Road Vehicles and Non-Road Mobile Machinery (Type-Approval) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020

Baroness Vere of Norbiton Excerpts

Monday 16th November 2020 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

That the draft Regulations laid before the House on 12 October be approved.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Vere of Norbiton) (Con)]

My Lords, in this group of three statutory instruments, the first relates to type approval and the remaining two to carbon dioxide emissions from cars and vans and heavy duty vehicles or HDVs. The instruments have been considered by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee and the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, and neither drew them to the attention of your Lordships’ House.

First, the Road Vehicle and Non-Road Mobile Machinery (Type-Approval) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020 will be made under the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 and the Road Traffic Act 1988 and are needed for the end of the transition period. This instrument amends the previous regulations relating to type approval approved by your Lordships’ House on 20 February 2019, which I will call the 2019 regulations.

There are two main areas of amendment in this first SI. The first is to change the regulations so that they apply in Great Britain and not in Northern Ireland. This is to implement our Northern Ireland protocol obligations and is so that we maintain control over the registration of vehicles and ensure unfettered access to Great Britain for businesses in Northern Ireland after the transition period.

Currently, most new vehicles can be registered and placed on the UK market only with a valid EU type approval. Existing EU exit legislation provides for a provisional UK-wide type-approval scheme to maintain control of vehicle registration after the transition period. It must now be amended to implement our Northern Ireland protocol obligations. The protocol applies EU type-approval legislation to Northern Ireland, so this instrument disapplies the 2019 regulations in Northern Ireland, essentially leaving the status quo in place there, while ensuring unfettered access for goods produced in Northern Ireland to the GB market. Vehicles sold in Northern Ireland will continue to be registered using an approval issued against EU standards, either by an EU authority or by the UK’s Vehicle Certification Agency, known as VCA.

The second area of amendment in this SI is that it removes an EU restriction limiting the height of mass-produced vehicles and trailers to four metres. This rule was introduced by the EU to protect infrastructure such as overhead tram wires in some member states. Manufacturers can currently produce vehicles taller than four metres for the UK, such as double-decker buses, but must use a more cumbersome national approval scheme that is designed for low-volume producers. This change will allow the main type-approval scheme to be used, which is more straightforward and economical for manufacturers.

The second instrument in the group is the Road Vehicle Carbon Dioxide Emission Performance Standards (Cars and Vans) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020, covering the setting of carbon dioxide emission targets and their enforcement on new car and van manufacturers. These regulations will create requirements in Great Britain only, given that they are also covered by the Northern Ireland protocol.

EU regulation establishes mandatory fleet average carbon dioxide emissions targets for all new cars and vans registered in the EU per calendar year. Manufacturers receive individual fleet targets based on this top-level target by comparing the average weight of their fleet against the average weight of all relevant vehicles registered in the EU. As only the fleet average is regulated, manufacturers may sell vehicles with emissions above their target, provided that the emissions of their entire fleet balance out. Fines are levied on manufacturers for non-compliance.

The draft instrument corrects deficiencies in the EU regulation as well as in associated delegated regulations and implementing decisions, providing the Government with the ability to set and enforce emissions targets that are

“at least as ambitious as the current arrangements for vehicle emissions regulation”,

which the Government committed to in 2018. It also amends a prior EU exit SI, the Road Vehicle Emission Performance Standards (Cars and Vans) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, reflecting changes to the EU regulation since that SI was laid.

Finally, the New Heavy Duty Vehicles (Carbon Dioxide Emission Performance Standards) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020 establish carbon dioxide reduction targets for new heavy duty vehicles or HDV fleets designed to encourage the uptake of zero-emission vehicles and to promote efficiency improvements in new internal combustion engines. There are no Northern Ireland protocol considerations with this instrument.

Manufacturers receive individual fleet targets that match the EU-wide carbon-reduction targets in the legislation. As only the fleet average is regulated, manufacturers may sell vehicles with emissions above their target, again provided that the emissions of their entire fleet balance out. Fines will be levied on manufacturers for non-compliance from 2025.

As with cars and vans, this instrument ensures that the Government can set and enforce emissions targets on new HDV manufacturers that are

“at least as ambitious as the current arrangements”.

It also amends a 2019 EU exit SI on the collection of data from new HDVs to reflect subsequent changes to EU legislation.

The changes made in the type-approval and the carbon dioxide emissions standards SIs ensure that we retain control of the registration of vehicles, maintain continuity of vehicle approvals and emissions, minimise costs to industry and implement the Northern Ireland protocol. I commend these regulations to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their consideration of these draft regulations. I will respond to as many points as I am able in the time available and will of course follow up with a letter if needed; there have certainly been some questions on which I know I do not have the information to hand—but I will do my best.

I turn first to the role of the VCA. The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, noted an interesting point about how the VCA was going to do both GB-type approval and UK/NI-type approval. She may be interested to know that it also does EU-type approval, in conjunction with other EU member states. The VCA is a really high-quality certification agency and I am really proud of the work that it does. So, although I am grateful for the concerns that the noble Baroness raised, I believe that being able to respond to different type approvals in different countries with different requirements is well within the grasp of the VCA.

The noble Baroness talked about the impact on trade with Northern Ireland and what it is going to look like over time. I agree that we are in quite an interesting moment as we settle down to the new regime and how it will all work, but it is the case that the role of the Northern Ireland protocol is to make sure that certain elements are reflected where needed and that trade can continue as much as possible, so unfettered access ensures that Northern Ireland businesses do not need additional approvals to sell in GB. However, we will monitor the situation and consider applying anti-avoidance measures if concerns are raised about goods potentially arriving into GB that have come from elsewhere via Northern Ireland. For the time being, though, we are perfectly confident that the new regime will work very effectively.

