Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill — House of Lords, 2018-05-17
Topic: Energy
Bryony Worthington (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, the amendments in this group do two things. They change the word "may" to "must" throughout the Bill and they seek to introduce a time limit against which the Government must produce the regulations mentioned in the Bill. As I hope I was able to convey in my opening remarks, we feel that the Bill has not represented a judicious use of parliamentary time. It is incredibly lightweight. Even the things we are debating today are purely enabling powers: there is nothing in the Bill that compels anybody to do anything at any time. I would hate anyone to leave this process thinking that this is in some way a step forward in our becoming world leaders in energy transition; it is anything but. It could be accused of being simply window dressing It would be lovely for this Government to end this parliamentary Session by saying, "We have passed a Bill on autonomous, automatic or electric vehicles; aren’t we great?" Anyone who does not then look at the detail might think, "That’s very progressive of them; that sounds very green", but in reality this is merely a collection of incredibly small, narrow measures which "may" be enacted, should the Secretary of State wish to do so: nothing in the Bill compels anyone to do anything. The intent of these amendments is to at least say that these regulations will be passed; otherwise, why are we here? What are we doing? We have no sight, at the moment, of any draft regulations. That is regrettable, given that the Bill started life as a modern transport Bill several years ago, possibly—I am losing track—yet we still have no detail from the department as to what the regulations will contain. It is simply not good enough, given the amount of money and resource that this is taking at a time when time is so scarce. Given the preoccupation with Brexit, it is, frankly, a dereliction of duty So we are seeking to add something to the Bill, otherwise it really is quite a pointless exercise. With Amendment 101 we are saying that the regulations really must be published within a year of the passing of the Bill. I hope there will then be a consultation process on the regulations and a year should be enough time for the Government to conduct that consultation and issue the regulations so that the industry knows where it stands and is able to move forward and make investments. I am sure it will not have gone unnoticed by many in this House that industry is having a rather tough time at the moment making investment decisions in Great Britain. The reasons are fairly obvious, but one thing we can do is give it some certainty around our leadership on green measures and the fact that we are intent on transforming our energy sector, including transport. That would, I hope, unlock further investment, as we have seen in Sunderland with Nissan, in the future of transport, not yesterday’s technologies. This is an important issue to discuss. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response. I would really like to hear when we can expect draft regulations to be published and when we can see the detail. I would like to hear some reassurances that these are not just enabling powers but there is an intent to use them and to bring those regulations forward. I would like a sense of the timeframe It was stated in response to the previous debate that the legal advice is that there is sufficient clarity in the Bill for us to assume that hydrogen vehicles and hydrogen charging are included. Frankly, as with the rest of the Bill, I am not persuaded that that will pass muster. Investors do not have clarity from the Bill. If the enabling powers on the large fuel retailers are to be taken and enacted and we are going to require them to put in electric charging, are we also going to require them to put in hydrogen charging? Is this just an exercise in signalling or are we seriously going to do this? If we are, we need to see those regulations and they need to be changed to "must" rather than "may", and we need to see a timeline; otherwise, nobody has any certainty and the industry will see investment drying up, as it is already. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response. I beg to move.