Examination of Witnesses (Questions 580
- 599)
WEDNESDAY 7 JUNE 2006
MR TONY
BOSWORTH, MR
SIMON BULLOCK,
MR RICHARD
DYER AND
MR PETER
LIPMAN
Q580 Joan Walley: Jonathan Porritt
is on the board there, is he not?
Mr Lipman: Yes, that is right.
Unfortunately, they come up with fine-sounding initiatives and
then the local government office ignores them completely. There
are lots of people thinking about the problem but there certainly
is not co-ordinated and coherent leadership.
Q581 Mr Stuart: What is your understanding
of the likely conclusions of the Eddington Review, and what implications
do you think that could have for future carbon emissions?
Mr Bullock: We do not know what
the Eddington Review is likely to conclude. It is our understanding
that it has been delayed somewhat. We are really quite concerned
about the review. The terms of reference are quite wide-ranging
but we feel overall, reading between the lines, that there seems
to be quite a narrow focus on improving the productivity of the
economy without looking at the effects on the environment and
on people. Also, there is an assumption, and I think this is a
general political assumption, that transport growth is inextricably
linked to economic growth. I think that SATRA 1999 proved that
that was very far from the case. In fact, if you build in a lot
of carbon-intensive infrastructure which will last us for decades
when we are going to be faced 20 to 30 years from now with major
cuts in carbon emissions, then we are going to be locking ourselves
into a carbon-intensive infrastructure which we cannot use. The
alternative would be to have massive economic damage from climate
change, which is threatening the very productivity on which these
projects are supposed to be delivering. We are quite worried about
the scope and remit in the Eddington Report. We will be very interested
to see the first report from that. We have been putting in evidence
to that review.
Q582 Dr Turner: Emissions from cars
are obviously a big concern of ours. It is very nice that the
major car manufacturers have a voluntary agreement in the EU.
It is just a pity that they seem likely to miss the targets by
a mile. Why do you think this is?
Mr Bosworth: I think it is clear
that they are falling well short of the target. In the last nine
years, they have cut the average emissions from new cars by about
20 gms per kilometre and in the next three years they have to
go down about another 30 gms per kilometre if they are going to
meet their target. So we are falling well short. I think you will
see that there are probably two reasons for this. The first is
that the industry is not producing or marketing lower carbon cars;
and, secondly, that the Government is not giving strong enough
incentives to motorists to buy and use those greener cars. Looking
first at the industry, the industry says it is responding to what
the consumer wants, and what the consumer wants is the more powerful,
heavier car. However, this implies that the industry cannot change
consumer behaviour, it cannot change consumer preference, despite
having one of the highest advertising budgets of any UK economic
sector. We get a vicious circle. The industry says it is responding
to what the consumer wants, so it advertises those sorts of cars,
so those are the cars which the consumers want, and you can see
how it carries on. We did some analysis of advertising last year.
We looked at the adverts in national newspapers in the first two
weeks of September, which were the first two weeks of the new
55 registration, and therefore a key time when there were going
to be lot of cars sold. We found out that over half of the adverts
placed by car manufacturers in those two weeks were for cars in
the highest two vehicle excise duty bands and only 3% were for
cars in the lowest two bands, so there is a very clear sense of
the cars that the industry is pushing to consumers. If we are
looking at Government incentives, the VED bands were changed at
the March Budget but maybe insufficiently to force the pace of
change. We welcome the changes that came in but maybe it is something
of a lost opportunity. The £40 increase for gas-guzzlers
is less than the cost of one tank of petrol for many of the cars
which it would affect. The bottom line is: yes, the industry is
almost certain to miss the target. I think the Government itself
has recognised that this is a problem. One of the last statements
by the previous Transport Secretary before he left office or before
he was moved on was that the time has come for us to consider
mandatory agreements because not enough progress has been made,
and most people would expect car manufacturers to be producing
cars which are cleaner than they are at present. So the industry
has a long way to go. I think the challenge now is not so much
what we can do to make the industry meet the 2008 target but what
happens after 2008, what will the subsequent target be, and how
will we make sure the industry meets that?
