly before the Bill fulfils its destiny and becomes a landmark Act, for which we will all take some credit, Sir Edward. I want the design competition to be launched and advanced, if not completed, by then.

I welcome that competition. May I suggest that, if the points are to be easily distinguishable, they should be bright golden? If they were named after the Minister, they could be known as the bright golden Hayes. If one were put in a meadow, even better.

The Hayes hooks, as I think they were dubbed by a former Member of this House, now gone on to other—I will not say greater—things, are my only hope of emulating my predecessor Leslie Hore-Belisha with his beacons. I do see myself as a beacon, as you know, Sir Edward, and my charging points would be a lovely contribution to posterity.

Order. In respect to the Chair, should they not be called Leigh leads?

I will take that, Sir Edward, with the courtesy that you deserve, as a bid and consider it alongside other helpful suggestions.

So, the design competition will be launched shortly. A combination of that readily recognised design, with the pervasive policy that will result from the work that we are going to do with other Government Departments and the powers we are taking here, will mean that, as with the old red telephone boxes, when they were more common, and pillar boxes that still are, people will know exactly what a charging point looks like and how they can access one.

Perhaps inspired by the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun, I want to deal with the matter of rural areas, which is not in my notes. I am mindful of the experience of mobile telephone coverage or the roll-out of broadband. Members of the Committee who represent rural areas who, if they have not said something already, will at least be thinking, what about Dorset, Lincolnshire or Cornwall? We love driving on the main arterial routes, but will we be neglected? I think we need to do more work on that. We have mentioned major retailers in the Bill, but by their nature they may well be disproportionately located in the places where populations are concentrated and where most vehicles travel, and not in the rural areas represented by a number of members of this Committee.

We should think creatively about how to ensure that rural areas are not neglected. We must not end up with an inadequate number of charging points in parts of the country and therefore a disadvantage for the people of, for example, Gainsborough. I know you would not want that, Sir Edward. That is an additional consideration that I offer the Committee. I do not think it is an automatic consequence of the Bill, but it should accompany it as a further piece of work. There may be ways in which we can encourage certain local authorities. There may be ways to monitor and then ensure a consistent roll-out of charge points across the country. This is not unlike the suggestion that was made by the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington about how we might apply different aspects of the policy in different ways at different locations.

I welcome those comments, but obviously this will not be in the Bill. How can we make sure that the work goes ahead on assessing rural capability and the actual roll-out in rural areas?

This part of the Bill facilitates a regulatory environment that would allow us to address a range of challenges. The Bill anticipates regulations, though I do not yet know whether this needs to be done by regulation or whether it can be done by other means. I wanted to highlight that I share the hon. Gentleman’s concern. I know that the Committee felt that there is, not a risk or a likelihood, but a possibility that we might end up concentrating charge points, even though they are interoperable and easily accessible and wonderfully recognisable and beautiful, and that rural areas would consequently be at a disadvantage. I will look at the matter closely and see whether we need regulation, or whether we can use other means.

I must say a word about amendment 3, as it is the subject of the debate. The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East suggests that we require the Secretary of State to consult charge point operators and vehicle manufacturers before regulating. I can absolutely assure him that we will be consulting charge point operators and vehicle manufacturers before we make regulations. He has my certain assurance that that consultation will take place. I do not feel that the amendment is necessary, because it is implicit in the way in which the Government will go about their work. Ruskin said:

“Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless; peacocks and lilies for instance.”

That does not mean that useful things must be ugly. It is perhaps true that the most beautiful things are useless, but let us make useful things as beautiful as they can possibly be.

Presumably, Sir Edward, with your permission, we are also speaking to clause stand part?

I think we have had a very discursive and wide-ranging debate. If the hon. Gentleman wants to add anything, he should speak now.

The clause states that the Secretary of State will make regulations on these matters. What is the timeframe for this and what is the process? Who will be involved in some of these decisions and in formulating some of the ideas? When in the near future will some of these regulations be laid? As I said earlier, 50% of the issues for my constituents are simple technical matters: terraced property, road and the kerb that sits in the middle. When will the Secretary of State bring forward the regulations in clause 9 and who will be involved in that?

Well—

Could the Minister wait for Mr Stewart?

Forgive me if I was so mesmerised by the prospect of the competition that the Minister has just announced that I missed his comments, but can he clarify the point I asked about the common payment mechanism, which I think would be an important feature of the interoperability of these charging points?

Let me deal with that first. I wholly agree that the regulatory powers we have taken are designed to produce a common payment method. That is very important. As I offered a moment ago, we will engage with the industry to work to that end, but we could use these powers to oblige that. It is intolerable that people might turn up thinking they could charge their vehicle, find that the charge point was compatible because of the steps we have taken, and then find that they had to have pre-booked, prepaid or have a special card to do pay. It is probably right that we go for a pay-as-you-go method, but I do not want to be definitive about that. Let us have those discussions to achieve the end my hon. Friend suggests.

