Welcome to the first of our evidence sessions in our inquiry on EV charging. I am very pleased to welcome our witnesses. Could you each introduce yourselves, going from left to right?

Good morning, I am Jarrod Birch, head of policy and public affairs at ChargeUK. We are the trade association for the EV charging sector.

Good morning, I am David Boyer, the director of electricity systems for the Energy Networks Association. We represent all the electricity network operators—transmission and distribution—but much of the discussion I would like to bring forward today will be related to the distribution network operators in particular.

Good morning, my name is Nicole Bulawa. I am a researcher at Lancaster University, and I did a research project on electric vehicle infrastructure and its legitimisation.

Good morning, I am Wesley Scott, and I head up industrial sales and solutions at Brook Green Supply. We are a B2B power supplier to lots of transport businesses.

Good morning, I am Esme Yuill, the head of external affairs at Transport East. We are the subnational transport body that covers Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Southend and Thurrock. We have been supporting our local authority partners with data and analytics around the EV roll-out.

Thank you. Taking each of you in turn—obviously you do not need to repeat something others have said—what is the current state of charging infrastructure for electric vehicles in the UK? Is quick enough progress being made?

In a word, yes, quick enough progress is being made. We now have 88,000 public charge points in the UK. That is more than a doubling in just under three years, which by any measure is pretty impressive. That equates to about one charge point being installed every 30 minutes. Of course, not often shared in the headline stats is the fact that 1 million home and workplace charge points support that public network and play a really important role. That charging sector works hand in hand with the vehicle market, which is in good health. There are now over 1.8 million battery electric vehicles on the road, with 500,000 of those sold last year alone. Importantly, drivers are very happy with their vehicles and with charging. Only 3% of people who have an electric vehicle today say they would go back, and 95% would recommend an EV to a friend, which is fantastic news. This is the start of a British success story, rolling out infrastructure across the country at speed. But there are also issues that we hear about from drivers and indeed from MPs. We know that to get the next 88,000 installed and to sell the next 1.8 million EVs, we need to do more. There are two issues that we hear more than any others. First, prices for public charging have risen about 38% since 2021. Secondly, we hear—indeed from MPs—that people would like to see lots more charge points in lots more areas. Helpfully, we think there is a single underlying driver to those drawbacks. It is the high and rapidly increasing costs of operating charging infrastructure—the costs not so much of getting them in the ground, but of keeping them operating. That is not really about the wholesale prices; it is the fixed standing charges that we pay to stay connected to the grid. Given where we are as a market, those are being passed through to drivers in the form of higher prices, but it also means that we have to make difficult decisions about deployment in some areas. If I flip that to a positive, if we can solve those issues, which we think are caused by policy, we think we can create the conditions for better prices. We also think we can create the conditions for much more charging deployment and unlock a charge point boom over the next couple of years.

Thank you very much for having us to provide input. From the network operators’ perspective, their role in this environment is to provide the connection services that the charge points connect to, to enable them to be powered and connected to the grid, and to continue to reinforce and provide the local wider network capacity that supports that charging. They do not install the charge points themselves. Within that role, there is a lot happening and a lot of good progress being made. Network operators all across the country have as key focuses providing those connection services to EV charge point customers, and continuing to expand the network to provide the capacity that supports all this infrastructure and the EV transition. There are a couple of things we would call out in terms of how we can build on that progress and continue to work. First, the limiting factor in delivering those connections and that wider infrastructure is often planning and consenting delays to the delivery of infrastructure. There are several areas of reform there that will enable the acceleration of that infrastructure in this transition. Secondly, we need to continue to have an investable framework in which the networks can bring that capital and that network expansion that the EV transition will continue to need.

I agree that we have made a lot of progress, and electric vehicle drivers do acknowledge that, especially the early ones and the early adopters. At the same time, there are opportunities in terms of the more rural areas in the country, which also need to be connected if we want EVs to really catch on and be acknowledged and adopted by the wider public. Points such as pricing were raised, but there is also visibility of the infrastructure. Placing it where we live our lives—where we shop, where we go to work and where we live—is one of the key factors to improve that.

There has definitely been some really strong progress on the public charge point networks over the past few years. As my colleague at ChargeUK said, operating those networks is becoming increasingly expensive, which we will probably get on to later. One thing to think about is some of the private networks—people operating delivery fleets, some of the depots for buses, some of the HGV charging. That sector is probably lagging a little further behind.

We are coming on to that as well, but thank you, yes.

That is a bit of a yes and a no answer.

Yes, I broadly agree from the local authority perspective. Our evidence shows that, within the east, charge point deployment is largely aligning with EV take-up numbers. We have challenges within the east because of having a high rural population, and those are the areas it is more of a struggle to make the commercial case for. We have baselined this and tracked it against a couple of years, and we are beginning to see, both from the charge point perspective and from the ownership perspective, that progress is beginning to drift a little. We can estimate when the east will hit 50% ownership, and currently that is looking like it is 2031. But if you look at data from the last four years, that 50% push-out rate is drifting to 2035. There is a slowing across both the ownership and the charge point infrastructure, which is probably reflected by the points made by my colleagues on the challenges.

We are going to need expansion everywhere. If we stopped building charging infrastructure anywhere in this country today, we would clearly not keep up with demand. As colleagues have made clear, we have been keeping track with demand, and we are actually a little ahead of vehicle demand at the moment. But we need to keep going everywhere, even in those places where we have lots of infrastructure. The challenge with mapping where we are behind and where we need to make more progress is that—as I mentioned—the private charging numbers are not necessarily reflected in the headline public charging numbers. What we see is that in the areas where there is more off-street parking in rural regions, there is less public charging but there is probably more private charging, which is not featuring in the numbers. Having said that, and recognising that rural areas will probably always have slightly fewer charge points because of that, there are still gaps in rural areas or areas where EV uptake so far has been weaker, because the commercial viability of investing in those locations is harder to make work. Wes mentioned the energy costs, and I am sure we will come on to it. Those have, essentially, raised the bar at which we invest. The fixed costs are so much higher today than they were in 2021 that fewer sites pass that bar. Those will generally be the sites where we expect utilisation to be lower because there is less traffic, less footfall and less utilisation overall. That is a bit of a tour around lots of different issues in one, but the answer is we need to improve everywhere, and we will. There are particular issues where utilisation is expected to be lower because the commercial case has weakened somewhat since 2020.

Partly that reflects the level of off-street parking in London. Off-street parking in cities in general is lower, but London is particularly weak on off-street parking. There has been a massive deployment of on-street public charging in lamp posts or in standalone columns, to replace the fact that many people cannot access home charging in those areas. That is the reason why constituencies such as the Chair’s have lots of on-street charge points—because there are fewer private charge points. London is indeed ahead at this point, but we think everywhere will grow.

Obviously I echo a lot of the points you just covered, but on the rural side, what we are asking charge point operators to do on the public networks is build out quite a large, fixed infrastructure asset. Building some sites is super-expensive just in terms the groundworks, but getting the connection is also increasingly difficult in this country. We need to electrify vast portions of the nation for decarbonisation purposes. Getting land and getting grid connection is harder in rural areas, which is obviously going to play a part in reducing actual uptake.

Just to add to that, from the east’s perspective, despite the potential views of the region, around a quarter of our households have on-street parking, and that is particularly high in areas like Thurrock and Southend. But in rural spaces, a lot of our market towns and small villages have medieval street patterns and heritage houses without even a path outside them, and they are also conservation areas. The ability to design and implement solutions that fit that environment adds cost on to what would have been a standard design process.

It is worth looking outside the UK for that, because there are a lot of countries where people do not live in houses and do not have their own driveway, but they have an EV infrastructure in place. They have more charging points than the UK—for instance, in Germany or France, and I think the Netherlands is top at the moment. To go back to what I said earlier, they implemented a lot of public charging at places where you live your life: at work, where you go to shop, and at a lot of other places. So you do not necessarily need a charger at home, because you do not need to charge your EV every single day, right? This is something we should consider. As Jarrod said, having the supplementary charging infrastructure makes a difference and may reduce the need for charging at home.

We do, yes. We supported and do support the Planning and Infrastructure Act, which has provided some benefits to charge point installers and for larger transmission projects, but it does not go far enough. There are some significant challenges, particularly for smaller and more distribution infrastructure projects, that are left unaddressed. In terms of our recommendations specifically, electricity network operators right now do not have powers that similar utilities do to serve notice and progress works. We recommend that reform is done to bring that into line, which would support deployment of network assets at pace. Right now, there need to be reforms on the wayleaves process to provide defined timescales. It is often open-ended and creates uncertainty and delay. There is also a need to amend the Electricity Act, which would allow the upgrade of capacity in existing overhead lines without going through new land rights and wayleaves processes. Right now, adding another conductor to an existing overhead line requires new processes and rights being achieved. Finally, if we were to reform and merge the access rights with the wayleaves process, that would significantly streamline and accelerate the process of gaining access to, and delivering work on, either new assets or even just maintaining existing assets. Those are specific recommendations that we have provided to the DESNZ consultation on this topic, and we continue to liaise with them to support progress.

