Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of providing the transport industry with assistance towards investment in greener trucks.

Decarbonising transport is a key priority for the government and we have just published our world-leading plan, “Decarbonising Transport: A Better, Greener Britain’ which outlines our commitments to decarbonise transport, including the road freight sector, and achieve net zero by 2050.

We are supporting the transport industry to invest in greener trucks through a wide range of measures. This includes £20m this year to develop Zero Emission Road Freight Trials which will support UK industry to develop cost-effective, zero-emission HGVs and their refuelling infrastructure in the UK. Trials will invest in research, innovation and construction of zero emission HGVs by UK based business and SMEs to support the development of cutting-edge HGV technology, breaking down barriers to adoption and speeding up the decarbonisation of our road freight sector.

Government supports transport industry investment in low emission trucks through the £23 million Hydrogen for Transport Programme, which funds the deployment of hydrogen vehicles and refuelling stations. The £20m Future Fuels for Flight and Freight Competition matched capital funding to projects that produced low carbon waste-based fuels to be used in aeroplanes and HGVs and the £20 million Low Emission Freight and Logistics Trial supported industry-led R&D projects trialing low-emission technologies for freight.

Finally, Government is providing £582 million to continue the plug-in grants.

The plug-in truck grant (PiTG) encourages the uptake of cutting-edge, zero emission HGVs by reducing the purchase price of zero emission commercial vehicles. From March 2021 the PiTG was increased to 20% of the purchase price, up to a maximum of £25,000, for large trucks greater than 12 tonnes. The grant rate was increased in recognition of the higher upfront cost of these vehicles.