PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
Draft Vehicle Emissions Trading Schemes (Amendment) Order 2024 - 29 October 2024 (Commons/General Committees)

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Vehicle Emissions Trading Schemes (Amendment) Order 2024.

It is a great honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. It was the great Mancunian Daniel Adamson who in the 1860s envisaged a northern region from the Mersey estuary to the Humber estuary, hence the Manchester ship canal; I hope that one day a Government of some ilk will finish his work and join up the northern region properly from Merseyside to the Humber estuary.

The Vehicle Emissions Trading Schemes Order 2023, which implemented the zero emission vehicle mandate, came into force in January this year. It sets targets for the registration of new zero emission cars and vans as a proportion of total new car and van sales. The draft order will amend the 2023 order for the purpose of facilitating the Northern Ireland Assembly’s decision that Northern Ireland should join the scheme, as well as making some technical updates. This amendment will bring Northern Ireland into alignment with the rest of the UK. It represents an important milestone on the pathway for the United Kingdom to achieve 100% zero emission new cars and vans by 2035 and net zero by 2050.

When the 2023 order was made, the Northern Ireland Assembly was not sitting. Owing to the requirements of the primary powers used to create the mandate, Northern Ireland was unable to join at the scheme’s commencement; instead, it retained a scaled version of the assimilated European regulations that had previously applied in the UK following Brexit. I am pleased to report that following the Assembly’s return, it has chosen to support joining the ZEV mandate: it approved this legislation on 14 October, thereby approving Northern Ireland’s joining the mandate. I pay tribute to the Minister for Infrastructure, John O’Dowd, and to his officials in the Department for Infrastructure in the Northern Ireland Executive for their hard work in achieving this milestone. I also thank Ministers in the Scottish Government and the Welsh Government for their support.

Once Northern Ireland has joined the ZEV mandate, the ZEV targets and carbon dioxide targets will be applied as a UK-wide average. That means that Northern Ireland’s vehicle market will not, by itself, be required to meet the headline ZEV target in 2025; instead, it will be a part of a UK-wide calculation. It also means that instead of there being two separate emissions regulations to engage with in the UK—one for Great Britain and one for Northern Ireland—there will now be a single framework for new cars and vans. The measure is accordingly supported by vehicle manufacturers, because it will reduce the administrative complexity of engaging with the UK market. It is also supported by the charging industry, as it will give investors the certainty that they need to invest in Northern Ireland as they have in the rest of the UK, where £6 billion of private investment has been committed to the end of the decade. The regulation, as it applies across the UK, is the single largest carbon-saving measure in government and is of singular importance if we are to meet our climate commitments.

The draft order will bring the whole of the UK into alignment, not just in terms of regulation but in terms of ambition for zero emission mobility. It will give investors the confidence to invest in the transition across every part of our great nations and will ensure that nowhere is left behind as our technology and economy evolve.

I am grateful to all Committee members for their attendance. I commend the draft order to the Committee.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. I draw the Committee’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

The draft order, as the Minister rightly says, is very technical in nature and will make few changes to the 2023 order. For the most part, it will simply bring the whole of our country under one set of rules by correcting the understandable omission of Northern Ireland from the original order. In the silo in which they are presented, the changes being made are broadly uncontroversial. The official Opposition will therefore not seek to divide the Committee today.

What is slightly more controversial, however, is the limit of the order and the wider questions that it poses about the Government’s approach to the ZEV mandate, our domestic automotive sector and the transition to de-fossilised and decarbonised forms of private transport. The Labour party had previously been clear that it wished to reverse the Conservative Government’s practical, pragmatic and sensible delay from 2030 to 2035 of the banning of the sale of new petrol and diesel cars, yet the draft order will do no such thing: it leaves the 2035 date intact. Can the Minister confirm whether the Government are leaving the 2035 date in place, which would be sensible, or whether we are set to see more orders coming forward? If so, will they come with a wider debate in the main Chamber?

What of hybrids? There is much talk in the media, but little actual legislation or rule making is coming forward. I gently ask the Minister to give the Committee and the wider House clarity in that regard.

Certainty is important for consumers and manufacturers alike, but the draft order will give neither any confidence about the detail of the Government’s intended direction of travel. That uncertainty is playing out in the real world: in real sales numbers, in real demand, particularly for battery electric vehicles, and in uncertainty for our great innovators at home and overseas, where they are pioneering technologies around other forms of fuel, hydrogen and synthetics.

It is a reality that consumers are turning their backs on battery electric vehicles. Taking fleet sales out of the picture, EVs are just not selling. The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders says that year-to-date private battery electric vehicle demand remains down 6.3%. Robert Forrester, chief executive of Vertu Motors, has observed that manufacturers are delaying deliveries of cars until next year, fearing that immediate deliveries would cause them to exceed the Government’s set quotas. In July, Stellantis announced that it would review its manufacturing footprint in the United Kingdom.

Can the Minister explain why the draft order does so little? It is just tinkering at the edges, with no practical steps to solve the real-world problems that we face. Can he confirm what the Government’s actual plans are to ban the sale of new petrol and diesel internal combustion engine cars? Is there even a plan? What confidence can he give to motorists and car manufacturers alike that the Government value—in a de-fossilised, decarbonised way—the freedom to drive?

I say to the shadow Minister that little has been learned since the defeat 16 weeks ago. The last Secretary of State indulged in a culture war around vehicles and 15-minute cities, spreading conspiracy theories at the Conservatives’ party conference. They messed about with vehicle emissions targets. They criticised the Mayor of London for the ultra low emission zone and for the attempts to produce clean air across our capital city. It was a complete culture war, and they lost out, because the British public were not fooled by the attempts to divide people, from car and van owners to pedestrians and cyclists, instead of improving the general environment in our city.

On the shadow Minister’s substantive point about commitments, let me say that the Government are committed to phasing out new cars that rely solely on combustion engines by 2030. That means that pure petrol and diesel cars will be phased out by 2035, and all new cars and vans will need to be 100% zero emission. That is still our clear commitment.

The shadow Minister said that we were tinkering around the edges of the ZEV mandate. The reality, which counters what he says, is that with the ZEV mandate, the UK mandate is growing faster than any comparable European market as we speak. The number of electric vehicles in the UK market has grown by 13.2% on 2023, which is faster growth than Germany, France, Italy and the EU as a whole. That is not to say that there are not challenges, but this Government will face the challenges through our mission for both growth and decarbonisation. I am proud that we were elected on that mission.

The draft order is technical in nature, as the shadow Minister says, but it represents a shared ambition for the UK Government, the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government and now the Northern Ireland Executive to decarbonise our road transport as we make progress to net zero. By bringing Northern Ireland into the ZEV mandate, we can ensure that every part of this country benefits from zero emission mobility and that no community is left behind as we transition to a greener, cleaner future.

I trust that the Committee has found this debate informative and that it will join me, alongside colleagues in the Northern Ireland Assembly, the Scottish Parliament and the Senedd, in supporting this legislation.

Question put and agreed to.