David, on the issue of wayleave—this was raised with me some years ago by a large EV sales company—is it possible to overcome the wayleave problem, which is common law, with statute, or are the two legal systems completely incompatible?

If I am honest, I would have to come back to you on the gritty details of how it is best implemented. I know that one area of discussion with DESNZ is how it might best be implemented. If it is possible to explore ways to do so without legislation and statutory override, then from a procedural and process point of view, that would definitely be of benefit. But I am happy to write and follow up with more details.

East of England, you have not come across that challenge? No? Okay.

Thanks very much for giving evidence today. My first question is about charger technology. It would be really helpful to understand how fast it is developing and whether the chargers being rolled out now are keeping pace with the development of vehicles. Mr Birch, are you all right to start off on that one?

Absolutely. What we see is that every segment of the market is growing, from the relatively slow end, which is in essence intended to replicate a home charger in terms of overnight charging—you are parked up on your street and you wake up in the morning with a full battery—all the way to the other end of the spectrum, or what we call ultra-rapid, which is 150 kW-plus, which will give you a full battery in practically no time. Over the last two to three years, the ultra-rapid segment has grown the most; the quickest chargers have grown by the most. The stat I have here is that since 2023 that part of the market has grown by 157%, which we are quite pleased with. What we will see is actually a mix of those, depending on the location. That segment has grown very significantly over the last three years in the form of standalone hubs, where people can go and almost get a petrol-like experience. What we will see probably over the next couple of years is that progress continuing but being matched by progress at the lower end of the spectrum as part of the local EV infrastructure fund. That is Government funding that is going to bring us 100,000 charge points, mainly at that end of the spectrum. That is deliberate for two reasons. First, they are on street, so it is going to be an overnight charge. Secondly, they are extremely cost-effective to deploy with public money. So we will probably see progress across the piece, but there is always this phrase, “Right charger in the right place.” The speed matters, depending on where you are. If you are plugged in overnight, then a slow charger is perfectly sufficient and actually probably the right solution.

I am going to open this up to others on the panel in a minute, but Mr Scott, do you have any comments on charger technology?

Again, I echo what was just said. Charger technology just needs to be targeted at the right end customer. Where you have on-street charging, there is no point putting an ultra-rapid there because people often do not need that. But where you have big depots and you are trying to charge an HGV that has a much larger battery, you need that ultra-rapid charger to facilitate that. There has been a lot of progress. We are seeing customers developing charging infrastructure up to 1 MW, which is huge, to be honest, in terms of power demand. I just echo earlier points again, which almost suggest that the cost of doing that is actually going up in terms of operating it—not necessarily building it, but just operating it on an ongoing basis. That is where the challenge is.

In terms of keeping pace with the development of vehicles, does anyone have any specific comments?

What you see is that vehicles are getting quicker, particularly at the higher end of the market, but increasingly in the mid-tier of the market. They are moving to an 800 V battery architecture, which means they can charge much quicker, above and beyond 350 kW, which three or four years ago would have been unthinkable, and as Wes said, up to 1 MW. So the vehicles are getting quicker, but that does not necessarily mean that the entire network has to get quicker, for the reasons we have set out—it is about the right speed when you need it. But, yes, the vehicles are getting quicker, and the chargers are getting quicker, in general.

Recent changes to legislation mean that the installation of charging infrastructure can now be done with street works permits rather than a section 50 licence, like utility companies use. Hopefully you have all read our previous report about digging up roads and making them okay again afterwards. Do you think that this change is going to have an impact on how many chargers are put in?

Yes. It will make it quicker and cheaper for us to install chargers, particularly on-street chargers, where street works are most relevant. I would echo what the Government have said in their communications about this, which is that section 50 licences were costing us between £500 and £1,000 per licence. Permits cost more like £45 to £130, so that is a night and day difference. Section 50 licences also can take 12 or more weeks to receive back; permits are more like three to five days. That is clearly going to have a massive impact on our speed and ease of deployment, which is very welcome. We are just working through some details now on how we enter the street works permit regime in a responsible and seamless way. We are working with the Department as well as the highways authorities and utilities to ensure that we play our role responsibly.

One of our local authorities sought legal advice on this clarification point, and it came back inconclusive. Those I have spoken to are going to continue with the section 50 processes for the time being. There needs to be some joint work done between Government, the industry and local authorities to have guidance and confidence, to make sure that authorities are comfortable moving forward to a permitting regime as speedily as possible.

Who did they seek advice from that came back inconclusive?

It was within their own legal team.

Right, okay. Understood. Building on the role of highways authorities and local authorities, they have a co-ordinating and enabling role. Are they best placed to be doing this, or might it be argued that they are a bit small and that we keep reinventing the wheel in lots of different parts of the country? Perhaps Esme, you could answer this?

Yes, capacity and capability within local authorities are a challenge. The DFT funding on this has really helped them move forward, particularly in the EV teams. But that point around legal support, procurement support and others within local authorities can become a blocker within the processes, in terms of deploying funding and getting things out on the ground as fast as possible. Obviously, they are the democratically responsible bodies for their local areas. While standardisation and guidance are always very welcome in order to keep consistency, each authority has its own unique challenges and opportunities and would not want to cede any control over what is deployed across its network.

They might not want to, but it might be a good idea. Does anyone else have anything to add to that?

I would like to quickly note that, in principle, there is potential for a convening role that other parts of Government could play in bringing more of the actors together. That is not necessarily to change or override local authorities in any way, but it is a complex space, with charge point installers working along with independent networks, providers, landowners, highways, local authorities and the network operators themselves, which I represent. In that complex environment, there definitely is the potential for acceleration and more clarity and forward progress if there are some more convening and co-ordinating roles that wider Government could play.

Okay, just going back to the section 50 licence, in Hounslow the on-street public charging points are through streetlamps. Are section 50 notices or specific legal permissions needed to do that? If not, why is that solution not more universally used by local authorities?

I would have to confirm this, but I think they would still need section 50 licences, and in future permits, to do some of the supporting works. But I will come back to you on it.

There is no physical extra kit.

No, it is within the light column itself, but you may need to do work on the feeder pillar and some of the groundworks around that. I believe they use section 50 licences today and would like to make use of permits in the future.

The point has already been made in the panel that, at the moment, the Department publishes data on public charging points. In respect of private charging points, is there additional information that you feel the Department could or should be drawing on? If the answer is no, I would be interested in your thoughts on how that data could be collected in the future.

It would be really helpful if we had better sight on what has been deployed in private locations, whether those are residential or workplaces; as I said at the beginning of the session, that is a really important part of the picture. If we look purely at public charging numbers, we miss the fact that people have home charge points, workplace charge points and even depot charge points that also enable them to keep their vehicles moving. It feels somewhat like we are looking at only part of the picture, and we are not getting a full view. One challenge is that we do not necessarily know where private charge points have been deployed. Historically, there was of course the electric vehicle home charge scheme, through which Government supported the delivery and deployment of those points. Then we had some data. But as those grants are slowly fading away in recognition of the transition maturing, we are sometimes lacking some visibility of where those have been. It would be fantastic if we could find a way to resolve that problem, because then we would have a full picture of where charging infrastructure is, both public and private. Then we could have a much more detailed discussion about where the gaps might be and how to fill them.

As part of the DCP420 modification that we worked with industry on, this is a point that we raised around data in general. It is very hard to tell how much electricity is being supplied and the number of charge points actually within GB at the moment. That is honestly just a data issue. A lot of sites around the country are going to be multi-use, so this is going to be a hard piece of work. Where you have a depot site that is supplying a factory, there is going to be a car park in that factory that then is going to end up putting chargers on. Attaining that information and how you do that is hard and needs to be looked at.

Just to add from the network operators’ perspective, there are limits on how much data they have, or it is appropriate for them to have, in terms of what customers are using their electricity connections for. But they definitely are supportive of the principle of what is being driven at here—getting a more comprehensive understanding of what is out there, and potentially even looking forward into how that might need to evolve and increase. Anything that gives that comprehensive picture and a forward view of that picture allows infrastructure planning on the network side, but also on the charge point installation side to be better co-ordinated. The only other thing I would note is that DESNZ put out a call for evidence last year to look at ways in which installers—certified and otherwise—can be a point at which that data can be collected. Networks have been discussing that with DESNZ, which I would call attention to.

