To ask the Minister for Infrastructure what plans his Department has to increase the number of electrical vehicles sold.

The Zero Emissions Vehicle Mandate was laid by the British Government, Scottish Government, and Welsh Senedd as the Vehicle Emissions Trading Schemes Order (VETS) in England, Scotland, and Wales in October 2023 and came into force in those jurisdictions from 03 January 2024. The scheme sets out a pathway to fully zero emissions by 2035 and puts in place quotas for ZEV sales on major motor manufacturers. Unfortunately, due to the absence of the Assembly, we were not able to join at that time. I am currently considering the North’s position on this. Whilst I consider this, the North of Ireland will continue to comply with suitably scaled existing CO2 Regulations on emissions from cars and vans.

The North currently has around 1.27 million vehicles registered with circa 50,000 new registrations per year. Of these, there are currently in the region of 20,450 EVs registered. The proportion of new cars registered here using alternative fuels has risen to a high of 41% of all new cars sold in quarter one of 2023/24. This rise has coincided with a marked increase in publicly available electric vehicle charge points, which is helping to provide consumer confidence in the commercial market.