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Finance Bill

I do not know whether it is appropriate to say so in these circumstances, but it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Atkinson. Vehicle excise duty was one of the stories of last year's Finance Bill and the 2008 Budget. I will be relatively brief—and I can assure the Exchequer Secretary that this issue will not keep her here until the early hours of the morning—but it may be useful to return to the proposals in that Budget. In particular, I wish to take the opportunity to pay tribute to the tenacious work of my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Justine Greening) in examining and unravelling the Government's case. The Committee will recall that in the 2008 Budget the Chancellor of the Exchequer set out his proposals to reform vehicle excise duty, which included introducing a greater range of gradations in bands on the basis of CO2 emissions. He told the House that that was a sensible green measure, saying that""the road tax system should do more to support the use of more carbon-efficiency…There will be an incentive to encourage drivers to choose the least polluting car."—[Official Report, 12 March 2008; Vol. 473, c. 297.]" My hon. Friend started to examine the details of that policy and several points emerged. First, the Chancellor claimed that the proposal was a green measure, but it clearly sought to raise revenue. Of course, the proposals on vehicle excise duty in this Finance Bill have been largely shaped by the arguments and the analysis of last summer. Thanks to my hon. Friend's work, it emerged that the original proposals would reduce motor vehicle emissions by 160,000 tonnes a year by 2020. To put that in context, that is a fraction of 1 per cent. of total transport CO2 emissions, which in 2006 amounted to 120 million tonnes. We can see immediately that the proposals' green credentials were somewhat weakened, and I would be grateful if the Exchequer Secretary gave her assessment of the green benefits of the original proposals and of the proposals in clause 14. Another green argument needs to be addressed. It was persuasively argued that a number of older cars would essentially become unsaleable and have to be scrapped as a consequence of the new VED scheme, which would have an environmental impact. I do not wish to divert from the subject of VED, but that point throws up the issue of the environmental impact of the car scrappage schemes. It would be helpful if the Minister said a word or two on the environmental pluses and minuses of scrapping older cars. Clearly, newer cars are more efficient and, by and large, have lower CO2 emissions, but quite a lot of carbon is involved in car manufacture. I ask that purely to inquire about the Government's analysis.