Just before we move on, is there any indication from the partial picture we do have that private installations mirror some of the uneven nature of public installations? I am thinking about regional variation, urban and rural, and income differences.

From our work on the propensity to adopt, that would definitely be reflective. Looking at the Transport East area, areas of higher income, those with off-street parking and younger communities tend to be the ones that are adopting faster. I expect that to be mirrored across the private charge network, as well as those using the public charge network. From a public perspective, having that assumption and that data verified by understanding the private network more clearly would be really helpful. It would be able to guide the EV roll-out strategies of local authorities, and focus the attention of public money into areas where you know those barriers and hurdles are most complex, from both a demographic and geographic perspective.

Moving on to the grid and grid capacity, the Committee on Climate Change and other bodies have identified grid capacity as a potential barrier to EV take-up in at least some areas. From your perspective, how much are the well-advertised problems with getting new grid connections and new grid capacity a constraint on charging point installation?

Thank you for the question. It is an important focus. It is one of the top priorities of all the network operators to continue to operate good connection services for any customers looking to connect to the grid. In terms of distribution connections and particularly demand connections, including EV charge points, first, the vast majority of those connections are progressed in line with the customer’s timelines and requests. If you look at how many are provided on standard connection times or in line with the customer’s project timelines, that is the majority of connection services delivered by networks. In terms of some of the numbers quoted earlier about how many charge points are connected and publicly available now, all those are ultimately connected to the grid. That doubling in the last few years was supported by energised connections on the network operators’ side. Network operators are continuing to work to see how that can be continued to be improved and accelerated; it is an important focus. For example, they supported an Ofgem-led programme at the start of the current price control period to reform access and grid connection charges, which means that EV charge customers have a lower up-front connection charge. Network operators have also launched Connect Direct, which is a simple digital single portal for domestic applications for EV chargers. That has actually had quite a significant usage already, with over 300,000 customer applications processed. Some 40% to 50% of those are now also being approved by the digital interface and some artificial intelligence capability, which means customers do not have to wait at all. They have instant approval. It is the case that as larger and larger connection requests are made, particularly in areas where there is not as much existing infrastructure, sometimes larger pieces of investment need to be delivered to support those connections. Again, networks are very focused on delivering that as quickly as possible. The planning, wayleaves and consents delays I mentioned before are key critical path barriers; it is not engineering capability, but the planning and wayleaves processes that add to that critical path. But that is a continuing area of focus, definitely.

You mentioned that the vast majority of applications are resolved on a satisfactory timetable, as we would hope. For the minority that are not, do those applications have particular characteristics? Is there a pattern to delays for particular applications?

The single most significant point to note would be places where there is a very large capacity request. No two connection requests are really the same, and there is not a one-size-fits-all for EV charge points. Some of the ultra-rapid hubs that we have been talking about and the eHGV connection requests are significant infrastructure—tens and hundreds of megawatts, which would be equivalent to towns-worth of electricity network capacity. At that scale, where the customer agrees and funds the works, the networks will deliver those connections as quickly as possible. It is mostly to do with the amount of capacity being requested, or whether it is in locations where there is no existing infrastructure, and that is work and delivery that the network operators need to provide for the customer.

At the moment, it is more about the characteristics of the application rather than the capacity of the grid in a particular area?

It is a bit of a combination of both, but it definitely starts with the amount of power being requested in the application, yes.

It cannot be understated. Just in terms of the scale, you are completely right. For example, where you have a bus depot charging site, that is going to draw in the equivalent power of a small factory. The time it takes to build that and get that application approved is long, but that is because it is a significant piece of infrastructure and requires serious grid upgrades.

Looking to the future, over the next 10 years, let us say, do you see grid constraints becoming a more serious problem for the EV roll-out?

From the network operators’ perspective, the first thing to say is that networks are currently delivering one of the largest programmes of investment in grid expansion in their sector’s history. There is a significant programme of works under way to continue to expand the grid and make sure that it keeps pace with and meets the needs of all the network stakeholders. We are currently in the middle of a price control process, a period in which the investment programme is approved and being delivered, and networks are very focused on that. In terms of looking forward, we are now starting the process of preparing business plans, and all the network operators are preparing business plans for the next distribution price control period—ED3—and discussing that extensively with Ofgem. What is really important in the context of that regulatory framework is that those business and investment plans are approved in a way that allows the network operators to bring that capital and investment into the country to continue the grid expansion in line with these EV targets as well as other important Government policies, such as the clean power transition and economic growth more generally.

Reading between the lines, are you saying that if that approval process does not happen in the way that the network operators are applying for, there could be a significant constraint in the future?

Yes, is the simple answer. If we are not approved or not able to bring the capital in to deliver those investments through that regulatory framework and process, the network infrastructure in the long term may not keep pace.

Does anyone else want to come in?

Grid capacity and electrification of sites are probably the No. 1 thing we are talking to customers about at the moment. A lot of the time when customers are looking at how they can electrify their transport, the first question they are asking internally is, do we have grid capacity to actually go and do that? What are the lead times and the costs of getting that? It is not even whether there is an investment case or the availability of the infrastructure to buy. It is actually where there is grid capacity. I would go as far as saying it is probably a barrier to investment and growth across the sector moving forward. It is not going to ease as other industries and sectors continually demand more and more grid capacity, whether that is data centres or other industrials electrifying their operations. Yes, it is going to be an increasing issue going forward.

Just thinking about geographic dispersion and the regionality point we have talked about before, which are the areas of the country where you are seeing those restraints most clearly?

If you look at some industrial clusters around the country, those are areas that have typically already been built with that grid capacity. Upgrading that further requires almost complete replacement of all the networks in those areas. To be honest, it is quite a hard question to answer. There is a demand everywhere at the moment for infrastructure and grid capacity.

I have one final question. How engaged is the DFT in these questions? Presumably the Department is fighting across Whitehall and the regulators for EVs to have their fair share of new connections. Is that the case?

I would say so. The DFT is in a little bit of a difficult spot, in that they do not own grid policy; that is DESNZ and Ofgem’s responsibility. The DFT is putting up a pretty good fight on behalf of the charging sector, in recognition of the role that it will play from the perspective of both decarbonisation and energy security. It is doing its best, and I certainly would not sit here and criticise it for the work it has done. It convened a grid connections review between ENA, ChargeUK and individual members of ours over the last year, which has made some progress. Unfortunately, there is still more to do, and clearly DFT is not the biggest hitter in that room. I would not aim my ire at DFT necessarily. DESNZ and Ofgem probably need to lean in a little more and recognise the importance of the sector, in the same way that we see they are doing for data centres and these other emerging sources of demand.

That his helpful. Thank you, Laurence.

We have touched on some of what I am going to ask, but please do add to it. We are seeing in some sectors that electricity costs are really having an impact on people doing the “right thing”, if I can use that phrase. In the rail freight sector, for example, some freight operators have retired their electric locomotives in favour of diesel because of electricity charges. In the context of this sector, how are electricity costs impacting the economic sustainability of charging infrastructure, and does that vary across different parts of the country and types of geography?

We have seen electricity costs change a lot for this sector, especially in the past five years. If you take it back a step, and look at how we operate the electricity cost stack at the moment, about 60% of a business bill will be a non-commodity charge. That has nothing to do with the cost of actually generating electricity; it is the cost of running the networks, environmental tariffs and some other things. Across Europe a lot of those costs fall into central Government taxation, so businesses do not pay that portion of the bill. What we saw in 2019 was the implementation of TCR, the targeted charging review, by Ofgem. That changed the way the transmission and distribution costs were apportioned in bills. That basically moved a lot of those costs away from the unit rate—the pence per kilowatt-hour rate that businesses pay—on to a fixed standing charge. The way that was apportioned and calculated was basically done on capacity. A lot of the sites we are talking about require lots of capacity. When we modelled that in our portfolio at Brook Green, the losers from that policy were all the charge point operators, and stadiums. If you think about the model of those sites, they are high capacity and low utilisation, at the moment. The fixed costs of those sites have just ramped up, at a time when uptake of electric transport has probably been slightly below where forecasts were. The operating costs of those sites, purely on the electricity side of things, have just gone through the roof. As an example, we modelled a site in London that would be like almost a depot charging. The costs of operating that site from 2019 to 2029 will have gone from £100,000 to £500,000 a year, using the same electricity, which is a significant amount. That is a significant change just in terms of the structure of the policy and the way that cost is apportioned to this sector and the charging sector in general.

