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00:00We know that on average people can save up to £750 a year driving an electric vehicle.
00:13Well firstly Minister, thank you very much for letting me be your chauffeur this afternoon.
00:18Now this is a British-built Nissan LEAF that we're in, fully electric, built brilliantly,
00:24I'm impressed with the build quality and built up in the northeast.
00:28What experience do you have of EVs, have you driven many EVs?
00:32So I've had a go at driving an EV and obviously I spend a lot of my week down in London and I get
00:41up and down to London on the train and sort of walk and cycle when I'm down there.
00:47But sometimes I need to take out the ministerial car to go and do a visit and I'm glad to say
00:54that that's an EV, it's a Jaguar. It's a very quiet and comfortable ride, absolutely
01:01ideal really for undertaking our job and I'd be able to listen to my music or listen to
01:08conversations very easily, it's very pleasant.
01:12Yes I should point out we have a couple of guests in the back as well, hello guys.
01:16So you enjoy driving an EV, it's a nice experience for you?
01:19Yeah when I've used an EV I've liked it, I think they're responsive to drive and one of the great
01:25things about having a new EV is that it often comes with all these safety features, the driver
01:32assistance which I think obviously can help to make our roads safer, that's got to be a good thing.
01:36And the app that warms up the car when you're cold in the morning.
01:39Why does the government want us all to buy EVs then, what are the benefits of EVs?
01:43The greatest proportion of our emissions now comes from transport and most of that is from
01:49road transport, around half of the emissions from cars so there's a real imperative if we're going
01:55to tackle climate change, cut our carbon emissions, we need to move to electric vehicles. Of course
02:00zero emissions at the tailpipe means it's cutting the dangerous things that are affecting people's
02:06health but they're also great in terms of being quieter. But it's also good for industry, part
02:12of us being a clean energy superpower, that's one of the central pillars of our plan for change and
02:19by the UK being at the forefront we can get the advantages of moving first and really be at the
02:26cutting edge when it comes to automotive and the transition to electric vehicles which isn't just
02:31happening in this country of course, it's happening globally. Lots of people are talking about electric
02:36vehicles all the time, we had a big crowd there and a guy is very interested in his electric cars
02:41where we've just been just a few minutes ago but there are lots of myths around electric
02:46cars, people saying that they don't go far enough, they all burst into flames, should the government
02:51be doing something to help bust those myths? Well look we're working with industry on precisely
02:57that matter, there are plenty of people who've got an interest in knocking electric vehicles
03:02but actually they're really good news for people, we know that they're good for the environment,
03:08we know that on average people can save up to £750 a year driving an electric vehicle rather than
03:16a petrol or diesel car. I think people worry about the upfront cost and they're right,
03:22that the electric vehicles have been expensive but the price is coming down all the time, for
03:27second-hand electric vehicles I think one in three now is less than £20,000 to buy and of course
03:35if you can charge economically then you can save a lot of money. The other thing of course,
03:41you'll know this, is that once people drive an electric vehicle the vast majority of them would
03:47never go back, they really enjoy driving them. When we're all driving EVs, and this is a question
03:52somebody just asked me a few minutes ago, will there be enough electricity? Well absolutely,
03:57when we're planning our electricity future we know that we need to allow for the fact that many
04:03more people will be driving electric vehicles and that's one of the challenges that we face
04:10in the years ahead but absolutely it's part of our government planning. You mentioned the values,
04:16the benefits of saving cash when you're driving an EV and a recent EV UK report said that there's
04:22a lot of money to be saved from driving an EV but only really if you have a driveway. Now what's
04:28being done for those people that don't have driveways? Well that's precisely what we were
04:32doing here in Leicestershire and talking about the funding that we're putting into the local
04:38electric vehicle infrastructure fund to roll out many more public on-street charge points.
