Motor Vehicles: Exhaust Emissions
(asked on 26th March 2019) - View Source
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of enforcement mechanisms to ensure legal compliance of car manufacturers with emissions targets.
Since 2015, the Department has more than quadrupled its resource investment in this area. It is continuing to build both its capacity and capability to test a wide selection of vehicles in order to ensure their continuing compliance with emissions standards.
In 2016, the Department established the Market Surveillance Unit (MSU), within the Driver Vehicle and Standards Agency (DVSA). The MSU works closely with the Vehicle Certification Agency (VCA) to check that new road vehicles placed on the UK market comply with the relevant legal obligations. The MSU publishes a yearly report of its findings, and its most recent report is at:
New regulations were introduced in 2018 which make it an offence for a manufacturer to supply a vehicle to the UK market which contains a prohibited defeat device. The fines can be up to £50,000 per offence.