The UK’s charging network has been given a huge boost today (25 March 2022), as government unveils plans to support the UK market to reach 300,000 public electric vehicle (EV) chargepoints by 2030 – equivalent to almost 5 times the number of fuel pumps on our roads today.

Backed by £1.6 billion, under the Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Strategy, charging will become easier and cheaper than refuelling a petrol or diesel car, while new legal requirements on operators will see drivers of EVs able to pay by contactless, compare charging prices and find nearby chargepoints via apps.

The new strategy sets out the government’s aim to expand the UK’s charging network, so that it is robust, fair and covers the entire country – as well as improving the consumer experience at all chargepoints, with significant support focused on those without access to off-street parking, and on fast charging for longer journeys.

£500 million will be invested to bring high quality, competitively priced public chargepoints to communities across the UK. This includes a £450 million Local Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (LEVI) fund, which will boost projects such as EV hubs and innovative on-street charging, so those without driveways don’t miss out on cleaner transport.

A pilot scheme for the LEVI fund launching today will see local authorities bid for a share of £10 million in funding, allowing selected areas to work with industry and boost public charging opportunities.

Meanwhile, the LEVI funding includes up to £50 million to fund staff to work on local challenges and public chargepoint planning – ensuring that any development complements all other zero emission forms of travel, such as walking and cycling.

The existing £950 million Rapid Charging Fund will support the rollout of at least 6,000 high powered super-fast chargepoints across England’s motorways by 2035, ensuring the UK continues to lead the Western world in the provision of rapid and ultra-rapid public chargers.

This comes on top of ministers’ pledges to continue addressing any barriers to private sector rollout of chargepoints, such as local councils delaying planning permission and high connection costs.

Ambitious and innovative chargepoint operators are already committed to installing an additional 15,000 rapid chargepoints across England’s entire road network – a quadrupling of the current offer – and over 100,000 on-street chargepoints by 2025.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said:

We’re powering ahead with plans to help British people go electric, with our expanding charging network making journeys easier right across the country.

Clean transport isn’t just better for the environment, but is another way we can drive down our dependence on external energy supplies. It will also create new high-skilled jobs for our automotive and energy sectors and ultimately secure more sustainable and affordable motoring for all.

Drivers are at the heart of the revolutionary plan, with rigorous new standards and legislation being introduced to improve people’s experience of using public chargepoints.

The government is mandating that operators provide real-time data about chargepoints. It is ensuring that consumers can compare prices and seamlessly pay for their charging using contactless cards. They will also be able to use apps to find their nearest available chargepoint.

These plans will also require a 99% reliability rate at rapid chargepoints to ensure they are world-class and give consumers confidence in finding chargepoints that work wherever they travel – helping eradicate so-called ‘range anxiety’.

Even with recent trends in electricity prices, EVs still benefit from lower fuel, running and maintenance costs than their petrol and diesel equivalents and the strategy hopes to encourage drivers across the nation to make the switch.

Production costs also continue to fall and some analysts expect purchase price parity with petrol and diesel cars to be reached well within the 2020s.

This forms part of wider government plans to reduce the UK’s reliance on imports of foreign oil, improving the security of our energy supply and reducing the country’s vulnerability to volatility in global energy prices.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said:

No matter where you live – be that a city centre or rural village, the north, south, east or west of the country – we’re powering up the switch to electric and ensuring no one gets left behind in the process.

The scale of the climate challenge ahead of us all is well known and decarbonising transport is at the very heart of our agenda.

That’s why we’re ensuring the country is EV-fit for future generations by the end of this decade, revolutionising our charging network and putting the consumer first.

The private sector plays a key role in helping the country make the switch to electric and the UK’s most-used charging network company, bp pulse, is today announcing its own plans to spend £1 billion on developing charging infrastructure in the UK, supporting hundreds of new jobs.

Richard Bartlett, Senior Vice President, bp pulse, said:

This £1 billion investment is vital to provide the charging infrastructure the UK needs.  We’re investing to build a world-class network.

This investment allows us to deliver more. More high-speed charging in dedicated hubs and on existing fuel and convenience sites. More home charging services. And crucial enhancements to our digital technology that will make charging fast, easy and reliable.