04:46We've already seen the number of public charge points go up, we're just short of 75,000 public
04:53charge points now, that's gone up 35% in the last year, 45% in rural areas and we need to continue
05:01that progress because people have to know that if they, you know, they're away from home they can
05:07charge and if they don't have a driveway that they can charge on they need to be able to park
05:13at somewhere convenient to them, whether that's their workplace or whether it's outside their
05:18house. What some of the things that we are doing, we put out some new guidance to local authorities
05:23just before Christmas to enable people to have those cross-pavement charges so if you don't have
05:29a driveway you can, you know, potentially still be charging using domestic electricity at the
05:35kerbside but as I say lots and lots of public charge points going in right now across
05:41the country. We think our local electric vehicle infrastructure fund, £381 million, that's going to
05:48deliver over 100,000 new charge points so that people have that confidence that they can make
05:55the switch and be able to charge when they need to. Not a lot of that money is being spent yet,
05:59there's a big pot of money there and part of the problem that we hear a lot is the delays in
06:04planning and getting electricity points installed. Is there something government can do to, particularly
06:09on the planning side, to speed up the planning? Yeah, well we're already doing that by extending
06:15permitted development rights, making it easier for the charge points to be installed and we know that
06:21there's a challenge in relation to the grid and again I'm working with my colleagues across
06:27government, including with colleagues in the Department for Energy and Net Zero, to try to tackle
06:32those challenges to make sure that we can install charge points everywhere where people need them
06:38because we recognise that we need to be working with industry to ensure that everyone can have
06:44the benefits of an electric vehicle. We need to make sure it's easy for consumers to make that switch.
06:49One of the big disconnects that people talk about a lot is the cost of VAT. If I charge at home I pay
06:55VAT on my electricity at five percent, if I charge publicly as I just have, I'm paying VAT at twenty
07:02percent. That's not fair is it? Well you'll know that VAT is in the purview of the Chancellor
07:08rather than me at the Department for Transport. People benefit from that reduction in their
07:14domestic electricity. We mostly pay twenty percent on other products generally but that's
07:21something that will be kept under review by government in the future. Are we committed absolutely
07:26from 2030 onwards to ban cars that you actually have to fill up with fuel? Is it plugs only from
07:342030 onwards? Yeah we're clearly talking about the how but not the if. From 2030 we will end the sale
07:44of new petrol and diesel cars. We want to work with industry to make sure that we can get there
07:51really effectively and obviously you'll know that we're out to consultation which is very
07:56much focused on how we support industry with the ZEV mandate and what happens in that period from
08:012030 to 2035. The previous government, the previous Prime Minister, you know really knocked confidence
08:10in electric vehicles by flip-flopping and changing that date but we're very clear that
08:15it was a manifesto commitment. We will end the sale of brand new petrol and diesel cars from 2030.
08:23You mentioned the consultation. The consultation is closed now. I can imagine your colleagues are
08:27sifting through quite a number of responses. What's your feeling? Do you feel that there's
08:33going to be some relaxation that the car makers are calling for in terms of the fines if they
08:37don't hit the targets for electric vehicles? Well look we want to work with industry to help
08:45make this transition to electric vehicles. I know from talking to manufacturers and I've done
08:51a vast amount of talking to manufacturers large and small over the last few months that they're
08:58absolutely committed to making this change. They've invested a huge amount in the switch to
09:05electric vehicles and we want to work with them. We want to put the UK absolutely at the forefront.
09:11We want you know one of our central missions as a government is to be a clean energy superpower.
09:18That's part of our very much part of our plan for change and so we're looking really carefully at
09:23what manufacturers are saying and at the way that we continue with the ZEV mandate.
09:33We know that whilst they didn't absolutely hit the number of pure electric vehicles sold
09:40when you take into account the flexibilities that there are they exceeded what was needed in
09:46the previous year. We're seeing an increase every month when the stats come out from SMMT.
09:51We hear that there are more and more people are buying electric cars but they're not private
09:55buyers are they? They're business buyers who are taking advantage of the tax breaks that exist for
10:01business buyers buying electric cars. Now you have said there are incentives you've announced
10:06some recently some more money to put towards incentives for for van buyers, for people
10:12buying motorbikes, wheelchair accessible vehicles, cab drivers. What about the private buyers? Can
10:17you help them afford an electric car a bit more? Well look whenever we're looking at incentives
10:23we have to make sure that they work for the drivers but also for taxpayers and there are
10:28still incentives there so for people who don't have a driveway there's the opportunity to benefit
10:34from extra for grant there to put in a cross pavement solution when when that's needed and
10:41we'll continue to keep that under review because we want to make it easy for people to make the
10:46switch and of course we recognise that owning and running an electric vehicle you can save up to
10:53£750 a year by making that switch because they're very economical because they're very
11:00efficient and because there's lower charge you know lower costs of maintaining them because
11:06you know they they're really effective they're really good vehicles to own so we have to kind
11:12of look at it in the round. You talk about support for British industry as well we're in a British
11:16built electric vehicle there are lots more coming down the line but they're also a big part of the
11:22automotive industry is the small volume manufacturers those that make under a thousand
11:26vehicles it's going to be really difficult for those guys I know Lister for example will be very
11:31vocal is it going to be some sort of exemption from them in terms of going all electric will
11:36they be still allowed to make petrol or diesel vehicles? Well look we've got some absolutely
11:41fantastic small and micro volume manufacturers and they're often really at the cutting edge
11:48of technology and and it's right that they're exempt from the ZEV mandate is recognising the
11:54difference the different challenges that they face obviously part of the consultation was
12:00looking at what happens after 2030 and we're you know we're talking to them and listening
12:07really carefully and that's part of our consideration as part of the consultation exercise.