On the issue of the removal of height restrictions, the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, asked if we felt that vehicles were going to get higher. We do not. The whole purpose of the removal of the height restriction is purely so that the vehicles can be approved under the more standard type approval process rather than the small-volume type approval process, so it is really just to make it easier for manufacturers. I do not expect our double-decker buses or trailers to get taller any time soon, although I recognise her concern about bridge strikes. They concern me too, particularly when they involve double-decker buses that could have passengers on them. That issue is a big concern for the industry; I have written to bus operators about it and asked them to make sure that their vehicles are going down the roads that they should be.

I turn to the carbon dioxide SIs. I reiterate that the Government are committed to our international and national environmental obligations. We absolutely recognise the need to go further than the existing regulatory framework, but of course what noble Lords are discussing today relates to the carbon dioxide framework in EU law as is, which we are just bringing across and making sure that it works—so it does not really apply to future considerations.

The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, said his opposite number did not get a good response from the Commons Minister. I am going to do my best, but I fear that I will need to follow up with a letter. On the standards for cars and vans, the headline targets are 95 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometre for cars and 147 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometre for vans. Those are being retained, as are the formulae setting out the individual manufacturer targets—so those things are set in stone. However, these formulae set individual targets by comparing the weight of a manufacturer’s new vehicle fleet against the average EU vehicle, and the UK average vehicle mass is above the EU average vehicle mass. One of the consequences of adopting the current regime is that the sum of the individual manufacturer targets in the UK will be slightly higher than the sum of the targets in the EU. So, while this may appear to be a loosening of standards, that is incorrect; it simply ensures that manufacturers must apply the same carbon ambition that they currently employ in the UK. Effectively, manufacturers will be able to sell the vehicles that they would otherwise have been able to sell in the UK after the transition period has ended. Noble Lords will note that we did a consultation around the carbon dioxide standards and this mechanism was felt to be the most appropriate, although it was recognised during the consultation that there was an issue.

I turn back very briefly to Northern Ireland and the issue raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, about where NI-registered vehicles would count. They would count towards the manufacturer’s EU totals; NI will all be part of that. So it will not be that they are lost; they will just go into another bucket to be counted. That is what happens when a vehicle ends up in Northern Ireland; it may be manufactured in GB but then goes to Northern Ireland and it is very important that that figure is not counted twice, as it might otherwise have been.

The noble Baroness asked why Northern Ireland was not in the third SI, or why it is not pulled out of it. That is because heavy-duty vehicles are not included in the Northern Ireland protocol and therefore do not need to be dealt with in the same way that we are dealing with cars and vans. The UK-wide totals apply, so there will just be a different reporting requirement.

The noble Baroness also asked why the dates had been changed from March to September. I am reliably told that the reporting dates for HDVs have been changed at EU level. The EU legislation has changed, so we are simply transposing what has been changed at the EU level. Why the EU changed it from March to September, I do not know. If the noble Baroness would like a letter, I will send her one—but I am not sure I will be able to shed much light.

The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, asked who does roadside testing and enforcement. Emissions testing at the annual test is of course carried out by the DVSA for lorries and buses, while for cars and vans the DVSA obviously oversees all the MoT testing centres that we have around the country. The DVSA carries out a visual assessment of the emissions control system and visible exhaust smoke at roadside inspections but does not yet have emissions-testing equipment to measure emissions or smoke at roadside checks—although it does for the annual test. The DVSA is looking at trialling some new equipment that would be able to look at that in more detail, and we will have more on that soon.

On the number of spot checks that the DVSA has made, there were 172,000 checks on vehicles and drivers last year. I am not 100% sure about the arrangements for vehicles registered in the EU; I presume that they can be fined pretty much as well as anyone else can, but I will write to the noble Lord on that.

A number of noble Lords asked what we are going to do after the end of the transition period. While that goes slightly beyond the scope of the SI today, it is worth noting that we have great ambitions for our future UK carbon emissions regulation. As noble Lords will know, we have consulted on ending the sale of new petrol, diesel and hybrid cars and vans by 2035, or earlier if a faster transition appears feasible. The results of that consultation are coming in due course.

The matter of regulation and EU standards is very important. It is also something that troubles me greatly in terms of global standards. Vehicle standards are increasingly harmonised now at a global level—for example, through the UN and UNECE. The UK plays an active and leading role in UNECE and will continue to do so, so the majority of EU regulations actually arrive at the EU from a UN process that the UK is very involved in. So any changes to the regulatory regime would consider the views of and implications for all manufacturers and other interested parties, as well as having the UK regulations interact with the EU regulations and indeed the UN regulatory regimes.

Currently, carbon dioxide emissions are measured in the same laboratory test that is used to measure pollutant emissions—nitrogen oxides and particulates—and there are no plans to change this.

The noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope, mentioned Euro 6, and, of course, that standard will be retained in UK law after exit.

I was delighted when the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, said that these SIs could not be argued with: I took that as a result. However, she then went on to ask about who was looking after the transport strategy and to whom she could write. I would be very happy to receive letters from the noble Baroness, and I will pass them on to my fellow Ministers, depending on which portfolio she is writing about.

The Government have great ambitions both for reducing air pollution and for increasing the use of electric vehicles. There is an interesting dichotomy that the noble Baroness always comes up, which is about reducing road traffic, as if that in itself has to be a goal. While I agree that congestion in certain places is absolutely terrible and road-space allocation is really important, I am not entirely sure that I would wish just yet to take away an individual’s right to transport themselves from A to B in a non-polluting vehicle.

Motion agreed.