Alongside the pioneering strategy, the government is additionally launching an automotive roadmap outlining joint government and industry commitments to achieve the decarbonisation of road transport.

This is the first in a series of roadmaps that will be published over the course of the year for each sector of the Prime Minister’s Ten Point Plan, showcasing how the UK is delivering on its green commitments.

The roadmap brings together the government’s policies designed to help and support the automotive sector in the shift towards greener transport and will help businesses plan more effectively in the transition to a zero-emission future.

From today (25 March 2022), motorists are breaking the law if they use a handheld mobile phone behind the wheel for any use, including to take photos or videos, scroll through playlists or play games – as the government closes a loophole previously exploited by dangerous drivers to escape conviction.

Anyone caught using their handheld device while driving could face a fine of up to £1,000 as well as 6 points on their licence or a full driving ban.

The government’s award-winning THINK! team is also today launching an £800,000 awareness campaign to remind drivers not to use a handheld phone at the wheel and of the penalties if choosing to ignore this new law.

Millions of young people will start seeing the adverts in the coming weeks, showing friends appearing in the back seat to intervene when the driver becomes tempted to use their phone behind the wheel.

The campaign will run across video on demand, online video, social media channels and radio in England and Wales until the end of April.

Hands on the wheel? Hands off your phone

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said:

I will do everything in my power to keep road-users safe, which is why I am taking a zero-tolerance approach to those who decide to risk lives by using their phone behind the wheel.

I’m ensuring anyone who chooses to break this vital law can face punishment for doing so and we’ll continue our efforts to ensure our roads remain among the safest in the world.

Edmund King AA president said:

The AA has long campaigned to make handheld mobile phone use while driving as socially unacceptable as drink driving and we warmly welcome the new law. This is a much-needed toughening of the rules to help make our roads safer.

Those who believe they can still play with their phone because it’s in a cradle must think again – they leave themselves open to prosecution for either careless or dangerous driving.

The best thing to do is to convert your glovebox into a phone box. We all need to keep our hands on the wheel and our eyes on the road.

Drivers are able to make contactless payments, for example, at drive-throughs, so long as their vehicle is stationary. They can also still use a device ‘hands-free’ while driving if it’s secured in a cradle, allowing motorists to use their phone as a sat-nav.

They must, however, always take responsibility for their driving and can be charged with an offence if the police find them not to be in proper control of their vehicle.

Updates to the law follow a public consultation that found 81% of respondents supported proposals to make it easier for culprits to be prosecuted.

The law previously only applied to so-called ‘interactive communication’ such as making a call, as it was written before mobile phones could be used for more complicated tasks, such as taking videos. Previously those caught using their mobiles at the wheel have in some cases been able to escape conviction by claiming that they weren’t using them for interactive communication.

The update to the law ensures nobody will be able to use the loophole to escape conviction.

This is the latest move in the government’s drive to bolster road safety, with the Department for Transport’s £100 million Safer Roads Fund recently winning the prestigious Prince Michael of Kent International Road Safety Award.

Thank you, Madam President.

I thank Special Envoy Pederson, USG Griffiths and ASG Zaki for their briefings.

Madam President, last week marked the 11th anniversary of the Syrian conflict. We commend the Syrian people, who courageously and peacefully took to the streets to demand freedom, political reform, and a government that respects and upholds human rights. The Asad regime met those demands with a brutal assault against them that continues today.

This year’s anniversary coincides with the appalling Russian aggression against Ukraine. Russia’s inhumane and destructive behavior in both conflicts is deplorable.

As we have said many times, there can be no military solution to the Syrian conflict. We continue to support the UN-facilitated, Syrian-led, political process outlined in resolution 2254. We urge Council members to continue to call for a nationwide ceasefire, unhindered aid access and conditions for safe refugee return.

We commend Geir Pedersen for his continued efforts to facilitate a sustainable resolution to the conflict. He has our full support.

After more than a decade of conflict, the Syrian humanitarian situation remains bleak. 14.6 million Syrians require humanitarian assistance, more than 80% of the population. 6.6 million Syrians are registered as refugees, and 6.7 million are displaced within their own country.

