Ministers reject diesel scrappage scheme as ‘ineffective and expensive’
M inisters have rejected mounting calls for a diesel car scrappage scheme to help tackle air pollution, claiming it would be ineffective and prohibitively expensive.
MPs on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Efra) select committee on Wednesday joined the ranks of influential groups urging the Government to suggest cash incentives to drivers of old, polluting diesel cars to trade them in and buy low emissions vehicles.
But a Government spokesman told the Telegraph it had no plans for a car scrappage scheme.
“A national scrappage scheme cannot ensure reductions in emissions as effectively as other alternatives,” he said.
“This is because air quality issues are often localised and can be managed in other ways.”
A Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) document exposes that the Government did consider the use of scrappage schemes when drawing up its air quality strategy. It says ministers looked at schemes “both linked to ULEV [ultra-low emissions vehicle] purchase or more generally”.
But it concluded that there was “no proportionate way to appropriately target such a measure to the areas where it would be most needed and it would be prohibitively expensive, as well as an ineffective use of resource to suggest a scheme indiscriminately”.
I t said the use of clean air zones – which ministers are imposing in the five most polluted cities to charge polluting vans and lorries – was a “more targeted and proportionate approach”.
Calls for a scrappage scheme have grown in the wake of the emissions scandal, with official test results published last week demonstrating that all of Britain’s most popular diesel cars exceed the legal limit for safe levels of pollution.
Earlier, Neil Parish MP, chair of the Efra committee, said the Government must do more to get “older, more polluting diesel vehicles off the road quickly” and should commence planning to introduce a scrappage scheme at the next Budget “targeted at cars and vans ten years or more old”.
Others to call for diesel schemes include Mayor of London Boris Johnson MP, London mayoral election front-runners Zac Goldsmith MP and Sadiq Khan MP, the Environmental Audit select committee, the think-tank Policy Exchange and the campaign group FairFuelUK.
H oward Cox, founder of FairFuelUK, said politicians needed to have a “grown up debate to incentivise the removal of the remaining old dirty diesel units from our roads”.
He said: “A well thought out workable targeted scrappage scheme will cost, but an incentivised scheme will be more effective than hiking the already highest taxes in the EU onto our hard working drivers who have no choice but rely on their vehicles on a daily basis.
“What price do the Government put on cleaning up the air? Is it to fleece drivers again?”
However, the RAC Foundation earlier this month came to a similar conclusion as the Government, telling that even an £800 million scheme to take 400,000 cars off the road would only cut total diesel vehicle emissions of nitrogen dioxide by Three.Two per cent.
Ministers reject diesel scrappage scheme as – ineffective and expensive
Ministers reject diesel scrappage scheme as ‘ineffective and expensive’
M inisters have rejected mounting calls for a diesel car scrappage scheme to help tackle air pollution, claiming it would be ineffective and prohibitively expensive.
MPs on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Efra) select committee on Wednesday joined the ranks of influential groups urging the Government to suggest cash incentives to drivers of old, polluting diesel cars to trade them in and buy low emissions vehicles.
But a Government spokesman told the Telegraph it had no plans for a car scrappage scheme.
“A national scrappage scheme cannot ensure reductions in emissions as effectively as other alternatives,” he said.
“This is because air quality issues are often localised and can be managed in other ways.”
A Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) document exposes that the Government did consider the use of scrappage schemes when drawing up its air quality strategy. It says ministers looked at schemes “both linked to ULEV [ultra-low emissions vehicle] purchase or more generally”.
But it concluded that there was “no proportionate way to appropriately target such a measure to the areas where it would be most needed and it would be prohibitively expensive, as well as an ineffective use of resource to suggest a scheme indiscriminately”.
I t said the use of clean air zones – which ministers are imposing in the five most polluted cities to charge polluting vans and lorries – was a “more targeted and proportionate approach”.
Calls for a scrappage scheme have grown in the wake of the emissions scandal, with official test results published last week displaying that all of Britain’s most popular diesel cars exceed the legal limit for safe levels of pollution.
Earlier, Neil Parish MP, chair of the Efra committee, said the Government must do more to get “older, more polluting diesel vehicles off the road quickly” and should embark planning to introduce a scrappage scheme at the next Budget “targeted at cars and vans ten years or more old”.
Others to call for diesel schemes include Mayor of London Boris Johnson MP, London mayoral election front-runners Zac Goldsmith MP and Sadiq Khan MP, the Environmental Audit select committee, the think-tank Policy Exchange and the campaign group FairFuelUK.
H oward Cox, founder of FairFuelUK, said politicians needed to have a “grown up debate to incentivise the removal of the remaining old dirty diesel units from our roads”.
He said: “A well thought out workable targeted scrappage scheme will cost, but an incentivised scheme will be more effective than hiking the already highest taxes in the EU onto our hard working drivers who have no choice but rely on their vehicles on a daily basis.
“What price do the Government put on cleaning up the air? Is it to fleece drivers again?”
However, the RAC Foundation earlier this month came to a similar conclusion as the Government, telling that even an £800 million scheme to take 400,000 cars off the road would only cut total diesel vehicle emissions of nitrogen dioxide by Three.Two per cent.