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

Lord Moynihan Excerpts

Thursday 8th July 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

I am very grateful to the Minister, who has outlined the changes to the regulations which amended the amended regulations and covered the specific issue regarding Northern Ireland, for reasons that she explained very clearly to the Committee.

This short debate also gives us the opportunity to consider some of the substantive issues behind the regulations. Alongside the decision to phase out the sale of new petrol and diesel cars and vans from 2030 and introduce new plug-in hybrid electric vehicles from 2035, the regulations are part of a very welcome set of regulations.

However, the key question remains: how do the Government intend to strengthen and reform vehicle CO₂ performance and emissions standards to ensure that emissions from non-ZEV—zero-emission vehicle—sales continue to drop ahead of their full phase-out? Does my noble friend accept the views of Energy UK that the key objectives of the policy framework should be: making ZEVs more affordable—a key consumer concern, and an important part of a just transition; increasing the supply of ZEVs, a key challenge at present; continuing to drive improvement in all new cars and vans, to avoid emissions from non-ZEVs increasing ahead of their phase-out; providing certainty to consumers and industry to unlock private investment and provide a strong signal to the public about the direction of travel; coming in at an acceptable cost to the taxpayer; and providing good value for money? In summary, Energy UK says that the Government should

“Introduce a zero emission vehicles … mandate to provide a clear and binding trajectory for the increase in ZEV sales leading up to 2035.”


On CO₂ emission standards, do the Government intend to provide a way to incrementally reduce emissions from new non-ZEVs by publicising them clearly and well in advance, and will they consider strengthening standards now?

Does the Minister agree that consistency in policy, transparency and adequate timing are all essential? To date, the scandals reported around monitoring emissions are important considerations. I believe that we have already learned the lessons from them. Baseline measurements and transparency are required. To ensure transparency in the emissions measurement process and to eliminate any doubt about the specific data reported by manufacturers, the emission reporting process and tools must be completely transparent to the Government, the trade and the general public for verification processes. This includes both the yearly emissions measurements as well as the specific reported CO₂ emissions within the respective subgroups as defined by the original regulations. Does the Minister further agree that it will be key to the future decarbonisation of the heavy-duty transport sector to set ambitious and forward-looking CO₂ targets—as I believe she intends—with strong zero and low-emission vehicle targets? Ambitious regulation and binding targets are key to reducing the risk of investing in zero-emission technology.

I support my noble friend’s work in this sector, I am very grateful to her, and I support the amending regulations before the Committee.