Q583 Dr Turner: My own impression
is that an awful lot of the car advertising is for models that
are extremely high in carbon emissions. It is not helped possibly
by the fact that the reported emissions are derived from driving
cars under ideal conditions on a test track, and may be rather
lower than reality when people are either driving in traffic jams
or the cars are being hammered round by boy racers when I suspect
that CO2 emissions may be very much higher. What is
your understanding of the real position?
Mr Bosworth: There are differences
between the test cycle emissions and the actual on the road emissions.
One of the problems for this is that the test cycle does not really
reflect the reality of modern, real-world driving; it does not
reflect modern road conditions. The acceleration and deceleration
rates which are involved in the test cycle may be more sedate
than are actually used on the road. The maximum speeds are lower
than are typical on the roads today. There is less stop-start
driving, which is a feature of modern-day driving. The consequence
is that real fuel consumption and emissions are invariably higher
than what the test cycles report. Also, Express magazine,
amongst others, did a survey last year which found that cars are
on average about 17 to 20% less economic than the official claims.
The European Commission is just finishing a project, the ARTEMIS
project, which is being co-ordinated by TRL in the UK which is
looking at the reliability of emissions models. I understand that
is due to report in the next month or so. It is very important
not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. A car which, say,
records emissions on the test site of, say, 120 gms per kilometre
is probably going to be more efficient in real life, in real world
conditions, than one which records emissions on the test site
of, say, 150 gms per kilometre. I think there is still a clear
indication given to motorists of the right choice between cars,
if you want to choose a greener car, but it does have some important
consequences for Government policy.
Q584 Dr Turner: Is not one of the
consequences, surely, that cars make such a large contribution
to our national CO2 emissions that we are getting a
false impression of our national CO2 emissions by this
underestimate?
Mr Bosworth: I think that is right
and it means that the estimates of likely savings from voluntary
agreements are going to be over-optimistic. It shows that we need
to both hit the 140 gms per kilometre target for 2008 and we need
a tough target to follow that for 2012. Maybe it also shows that
there is a greater need for behavioural change as we cannot always
rely on technology to deliver what it is claiming.
Q585 Dr Turner: At the moment, as
it stands, there does not seem to be much incentive for car makers
to adapt and develop lower carbon cars. In fact, I think they
seem to be spending more effort on making even bigger, heavier,
faster, higher carbon cars rather than lower ones, with the exception
of things like the Prius. What do you think the Government can
do to incentivise manufacturers?
Mr Bosworth: Many of the key decisions
on this are taken at European level, and so the role of the Government
is to push for an agreement at this level. We need to see a tough
regulation for 2012, which is the target date for the next round
of efficiency targets. We need some mandatory agreements which
will have some binding force on manufacturers. That is one of
the sticks that we can have. That form of regulation is now needed
because the voluntary approach, I think we can say, has failed.
We do need that tougher mandatory agreement, which is going to
force the pace of technological change within car manufacturers.
There are also ways in which manufacturers can benefit. Maybe
they can learn the lessons from America where sales of gas guzzlers,
such as trucks and SUVs, are down steeply in recent months with
the rising oil prices but sales of smaller cars are up strongly.
Only yesterday, business leaders went to see the Prime Minister
and were calling for tougher action on climate change so that
they could encourage innovation. I think that could apply as much
in the car industry as in any other industry. In a way, the manufacturers
are missing a trick in their advertising. They could show that
a greener car does not just cut emissions but that, by having
a lower fuel consumption, it is also saving the driver money.
That is a way in which the manufacturers could be seen to increase
their market share by showing that if they are producing lower
carbon cars, they are going to be saving drivers money as well
as doing their bit for the environment.
