Mr.
Leech: I do not intend to say a great deal other
than that we fully support these proposals too. My only concern is the
massive discrepancy between the Government
position and the calculation made by the Commission. A lot more work
needs to be done to encourage the Commission to explain how it reached
its conclusion. Hopefully, the Government are wrong and the Commission
is right. The big debate about the massive increase in the use of fuel
will not be as big a problem. Certainly, the Commission should be open
and forthright about how it has made that calculation. I hope that the
Government will do some additional work to try to get that information
out of
it. 5.26
pm
Jim
Fitzpatrick: I am grateful for the opportunity to make
some closing remarks. I will restrict myself to trying to respond to
one or two of the points that I failed to respond to earlier. I
apologise if I do not cover everything and I will scour Hansard
and write to hon. Members with clearer answers to questions that I do
not address
now. The
hon. Member for Manchester, Withington asked why there will be a
criminal offence. My understanding is that it will be for each state to
set proportionate and dissuasive penalties. That decision will be made
in due course. He also asked how many vehicles were failing the Euro V
regulations. Just to make sure that I got on the record the exact
position, the Euro V regulations are for new vehicles, as these will
be. Thus there are no new vehicles that fail the Euro V standards at
present. This standard will be mandatory from 2009. That is consistent:
all Euro standards are for all new vehicles and all new vehicles will
meet the Euro VI standard from
2014.
Mr.
Leech: I was trying to establish what proportion of
vehicles—obviously not new vehicles—are still on the road
that do not meet those standards, along the lines of what the hon.
Member for South Thanet was saying. Clearly, we all want to introduce
new standards for new vehicles, but there is this big issue of older
polluting vehicles. If we do not know how many of them are on the road
and how much pollution they are creating, we will not be able to find a
solution.
Jim
Fitzpatrick: That is a fair point. Indeed, my hon. Friend
the Member for Luton, North, who is no longer in his place, raised a
similar one. Lorries and buses that meet the new standards will begin
to be introduced from 2013. Renewing the entire fleet will take 20
years on current projections, although the bulk of the lorry fleet will
be renewed and replaced within seven years, so there will be some
tail-ending of the vehicle change over.
My hon.
Friend the Member for South Thanet asked when old vehicles should be
abandoned, and I can tell him, in a similar vein to the response that I
just gave the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington, that commercial vehicles have
relatively short lives, so banning them has never been considered
necessary. Local authorities have the power to restrict access of older
vehicles to polluted areas where they believe it is appropriate to do
so. My hon. Friend claimed that he would be prepared to wait a year
longer to get the benefits more clearly manifest, but sadly a number of
member states want the earlier introduction in 2014, a point to which I
alluded in my speech. As I discussed with the hon. Member for
Wimbledon, that is where we are and where we hope to
be. I have been advised that the US heavy goods vehicle fleet now
largely runs on diesel, whereas until fairly recently it was mostly
petrol. That has changed in recent years. The hon.
Member for Wimbledon asked about consultation with manufacturers. We
have had informal contact with some manufacturers and trade bodies and
will undertake formal consultation shortly. Our specialist contractors
have a close relationship with the manufacturers, which is where they
get their expertise. My final point is to confirm for him that the
Ricardo report will be made available in due course on the
Department’s website, and I will alert him to that when it
happens. Question
put and agreed
to. Committee
rose at twenty-two minutes to Six
o’clock.
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