Our hope is that Syrian refugees will eventually be able to return to their homes, but we agree with the UN judgement – conditions do not currently allow this. It is essential that international law is respected, and that any refugee returns are voluntary, safe and dignified.

It is a sad fact that as long as the conflict continues, humanitarian aid will continue to be vital for millions of vulnerable Syrians. And this is why the UK is clear in its position and commitment to the cross-border mandate under resolution 2585.

Madam President, the Council must be prepared to act and support the renewal of this resolution in July. In the meantime, we call on all parties to fulfil their international obligations and ensure access to humanitarian aid.

The United Kingdom continues to oppose engagement with the Asad regime in the absence of behavioural change. Ceding legitimacy to Asad’s unreformed, unrepentant and unreliable regime, for nothing in return, will undermine efforts to end the conflict and prolong the suffering in Syria.

Finally, on the Constitutional Committee talks taking place in Geneva this week, we encourage all parties, especially the Syrian regime, to meaningfully participate. Urgent progress is needed, and we urge the regime’s backers to redouble their efforts to find a way forward.

I thank you, Madam President.

• KGB’s successor agency, the Federal Security Service (FSB) is behind a historic global campaign targeting critical national infrastructure.

• Long list of cyber operations includes UK energy sector, US aviation and a Russian dissident in the UK targeted using sophisticated hacking and spear-phishing.

• Foreign Secretary Liz Truss sanctions a Russian MOD subsidiary for carrying out malicious cyber activity on a Saudi petro-chemical plant.

The UK, together with the US and other allies, has today (Thursday 24 March) exposed historic malign cyber activity of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) – the successor agency to the KGB.

One month on since Putin’s unprovoked and illegal war in Ukraine started, the global scope of the FSB’s Centre 16 cyber campaign has been revealed.

The National Cyber security Centre (NCSC) assess it is almost certain that the FSB’s Centre 16 are also known by their hacker group pseudonyms of ‘Energetic Bear’, ‘Berserk Bear’ and ‘Crouching Yeti’, and conducted a malign programme of cyber activity, targeting critical IT systems and national infrastructure in Europe, the Americas and Asia. They have today been indicted by the FBI for targeting the systems controlling the Wolf Creek nuclear power plant in Kansas, US in 2017 but failed to have any negative impact.

Separately, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss has used the UK’s cyber sanctions regime to designate a Russian defence ministry subsidiary, the Central Scientific Research Institute of Chemistry and Mechanics (TsNIIKhM), for an incident involving safety override controls in a Saudi petro-chemicals plant in 2017.

Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said:

Russia’s targeting of critical national infrastructure is calculated and dangerous. It shows Putin is prepared to risk lives to sow division and confusion among allies.

We are sending a clear message to the Kremlin by sanctioning those who target people, businesses and infrastructure. We will not tolerate it.

We will continue to work together with our allies to turn the ratchet and starve Putin’s war machine of its funding and resources.

The malware used against the petro-chemical plant was designed specifically to target the plant’s safety override for the Industrial Control System and resulted in two emergency shutdowns of the plant.

The malware was designed to give the actors complete control of infected systems and had the capability to cause significant impact, possibly including the release of toxic gas or an explosion – either of which could have resulted in loss of life and physical damage to the facility.

The FSB’s long raft of malign cyber activity includes:

• Targeting UK energy companies
• Sustained and substantial scanning and probing of networks in the American aviation sector, and exfiltration of data in aviation and other key US targets
• Posing as the Russian Federal Tax Service to conduct spear-phishing attacks against Russian nationals
• Attempting to spear-phish the press secretary of Mikhail Khodorkovskiy, a UK-based longstanding critic of the Kremlin, and monitoring a website he set up to expose corruption in the Russian government

These sanctions follow a further 65 oligarchs and banks targeted earlier today by the Foreign Secretary, bringing the UK’s sanctions on those who enable Putin’s war to more than £500 billion worth of bank assets and £150 billion in personal net worth.

ENDS

Notes to editors:

• Spear-phishing is the practice of sending targeted electronic communication, such as emails and SMS messages, to specific individuals, groups or organisations for malicious purposes, including data theft, espionage and fraud.