Q586 Emily Thornberry: Ford is supporting
one of their cars with an advert that it has a bicycle in it.
Have you noticed that? It is absolutely extraordinary!
Mr Lipman: Ford's Model T was
actually more efficient than the average fuel efficiency across
the whole Ford fleet is now, so that gives you a clear impression
of the technological silver bullet that is coming to save us!
That does come back to an underlying point, which is how energy
literate are we as a society. It is interesting to talk about
hybrids and hear people saying, "This is going to help".
Actually, it takes maybe 15 or more likely 20 years to replace
half of the car fleet at current rates. What about the manufacturing
costs? If you manufacture a hybrid, you are manufacturing two
engines and the carbon emissions from manufacturing a hybrid are
significantly higher than the emissions of manufacturing an ordinary
car. If we are going to start to approach this whole question
in an energy-intelligent way, we have to look at the whole life
cycle of the products and think how long it takes to get that
infrastructure out there for most people. Current sales of so-called
efficient cars, and they probably are more efficient over their
whole life, are minuscule. I think this is really whistling in
the dark to try to avoid the behaviour change which is going to
have to be forced on us.
Q587 Mark Pritchard: When we were
in Holland we had a go at eco-driving. Some of us were better
than others. I wondered whether you had a view on eco-driving.
There are many people, part-time eco-drivers if you like, with
Gatso cameras usually behind them. I wondered if you had a view
on whether eco-driving works and is being trialled anywhere in
the UK and, if not, should it be?
Mr Lipman: Eco-driving appears
to save between 10 and 15% on emissions when carried out on a
large scale. Therefore, really it should be encouraged. One of
the Sustrans programmes is called Travel Smart in which we go
to people with information on how you can more easily walk, cycle
or use public transport. If you want to change the way you drive,
we are trying to see how you can also start to eco-drive. The
scale of the problem is such that we have to try everything, but
10 to 15% is not to be sneezed at. I would like to see far greater
support for that sort of thing, to be honest, than speculative
investment in hydrogen fuel cells and technologies which are 20
to 30 years away from delivery.
Mr Bullock: We would echo that
point. The Government seems to be very focused on efficiency measures
and technical improvements or driving better. That is all well
and good, but basically we need measures across the three basic
ways of reducing carbon emissions. The other two are reducing
the need to drive and then shifting to alternative modes. You
need all three of those really. We are concerned that the Government
is focusing heavily on pure efficiency measures probably because
it feels the other measures are more politically difficult.
Q588 Tim Farron: You will have seen
yesterday the report of the Corporate Leaders' Group Climate Change
that basically asks for much tougher targets. Presumably you are
familiar with what they have asked for. Would you comment upon
that request basically by the leaders of industry calling on the
Government to set them tougher targets?
Mr Bullock: I think that is a
very positive move and a good thing to see. There has been a lot
of concern from groups like ourselves and progressive businesses
that lobby groups like the CBI have been very antagonistic towards
regulation, asserting that regulation damages the competitiveness
of the UK economy and therefore is a reason not to have tougher
environmental standards. There is an awful lot of evidence to
show that that argument is bogus and that strong, well-designed
environmental regulations, taxes, spending measures, whatever,
can be very good for competitiveness because they increase innovation,
because they make individual companies more efficient in using
their resources and because they are also preventing long-term
economic damage from climate change. There are a lot of very strong
arguments why environmental measures should be a very positive
thing for the economy. Another thing that happened yesterday was
the launch of the Aldersgate Group, which is a mixture of businesses
and the Environment Agency, Friends of the Earth and some unions,
all coming together hopefully to start to lay to rest this myth
that the environment and competitiveness are in conflict. What
we really want to see is a strong economy and a strong environment.
This idea that the CBI mainly put about that regulation is bad
for the economy and the environment is really quite a bogus argument.
We welcome the statement yesterday from those business groups.
