2022 Queen's Speech: transport and training

Date: Friday 13 May 2022

The Transport Bill proposed in this year's Queen's Speech includes three areas relating to the automotive sector:

• Legislation for self-driving vehicles will enable an emerging UK sector in this new technology, predicted by the Connected Places Catapult in 2020 to be worth £41.7 billion to the UK economy by 2035 and expected to create 38,000 new
  skilled jobs.
• The government estimates that the UK could take a market share of ten per cent from a global autonomous shipping market worth £110 billion by 2030.
• 75 per cent of adults in England believe there are not enough charge points, a top barrier to switching to electric vehicles. To address this, the Electric Vehicle Strategy has recently been announced which sets out a vision and action plan for the rollout of elective vehicle charging infrastructure in the UK.

In addition, the government has committed to improving the skills system to make technical education more attractive and easier to obtain through apprenticeships, T-Levels, Higher Technical Qualifications and the Lifelong Loan Entitlement. The Government’s ambition is to encourage greater levels of private sector investment in employee training, both for apprentices and for employees more generally. The government will consider whether further intervention is needed to encourage employers to offer the high-quality employee training the UK needs. This will include examining whether the current tax system – including the operation of the Apprenticeship Levy – is doing enough to incentivise businesses to invest in the right kinds of training.