Select Committee on European Scrutiny Twentieth Report


2 Promotion of clean road vehicles

(27162)

5130/06

COM(05) 634

+ ADD 1

Draft Directive on the promotion of clean road vehicles


Commission Staff Working Document: Annex to the draft Directive on the promotion of clean road vehicles

Legal baseArticle 175(1)EC; co-decision; QMV
Document originated21 December 2005
Deposited in Parliament11 January 2006
DepartmentTransport
Basis of considerationEM of 30 January 2006
Previous Committee ReportNone
To be discussed in CouncilNo date set
Committee's assessmentPolitically important
Committee's decisionFor debate in European Standing Committee

Background

2.1 In recent years, the Commission has put forward a number of Communications on energy, addressing such areas as security of supply, and the need for efficiency savings if the Community is to improve air quality standards and at the same time reduce greenhouse gas emissions so as to meet its commitments under the Kyoto Protocol. These have highlighted the continuing growth in the number of vehicles, and the consequent need, despite the progress already made, for further measures to reduce emissions — points emphasized again recently in the Commission's review of the Community's Sustainable Development Strategy[5] and the proposed Biomass Action Plan.[6]

2.2 The principal means of reducing vehicle emissions have been the mandatory "Euro" standards, first introduced in 1970 as a necessary condition for obtaining vehicle type approval, and progressively tightened since then. In addition, there has since 1999 been a more stringent, but voluntary, "Enhanced Environmentally friendly Vehicle" (EEV) standard for those over 3.5 tonnes. We are reporting separately on a proposal[7] to introduce the next stage (Euro V) of mandatory emission controls for new cars and light vans up to 3.5 tonnes weight. This document seeks to encourage the development of a market for "clean" vehicles over 3.5 tonnes meeting the EEV standard.

The current proposal

2.3 The Commission notes that this standard was originally introduced as a means of distinguishing the improved environmental performance of natural gas engines from the diesel engines of that period, but that it is only slightly more stringent that the new Euro V standard which will become compulsory for all new trucks and buses from 1 October 2009 (see Annex I). In view of this, and recent advances in diesel engine technology, it says that it is now likely that Euro V engines would need little or no adjustment to meet the EEV standard. However, it also suggests that, since the technologies required are still more expensive than those used for conventional vehicles, manufacturers are unlikely to respond to local or even national incentives, and that action at Community level is needed to create a market of sufficient size to provide the necessary economies of scale, and to avoid the risk of fragmentation.

2.4 Against this background, it is now proposing that — as foreshadowed in the Sustainable Development Strategy and the Biomass Action Plan — there should be a requirement that 25% of vehicles over 3.5 tonnes[8] purchased or newly leased by the public sector each year should meet the EEV standard of emission control. (It also says that an extension of this obligation to passenger cars and light duty vehicles weighing less than 3.5 tonnes could be considered at a later stage, once environmentally enhanced performance standards have been developed for them.) The measure would apply to public bodies (including those governed by public law) and public undertakings, as well as operators providing transport services under concession from a public body, such as a local authority or Transport for London.

The Government's view

2.5 In his Explanatory Memorandum of 30 January 2006, the Minister of State at the Department of Transport (Dr Stephen Ladyman) says that in principle the Government shares the objectives behind this proposal, and that the UK has given strong support to the European Technologies Action Plan which has agreed to investigate the promotion of environmental technologies through performance-based public procurement requirements.

2.6 However, he says that the Government has a number of reservations, not least over whether the proposal complies with the principle of subsidiarity, on the grounds that it is not clear that public procurement to achieve a policy objective of this kind is best directed at Community level, or that fragmentation of the market is otherwise likely to occur, given that the EEV standard is already laid down in Community law. He also expresses doubts as to whether such an approach is likely to be effective in this case, and whether the EEV standard is the best reference to adopt, suggesting that it might require diesel engines to be tuned in such a way as to increase emissions of carbon dioxide: and he points out that it is uncertain how the proposal as drafted would affect the 80% of bus services outside London which are provided by private sector companies, rather than under contract to a local authority.

2.7 The Minister says that it has not at this stage been possible to estimate with any precision how many vehicles would be covered by the proposal, and hence what its likely costs and benefits would be. He says that a more detailed analysis will be provided as more information becomes available, but that, in the meantime, if public procurement was assumed to account for 20% of the annual bus market in the UK, the overall cost of meeting the EEV standard as compared with the current Euro IV standard might be just under £2 million a year. He adds that this would be likely to fall, as the technology becomes more widespread, and as the Euro V standard (where the cost differential would fall from around £3,500 per vehicle to between £1,000 and £2,000) enters into force in 2009. In addition, there may be differences in operating and maintenance costs, as well as in those arising from the extent to which the proposal leads to the use of electric or hybrid vehicles or those using compressed natural gas.

Conclusion

2.8 Whilst it is undoubtedly desirable that the use of clean vehicles should be encouraged, it seems clear that, quite apart from the difficulties of estimating what the costs and benefits of this proposal might be, it gives rise to a number of more fundamental reservations, relating not just to whether it is necessary (still less effective), but to whether it complies with the principle of subsidiarity. Consequently, whilst we would of course want to see any more detailed cost-benefit analysis which the Government is able to provide when it has more information, we feel that, as it stands, the proposal raises issues which the House will wish to consider further, including the justification for a statutory requirement obliging the public sector when purchasing new vehicles of this kind to have greater regard than the private or voluntary sectors to environmental standards. We are therefore recommending it for debate in European Standing Committee.

ANNEX I

EURO IV, EURO V AND EEV EMISSION LIMITS (g/kWh)
Carbon monoxide
Non-methane

hydrocarbons
Methane
Oxides of

Nitrogen
Particulate

matter
Euro IV
4.0
0.55
1.1
3.5
0.03
Euro V
4.0
0.55
1.1
2.0
0.03
EEV
3.0
0.40
0.65
2.0
0.02




5   (27116) 15796/05; see HC 34-xvii (2005-06), para 1 (1 February 2006). Back

6   (27113) 15741/05; see HC 34-xvii (2005-06), para 7 (1 February 2006). Back

7   (27173) 5163/06; see para 7. Back

8   In addition to trucks and buses, this would include HGVs owned by public bodies, refuse trucks, fire engines, and some vehicles owned by the armed forces. Back


 
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