All new petrol and diesel cars must be banned from our roads within 12 years amid pollution crisis, MPs say
MPs want action to reduce the 40,000 early deaths a year that are linked to Britain’s poor air quality
ALL new petrol and diesel cars must be banned from the roads within 12 years, MPs have declared.
They called Britain’s pollution problem “a national health emergency” and said the current target of 2040 “lacks sufficient ambition.”
A joint report by four Commons committees eventually wants only alternatively fuelled vehicles sold in the UK, such as hybrid and hydrogen-powered cars. But MPs want the target to be up to ten years earlier than the 2040 date originally agreed.
They want action to reduce the 40,000 early deaths a year that are linked to Britain’s poor air quality.
Just 37.8 per cent of new cars bought last year were diesels, compared with 47 per cent in 2016.
Petrol held a market share of 56.6 per cent, while 5.6 per cent were AFVs.
Environmental campaigners supported the call for a ban by 2030 at the latest.
A spokesman for Greenpeace said: “There can be no more excuses and no more delays.”
But the Institute for Fiscal Studies said taking petrol and diesel cars off the roads will cost the Treasury £30billion in lost fuel duty.
It said the Chancellor must start planning now for how to plug the hole.
MOTORISTS have saved more than £5billion thanks to The Sun’s “Keep it Down” fuel campaign.
The Institute of Fiscal Studies said the Treasury’s freezing of fuel duty since the start of the campaign in 2011 had cost the Government £5.5billion.
The campaign was helped by Tory MP Robert Halfon and motoring organisation FairFuelUK.
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