On the other matter, will the hon. Member for Hyndburn remind me what he said? I have now waxed so lyrical that I cannot remember.

It was about the process and the involvement of the regulations that the clause says the Secretary of State will introduce. When are we likely to see them? Fifty per cent of my constituents have a technical problem that could be resolved quite soon. Perhaps the Minister’s office and the regulations might resolve that for them.

I know that when I display my scepticism about the free market, it excites my Opposition friends whose views on such things are closely aligned with mine. I have to say, however, that the market is not entirely undesirable. We hope that through co-operation and collaboration, consultation and discussion, we can bring about a happy series of outcomes. We want to work with manufacturers and industry to ensure that we get to the destination that we all seek, but the regulations ensure that if we do not get there, we take the powers. My view is simple: we will introduce regulations when it is necessary to do so. We will not regulate unless we have to. As my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset said, there seem to be persuasive arguments that if we do not establish the ability and, in some instances, the actuality to do so, the market will not necessarily deliver all these outcomes, but that is a matter to gauge when we see how things develop. The important thing is that the Committee can be proud of putting in place the means by which Government can do just that.

Building on the Minister’s commitment to look at the considerations for the roll-out in rural areas, I make a plea for him to consider the associated factors that need to be taken into account, such as mobile coverage or communications connections. I ask him to take account of those wider issues to get the full big picture of what is required to enable roll-out.

I am a great believer in allowing one’s ideas to formulate and develop through scrutiny. I am inclined to say that we should do a mapping exercise to see where charge points are now and where we envisage them developing in the short term, and to identify the further steps that need to be taken at an early stage. With the other technologies that the hon. Gentleman and I have mentioned, we are playing catch-up. Good work has been done by this Government, the previous Government and the Government before that in trying to get there, but anticipating some of those problems by doing a detailed mapping exercise might allow us to take early steps of the kind that the hon. Gentleman and I wish to see. I commit to do that as a result of this scrutiny.

The Minister provides us with a number of interesting packages. I am thinking of the areas that criss-cross with devolved areas that belong with the devolved Administrations, and the competition that he has announced. Has he consulted the devolved Administrations so that we can have a United Kingdom approach to the competition and the design?

Where matters of beauty are concerned, I tend to rely on guidance from the good Lord, as I see beauty as inseparable from truth, rather as Keats did. None the less, in moving forward it is absolutely right that we should engage with all organisations that might want to play their part. It is perfectly reasonable that we should have those discussions, albeit driven by the expression of truth in the form of beauty.

It is regrettable that my right hon. Friend, even after 20 years of discussions between us, has failed to take on board Kant’s distinctions between beauty and truth, but we will leave that aside for the purpose of the clause.

I do not disagree with anything my right hon. Friend said about making charging points more accessible and more uniform, including making the payments system more uniform. In every respect it is admirable that he wants to encourage local authorities and many others to participate in providing them. That is all fine, but it will not do the job. I urge him to attend to the question of the distribution network operators; they, and they alone, are capable of rolling out on-street charging on the scale we require.

Let us think about what it feels like in public choice theory terms—that is, what it feels like to the official who is trying to do it. If a local authority seeks to put in charging points, the official has to ring up the DNO, if they can find the number—it is not easy to find numbers for DNOs—and ask them whether they would like to put them in. The DNO’s immediate response is, “No.” Why? Because the DNO is not allowed that in its regulatory asset base. They then engage in a negotiation, which goes on for some months, about how much the local authority will remunerate the DNO for putting in the relevant wires. The official in the DNO who is having this conversation is on the commercial side, but unfortunately, people on the commercial side of DNOs are not good at talking to the engineering people in DNOs, so they usually have to go up to a manager above each in order for a manager then to come back down to the engineering side. At this point, the engineering side decides that it has a lot on its plate, because it is engaged in reinforcements, repairs and design, so it does not particularly want to do this. There are some more months of negotiation between them, the manager and the commercial side of the DNO. About a year or two later, if we are lucky, 50 charging points arise.

I am not speculating about that; it is what we have seen happen so far. If there were explicit, primary statute powers in the Bill to regulate the DNOs—I recognise that that is a radical idea, because it is not the structure we currently have for most purposes—the upshot would be that my right hon. Friend, acting through his colleagues in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, would have the whip hand. He would be able to say to the DNOs, “You have to do this. You can put it in your regulatory base, and therefore it is a cost not to you but to electricity consumers as a whole. Here is a national plan for doing it.” We could then be confident that over a number of years, there would be on-street charging the length and breadth of the cities where it is needed. I do not think anything less would do the job.