We ran some similar analysis and found basically the same thing. We asked Cornwall Insight, as the independent analyst, to collect data from our members on sites they already operated and how those costs had changed—how their bills had changed—since 2021. It found a 462% increase in the standing charge, which matches up quite well with what Wes said. Similarly, we have examples of sites with four rapid charge points, which had a standing charge of about £100 in 2021, and later this year that will be more like £40,000 to £50,000. That is an unbelievable increase. That means something to the drivers because we are pre-profit. We have been asked to deploy this infrastructure ahead of demand, so we are doing so. We are taking a large capacity, not getting much usage now but hoping or expecting to in the future, and so we have to pass the cost on. Our calculations suggest that a driver used to pay 1p to 2p per kilowatt-hour on a rapid charging session. Now that is more like 20p to 30p per kilowatt-hour of an 80p per kilowatt-hour session, let us say. Drivers are paying for this increase in cost.

I would just say that this has been recognised within the industry. There have been a few modifications. Like I said earlier, there is one called DCP420, which was looking at public charging infrastructure and how to essentially reduce some of the fixed standing charge costs for it. That policy has been in the pipeline for two to three years now. We are quite keen to see central Government push, alongside Ofgem, to get that finalised and get some suggestions and amendments in place, which would help alleviate some of the things we have just discussed.

So you feel the Government are engaging with the issue, but they need to get on with it?

Yes. That is being run as a DCUSA working group at the moment, but we need a bit more speed and—

Oomph.

“Oomph” is probably a good word.

I do not want to put words in Wes’s mouth, but as you said that I was thinking that they are engaging, but they are not owning it.

From a network operator’s perspective, the characterisation of it as an apportionment decision is a good way to think about it. In terms of that policy and structure, and what the right answer is, networks would support having some oomph and ownership and would lean in to support that process—not as the setters, but as one of the stakeholders in that. Network charges are around only 12% of the typical dual fuel bill, so they are actually quite a small component relative to the standing charge, which is a larger thing that is set by the retailers and includes many other costs than network charges. It is a complex space, but we would support that “oomph” requirement.

I had a question for you, David, that is perhaps partly related to this. We have heard an argument that distribution network operators should have the same access powers and rights over land as other utility providers. Do you agree? How would this help with some of the issues we have been discussing?

Thank you, it is an important question. It is something I touched on earlier, and the simple answer is yes, we agree. That would absolutely bear benefits to the delivery of electricity network infrastructure. To bring it to life, for a minor and relatively unobtrusive piece of work to upgrade the telecoms network, it takes as little as two months to go through the serving notice and progressing works process. It takes up to 17 months for a distribution network operator to do the same type of works.

That is a very staggering figure, isn’t it?

That will directly impact both the general timeliness of network upgrades, but also very specifically connections works to serve EV charge points, for example.

We do have a skills shortage in that area. There is data to support this. When I collected some data—I think two years ago—I talked to one of the biggest charging operators at the time, and it had five people to do the maintenance of the entire charging network, which is not a lot of people if you consider how big the UK is. Points that were raised were, first, that you need specific training to do that kind of job because there are a lot of safety requirements, and rightly so. But, at the same time, those technicians raised the fact that they have to pay for the training themselves, which keeps quite a few people away from that area. It is a very basic thing, and I would have expected the company to pay for their training, but that was not apparently the case. I would assume that this might also apply to other companies in that field. When we see how the infrastructure grows, how electric vehicles grow and the adoption numbers grow, we do not see the same uptake in terms of people who have these skills and who actually get the certification. I do not have the exact numbers here, but I am happy to deliver those later. That goes not only to the maintenance of the charging infrastructure but also the maintenance of the electric vehicles themselves, obviously.

From a network operator’s perspective, currently network operators across the country employ over 26,000 people working on the delivery of all the services we have been talking about: grid expansion and connection services. But it is clear that we have a skills challenge rolling forward, if we look at the amount of work that needs to go into the sector. A report by BEIS—as it was—and Ofgem a few years ago estimated that to deliver the clean growth, decarbonisation and economic growth objectives that we have as a country, the sector would require up to 50,000 to 130,000 additional jobs by 2050. In this context, one thing the network operators are doing collectively, via the ENA and working with BEAMA’s supply chain association, is working to provide and develop an electricity networks sector growth plan. It is clear that to meet all these challenges and continue this work, there needs to be growth within the electricity networks sector itself. We set out an interim report at the end of last year, which sets out the case for why this infrastructure and this sector’s growth are important for the country. We are doing work this year to provide analysis on how that directly relates to the achievement of targets and objectives such as electric vehicle transition, and also to set out the work programme and provide clarity on that, which helps the skills and supply chains that enable it to actually come into being. We would be happy to share that report with the Committee as and when it is completed.

We are now going to move on to the driver experience.

In their 2025 report, Transport Focus identified significant issues with the charging network and its inability to meet the needs of disabled drivers. What consideration is given to accessibility when building new charge points? Mr Birch, do you want to start off with that one?

Absolutely. We almost need to divide this into pre-2022 and post-2022, because 2022 is the year in which Publicly Available Specification 1899 was published. This was the first time we had had a specification on accessibility in the public charging network. Obviously, there are lots of other specifications and standards that can give you an idea of what an accessible charging session would look like. But this was the first time we had something that talked in detail about looking at the hardware and the surrounding environment—the built environment around the charge point. Since then, that has made a significant contribution. New and renovated charging sites since that date look very, very different from how they looked before that point. You will see very many fewer wheel stops and bollards, and you will see more accessible bays with space around the bay. There have been changes in the hardware as well. We have seen some progress. The findings that we sometimes see, in terms of the percentage that are compliant with that specification, reflect some niggling issues with the specification that we are working through with disabled groups and the BSI. The PAS is binary, which is not particularly helpful; it is a pass or fail. It is particularly not helpful because there are bits in there that are either very difficult or impossible to meet, with the hardware available on the global market at the moment. For example, there are requirements in the specification on the force required to remove and insert the connector, for which hardware is not available to meet that standard. A lot of sites have made a lot of progress but then are falling short of that bar because of difficulties that are somewhat outside their control. All of that was acknowledged as part of the BSI’s review report that came out last year. It committed to a review of the specification so that we can have a version 2, essentially, that we can build towards going forwards.

Does anyone else on the panel have any comments on accessibility standards? No? Okay. I would just like to mention that I am the MP in Heywood and Middleton North, which is in Greater Manchester. We have an EVCI strategy there that sets out our city region’s ambition for EVCI access to be designed to provide for disabled EV drivers, with step-free access and larger parking bays for disabled access. I just wondered where we could look for best practice in this space, and how we can make sure that all combined authorities are making sure they are trying to innovate in this way. I wondered, Ms Yuill, if you had any views on that?

There are obviously genuine challenges around ensuring that that type of delivery can be done on your average streetscape, given the complexity of the users within that space. I am not aware personally of best practice guidance currently, but I am happy to come back to the Committee with that.

Does anyone on the panel think that mandatory accessibility standards would be helpful at all, or not really? Would there be challenges with that? I do not know. Dr Bulawa, do you have any views on this?

The point that was raised about the period before 2022, when the standard was introduced, and afterwards is interesting. When I talk to people or local governments, it is clear that, before the standard was introduced, certain people thought accessibility was so important that they already paid attention to things like space, how difficult it is to get the charger out and whether the charging cable is in the way. Accessibility is a multidimensional concept, so it is very tricky to account for all the different aspects that people need in order to access EV charging. At the same time, if we introduced a requirement that did not need to tick all these specific boxes but was a bit more fluid in a sense, that would actually help to accelerate things. It should not be up to individual persons to decide whether to go for it or not. That is my personal take. One aspect that is not mentioned often, but that might also be important, is safety. When you refuel your petrol car, you drive to a petrol station, which is a sheltered space, well lit, with somebody close by. When you charge your EV, you might end up at a parking lot somewhere in a back corner, which is very dimly lit and does not really give you the sense of security that you might want if you are loitering around your car for half an hour. That is not something I have seen in any suggestions or standards, but it is something we should also pay attention to when we design the layout of charging places. This becomes even more important once we go to more rural areas, where those parking places are most likely less developed, with fewer amenities nearby, and a bit further away from other locations.

Yes, that is helpful. That is something that is obviously relevant to lots of different road and street users as well—not just people charging their EVs, but pedestrians, cyclists and service providers. Do others on the panel have comments on how to make sure that these places are accessible and that people feel safe using the technology?

