Climate Change

Our position on congestion charging is very clear—it is up to local people to decide what is in the best interests of their local communities. In certain areas, it may have a place, but it is up to the local community to decide. As my hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling), who is shadow Secretary of State for Transport, has made clear, we have a much more ambitious vision than the Liberal Democrats. Over the next generation, we have set a clear goal of securing a dramatic reduction in the average level of carbon dioxide emissions from cars on our roads. We want the average emission level for new cars in the UK to fall from 170 g per km to 100 g per km by 2022. By 2030, we want that figure to be an average for all the cars on Britain’s roads. The only realistic and deliverable route to meet such a target is to facilitate a transformation in the types of automotive technology in use in the UK. We all need to drive greener cars. That is not a transformation that can be delivered overnight. Cars have a life cycle, as the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Andrew Miller) correctly pointed out. Consumers only buy new cars from time to time, and manufacturers take years to develop new models. We cannot change those realities, but we must do what we can both to incentivise consumers to buy greener cars and to incentivise manufacturers to introduce new models and technologies as quickly as possible. The next Conservative Government will introduce a programme of incentives to achieve that goal with clear milestones along the way. We have asked our quality of life policy group to make clear recommendations on the nature of a programme to set Britain at the forefront of international efforts to make motor vehicles much less environmentally damaging, and that work is due to be published later this summer. We have an open mind about the technologies that will enable us to make that transition. We already know that hybrid technology and new generation diesel vehicles have made major steps forward in improving emission levels. Biofuels, too, will play an important part in moving towards the achievement of our goals, but only—and it is an important caveat—if they come from truly sustainable sources. We have made it clear that if we are to improve our stewardship of the environment without taking the unrealistic step of reducing people’s access to motor travel unnecessarily, changing technology is an essential part of the route that we must travel, and we must begin to encourage the acceleration of that technological change right away. Vehicle excise duty is a useful instrument to encourage consumers to switch to greener cars, but ultimately, unlike the Lib Dems, we do not begrudge successful people expensive cars, provided that they do not pollute the planet. One place where people understand that and have started to introduce an ambitious change strategy is California. Writing in The Sunday Times at the weekend, the governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, whom we greatly look forward to welcoming to the Conservative party conference in October, said:"““Technology, that’s how we should deal with global warming instead of trying to make people feel guilty. In short””—"