Local MEP says drviers must pay to pollute

Date published: 23/03/2007

Rochdale Euro-MP Chris Davies claims the Chancellor's Budget announcement to increase car tax is 'tokenism' and does not do enough to make drivers of gas guzzlers pay severely for the pollution they cause.

Gordon Brown has announced that cars producing more than 185 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometer will have to pay an extra £90 a year in vehicle excise duty, bringing the total tax to £300.

Chris Davies claims that the Chancellor has only paid lip service to the issue of climate change by raising vehicle excise duty on gas guzzlers by a token amount.

The Liberal Democrat says that if the Government is serious about reducing greenhouse gas emissions an annual licence fee of £2,000 should be introduced on all cars emitting more than 200 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometre, with additional increases to follow every year.

Mr Davies is the European Parliament's report writer on new legislation governing CO2 emissions from cars.  He says that even the motor industry is calling on the Chancellor to take firm action.
 
He said:  "The manufacturers of low emission cars I have met in the past week are all united in saying that a hefty tax needs to be levied on large cars emitting big quantities of carbon dioxide.

"This is gesture politics not green politics.  Gordon Brown wants to give the appearance of doing something about the environment without taking the firm measures that are really needed.  Year after year he has the chance to
move investment and purchasing decisions in a green direction and year after year he has dodged the touch decisions."

The MEP accepts that farmers and a handful of people living in extreme locations may need a 4x4 to cope with road and weather conditions, but he believes they present a danger to others when used in cities or on the 'school run'.