We sometimes talk about charging being like an orchestra. There are lots of different people involved, and everyone has to be singing along, and we are just the front man, so to speak—I don’t think this musical analogy is going to go very far. We are the front man; we are the consumer-facing part of that orchestra. Behind us is the hardware manufacturer, who we work particularly closely with, and those relationships have improved particularly in the last few years. Of course, part of the question about accessibility is the weight of the cable, the connector force and so on. There is also the landlord with whom we are working, whether that is a local authority whose land it is or a private landlord. What we sometimes see is that to ensure a charging site is fully accessible and the session is accessible, you need those parties to play along as well. You can imagine, in a conversation with a private landlord, saying, “Can you move this site from back there to a more prominent location? Can you dig up the kerb as well? Can you put some hatching down?” We would love that, and we have made some progress on that. But the landlord part of this is really important as well. They have to be singing the same tune as us.

Just from the public sector perspective, these things are all being written into the tenders for the LEVI funding that is going out. Local authorities, particularly in terms of their site consideration, are putting a lot of these things front and centre and will knock back sites that would get potentially good usage in theory, but that do not meet certain criteria. The other thing is that they are going out to tenders on infrastructure that has its own lighting and that comes alongside some other consumer assets, such as shelter and usability features beyond just the charging infrastructure itself, and they are putting public money into designs and spaces that try to meet as many needs as possible. [Interruption.]

Looking across the channel, our European neighbours and partners have introduced regulations to try to improve availability, reliability and interoperability. Do you think there are lessons to be learned, and should the UK Government be following suit?

I think they have already learned the lessons, or we have taught them the lessons—I am not sure which way around. I think you are talking about the Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Regulation, which does a very similar thing at a very similar time to our Public Charge Point Regulations. The Public Charge Point Regulations set a new 99% reliability standard to ensure that people can use the charge points; mandate contactless payment terminals on a very large number of charge points on the network; require a 24/7 helpline; and require you to make the price available in a common metric up front. That is essentially the same thing as what has happened in AFIR, as it is known; there is not much in their regulation that we have missed, if that is an easier way of saying it.

From a network operator’s perspective, the reliability of the grid is one of the top priorities in a general sense for all consumers, including EV charge points. If you look internationally, Britain enjoys one of the most reliable electricity networks in the world, with over 99.999% reliability. That is a continuing focus throughout all network operations, not just for EV charge point customers.

Just from a rural perspective, given that there tends to be a higher average usage and distance, and that day-to-day journeys in rural areas are longer, more regular charging is going to be required, so confidence in charging ability at public charge points is really important, as is charging interoperability. If you have fewer options with your chargers, you need to be able to use any charger realistically and easily, so moves in the direction of standardisation and interoperability of charging mechanisms, payment mechanisms and so on are really important. Finally on the rural issue, digital connectivity is an increasing challenge in that space as well. Particularly for payment, you need to be able to access 5G connectivity. I know that operators are deploying their own masts in some locations, which also obviously adds additional cost on to the solutions required for rural charging locations.

Is there not also a legal guarantee of coverage every 60 km within the EU regulations, as opposed to what we have in our regulations?

That is an obligation aimed at the member states of the European Union. The obligation is not aimed at the charge point operator; it is aimed at France, Germany, Slovakia or whoever it might be—“You need to do things to make sure that this happens.” It is an outcome-based obligation, and it would be the member state that is not compliant with that because they are not putting in place the supporting measures. I do not believe it is aimed at the charging sector, so I do not think the model quite transfers into—

Should our Government have similar targets nationwide?

They could have targets if they made changes to the cost base, which makes it more difficult to justify investment in certain locations.

On the standardisation aspect, I did a bit of observation to see how people cope with charging, and they do not. They manage to charge their EV, especially when they do this for the first few times, but it is not a smooth process at the moment. Every charging device requires different steps—a different app, a different payment mechanism. It does not always work, and people are confused, to put it very simply. Some standardisation and usability guidance on what the steps are, what you should do, and how you can make this a bit easier for users would help greatly with a bit more confidence in that space.

Esme, going back to my earlier point, if we have all these individual local authorities individually deciding what they are going to put in, does that not harm the user experience? As Nicole has just said, you end up driving literally over the border, out of Bedfordshire into Cambridgeshire, and it is an entirely different system.

There are levels within this, in that some of it can be set at a national level in terms of the operation of charge points and customer interfaces. Decisions around location, and the ultimate decision on whether to put something on street—given that that is the responsibility of the highways authority—still need to sit with local authorities. There can be a balance in terms of how much standardisation you can achieve and then what decisions still need to be taken at a local level.

It would appear that in continental Europe it is going to be fine to drive from Germany to Switzerland, and yet driving between Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire might well be different.

In terms of user experience, the more that you can make that consistent, the greater that would be. The decisions on where infrastructure is placed on the highway still need to sit with highway authorities.

We will now move on to home charging.

In my constituency, in Derby, like many other constituencies in towns and cities, there are lots of streets with terraced housing. What needs to be done to address the barriers to adopting EVs for households without off-street parking?

One important part of the picture will be the local EV infrastructure fund, which is nearly £400 million-worth of Government funding, working with local authorities to deploy in local areas. The Government project that that will bring us 100,000 public charge points, mostly on streets, and that is of course more than we have in total today, so a lot of charge points are coming. There is a great Cenex report on where we are with that that describes it as the “cavalry charge” coming in the form of LEVI-funded charge points. Those are generally going to be on-street charge points, which are the most cost-effective part of the public charging network and allow people to park outside their homes on streets and charge up overnight. Of course, there will be a role for faster forms of public charging as well. There will also be cross-pavement charging, which is a relatively new technology allowing people to trail a cable underneath the pavement to their vehicle on the street. What we will probably see is a mix. The LEVI-funded charge points will change the picture significantly. We will see very visible, tangible increases in infrastructure on residential streets, including for terraced houses, but both cross-pavement and other forms of public charging will play a role as well.

From a network operator’s perspective, we have also been very active in participating in and supporting the LEVI fund roll-out. Network operators participate in those fora and are involved in the conversations around planning for local infrastructure in each area, and have actually set up portals and processes to help the connection processes for those LEVI-funded projects. More generally, for residential charging, the Connect Direct solution that all the networks have deployed and that the ENA operate on their behalf has really delivered a step change in the ease and simplicity of the customer experience for an individual looking to put charging in or near their home. Finally, in a more general sense, the network operators’ focus in this context is to make sure they get the right place and region-specific investment programmes to deliver the network that those customers and that EV charging would need. It is a big focus in terms of their local stakeholder engagement activities and engaging with local area energy plans. Actually, the sector has introduced, under the new national energy system operator, a regional energy system planning function, so that, in a consistent way, all regions across the country are supporting getting their energy needs fed into infrastructure plans. That is another important focus and activity that networks are participating in.

I will come back to cross-pavement charging in a second, but off-street charging for homes in multiple occupancy usually involves multiple cars and vehicles. How do we address that?

Blocks of flats, in particular, are a big issue in my postbag.

You see a mix because it depends on the type of blocks of flats you are talking about. I live in a block of flats, and we have chargers in our parking lot at the bottom of the building. That is one option. It comes with complications about who pays for it: is it coming from the service charge or somewhere else? It also comes with complications about how to handle billing of different residents within the building. That will be one part of it. Of course, there could also be shared car parks outside the property. Is that public or private, and should chargers go there? Again, who is paying for them? There is a lot of complexity there. At the back end of last year, the Government committed to look at the right to charge, which is something that has been cited as an example from Norway. That has been caught up in the complexity of our housing system, leasehold and how you make it work from a rights and obligations perspective. There is a lot of complexity there, but it is clearly a really important part of the picture we need to move faster on.

Am I right that it is a requirement of planning permission in more recent developments that EV charging is made available in blocks of flats? Does that give you a right to park, because most of our blocks of flats do not have one space per flat? I know that the requirement for the facility is there. It is also a requirement in new housing estates.

Yes, part S of the building regs made that change a couple of years ago, and it is being reviewed at the moment.

Is that for everything that was built or granted planning permission within the last two years?

It is dependent on the type of building, but yes, generally.

But there are other challenges to charging for older blocks of flats that are more than two or three years old, such as getting access.

From the network operators’ perspective, they will provide the reinforcements or connection points up to whatever type of connection or EV charging project is looking to connect. I am sure that there will be cases where the networks also face some complexity in terms of access arrangements on site, or where the infrastructure is routed on shared properties, but it is not a critical path environment from a network’s delivery point of view more generally. The network operators will be looking to support whatever connection request comes forward from either an individual, a landowner or a charge point installer.

Going back to cross-pavement charging, over the years councils have worked on clearing streets of street furniture and obstacles, just because of accessibility issues. With cross-pavement charging, how do we ensure that that does not create new safety issues?