I recognise that that creates an oddity: this Department for Transport Bill would in effect have to become a DFT and BEIS Bill for the purposes of that set of measures. It is not complicated otherwise. I do not think that there is a compelling regulatory structure that would allow that to happen. Obviously nothing will be done now or on Report, but I urge the Minister to talk to BEIS and to introduce some such provision in the Lords. It is a no-regrets policy, because if it turns out that I am wrong and the charging points are put in by local authorities without the need for those powers, the powers will just sit there and not do any harm. If I am right, the powers might solve a problem that would otherwise have to be solved by someone coming back in one, two or three years from now with a further Bill. That would be a terrible waste of time when we can do it right now.

Several hon. Members:

rose—

I am not sure who is speaking now.

Well, I have stopped speaking.

You have. My attitude is that you reply to that point, Minister, and the two hon. Gentlemen on your left may intervene on you if you wish—are you happy with that, Minister? Perhaps you want more time for cogitation—I call Clive Efford.

I was going to speak on this matter under the next clause, but it seems more relevant to this debate, so I will get it out of the way. Clauses 9 and 10 overlap.

My starting point is this: why are we taking powers in clause 10 that impose requirements but are not imposing requirements in other areas? The Government have to go away and come up with an overall strategy that involves DCLG and BEIS in planning how to roll out charging points in a variety of places. Clause 10 refers to large fuel retailers, but in a sense their sites are not a logical place for vehicles to park for long periods. We will need charging points in more realistic, more strategic places where people park for long periods, which is large retail outlets and other sites. For instance, in workplaces we could put a surcharge on parking spaces that do not have electrical charging points, which could be hypothecated back into a grant that would allow businesses—

Order. Will the hon. Gentleman try to stick reasonably close to the amendment?

It is about extending the number of charging places, Mr Leigh. We could look at a strategic approach from the Government.

One of the interesting things that came out of the evidence, particularly from the likes of National Grid and others, was the challenges they face in particular in their dealings with developers, whether it be for commercial or residential property, and the fact that they are very much driven by the price or cost envelope that they are being driven to. As the right hon. Member for West Dorset described, they were saying at the meeting—or perhaps afterwards, in the evidence—that they will only put in the minimal amount of cabling that is necessary. They are not thinking strategically; they are not forward-thinking, because they are commercial and are working within a budget envelope. That is why I believe this has to be mandated and we have to take that responsibility in this.

I agree with my hon. Friend. I think that the charging point operators need to have their toes held to the fire. For instance, we have spoken about the problems that may arise for council tenants who live in a tower block and are unable to access these points. Earlier, the Minister said that if charging points go in they have to be open access, so that anyone who needs a charging point can access one, but that can create problems. We all have parking areas in our constituencies around tower blocks where parking spaces are at a premium and fines are imposed on people who do not live in those properties who go and park there. If we start to lose parking spaces, we can foresee the conflicts that will arise, hence the need for what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Dorset proposed.

We need an explosion of charging points, so that we overcome competition for roadside parking spaces. It may be that we should talk to providers about how we use renewable energy. The top of a tower block could be a wonderful place for a wind turbine feeding into a power point downstairs for charging electric vehicles; perhaps we could make that accessible using the key fob to the tower block, so that the people from the block benefit. If those people are on low incomes, that brings back into play the whole social mobility issue that the Government have mentioned in regard to this Bill in the past.

There is a variety of ways that we need to look at expanding the provision of charging points. It needs to be part of an overall strategy that different Government Departments are signed up to—not just the Department for Transport but DCLG and BEIS. We need a sea change, to bring the benefits of electric vehicles and make a huge impact on the growing problem of air quality that we have to address.

I will be brief, because I need only to address two matters that have not been covered extensively already. It is absolutely clear what the Government’s intent is and what the Bill does to make that intent binding. My right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset raised a point about DNOs. All I will say to him is that we will certainly work with Ofgem, and I will facilitate that work as a result of this debate. We have already had conversations, but I will make sure that they are intensified with the network industry. I think that he is right that that must not become a barrier, even with local authorities’ enthusiasm growing, as was illustrated earlier, so I will certainly do that.

As for the point made by the hon. Member for Eltham, I am very happy to consider whatever approach is necessary to ensure that the infrastructure roll-out is as effective as it can be. I am mindful of the circumstances he described of someone who lives in a tower block and cannot get access to a charge point. I talked about the potential disparity between urban and rural areas, but there is also a disparity between people who live in houses with easy access to a street charge point or who have off-street parking or their own parking, and those as he described who may have none of those things. Are we really going to say to those people that they cannot have ready access to electric charge points and therefore remove their incentive to buy an electric vehicle? Of course not. So we certainly need to take his point into account, and we will.

This has been a very instructive debate and it is clear that the Minister has thought very carefully about this issue. On that basis, I am happy to beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 9 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 10