Schedule 19 - Capital allowances: cars with low carbon dioxide emissions
Finance Bill
11:30 am
Mr Michael Jack (Fylde, Conservative)
I wish to add to my hon. Friend's comments after reading paragraph 21 of the notes on clause 58 and schedule 19, to which the amendment refers. It says that part of the measure's purpose is
''to encourage a shift towards cleaner cars.''
In his reply, the Minister used the sort of logic that says that, because the clause only defines—in this context—a cleaner car as one with lower carbon dioxide emissions, all arguments that support help for other forms of cleaner cars are off limits. He then told us that he felt that he had done his bit on behalf of the Government to encourage LPG cars because he had put before the Committee a range of other measures. That is a slightly bent piece of logic. It says that we will not have a consistent policy across all areas
''to encourage a shift towards cleaner cars'',
in the words of the Treasury. We will do some things in some areas but not in others. My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch put his finger on the lack of consistency in encouraging the uptake of cars that use embryonic technologies. In CO2 terms, perhaps the LPG car is marginally behind best practice in diesel or petrol. However, in cost-benefit terms, the LPG car has many benefits, if one believes the science on the relationship between air pollution and health.
The Economic Secretary says that he is happy to sustain only a partial package to support cars that do not cause certain health problems. I hope that his conscience is happy with that, because one advantage of LPG emissions is that, in many cases, they do not present the health risk to the public that are presented by the cars included in the Minister's measure on CO2. At a time when the Government have told us that their priority is the improvement of the nation's health, it seems odd that they are ruling out help to do exactly what they want to encourage—in their own words, a ''shift towards cleaner cars''.