Road Vehicles and Non-Road Mobile Machinery (Type-Approval) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020

Baroness Randerson Excerpts

Monday 16th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I had some sympathy with the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope, when he started with the words “Here we are again”. These SIs are part of the mountain of paperwork which is part of the bureaucratic nightmare we have created for ourselves in leaving the EU. Those of us who deal with transport issues have been patiently working our way through a very large number of SIs to make it possible for us to leave the EU while, apparently, keeping everything exactly the same.

We thought that we had completed the first of these SIs last year. We had gone through it and replaced “EU Commission” with “Secretary of State”, but, thanks to the Northern Ireland protocol, it now has to be amended again to allow for the continued operation of vehicle and engine type approval schemes in Northern Ireland based on EU rules. Ironically, they will be operated by the UK approval authority, the Vehicle Certification Agency, which will also operate separate Great Britain-type approval schemes. This is a detailed first glimpse at the complexity of trying to operate two different systems across the UK. The SI allows Northern Ireland manufacturers to access the Northern Ireland market by using either an EU-type approval or a Northern Ireland approval issued by the VCA.

I conclude that all that means is that Great Britain as a whole will shadow EU standards; otherwise, Northern Ireland will, in practice, become a separate market, with much stronger links to the EU than to Great Britain. In addition, the Explanatory Memorandum confirms that, as standards are identical, Northern Ireland manufacturers will be able to sell and register vehicles in Great Britain using either an EU or a Northern Ireland VCA approval. We can begin to see from the discussion of the issues that the operators of big businesses such as Sainsbury’s and Tesco, in a very different field, are expressing concern about how the standard system will operate in the future.

However, there is, just for once, a plan to diverge from EU standards. As the Minister mentioned, there will no longer be a maximum vehicle height of four metres. It appears from the Explanatory Memorandum that we already have a lot of vehicles higher than that, but, of course, not having to adhere to that standard will mean that there will be a general tendency for vehicles to get higher.

A consultation was held. Were Network Rail or any of the train operating companies consulted on removing the four-metre limit on vehicles? I ask that because there are increasingly frequent collisions with bridges, which have a hugely disruptive effect on the railways. I know that Network Rail and the train operating companies are extremely concerned about the frequency with which these collisions occur. Almost all of them occur because someone tries to drive a vehicle that is too high under a bridge that will not accommodate it. Therefore, this is of great relevance to our railways. I hope that they were included in the consultation, or at least that the Government have informed them of this.

I now move to the issue of CO₂ emission performance standards. These regulations are designed to ensure that the Government can continue to regulate CO₂ emissions for newly registered cars and vans. As other noble Lords have made clear, CO₂ emission standards have been the subject of huge controversy and could undoubtedly be measured a great deal more realistically. The move to on-the-road standards is important. This SI deals with the change in the way that manufacturers apply exemptions. It is pretty obvious that if you have too many exemptions, the standards will not be as effective as they should be.

I understand entirely the practical issue, which the Minister explained to us, that the system will not work at the end of this year, so the UK will have to give each manufacturer an individual threshold based on their EU shares of sales and registrations in the UK, but newly registered vehicles that are moved permanently to Northern Ireland or elsewhere outside Great Britain are removed from Great Britain’s emissions target. That leads me to ask the Minister: how will the emissions target for Northern Ireland be set? We will have a target for Great Britain, but obviously there needs to be a target for Northern Ireland. It also leads me to say to the Minister that this is a genuine opportunity for Britain to do better, to set higher standards than the EU. It is our chance to be different and to move faster.

I was delighted to hear suggestions that the Government are now committed to the 2030 target for the end of petrol and diesel vehicles. Other noble Lords have referred to that. I agree with their questions, so I will not repeat them in detail, about what plans the Government have to ensure that they take forward this obligation very swiftly. If it is going to work, it has to be adopted quickly.

On the final SI, I have a couple of questions relating to heavy duty vehicle emission standards. First, these regulations apply to the whole of the UK. I read the notes very carefully. Why does Northern Ireland not need a separate system as it has in the previous two SIs? Secondly, can the Minister clarify what the impact of the change of dates for the reporting year will be? The reporting year will move from the end of February to the end of September. Will the Minister explain why and how that extra six months will be taken into account?

I am pleased to see that the consultation has led to a change in approach from the Government on the number of data fields to be reported—in other words, I am pleased to see that the Government have responded to the consultation. However, the respondents suggested a study of the UK fleet as a comparator to the EU baseline. Will that study be taken forward?