Unleaded Petrol (Engine Adjustment) (Hansard, 2 November 1988)

§ Mr. Keith Mans (Wyre)

I beg to move,

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to provide for the compulsory tuning of motor car engines at the time of manufacture for running on unleaded petrol.

Although I am certain that it will not have escaped the notice of many hon. Members, I point out that this is National Unleaded Petrol Week. This week and my Bill are intended to encourage the take-up of unleaded petrol by the motoring public.

The emphasis on publicising unleaded petrol has been by oil companies. There are 2,300 filling stations out of a total of 20,000 or more with pumps that serve unleaded petrol. Unfortunately, the take-up rate by the travelling public is not great. The take-up rate from unleaded pumps is only 20 per cent. of that from four-star pumps. The rate could be speeded up in terms of the number of pumps available, but my Bill does something slightly different. It seeks to concentrate attention on motor manufacturers and car owners, rather than on oil companies, in order to increase the use of unleaded petrol.

The first part of my Bill aims to make it compulsory for motor manufacturers to tune new car engines to run on unleaded petrol where that can be done with a minimum of inconvenience. Fifty per cent. of new car registrations in this new car registration year beginning in August were of motor cars that could run on unleaded petrol but were tuned to run only on the leaded variety.

The second part of my Bill addresses the problem of cars already on the road. There are now 13 million motor cars on our roads that could run on unleaded petrol, but only 2 million are tuned to do so.

For new cars, my hon. Friend the Minister with responsibility for roads has made it clear to car manufacturers that he is prepared to issue a waiver so that, if they wish to tune their cars to run on unleaded petrol, 1024 they may do so without falling foul of the type approval regulations. For used cars, my Bill would seek to make it a condition of the issue or reissue of an MOT certificate that cars that can be converted to run on unleaded petrol are converted before the certificate is issued.

The cost of retuning is small, varying between £5 and £20, depending on model type. As unleaded petrol is 6p cheaper than four-star petrol since the change announced by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Budget, it is clear that if a customer completes the average mileage of about 10,000 miles, the cost of that conversion could be recouped within a year.

One motor manufacturer has gone further than that. The Vauxhall company has agreed that cars that were made after 1985 will be retuned free of charge to run on unleaded petrol, and the new Cavalier will be so retuned by the dealer before the customer takes delivery. It is worth pointing out that if cars are converted to run on unleaded petrol, that does not mean that they cannot use the leaded variety when the unleaded variety is not available.

The slow take-up of unleaded petrol is largely the result of the ignorance of car owners and the motor trade generally about it. I hope that my Bill, combined with National Unleaded Petrol Week, will improve the level of knowledge and encourage car owners to make the change to unleaded petrol. I hope that my hon. Friends and other hon. Members will take a lead and, if they are able to do so, have their cars converted to run on unleaded petrol as soon as possible.