Q589 Tim Farron: Getting back to
the specifics and motoring and the question I was about to ask
anyway, this is with regard to the subsidy through the PowerShift
grants that the European Commission have now agreed. Could I ask
any of you what impact you think that will have on emissions?
Mr Bosworth: I understand that
the new grants approved by the Commission are slightly different
from PowerShift grants; they are low carbon vehicle grants, which
means they are not technology-specific which the PowerShift grants
were because they were for alternative fuels. The ball is now
in the DfT's court; they have to decide whether or not they want
to go ahead with the scheme. We would strongly encourage them
to do so as it is only going to help encourage the low carbon
vehicle market. A survey recently from the SMMT showed that 90%
of drivers said they were willing to buy a greener car and 36%
of those said that they would do so if there was a Government
grant to help them. I think those sorts of grants are important
and we would encourage the DfT to pursue them.
Q590 Tim Farron: On a related issue,
this committee before I became a member of it heard evidence relating
to the fact that we could make a significant difference in terms
of carbon emissions if we simply enforced the speed limit on motorways.
I am just imagining the tabloid outcry if this comes out of the
Department for Transport. How do you convince the Department for
Transport that they should do this, and how do you help them to
manage public opinion?
Mr Lipman: That is very interesting
because we are sitting here in Parliament and I had always hoped
that the Department for Transport would do what it was told by
Parliament and that really should be the way it works. There was
a time when drink driving was completely acceptable and we all
know now that it is a rare person who would deem it acceptable
to become drunk and get in a car. Similarly, there was a time
when smoking was widely accepted. You might smoke next to a baby.
Again, there has been a shift. There has been a lot of research
done, not by DfT but more at Defra's instance, on how do we start
to change public attitudes around climate change. It is harder
than some behavioural changes because it is so built into us all
that driving—maybe driving fast on empty roads or whatever—is
a freedom, after years and years of advertising and it was quite
subliminal. I think there does need to be a careful national programme
of changing attitudes. It needs to avoid the danger of paralysing
people through terror and saying, "It is all hopeless because
in fact one Chinese province is going to pump out more CO2
than the whole of the UK, and so we might as well all party and
jump on cheap flights to Majorca". It is a really difficult
one. However, against that, I am sure we would all agree that
within the last just six months, there has been an extraordinary
change in public perception of the importance of climate change,
and just with the Attenborough programmes in the last couple of
weeks. We do now have an ever increasing perception of the importance
of climate change. There needs to be clear guidance from Parliament
to DfT I would say that they have to take this on. They spent
years not wanting a PSA obligation and then finally only accepting
a joint PSA obligation. At some point it has to come down to DfT.
We need a Secretary of State and we need a Parliament which is
saying to DfT, "Transport is the major sector now for growth
in emissions. You have to deal with this and this has to be the
number one priority, not somewhere way down the wish list".
Q591 Tim Farron: This is something
I do not think is on anybody else's list of questions but it is
important to me with a constituency like mine that is very rural.
How do you propose that we allow rural communities to be sustainable
and economically sustainable and to grow whilst trying to tackle
climate change, obviously with the stick side of things rather
than the carrot?
Mr Lipman: I think we need some
imaginative legal changes to do with issues like insurance. We
need a system where if you are in any village, you can charge
someone else for driving them somewhere and that would not somehow
impact on your insurance. We are already talking to Cornwall about
how we could have some kind of pilot system where you are saying
that there are community taxis, everyone's car then becomes a
community taxi. It is a totally different problem in rural areas
than it is in urban areas. We need that fundament shift where
we say that everyone shares their cars as much as possible.
