Today the Public Accounts Committee has published a report on the delivery of public chargepoints for electric vehicles (EVs). The Public Accounts Committee is one of the most influential committees in the House of Commons and is responsible for scrutinising Government spending. The Motability Foundation provided evidence to this inquiry on the accessibility of public charging.
Nigel Fletcher, Chief Executive Officer of the Motability Foundation said: “We are encouraged to see that this report recognises that there is a risk of disabled people being left behind in the rollout of public chargepoints, as this is an issue that the Motability Foundation has been raising for a number of years.
"The BSI PAS 1899 standard, which we co-sponsored alongside UK Government, provides a clear specification on the minimum requirements to improve public chargepoint accessibility. Since it was published in October 2022 we’ve been doing everything we can to promote uptake of the minimum requirements amongst chargepoint manufacturers, operators, designers, procurers and local authorities.
"As referenced in the report, a review of the PAS 1899 standard is taking place, co-sponsored by the Motability Foundation and UK Government, and hosted by BSI. The review has provided an opportunity for industry to give feedback on achieving PAS 1899 compliance and engage with disabled people on their experiences with public charging. Taking on board evidence received during the review an updated version of PAS 1899 is likely to be available later this year.
"We are pleased to see that the Public Accounts Committee is recommending that the Department for Transport (DfT) sets out the outcome of the PAS 1899 review and what actions it is taking to ensure chargepoint accessibility is improved.
It has been the Motability Foundation’s position for some time that the PAS 1899 standard should be made mandatory by law, and we have been advocating for this both publicly and with MPs, but ultimately it is a decision for Government to take forward. We also believe that providers of public charging should also be taking responsibility for ensuring their infrastructure is accessible.
"In the Public Accounts Committee report the DfT has also acknowledged that demographic groups who are solely reliant on public chargepoints may have to pay more to power their EVs than those who are able to charge from home. This has a disproportionate impact on disabled people as we estimate that up to half of disabled motorists will be reliant on public EV chargepoints (that’s 1.35 million disabled motorists by 2035).
"We are pleased to see that report recommends DfT sets out how it will monitor the cost of public chargepoint use by different groups in society, and look forward to seeing more details on this.”
Learn more
To read our response to the Public Accounts Committee’s initial inquiry on public chargepoints for electric vehicles read our full report (PDF 430.1 KB).