Draft Road Vehicles and Non-Road Mobile Machinery (Type-Approval) (Amendment and Transitional Provisions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2022 Draft Road Vehicle Carbon Dioxide Emission Performance standards (Cars, Vans and Heavy Duty Vehicles) (Amendment) Regulations 2022

Debate between Richard Graham and Richard Holden

Wednesday 23rd November 2022 General Committees

[Mr Holden]

Yes, indeed—on markets using EU approvals issued by an EU approval authority, or to seek approval for EU rules from the VCA, known as a UK (NI) approval. GB-based manufacturers will have the same choice when selling in Northern Ireland. Whichever route manufacturers choose, they will be able to sell products—the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right—throughout the rest of Great Britain without additional approval. The point at the moment is that we want to get these regulations on the statute book in advance of anything further. Particularly with respect to bus manufacturing, which has a significant presence in Northern Ireland, we may wish at some further point to derogate.

References to type approval are fundamental to the regulations as they determine which vehicles are in scope of either scheme, as well as defining who will receive a carbon dioxide emissions target, including a fine for any non-compliance. A number of minor EU exit-related deficiencies, and a simple typo made in a previous statutory instrument, are also corrected by this instrument.

The type approval instrument creates an independent GB type approval scheme for cars, buses and goods vehicles, continues the interim regime for other categories of motor vehicle, and creates a similar interim regime for machinery engines.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

Can my hon. Friend just clarify something for the slower members of the class, i.e. me? Page 16 of the regulations refers to the differences between GB type approval, UK (NI) type approval and EU type approval. Were, for example, the bus manufacturers in Northern Ireland to decide that they wished, for all sorts of good reasons, to have different regulations surrounding their bus manufacture, and if that were approved by the Government, that would change GB type approval and UK (NI) type approval, and the resulting buses would be available for sale under those rules here across the UK, but would they also be available for sale in the EU, if they differed from the EU type approval?

[Mr Holden]

No, because if in future the regulations differed, they would affect the UK, but not the rest of the EU, so they would potentially be different regulations. At the moment, the regulations are essentially the same in the EU and Northern Ireland. For example, although Nissan, near my constituency, which has experience of this, imports several parts of cars and cars from Japan, they are not made in the UK under the Nissan badge. They have to meet UK or EU standards at the moment, whereas there are different standards when Nissan is selling to, say, to east Asia. At the moment, those are not the same as those we see in the EU. We have had the same regulations. The UK (NI) regulations and the GB regulations are going to be the same as in the EU at the start, however in future we will see what happens and what differences there might be.

[Richard Graham]

I am grateful to the Minister for allowing me to come back on this. If we were to manufacture buses in Northern Ireland with the intention of selling them in south-east Asia, for example, would the Department do research on whether the Asian standards required for their buses were compatible with whatever changes we might want to make to GB and UK law?

[Mr Holden]

I think if a company is manufacturing purely for export, it can manufacture purely to the standards of the other country it is exporting to, so it would totally depend. The VCA works internationally and has offices in eight countries, including in all our major manufacturing partners that export cars or car parts to the UK, including India. We do a lot of international work, and a lot of it comes through the VCA, because Britain is recognised, even post EU exit, as an important and independent international body when recognising such regulations.

[Richard Graham]

So is the overall purpose simply the conversion of EU law into UK law, or is the intention to do that, but also pave the way for further changes that may be beneficial to manufacturers?