I can pick up some of the stuff around the cross-pavement channel funding that has recently been released—the deadline for it was towards the end of last year. Local authorities recognise that this is a need and they welcome the Government funding. They welcome the fact that that funding does not have an end date to it, so they can really think about where this type of solution is best placed. One thing that has been a challenge is the timing of that fund release in the LEVI tender process, because wide-scale roll-out of cross-pavement charging could have an implication on the viability of LEVI spaces. As Jarrod indicated, as LEVI is moved out much more rapidly over the next couple of years, some of those confidence issues around the availability of public charging in a location that is close to your property should start to be alleviated. From the discussions I have had with our local authorities, their thinking about cross-pavement channel funding is at quite an early stage. They are potentially looking at focusing attention on allowing it to be undertaken in areas where new infrastructure will not be coming forward in a reasonable timeframe, but also potentially on those that may require proximity to their property for other reasons, such as disability—so Motability members being prioritised for cross-pavement charging approval. One of the main challenges is obviously the difference between the cost of private and public charging. Anything that can be done to rationalise that would ease the demand from the cross-pavement charging perspective because people would feel that they were not having to pay notably more for their public charging than for private charging. Another thing to consider is that this starts to give the perception of ownership of the space on the public highway that is outside your property, which ultimately comes with longer-term challenges when authorities may want to change that streetscape for other reasons. Public highway is public highway; anyone can park and use it, but when you have a charge cable that runs across that pavement to a particular point on that street, that starts to indicate that that bit is yours.

In my case, Hounslow has been quite progressive in rolling out EV charging for residents. There is the idea of avoiding the trip hazard by having a gully with a robust cover to put the wire through, but Hounslow is pushing back because of risks and other issues, and I know that it is not alone in having that concern. Are there possible solutions for gully charging, notwithstanding the very valid point you have just made about it not being a private space on the kerbside?

Those designs are coming forward. While there is a level of standardisation on pavement infrastructure, it is not consistent everywhere, and there needs to be a view taken as to the appropriateness of that solution in any given space, based on other users, such as high hospital or school usage, or what other activities are occurring within the street space.

I suspect it is possibly particularly an issue in London, with a fairly high propensity for take-up, but a large number of properties with no off-street parking, where people are looking to be able to charge very near their home. But maybe that is a London issue. We will now go to Olly on cost for users.

Earlier we touched on issues affecting the cost of using public charging infrastructure. What should be done to tackle the significant affordability gap between home charging and reliance on public charging?

To some extent, if our goal is to get public charging to be as cheap as home charging, we will struggle. A huge amount of investment goes into public charging infrastructure. The hardware will cost tens of thousands of pounds, grid connections will cost hundreds of thousands of pounds, and there are all the ongoing services that go with operating public infrastructure—the helpline, support, maintenance and so on. I do not think we will ever get them to parity, but the prices, and this is backed up by the stats, are higher than they used to be and higher than they need to be, whether you look at rapid and ultra-rapid or at what used to be called slow and fast—the names have now changed names. That is caused very directly by the increase in standing charges, which we have had to pass on, and the impact on drivers, which I talked about earlier. The practical impact is that we can no longer tell every potential EV driver that they will make a saving by switching. We used to be able to say that; we have proven that we could say that in the early 2020s. The increases in these charges mean that if you rely exclusively on rapid and ultra-rapid—admittedly that will not be many people because there are lots of different options—you will pay more than petrol. That is not where we should be or where we were. Given that it has a policy cause behind it, we think it has a policy solution too. The final thing I will say is that we know affordability and the cost of ownership are really important ways of attracting people to make this switch. Lots of people have already made the switch for net zero or environmental reasons. We now need to go to the next level, which is convincing people to switch because they will feel the benefit in their pocket. EV drivers used to feel that very clearly—they feel it slightly less clearly now—and we think we should get back there, which will get more people into these vehicles.

I would just echo the point around the cost base for electricity, compared to some of the domestic charges. Something that we have been talking about with customers is the difference in VAT charges. This is probably not the best place to comment on the structure of that, but there is a difference there that ends up feeding into some of the fees that customers pay.

Something I would like to raise is the risk of, effectively, making this too cheap. That comes with a bit of sensitivity, recognising the cost of living and other challenges that people are facing. Our evidence has shown that when we model a high EV uptake scenario within the east of England, you see reductions in walking, cycling and rail use, but not so much of a shift in bus users, which is partly due to the different user audiences and customer bases. A vehicle is a vehicle. It takes up space in the road, and that has implications for congestion, productivity, wider health and wellbeing, placemaking and road safety. Yes, there needs to be a reasonable and affordable approach to this, but if you take it too far, you risk seeing knock-on implications to wider transport policy.

That is a very important point to make. Your modelling is supported by emerging evidence from Norway—given its very high use of EVs—which is starting to see erosion of active travel and public transport use rates.

It has not been particularly effective so far, because of where we are in the process; we are in the early stages of contracts being awarded and signed. At my last check, seven had been awarded out of many more than that. The fund was announced several years ago, and it has been tough going to get it out of the door, quite frankly. I think everybody is equally frustrated with the speed of that. Some of that has been typical issues with getting Government funding out. It is obviously a complex area, where we are working with local and combined authorities across England. Certainly my members have been waiting very readily to put this infrastructure in the ground for quite some time now, so they are somewhat impatient to do that. I am interested in Esme’s view on this, but I think we will start to see that money paying dividends this year in the form of lots and lots of charging infrastructure being deployed across England, which will be really exciting, so all the frustration will be eventually worth it. As I said earlier, it is going to be worth about 100,000 charge points, so more than we already have in the ground today. Ordinary drivers will see that and feel that, and hopefully it will encourage them to make the switch.

Local authorities have obviously needed to build up their capacity and capability in this space in order to be able to then start to appoint and move forward. The capacity and capability fund from Government has been very helpful. Obviously there is upskilling that is required in that, as well as relationship building and being able to get everybody moving in the right direction at the right time. There have been challenges with overall procurement processes. Changes in guidance around using Oxford’s dynamic purchasing framework have slowed down. So instead of the route that people thought they could use, they have now had to go to individual tenders rather than using frameworks. Those that went early benefited from a quieter market, but found finalising contracts slower because there was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing between the supplier and the authority on the clarification questions around risk management, what happens in the case of non-delivery and so on. Those who went later found that suppliers were then struggling to respond to tenders because they were being quite stretched with the number that were going out at one point in time. But they have been able to move through those latter stages of that contracting process faster because some fundamental issues had been resolved through other tender processes. Authorities have also welcomed the change to funding allocations with the LEVI funding coming up front. Unlike the ORCS funding, which had 75% upfront, 25% on completion and a hard deadline, the LEVI funding allows them to plan their strategy well, go through their procurement and design their procurement processes in a way that best suits their authority. I am aware that a couple of our authorities have split up their tenders for slightly different infrastructure to be able to deal with the different streetscape environments and locations that they are handling. Some are focusing on sheer numbers, while others are looking at different routes for deployment. We will start to see that coming forward quite quickly. I am aware that, certainly in the east, three of our core authorities have their procurement agreed now and have appointed or are moving to appointment. So the on-street environment will be changing quite quickly through that process.

The feedback that we have had from our authorities is that they have really welcomed the support that DFT, OZEV and Energy Saving Trust, in particular, have provided to them. They have also welcomed the availability of data through such things as the Zapmap open-source data. The data and insight that some subnational transport bodies had done in advance of this to enable them to assess their needs—informing things like grid capacity, propensity for change and areas where it might be more challenging to deploy—have allowed authorities to get to a good, strong place relatively quickly. That enables them, as Jarrod said, to at least get the right charger in the right location and hopefully make the back end of that process as smooth as possible for the charge point operators once they start getting on the ground.

I do not think it will have a huge impact, partly because of the way the cost base has changed, to go back to that again. Someone put to me the other day that there is no point being given grant funding to buy a supercar if you cannot fill it with petrol. As an analogy, it is the same point: it is not necessarily that they need the funding for that initial build-out; it is actually just about operating the sites and putting together an investment case in those businesses. Because of the cost of electricity and the way that is apportioned, that has just gone down.

I cannot comment from the installers’ and market’s perspective on impacts of the business case, but from a network operator’s perspective, we are aware that it has not been progressed. We have had regular engagement with DFT around that and where networks still need to play a part in those types of projects going forward. Beyond that, I cannot really comment.

LEVI is a little different, in that it was a fairly large amount of funding that we knew would come at some point, so we did not have the cliff-edge effect and were not wondering where it would be, quite so much as we have with others. Where this plays out as an issue is in the parts of the sector where long-term certainty is really important, and we do not tend to see that. For example, when you look at freight, trucks and vans, which we might cover in more detail, decisions about the electrification of those vehicles and putting charging in at your depot take place over a much longer period than the months that we sometimes get to look at a scheme and work out how long it will last. I recognise the reasons why some of this funding cannot be extended out, both from a fiscal perspective and because of the way that the process works with Treasury. But, clearly, introducing grants halfway through a financial year, and they are gone at the end of the year, is not conducive to making long-term strategic decisions about your fleets, so there is an issue there.

