Speeches by Mather.

“I might turn to Richard to talk about intergovernmental working. On regional disparity, the sector is pre-empting quite a few of these challenges. I recently visited a Ford dealership and had an extensive discussion about retraining and skills, and how this is an attractive proposition not only for young people who wan…”

“One thing we are starting to pick out in the debate today is about having a simple scheme that people can understand, that is technically efficient and that works for their lives. Having something that is complex might compound some of those factors, causing the unease people have about the measure’s introduction.”

“I’m not sure about your constituents, Baggy, but I think mine would argue that there is never a right time to introduce a new tax. Nevertheless, it is unfortunately necessary because the Government are determined to make the EV transition a reality. We want to get to a place where EVs are the dominant form of car trans…”

“That is a good question. The grant for motorcycles is not being continued for now. The Government have to be extremely conscious of ensuring that we put money into forms of transport decarbonisation that yield the greatest decarb benefits. In terms of uptake, we think that the market for zero emission motorcycles is he…”

“Thank you, and welcome to the Committee. That is an incredibly important point. On what the ECG facilitates, and how that allows lower and middle-income households to take part in the EV transition, around 100,000 vehicles have been sold through the ECG. You can have up to £3,750 off the cost of a new electric vehicle.…”

“We have not sprung this on people, to the extent that the eVED proposal does not come into effect for two years. If you already own an EV, you will still, under the eVED proposals, be paying less than you would otherwise have paid in fuel duty. If you combine that with accessing home charging, you unlock the benefit. B…”

“You are absolutely right. One campaign alone cannot do the amount of work that needs to be done. We are out here making the positive case for EVs because it is clear that, once people have experienced them, they do not want to go back. That does not change the material point you have made that we need to ensure this ma…”

“I just repeat that timelines have not changed under this Government. I am cognisant of the point you made about the different track that was taken under the last Government, because they could see the ambition and the challenge inherent in facilitating this transition. This Government are not interested in walking away…”

“Might it be worth pointing to the consultation?”

“No, it is a balance between both things. You cannot facilitate the transition and then not continue to maintain the network on which these EVs run.”

“I do see where you are coming from, but at the same time the ZEV mandate and the policy measures that we are implementing are designed to facilitate the broadest possible uptake of EVs over an ambitious timeline. We cannot keep deferring decisions about how you continue to fund critical infrastructure on the road netwo…”

“It is an interesting counterfactual. If Opposition MPs and other people in the broader stakeholder sector looked at the counterfactual to the way that we have gone about introducing the eVED scheme now, and if we got further down the road of mass adoption and with, say, a year to go before the scheme needed to be imple…”

“I agree completely. That is why we are taking a diverse suite of policy measures in hand immediately to facilitate that.”

“It is a totally fair question. Facilitating the transition is not just about one piece of the puzzle; you need to get the charging infrastructure right, and you also need the incentives on the overall price point of the electric vehicle. There is a much broader conversation, which I will not pre-empt because I presume …”

“The OBR said that it expects 320,000 of the 440,000 EV sales impacted by the introduction of eVED to be offset by the measures announced in the Budget in 2025. If you combine that with the suite of measures we are bringing forward to incentivise EV uptake, suddenly that picture looks quite different from some of the ca…”

“I will let you answer that, Richard.”

“In terms of those regulatory changes, they are focused through the Department’s lens currently on simplifying MOT testing and drivers’ hours rules where the electric equivalent of the same thing that would be used for a petrol vehicle involves more onerous regulations. Those changes are coming into force, but in writin…”

“That is a very fair challenge and certainly one that I will take away. There is an inherent complexity in ensuring that the charging network suits our coach sector, which was an interesting thing that you managed to tease out of the previous witnesses. It is not, as you said on freight and logistics, point to point or …”

“We are exploring a lot of these questions through the HGV emissions regulation consultation. I don’t want to pre-empt the response to it, but what I will say is that, as in a number of other sectors, a number of factors are influencing demand in this market, and it feels like the lever that the Government have is over …”

“Thank you for that question. I also have freight in my portfolio. Given the impact on the haulage sector of what is happening in the middle east, this conversation is more pertinent than ever. If we cannot facilitate HGV operators making that switch, they cannot benefit from the resilience that a decarbonised grid can …”