12:12So if your neighbour comes up to you and says Minister should it go all electric what are the
12:17reasons the main reasons you would tell them to do it? So I think there are a number of reasons the
12:22obvious one is it's the right thing to do for the planet it's reducing carbon emissions I think I'd
12:30encourage them to give it you know to go and try out an electric vehicle because people find it
12:35smoother quieter pleasanter safer obviously we know that switching to electric vehicles
12:43is part of the solution to air quality which is a big problem in our towns and cities has a huge
12:50health impact and people can save money it really is a potential win-win and great for the British
12:58economy for British automotive bringing skills jobs and investment into our country. Now I couldn't
13:05have the Minister for Future of Roads in my car without asking you about what is possibly the
13:11second most important thing for car owners and road users whenever I'm doing a phone-in on
13:17radio or TV or anything like that it's always electric cars first then potholes we're on some
13:24pretty good roads I think here in Leicestershire not at home in Buckinghamshire what are you going
13:28to do about the pothole crisis? Well I'm glad you asked me about that because it is probably the
13:33number one issue when I go out and knock on people's doors and ask them what's the
13:37what's the thing they want to change is they'd like to see an improvement to our broken roads
13:42and we had 14 years of not having consistent investment and it really has taken its toll
13:48and that's precisely why as a new government we've come in and we've made a huge commitment so from
13:54the from the 1st of April local authorities will be benefiting from an extra 500 million pounds
14:01for local roads maintenance that's an uplift of 50% on the current year and we are putting some
14:09pretty good we're going to put some pretty good demands on them to report on how they're intending
14:13to use that money so that people really see the benefit of us putting that extra cash in this
14:20year and in the longer term I'm very hopeful after the spending review we'll see a longer
14:25term investment because I want to get away from local authorities having to be doing reactive
14:32repairs to our roads I want them to have a long-term approach so that they're doing planned
14:38maintenance and we don't have potholes in the first place and I'm absolutely determined it's
14:43not just for motorists very important though they are potholes are dangerous for pedestrians
14:49and cyclists and bikers so we really really want to get this fixed we want people to benefit from
14:58smoother safer roads we're nearly at the station now so we shall have to wrap up but I have two
15:02other questions to ask you this is a little bit like carpool karaoke I'm not going to ask you to
15:08sing but if you were in the ministerial jag what would you be putting on the rather good audio
15:15I have to say what would be your music of choice to to lift your spirits well we talk about this
15:21in the department quite a lot I think we should have our own spotify playlist you know it might
15:27be forever in electric dreams might be the electric touch by by taylor swift or even
15:34electric avenue but if it if it were just down to me I'm a bit of a country girl so I'd be whacking
15:40up the the carly pearson brothers osborne oh excellent I didn't think we were going to get
15:45to taylor swift in this uh in this conversation I didn't have you down as a taylor swift fan but
15:51there's a bit of history there in the party but we won't go there I've spent a lot of time driving
15:56my three daughters around with us all singing along to a bit of taylor swift me too don't tell
16:02anyone um final question um and now your colleagues in the back can help out with this um I always ask
16:09the people I chauffeur to uh to rate me I'm quite often rating their cars um so rate me as your
16:16chauffeur how have I done have I done guys it's been a very it felt like a very smooth ride to
16:21me I'd be giving it a 10 out of 10 10 out of 10 what do we think 10 out of 10 thanks thanks for
16:27that rating I've never had such happy customers but my uh my uber rating is uh is going up let's
16:34register thank you once again for your time I appreciate it absolute pleasure