My Lords, I shall also speak to Amendments 158 and 159 and comment on the other amendment in this grouping. This is to do with the environmental recalling of motor vehicles, which covers everything in Clause 73(3). As I read it, this is for the purpose of the environmental impacts, which in Clause 73(6) include
“any impact on the environment caused by noise, heat or vibrations or any other kind of release of energy or emissions resulting from the use of the product.”
I have tabled this amendment to probe Ministers as to why the clause relates only to motor vehicles, which I think are effectively road vehicles, and does not include emissions from trains—there are a lot of diesel trains around—from ships, certainly within UK territorial waters, or aircraft. We have had many debates about emissions from aircraft, although fewer about ships and trains. They all have the same ability to emit harmful emissions and do everything mentioned in Clause 73, a clause that I of course support.
Amendment 159 relates to similar pieces of equipment. Construction equipment, bulldozers and cranes, and agricultural plant or equipment are all powered by motors that emit possibly—in fact, almost certainly—harmful emissions. I want to probe the Minister on why these are not included in this rather excellent piece of legislation. It will be quite difficult to get them into the regulations. On the principle that most of this equipment has motors that cause noise, emissions or a combination of the two, I think they should be included in the same clause.
Some vehicles are major polluters because there are so many of them, and you can include cars and trucks in that. There are probably fewer agricultural vehicles, such as tractors, but some of the ones that I have seen certainly do their bit to pollute the environment. I would be pleased to hear from the Minister why they have been excluded.
There has been a lot of talk of biomass being able to fuel aircraft in order to make them zero carbon, but if we ever got to a stage where aircraft could be powered by a fuel that was 100% biomass, it would need so many hectares of land on which to grow that biomass that we would probably all starve around the world. That is not a long-term solution. Aircraft cause just as much pollution as everything else. Obviously we need to have international agreements on all these issues, but we still need to do our national bit.
So those are the big numbers. Conversely, Amendment 279 in the name of my noble friend Lord Faulkner of Worcester and other noble Lords is a plea for an exception to Clause 73. Railway locomotives, road vehicle chimneys and even stationary steam engines emit quite a lot of harmful emissions, but there are so few of them around that one could argue from a heritage point of view that they should be excepted from Clause 73. I shall listen carefully to what noble Lords say about this amendment, but because there
are so few of these vehicles around there is a strong argument for excepting them from the clause. I look forward to the Minister’s reply and I beg to move.
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