I would just reinforce that point from a network operator’s perspective. Anything that provides more certainty and long-term clarity on what infrastructure requirements customers have benefits networks and their ability to have visibility and plan later investments and reinforcement to that timeline.

If you are going to put grant funding in place, it is super-important to make sure that it is aligned with changes that DESNZ and Ofgem are doing on the electricity side so that that is conducive to actually supporting the industry as a whole. [Interruption.]

Thank you. I would like to apologise for the noise outside earlier. An important message was being sent that getting fit through dance is a good thing. That may or may not have involved Angela Rippon and Mr Speaker dancing together, but the point is that we have some serious work together. I will see what we can do to make sure it does not happen again. Let us now move back to the serious business in hand: the charging infrastructure for logistics. We touched on that earlier, but Elsie has some further questions.

The success of our national logistics sector as a backbone of our national economy—it is really important to my local economy—is dependent on the sector keeping pace with change. What would you say the main differences are in terms of the challenges involved in expanding charging infrastructure for vans and goods vehicles, compared to personal cars? I know that some of you touched on this earlier, but can we start with Mr Birch?

I would point to two things. One is space: clearly, larger vehicles need more space to charge, and sometimes car-charging bays are not big enough for vans—that is something we are aware of—and clearly often not the right size for an HGV. So there is an issue of space and making sure there is enough space to charge safely. Some of the answer to that will be charging at depots, particularly for trucks, but also some vans. For some vans, the answer will also be charging overnight and making sure that you start your day with a full battery, but clearly the on-the-go infrastructure also needs to serve them. The other issue, which has been a theme throughout, is the cost of the power. If you are putting charging in at a depot, you will be taking a very large connection, using a lot of electricity and paying very significant standing charges. In our discussions with fleets and the logistics sector, they cite that as a really important blocker as part of the total costs of ownership consideration, which is even more important to them than to ordinary people. We hear that those costs mean that they look at the cost of switching their fleets over to an electric fleet, and sometimes it is too high for them to justify. So it is space and power.

I echo all those points. When you think about some of these businesses, they are having to almost put together investment cases internally, in terms of putting money into changing the way those fleets are set up. In terms of the discussions that we have had on the cost difference between switching from electricity to diesel, and the total cost to ownership of that, you are almost on parity. There used to be a significant advantage to turning electric. In the next few years, that will probably go the other way, which is not a positive thing for the decarbonisation of this sector and for electrification moving forward. The total cost of power for the transport sector is only going to go up over the next four to five years, so that is a real key concern for them.

Do you have any comments on this from a combined authority perspective?

In general, the logistics sector is quite fragmented and operates on quite tight cost margins. You are obviously beginning to see some bigger operators moving in this direction. We are seeing that ports and freeports are taking the lead in this space. Port of Tilbury—with the support of Thames Freeport—has just launched 16 HGV chargers in its area. Maritime Transport already has eHGV chargers in situ at Port of Felixstowe. Obviously that is one end of that network, and ensuring that they have the resilience through the strategic road network, through work with National Highways, and also at the depot and at the end of that process, is really important. I am aware that National Highways is doing work in this area to start mapping where that demand may be best served, and GRIDSERVE and others in the e-corridor work are looking at this space as well. So, again, I think it is an area that will start to move forward more rapidly, but that has to align the energy demand to grid connections, the time drivers travel and where they should be taking rest points, resilience across the network in terms of uncertainty of journey times, and the fact that this infrastructure is going to have to go through local authority planning consent where it is not coming in in existing locations, such as larger service stations. These are the types of things that communities often struggle with in terms of look, design, vehicle movement and operating hours, so there can be a bit of a challenge in securing that agreement through the consent process. All these things need to be looked at in quite a systemic way in order to identify the right locations, get the buy-in from local authorities and be able to deliver that infrastructure on the ground.

I just wondered if you had any comments from a safety or accessibility perspective. Dr Bulawa was touching on some of those things earlier.

Is that a challenge that you are picking up, particularly for motorway service areas and maybe some other commercial premises where the leases are not long enough to invest?

Absolutely. Some depots are leased, and they have to work with a landlord and almost sell it to them to then electrify that site, despite them having maybe a shorter lease period. That is definitely a challenge. Again, we go back to the investment case, where if there is one, that whole conversation becomes a bit easier.

That was a bit of a discussion about the main differences in the challenges between charging for cars versus HGVs. Could you now touch on HGVs versus coaches for me, please? Who wants to start? Wesley, you are looking keen on that one.

To be honest, they are very similar models. What you tend to see is almost base-to-base models, and planning and construction of those sites tends to be a little easier for businesses. HGVs are probably a fair bit further behind in the infrastructure build-out compared to some coaches and buses. Where you have logistics businesses that can plan routes around the country, that is a lot simpler than for HGVs that might have to change routes each day. Some HGVs are massive, so making sure the infrastructure can fit them in, as well as private cars, is going to be super-important.

I take slight issue with that, in the sense that buses obviously have fixed routes; coaches tend to do various different journeys, so there is a difference between bus and coach infrastructure.

I will just come in with a few reflections from the network’s perspective both for HGVs and logistics vehicles in some of those larger power-consuming transport contexts. The main point network operators would emphasise on this is the importance of those customers who are going through those discussions internally on business case considerations engaging with their network operators early. In terms of shaping the request, understanding the customer needs and planning the time for both the charging infrastructure and all the business changes that go with that, along with the network works, doing that collectively can give a very different outcome from when there is no collaboration. Just to bring that to life a bit with a hypothetical scenario, if a customer has gone through months and years of planning this transition for their business, maybe even preparing sites with the installations of charge points, and then comes to the network operator to request megawatts of capacity, then that timeline is at the end of the process. If they engage the networks early on that process, they can collaboratively develop ramped connections or phased increases in capacity for the customers. Generally speaking, if the engagement happens early—even for these larger projects—the network infrastructure can develop in line with the rest of the project that this business is going through. So that early collaboration is really important. One thing that network operators have done, working with ChargeUK and many other stakeholders, was to prepare a transport connections guidance tool, which all the networks contributed to. It provides guidance on when to engage, what things drive the availability of network infrastructure, what data helps inform, and what solutions are available. That is live on the website and has lots of use and positive feedback from stakeholders. Again, it really emphasises the importance of early collaboration for these bigger decarbonisation fleets, for example.

Do Government need to have a policy specifically for the coach industry, to perhaps suggest what kind of vehicles it might have or to try to work out where some of this high-powered charging at service stations for their 50-odd passengers should be?

I do not know enough about that area to comment in detail. On buses, money has been put into the bus sector through a grant called ZEBRA.

They have—which coaches are excluded from.

That might be why it has not crossed my desk before. Obviously there is an open consultation on the regulatory framework for trucks. I do not know whether coaches are potentially slipping through the cracks of those two things, but I would be happy to look into it and write to the Committee with more.

We have heard that there is increasing cable theft and vandalism occurring across the country. What impact does this have on the charging network, especially given that a growing number of vehicles are reliant on it?

This is a real and growing problem. Unfortunately, we do not have fantastic data on the size of the problem, but certainly there have been hundreds of incidents of cable theft since 2022. What we are talking about here is someone coming along and literally chopping the cable off for the materials that are within the cable. I suspect that is likely an underestimate, based on the data we have, which is from FOIs to different police forces. We do not have full coverage, but it is a real and growing problem. It causes us an immense amount of frustration and cost because we have to replace the cable. It can cost tens of thousands of pounds to fix a site once the cables are gone, which is money we would rather spend on new infrastructure. It also obviously causes frustration for drivers because they arrive and sometimes find a charger with a cable that is missing, which is really upsetting. In terms of what we have done, we have been trying to look at and share practice across the sector in terms of what the technologies are to push back on this. CCTV is now much more common at charging sites than it used to be, which is beneficial for various reasons—we talked about safety earlier. You also see alarms that trigger when someone tries to tamper with the cable, which does not necessarily stop them from tampering with the first one, but it certainly stops them from tampering with the others. Over the last year or two, we have started to see cable sheaths, which essentially make it difficult to chop through the cable, and those seem to be successful to some extent. The challenge we have is what to do about it. Clearly, cutting off a cable of this type is already a crime. We have had some good engagement from local forces, but of course we then need to see co-ordination between them because this is a national problem. We have also had engagement with national groups that look at infrastructure crime, and it does seem that this is part of a wider pattern. I do not know whether it happens on the electricity networks that people attack this national infrastructure for their own personal gain, although I suspect it does. It is too complicated to have an easy answer, but it is certainly something we would love to see resolved because it is costing us money and costing drivers the experience they want.

