Road Vehicle Carbon Dioxide Emission Performance Standards (Cars and Vans) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2021

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Thursday 8th July 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Berkeley (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I, too, am grateful to the noble Baroness for introducing this draft SI. She tried valiantly to make it intelligible, and she did better than the text of the SI itself, which is, probably of necessity, pretty opaque.

I have been looking at some of the issues in the Explanatory Memorandum and, in particular, paragraphs 6.1 and 6.2. I find it surprising that the amendments, being necessary, were thought of only on 18 December 2020, which was two weeks, including Christmas, before Brexit day. This may not be as important as the measures on importing fresh meat, and everything else, which are still being discussed between the UK and the EU in respect of Northern Ireland, but it does seem to have been completely forgotten. The Minister tried very hard in her explanation to rescue what is probably just about impossible to rescue.

I have one or two questions on the Explanatory Memorandum itself. First, on paragraph 7.5, we noted that no EU or UK regulations apply to Northern Ireland between now and 1 August, I think the Minister said. Does that mean that manufacturers who had been on the ball could have introduced the dirtiest possible emissions in cars, vans and other vehicles during the six to seven months when there have been no regulations, and nobody could do anything about it? Presumably, for that reason, nobody has been fined or even caught.

The Minister mentioned “pooling”, which is mentioned in paragraph 7.10 of the Explanatory Memorandum. It is easy to say that that is a good thing, because overall it will balance out the more polluting with the less polluting vehicles. However, I recall the failure of Volkswagen. The subsequent court cases are still ongoing, because it was alleged to have fiddled the figures on emissions—and one or two other manufacturers are, I suspect, saying, “There but for the grace of God go we”. This seems to be a way out for manufacturers to get away with anything they want. I hope that I am wrong and that the Minister will tell me if I am wrong, because it seems very odd.

That also applies to paragraph 7.16 and the phrase “carve out provision”. To me, a carve-up is something that should not be done but often is done to get away with what you should not get away with. Whether carving out is any different, I do not know, but I am sure that the Minister can explain why that phrase is used and what it means. It seems to me to allow manufacturers and distributers of vehicles—cars and vans in Northern Ireland—to register whatever they like from the present period up to 1 August, which reflects pretty badly on the Government’s arrangements there. On whether it will make any difference to emissions or pollution, I look forward to hearing what the Minister says because, as the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, said, we are looking for much more definitive information than we have at the moment on how we get to zero carbon.

Finally, with this extraordinarily complex but no doubt necessary regulation, what is actually wrong with keeping the EU regulations, even if we change the name so that Europe does not appear in the title? It might be a lot easier.