Motoring

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) on securing this debate. I am not a petrol head to rival the likes of Jeremy Clarkson, but I believe that, on balance, the car has been a force for good. I am told that back in the 1920s, the first car that came to our village was a Vulcan made in Southport, which my grandfather had purchased, and then, in the '40s and '50s, the doctors and bank managers would be seen in cars. It is only in the past 30 or 40 years that the car has become ubiquitous, and now everyone aspires to own one. For many people, the car is a machine of freedom. It means that students can access education where they wish to study, and people can work and live where they want, whereas previous generations had to be able to walk to work. We understand from the statistics that, in cash terms, inequality has increased over the past 12 years, but cars have become more affordable, particularly because of the availability of good second-hand cars that do not rust in the way that they used to. Many people can now own a car, take pleasure in it, and use it to get to work and access all the things that they need in their lives. Of course, there has been a downside. Congestion has increased and, in many cases, people find that journeys can take longer than they did even in the days of horses and carts, particularly in London. In the '60s, there was a big increase in pollutants—lead from fuel, sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, volatile organic solvents and particulates—but we must pay tribute to the motor industry, which has risen to the challenge set by politicians in the UK and at European Union level to reduce pollutants from vehicles, to the extent that now a car running on the motorway at 70 mph has fewer emissions than a stationary car did in the 1960s. On the hottest, most polluted day of summer in the middle of one of our European cities, a Ford Focus will actually clean the atmosphere, such is the performance of the vehicle's catalytic converters and other technology that clean exhaust emissions. Of course the other big challenge facing us is carbon dioxide, and it is important that we do not confuse two arguments. Certainly, around Heathrow airport and in London, for example, other pollutants have been dealt with, but we now need to take CO2 just as seriously. I am pleased that progress has been made in reducing the average level of CO2 emitted by vehicles. In fact, later today I will attend a Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders event, where results on CO2 emissions will be announced. I understand that average CO2 emissions fell 5.49 per cent. to 149.5 grams per kilometre in 2009—not far from the target of 130 grams per kilometre. That shows that the European Union has made progress compared with, say, the United States, which has set its corporate average fuel economy—CAFE—targets at 35 miles per gallon by 2016. Most people in the UK with a vehicle doing 35 mpg would consider that they were at the higher end of the fuel consumption scale. The dramatic reduction in CO2 has been an effect of the recession, as people seek to buy smaller cars. The scrappage scheme, which has probably been the only successful scheme introduced by the Government to address the problems of the recession and its effects on industry, has meant that people have been buying smaller cars. There has also been more discounting of cars as the manufacturers, which produce a wide range of vehicles with different CO2 emissions, seek to incentivise people to buy smaller, more fuel-efficient cars. Several new technologies are in the pipeline, and it is important that we as politicians are careful not to try to pick winners. I suspect that if we had tried to pick the video recorder of the future, we would have gone for Betamax. Therefore, it is important that we set tough targets for industry to meet but do not try to pick a particular technology. One possible exception to that would be electric cars, for which we need a network of charging points. There is another challenge facing us in that regard. I was recently in the US to meet Government people and academics as well as motor manufacturers. There was a real concern that many of the new technologies rely on rare earths, especially lithium and platinum, which may well become a limiting factor in the introduction of some technologies. There was also a concern that the Chinese in particular are managing to buy up many of those resources, which may provide a challenge to the European Union in terms of leading the world in battery technology and so on. Also, we must not disregard the existing technology that is available and the improvements that have been made to, for example, diesel engines. I do not know whether hon. Members saw a recent repeat of "Top Gear", in which Jeremy Clarkson drove a Jaguar XJ6 TDVi from Switzerland to Blackpool to turn on the illuminations on one tank of fuel. We must not disregard the tremendous benefits that can accrue from existing technologies, which affect the whole range of vehicles being marketed in the UK, and concentrate only on the small niche markets for some of the hybrids and battery vehicles. My hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley spoke about insurance costs, and I pointed out that the insurance premium tax has doubled under this Government. The cost of insurance is particularly a problem for young drivers. When one looks at the fines that are levied in respect of their insurance, it is little wonder that they are sometimes tempted to drive without it. I share the disappointment