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A Beesley Lecture yesterday delivered by David Stewart, Executive Director, Markets & Mergers, CMA.

Introduction

I’m honoured to contribute to this storied lecture series. I’m a past attendee of many ‘Beesleys’, and one of the nice traditions of the Beesley lectures has been that those who knew and worked with Michael Beesley take a moment to recall him before diving into their lectures. I’ve listened to those accounts over the years. As well as his warmth and collegiality and his loyalty to Birmingham, what shines through was his appetite for debate, fascination with markets and conviction that good economics had a lot to offer policymaking. That this lecture series is going strong into its fourth decade seems a fitting legacy.

My topic tonight is EV charging infrastructure, and the UK’s efforts to secure the investment needed to electrify road transport. It is a case study illustrating how markets can contribute not only to economic growth but to a societal goal like de-carbonisation. All the major themes of competition and consumer policy in 2022 arise: the need for markets to operate alongside government policy; the economics of a consumer necessity, the car, in a cost-of-living crisis; the backdrop of rising energy prices; how to foster innovation; how to deploy infrastructure widely, minimising the risk of enclaves or deserts, whilst preserving competition.

I am speaking this evening in a personal capacity. The views are mine and not necessarily those of the CMA or my colleagues (Endnote 1). That said, I want to acknowledge that almost all the work I’ll discuss was done by others – especially my colleagues in the CMA’s Markets team, led by Daniel Gordon, and the EV charging market study team, directed by Emily Chissell and Sabrina Basran, supported by the CMA’s economists, lawyers and financial analysts. I’m also grateful to many colleagues and practitioners inside and outside the CMA who offered comments or insights as I prepared – a full list is in the published version. (Endnote 2)

My focus is the system in which competition authorities and regulators act to make markets work better. How well do we identify market failures? Are we designing practical and effective solutions to mitigate those problems? How do we make space for other objectives, that aren’t about markets or competition specifically, in a principled and predictable way?

With that in mind, my plan for the next 45 minutes or so is:

First, to briefly survey the problem: why we are going to need a lot more EV charging infrastructure to meet the Government’s Net Zero ambition.

Second, to consider the policy framework supporting investment in public charging infrastructure.

Third, to consider the lessons to be drawn from other sectors or parts of the competition and consumer policy toolkit that might be helpful.

Click here for full speech