Q592 Emily Thornberry: You were talking
earlier about road pricing and you explained that you were disappointed
that the Department for Transport's policy on road pricing seems
to be based on tackling congestion. Given that we have to bring
the public with us, is it not possible to have a road pricing
system based on tackling congestion and sold as being based on
tackling congestion, which can also, at the same time, address
the issue of climate change? Is it not possible to do the same
thing? I appreciate that in the evidence that you have given to
us you talk about a revenue-neutral system, which might result
in an increase in emissions. Do you have any evidence that that
is what the Department for Transport is really going to do or
is it not possible it would simply be sold to the public on the
basis of reducing queuing in particular parts of Britain and will
in fact be able, as you have described it, also to reduce emissions?
Mr Bosworth: I think it is essential
as a starting point to say that technology is not going to solve
our transport problems and we do need the behavioural change as
well. Road pricing can be an important part of that, but it is
not going to be a magic bullet. Road pricing on its own will not
change people's behaviour; we need the investment in better alternatives;
we need improved land use planning to reduce the need for people
to travel. Road pricing could help contribute to that behavioural
change. The key thing is that the Department for Transport must
design a system that is going to help cut climate emissions. If
it is simply looking at reducing congestion and having a revenue-neutral
scheme under which the extra cost to motorists of driving is given
back through cuts in fuel duty or VED—
Q593 Emily Thornberry: I understand
that. Have you heard from the department that that is what they
are going to do?
Mr Bosworth: The indications are
that the department is unwilling to see road user pricing as an
additional charge on top of existing taxes on transport.
Q594 Chairman: Can I press you a
little bit on this point? Surely it all depends on the terms on
which road pricing was introduced. Even if it was on a revenue-neutral
basis, if the structure of road pricing charges was such that
it became very high, possibly even painful, for vehicles that
have high emissions but actually cut the cost of road use for
vehicles with very low emissions, you could, surely, achieve a
significant behavioural change without increasing the total burden
of taxation?
Mr Bosworth: I think that is theoretically
possible, yes, but again I think the Department for Transport
has indicated that it does not want a scheme which would have
rates of charges which differed according to the emissions of
the car because they see that as being too complex. I do not think
that is likely.
Q595 Chairman: I understand that
the department may not want to go down that route. Looking at
the concept of road pricing, it is a tool which could be used
to achieve behavioural change, if someone was willing to use it.
The technology now makes it much more achievable than the Department
may want to acknowledge. It could be used in quite a positive
way?
Mr Bosworth: It certainly could.
Whatever road pricing system is brought in, it must be designed
to cut climate emissions and it must maintain the incentives for
people to buy and use greener cars. If we have a system which
removes or reduces the incentives to buy and use greener cars,
then that is not a system which we could support.
Q596 David Howarth: Could you compare
for us the advantages and disadvantages of road pricing as against
a straightforward carbon tax or a fuel tax?
Mr Bosworth: There are advantages
in having a road pricing system in that it will give a clearer
indication to motorists that it is not just about the cost of
their motoring at the point of use. I think the problem is that
many motorists see fuel tax go up each year and the fuel cost
is almost the sum cost. Once the petrol is in the tank, they do
not think so much about how much they use their car. If they are
thinking about "how much is it going to cost me to make this
next journey, how much is it going to cost me to drive to work",
I think that that will start making drivers think a little bit
more about how and when they use their car, whether it is really
needed for the journey which they are about to make, and whether
or not there are good alternatives.
Q597 David Howarth: So the advantage
of road pricing is that drivers are more conscious of the cost
as it ticks up than they are with tax? Is that the point?
Mr Bullock: That is one the points.
One of the disadvantages of it is clearly that we do not know
yet whether the Government is going to implement the system that
does anything about carbon emissions. At least with road fuel
duty increases, that is very clearly linked to carbon emissions.
There is also the politics around it as well. The Government seems
very intent on introducing road pricing but very reluctant to
do anything at all about road fuel prices because it got so badly
stung in 2000. A point we have made to the committee before is
that we really do not believe that road fuel price increases are
that politically toxic. I think it was all to do with design.