I recognise some of the impacts that we spoke about there. On the electricity network infrastructure side of things, we monitor this closely. It is not something we have seen a particular uptake in in the way described there, but we continue to monitor it. Electricity network assets are less public facing, more heavily kept so and protected, not least for key safety reasons, but it is something we continue to monitor.

Ms Yuill, is this something you have seen in your local area? What might some solutions be when it comes to increasing protections for this type of infrastructure?

It is not something that we have had fed back to us specifically, but I will check with our authorities whether it is an increasing problem for them.

Does anybody else have a view about how we increase protections?

In case any would-be thieves are watching: these cables are not worth that much, so it is really not worth the risk. They are really not worth as much as people think they are.

I worked in railways before I came here, and theft of signalling cables can be a big problem. It tends to be quite cyclical, depending on the price of copper and other assets. How much are you able to learn from sectors that have been dealing with this historically? Is there more of a role for the police, Government, insurers or whoever to try to spread some of that best practice and learning so you are not having to start from scratch?

Yes, and that is the progress we have made over the last couple of years. We are now in contact with the National Infrastructure Crime Reduction Partnership, which I understand works with the railways. It has some lessons for us from those sectors. It has not yet paid dividends in terms of a significant reduction. One thing we should learn as a collective from railways or the electricity networks is data and co-ordination across the authorities. I am not sure to what extent that would resolve the problem, but it does seem—from the outside looking in, as a non-policing-expertise person—that it is a bit like playing whack-a-mole. You go to one local police force and tell them that it is a problem, and they have not heard of it because the one next door did not tell them. There might be something there, but I do not know how well it got resolved on the railways side.

Just very briefly on that, there was a similar thing where different Network Rail routes would get really good at it, but others would then be playing catch-up when it started happening with them. The things you alluded to are the right kind of things; it is all about that balance between hardening the asset—target hardening to use the jargon—with patrolling, good surveillance and then some things you said about alarms. You have the right kind of thoughts. I just think that it is always helpful in life, where there is experience and insight from others, if we are not starting from the beginning, because that just wastes time.

I have a wind-up question and a question of my own. Colleagues, we have a bit of time if anyone has other questions that occur to them. My question is about public parking but not on the public highway. We know that supermarkets and other private sector providers are often quite good at providing publicly accessible charging points on their land, but are there other landowners where there could be better take-up? I think of rail and parking at rail stations. Are they sufficiently engaged, and is there an opportunity there, particularly as we move to GBR? Are there other examples of where—for whatever structural reason—opportunities are not being sufficiently taken up for publicly accessible charging?

Council car parks are very much the thinking within the LEVI funding, and the identification of those is within that mapping. The other area that they are working quite closely on, from a rural perspective, is parish councils, community centres and those sorts of spaces. There is also the idea of “The pub is the hub” for more rural spaces, although that very much depends on the landlords and the owners of that type of asset. That is certainly something that is within the mix for those more rural spaces.

Is local government actively supported in looking for those partnerships? It takes time and officer time to build up those relationships and so on.

Those are easily done within their existing network, so for parish councils, district councils and so on, there is absolutely no problem. For those that are slightly more complex, it very much depends on the infrastructure that currently exists within an authority and the proximity of relationships between different parts of the authority and the wider business community. Particularly as the LEVI fund starts to roll out, some of this will become easier and faster, and those who are interested and eligible will start to come forward more rapidly. The new fund that was announced last week also looks at small businesses, which would be helpful, but how much they can become fully public chargers is obviously a risk for that particular local business.

Is there also an opportunity as well as a risk? I remember that at the Labour party conference—Ruth, you might have been to it too—there was a campaign of tourist attractions installing EV points; it was called Bon VoyCharge, which was a good name. It was very much selling them as something not only that would help the customer who was going there, but that also might be a revenue stream for the tourist attraction. We have mainly been highlighting some of the challenges of putting in the infrastructure, but are there also revenue opportunities for businesses deciding to go down that path?

Yes, and you will see a few different models. You could have anything from the charge point operator renting the land, taking care of everything and sharing some revenue, all the way up to the destination itself purchasing the charger and perhaps working with someone to provide them the software to manage it and change the prices and tariffs, and that can indeed be a revenue stream. I suppose one risk is that if the energy costs have gone up—as we have been talking about—then we have lost a little of the incentive for doing so. But that campaign was fantastic for raising awareness, which is as much of a problem as anything else.

Just on that, seasonality is a real challenge in an area like the east, which has high domestic tourism, and that implication of demand for very short periods—particularly even days, depending on whether it is an event—is quite hard for authorities to work through. In our “Rural Connections” report a couple of years ago, the challenges of rural grid connectivity, even at a relatively low level, for consistent charging came up as a challenge in terms of cost for small businesses, campsites and others that would like to be able to offer this. We are also currently undertaking a bit of work with our visitor economy, and I will make sure that this question gets asked in that space to flesh out some more understanding around the challenges for the visitor economy.

We have only touched on what happens in other jurisdictions and other countries. We have raised quite a few challenges today: price, notspots and grid connectivity, in particular. Are there examples from other, equivalent economies that have got it right that the UK could learn from and perhaps implement? Jarrod, you have worked in the EU on this, so maybe you are the person I should be asking.

I have, for my sins. I was letting others go first because I will bore you to sleep over the next 30 seconds. The major thing that we see that happens in the European Union, in particular, that we do not have here is the renewable transport fuels obligation. This is essentially a renewables credit scheme where, if you supply renewable energy up to a cap, you get a credit and can sell that credit to people who are also having to comply with the scheme. In the European Union, as of last May, every single member state has to include electric vehicle charging in that scheme, which allows charge point operators to generate those credits and sell them to other people—other organisations having to comply. What that does is make a massive difference from a viability perspective, because depending on where you are in Europe, the credits are worth anywhere between 2.5p to 8.5p per kilowatt-hour. As a charge point operator, you can invest that back in your pricing, pass it directly on or pass some of it on. It also helps to justify investments in sites that might be right on the borderline of being viable; it is enough to make a big difference to tip it over the edge. What we hear from our members that are operating in Europe is that they jealously look at their counterparts in the Netherlands or Germany that have these credit schemes and say, “If I had that, I would be able to invest so much more in the infrastructure.” As I say, that is now in place across the European Union, right on our doorstep, and it is putting them at something of a competitive advantage to us, at least on that front.

That is very interesting. My final question to you all is, what is the most important thing that the Government should do within the charging network to help ease the EV transition?

The thing that has come out in conversations with local authorities most recently is around the shift to that permitting system under the Planning and Infrastructure Act. There seems to be uncertainty in that space around local authorities’ approach, so increased support, guidance or detail on how best to set up new permitting schemes would probably start to accelerate the delivery on network quite quickly.

Electricity pricing, which I have already talked about at length. An important point to make is around BICS, the British Industrial Competitiveness Scheme, which is coming in from next year. It is designed to give discounts to industries on the environmental levies they are paying as part of their bills. That will be worth about 6.5p on a bill, which is quite a lot. At the moment, as Ofgem and DESNZ are designing that, transport, charging networks and logistics fleets are not part of it. The idea is that it is going to cover about 7,000 businesses around the country, and getting transport-heavy businesses into that is going to be hugely important.

From my point of view, we need to move a bit more towards standardisation and more formality in the market. It is typical for an emerging market that there is a lot of informality, but the next step would be to go towards more standards, more guidance and more representation.

More guidance or more, almost, regulations?

More specificity. I understand that this is always a tricky balance to achieve, but it would be helpful. The same goes for the representation. We have a lot of infrastructure and there is going to be more, but we need to show people that it is there. We need the signature, and we need to make these things prominent, because that goes into the whole legitimisation of the market.

If I can be cheeky, I would have two, both of which we have spoken about already. The first is the reforms around planning, wayleaves and consents to enable networks to deliver both the infrastructure generally, but also the specific connections work for EV charge points. The second is continued support in making sure the next price control processes and outcomes reflect the need for networks to bring in, and allow them to bring in, the additional investment and expanded infrastructure that will directly underpin the EV charge point transition.

I will also take two, if I may, Chair. One is something I have not mentioned so far, which is the ZEV Mandate. We need to retain the ZEV Mandate; it is what drives us to invest and what has got us to this point. Moving on it now will not be helpful. The other is to address energy costs, as Wes helpfully set out in advance.

Thank you to all our witnesses for their evidence. Please write in if you feel there is anything you would like to cover in more detail that we have not been able to cover this morning. We look forward to resuming our oral evidence on this inquiry in a few weeks’ time. That concludes today’s meeting.