Asked by: Rosie Duffield (Independent - Canterbury)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he is taking to reduce the number of diesel-fuelled vehicles to meet carbon emissions targets.
Answered by Jesse Norman - Shadow Leader of the House of Commons
The Government has announced an end to the sale of all new conventional petrol and diesel cars and vans by 2040, and a key element of the Future of Mobility Grand Challenge in the Industrial strategy is our long term mission to see every new car and van being effectively zero emission by 2040. The Department will provide more details shortly on the actions we are taking to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and air pollution from road vehicles dramatically, and to bring about our ambition for a future where every road vehicle has zero emissions at the tailpipe.
For diesel cars and vans the relative efficiency of diesel engines compared with petrol engines results in improved fuel economy and lower greenhouse gas emissions per kilometre than from petrol equivalents. Whilst real-world emissions of nitrogen dioxide from current diesel cars and vans are at present typically substantially higher than their petrol equivalents, the UK has led the calls for action at a European level to ensure that manufacturers now have to limit emissions of nitrogen dioxide in a wide range of real-world driving conditions, and not just against laboratory test limits.
Asked by: Rosie Duffield (Independent - Canterbury)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, when (a) he or (b) Officials of his Department last met with unions or individuals to discuss aerotoxic syndrome.
Answered by Jesse Norman - Shadow Leader of the House of Commons
The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) – the industry regulator – has responsibility for managing and leading meetings on aerotoxic syndrome. The Department for Transport (DfT) last met with unions and individuals to discuss aerotoxic syndrome prior to the 2011 publication of DfT commissioned Cranfield University research into cabin air quality.
These research findings were submitted to the Committee on Toxicology (COT) in 2012 who published a position paper on cabin air in 2013. There was no evidence for pollutants on board aircraft occurring at levels exceeding the health and safety standards and guidelines outlined in Chapter 5 of Cranfield University’s “Aircraft Cabin Air Sampling Study; Part 1 of the Final Report”.