If you do what Ken Livingstone did about buses and the road user
charges and you make the alternatives decent for people, then
they are going to be far more willing to stomach increases. I
do not think any motorist would want to see his costs going up
if there was no alternative for him other than just to lump it,
basically. That is an argument for a very strong package of measures
where we are not just talking about pricing or taxes but a package
that gives positive things for people to do instead, rather than
just sticks.
Q598 Mark Pritchard: On that point,
you mentioned taxes, regulations, a whole raft of measures which
might be perceived by some as aggressive measures. You touched
on something perhaps a bit more progressive there, incentivising
people to change their behaviour, to make different choices and
travel choices. I catch the bus in every day. (I am making the
point because some people carry on coming in their cars and I
come on the bus.) Going on the bus is a pleasurable experience,
now it is clean and the bus runs on time. I have not heard too
much, apart from that last comment, about what you as a major
and key lobby group are encouraging the Government to do vis-a"-vis
tax breaks and subsidies for train journeys rather than car journeys.
I wondered whether you have something to say on that.
Mr Bullock: Yes, and Tony may
come in when I forget lots of things here. We were part of the
Way to Go coalition which inputted a whole raft of different spending
measures that the Government could put in place to get decent
alternatives to road transport in the last mini Comprehensive
Spending Review. That analysis still stands and it is our view
that it would be a far better use of Government money on all of
its public service agreements to take the money out of road building
and put it into travel plans, bus passes, making the walking and
cycling infrastructure better, improving the quality of life of
cities and making buses better, a whole raft of things. We could
send you a copy of the report which has all of that in it. A lot
of it is well worked out and detailed stuff from a whole range
of organisations, not just environmental groups but social groups
and groups for the elderly like Help the Aged. A lot of groups
have signed up to it and so it has a wide range of support.
Mr Bosworth: There is a clear
agenda on what needs to be done to encourage this behavioural
change, which is absolutely essential. The sorts of measures we
put forward in the Way to Go report which is called
Paying for Better Transport were cycle-friendly road networks,
networks for bus lanes, safer routes for schools. lower speed
limits, a national rail card and funding for rail freight projects.
All those sorts of measures are going both to help cut carbon
emissions and also improve the quality of life in local areas.
This is part of the behavioural change which we need to encourage
alongside the technology.
Q599 Mark Pritchard: Coming on to
air travel, I wonder what your thoughts are on the remit and possible
conclusions of the Government's 2003 White Paper Future of
Air Transport.
Mr Dyer: That is my area. Fundamentally,
we agree with what the committee said previously that the Government's
approach is essentially to predict more accurately. They do not
provide the actual infrastructure. Since the White Paper came
out, we have seen it is increasingly out of step with climate
policy. It was at the time but even more so now with the improved
understanding we have and scientists saying more and more that
we need to be aiming for 450 parts per million carbon concentration
target. We have seen the Tyndall Report and the committee's own
report which says it is going to be very difficult, if not impossible,
to meet a 60% cut by 2050 with aviation growth as it is. What
the Government is doing is talking about a progress review and
what is needed is something far more fundamental—a fundamental
re-think of policy. Friend of the Earth, along with other major
environmental organisations and community groups around airports,
are going to be launching a campaign quite shortly on that called
Re-think, calling for a fundamental re-think of policy
and what we want from this review. I will not go into the full
details of that campaign. Basically, obviously climate is top
of the agenda on that but other things, like the fact that the
Government's White Paper is based on growth predictions and it
is assumed that oil will stay at $25 per barrel, are clearly not
the case already, and they were making that assumption right up
to 2030. They also assumed that the tax-free status for aviation
will remain the same. I think that is a very unreliable assumption.
There are lots of other points we want to make about the review
and demands for things that they should do. The key point here
is really climate. It is quite irresponsible of the Government
and a bit head-in-the-sand to be planning for huge capacity in
runways when clearly we have this big threat of climate change,
which could make filling those runways very difficult or irresponsible.
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