Speeches by Kane.

“So the forecasting of how long you will need this additional funding in your forward planning are the same as what you are telling us.”

“Okay. I think that in last year’s Committee appearance, permanent secretary, the Chair talked about the difference between hope and surety. Is your opinion that we are still hopeful that we are going to do this? Or do you have that assurance that you think we are now beyond that and we are better than hope—we actually …”

“No, you cannot give us a cast-iron guarantee, and I do not think we would ask for a cast-iron guarantee. We are trying to get an assurance. Language is important for assurance, but I do take the point that you cannot give a cast-iron guarantee.”

“Does the Minister agree that alongside the triple lock, the most important thing for women pensioners in Scotland is fixing our NHS, and that the SNP Government must act urgently to ensure that vulnerable Scots do not face what even the SNP Health Secretary has described as unacceptable waits for treatment?”

“I will ask a question about distribution and cold spots. I am reminded that, when I used to take family trips with my parents in the car, we always stopped at Killington Lake services coming down the M6. Stopping there almost became a habit because that is when the car would be running out of petrol. I am at Tebay, whi…”

“On the motorway network approach, certainly in Scotland, we have the strategic thing going up the middle. If we think of Cornwall not having that motorway provision, the behavioural approaches will come into play in the road network you are looking at. Are you confident that that human behaviour and the anxiety about c…”

“Will you excuse one last follow-up? If we look at the way Royal Mail works—”

“I want to move on to the user experience of chargepoints, and improving that experience, with specific reference to the work that you have already done to identify some of the problems and put in place regulations to address them, which is welcome. Now you have them, how will you make sure that they are working as you …”

“How are you going to ensure that within that overall 99% upkeep, you do not get areas of poor reliability? It could be 99% in one area, but there could be other areas that are very badly affected. How are you going to make sure that from the whole network perspective, there are not local areas of poor reliability?”

“To remind myself, I was reading an email from one of my constituents, Gemma, in the village of Thornhill. What I got from the email is just how well informed people are. If you have got an EV, you have a level of knowledge of the problems and how they compare with other areas. The users will be key to helping you devel…”

“As you say, you have a high standard of user and they have a high standard of expectations, which can be very useful at this stage because we can iron out problems reasonably early in the technology journey. Are there any other ways that you are improving that experience? Is there anything you want to add to give us a …”

“Can I ask specifically about slow chargers? How are you going to make sure that the reliability of slower chargepoints is maintained?”

“Okay. I think you picked up on drivers with disabilities. Can I get an assurance—you almost gave me one—that you are embedding that accessibility, no matter the disability? It is not all one disability; it is multiple disabilities that can manifest themselves in different ways. Are you embedding that accessibility chal…”

“If you are looking at accessibility for people with wheelchairs, it is sometimes not just the charger itself, but the area immediately surrounding the charger.”

“Somebody might have reversed a van too close to a chargepoint, or somebody might have put something in the road. We all hear stories of wheelchair users having experiences that we are horrified by. Enforcing probably needs an even clearer lens. I just seek assurance that I am unlikely to read again of a foreseeable pro…”

“If there was 100% take-up of EVs in this country, what proportion of properties would have off-street parking versus on-street parking? I imagine that that is something that we could get a broadbrush look at, but do you then break down the take-up so that you get a sense of what is happening in areas with on-street par…”

“Can I go into the geographic spread a little bit, please? A well-functioning network will need charging points spread out everywhere, so across the UK and within the regions of the UK—it is not just regional spread; it is within the regions themselves. I think you started to touch on this when Nesil asked a question ea…”

“I am the MP for Stirling, so I am going to talk about Scotland, although I know we are here more to talk about England. When I look at figure 4 in the Report and see the figure for Scotland of 103 per 100,000, I know that in my constituency it is 208 per 100,000, and that there is a massive range within that figure. Wh…”

“In terms of the number of 300,000 or greater, you are going to have to determine what is a suitable number of chargepoints for rural areas, to give that confidence in the network. You could quite easily achieve the 300,000 in the London area alone, if you were going by areas of early adoption. You could get to the poin…”

“In my local authority, the chap who does this is David Hopper, and he is really on top of his brief, but not all local authorities are created equal, so how will you ensure that they have the wherewithal to push this out on an even spread? I imagine—and I can see this from looking at the different numbers per 100,000 i…”