Driving Licences: Zero Emission Vehicles

Debate between Greg Smith and Kit Malthouse

Wednesday 2nd April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Greg Smith (Mid Buckinghamshire) (Con)]

I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, particularly as it relates to the use of synthetic fuel donated for my summer surgery tour last August.

My concerns about this statutory instrument, unlike my concerns about other recent pieces of parliamentary business, are narrow, which means—this will be a relief to Members from across the House, I have no doubt—that my remarks will be brief. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] I have never had such a big cheer.

I thank the Government for bringing forward sensible reforms, which will decrease the regulatory burden and provide more flexibility for category B licence holders. Many of the reforms are sensible steps that were widely supported in the consultation during the last Parliament. It is unfortunate, but unsurprising, that the Government’s so-called plan for change did not involve scrapping the limitations in this statutory instrument. Narrowing the scope of eligible vehicles from alternatively fuelled vehicles to zero emission vehicles is a mistake that cannot be ignored. As we transition to new technologies, we as a country must be less prescriptive. Too often, Governments want to tell industry and innovators what to do, and I am afraid that the restrictive nature of this measure risks hampering our country’s attempts to reduce emissions.

Let me be clear: my concerns are not a judgment on whether the Government are right or wrong to suggest that zero emission vehicles will be most effective. The issue is rather that limiting the measure’s scope to a smaller subset of non-petrol and non-diesel fuels makes them far too narrow.

[Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that the regulations could be of serious detriment to the UK’s synthetic biology research community? Significant effort is going into the creation of engineered bugs that can turn renewable matter, such as sugar cane, into fuel for internal combustion engines. In a circular economy, that would represent a completely renewable source of energy that would be carbon neutral throughout its entire life cycle.

[Greg Smith]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that point, which I have been making for many years. I certainly did so during my time on the Transport Committee in the previous Parliament, and outside this place, as I have engaged with the classic car sector and all parts of the industry. He is right that there is a big innovative drive for sustainable fuels, if I can call them that. Some of them derive from feedstocks, others from waste matter, and they work in the internal combustion engines that we already have—in jet engines as well as motor vehicle engines.

There are also entirely man-made synthetic fuels that require no such feedstocks. They do not require food to be grown in order to be burned. There are innovators on that in this country and all over the world. For example, Zero Petroleum, just next door to my constituency—just over the Oxfordshire border at Bicester Heritage—has developed a fuel that works in every jet engine and every internal combustion engine that we enjoy today. It is entirely man-made; it is literally made out of air and water. It is a mixture of green hydrogen with atmospheric carbon capture. However, the ZEV mandate and the approach that the Government are taking in this statutory instrument rule that technology out of order, because there is still carbon at the tailpipe. The regulations ignore the fact that the carbon at the tailpipe is the same volume of carbon that is captured out of the atmosphere to make the next lot of fuel. In fact, a whole-system analysis shows that technology to be carbon-neutral—one volume of carbon is in a perpetual cycle. However, no matter how much Ministers and the Government claim to be technologically neutral, the test at the tailpipe, and the test in this statutory instrument, which explicitly refers to zero emission vehicles, rather than alternatively fuelled vehicles, do in fact mean that the Government pick a technological winner at every step, rather than letting our great innovators innovate.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Greg Smith and Kit Malthouse

Monday 9th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

It is no surprise that a Member of Parliament who is himself very accessible to his constituents on an almost 24/7 basis should want the same for the police. While I would love to sit behind my desk in Whitehall and manage these things from the centre, the truth is that the response times and the disposition of 101 is a matter for the police and crime commissioner and the chief constable in his county. I know that, if he meets them, they will listen to him carefully, because it is extremely important, as he says, that when people pick up the phone to the police—whether it is the 101 service or the 999 service—they do get a good and efficient response. There is nothing that can undermine the confidence of a person in their police force than getting just a recorded message or, indeed, a call that is never answered. Some of that solution is technological and we think that much can be achieved through the Single Online Home, and I urge him to explore it as a reporting mechanism. I wish him good luck with his meeting, and look forward to hearing the conclusions of it.

[Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)]

What progress her Department has made in introducing a points-based immigration system.

Birmingham Attacks and Extinction Rebellion Protests

Debate between Greg Smith and Kit Malthouse

Monday 7th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

Not all crimes are violent.

[Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)]

I agree with my hon. Friend in his comments earlier that a consequence of a protest turning to criminality has a cost in resources, time and priorities for our brave police officers. Will he therefore look at a legislative route that might enable us to reclaim policing costs from individuals and campaign groups when protest turns to criminality in their name?

[Kit Malthouse]

My hon. Friend raises an interesting point to which I will give due attention as we go into the spending round.