Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, with reference to his letter of 10 March 2017 which stated that VSOs would be valid up to 2032, for what reason his announcement of 5 April 2018 decided to institute a temporary weight regime for a period of 10 years with a cut off for new registrations to the end of December 2018.

An official letter to the Batched on Site Association dated 10 March 2017 summarised an option for a temporary arrangement to 2032. No commitments were made about what arrangements would be put in place following a final ministerial decision.

Following a request for wider stakeholder views in December 2017, the Department decided that a 10-year period, running until to 2028, would provide the industry with a reasonable timeframe to come into compliance with the standard legal limits. The arrangements are designed to assist operators of most of the current fleet of vehicles. The December 2018 date is intended to enable the small number of vehicles that were already under manufacture at the time of the decision also to benefit from the arrangements.