of the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Mr. Leech) that the Norwich Union pay-as-you-drive scheme was not taken up to the extent that it could be rolled out more widely. I was disappointed because the premiums were loaded on night driving, and we all know that, for young people in particular, many of the nasty accidents happen between 11 o'clock at night and the early hours of the morning. Loading the cost of insurance on night driving would discourage people from using their cars at that time. I noted that the Minister's predecessor, who is now the Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, was on 20 January 2009 considering a consultation on continuous insurance, which I think may be one way of dealing with the problem of uninsured drivers. However, we need to be careful about one aspect: people who cannot afford to insure a car that has broken down but do not have somewhere off road to put it. I assume that if a car has a statutory off-road notification, it will not have to be insured, but I wonder whether the motor insurance industry itself could come up with a type of insurance that would allow such a vehicle to be parked on the road, as a way of helping people who do not have off-road parking but have a car that will not run. Otherwise, people who may not be the richest in society who have cars that they cannot drive will be faced with a major problem. Last year, I spent some time with the North Yorkshire police automatic number plate detection team and was interested to note the number of uninsured vehicles that went through. There are two big loopholes in the system: first, if one takes out an insurance policy on a monthly payment scheme, they can get their vehicle taxed and then cancel the standing order. We pulled up a driver from Hull who had done that. He waved the insurance certificate at the police officer, but of course the computers at the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency showed that the car was not insured. We still have a problem with vehicle cloning. A couple of years ago, I demonstrated that by cloning the Prime Minister's ministerial car. The Government may consider that they have ticked the box by ensuring that when one goes to a number plate supplier, one has to take a logbook for the vehicle and photo identification, but it is still possible to purchase so-called show plates on the internet, as I did. I have a pair of plates in my office that exactly match the plates on the Prime Minister's car. Presumably, if I were to use them illegally, any levied fines would be delivered to the ministerial car service or perhaps to No. 10 itself—who knows? That is a loophole that we need to look at—the box certainly has not been ticked. The estimated 6.5 per cent. of uninsured cars on our roads equates to 2 million vehicles. I can tell my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley that the cost of that equates to £30 on every person's premium. There has been some discussion of vehicle excise duty and banding. Currently there are 13 bands, from band A for vehicles emitting less than 100 grams per kilometre, which is free, to band M, for the most polluting cars emitting 225 grams per kilometre and more, which is set at £405. I should like to put right one misconception: 4x4s are not treated any differently from other cars on the road. The bands relate to CO2 emissions, not to 4x4 or two-wheel drive vehicles. A gas-guzzling Ferrari or a Lamborghini will be in the same band as a gas-guzzling 4x4. Some of the vehicle classes contain some cars that perform well, particularly those with hybrid technology, which is being rolled out on 4x4s. It is important that we send out the right signals to people when they purchase cars. The VED bands, which they will note when buying, and the information that now has to be available at the point of sale under European Union rules that went through the European Parliament when I was there, mean that people understand more than ever about the CO2 produced by their vehicles. There have been some big fluctuations in the price of petrol and diesel over the years, which comprised increases in crude prices and VAT and in taxation levied by the Government both as fuel duty and North sea oil taxes. I was pleased when my party announced that it would have a fair fuel stabiliser to try to even out some of the ups and downs in this system, so that the Government's getting a windfall through higher VAT and North sea oil revenues when crude prices are high is moderated by a reduction in tax. Conversely, when oil prices fell, that stabiliser would come into effect in the opposite way. May I just say one or two words about safety cameras, the numbers of which have almost trebled under this Government? It is interesting that although there are no fixed speed cameras in North Yorkshire, where I live, and Durham, there does not seem to be any conclusive evidence that road safety has deteriorated there in relation to the rest of the country. The Government stand accused of being a one-club golfer in their reliance on safety cameras to police our roads, particularly as over the past decade there has been a 20 per cent. reduction in traffic police. If there is a change of Government, after the election the Conservatives would not fund any new fixed speed cameras. We would abolish Labour's camera quangos and expose this system to real democratic control. We will publish information that is currently kept secret on each camera's record on safety and the fines it generates. In short, we will put an end to Labour's cash cow camera culture.