Clean Vehicles Task Force: Report (Hansard, 6 June 2000)

§ The Minister of State, Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, (Lord Macdonald of Tradeston)

The Cleaner Vehicles Task Force, which was set up by the Department in 1997 to look at practical ways of reducing vehicle emissions is publishing its final report,The way forward—the final report of the Cleaner Vehicles Task Force today. The report covers five main areas:

Transforming the market and achieving lower environmental impacts from vehicles in use through government incentives, development of technology, and through better public awareness;

The role of fleets in improving environmental performance of current and new vehicles;

Cleaner fuels and technologies—both conventional and alternative fuels and technologies;

The role for low emission zones; and

Making sure everyone plays their part—the importance of enforcement in maintaining improvements.

There has already been progress on the Task Force's interim recommendations, published in the 1999 report Driving the Agenda. For instance, we announced in March that we would be spending £6 million this year on a Cleaner Vehicles Programme to take forward the Task Force's recommendations on retrofitting. Industry has acted too, with the motor industry adopting a label providing information about emissions on all new cars. We look forward to seeing rapid progress on the recommendations contained in this report.

Copies of the final report, along with a background paper published by the Task Force on the environmental impacts of vehicle production and disposal and the reports of the Technology and Testing and Alternative Fuels sub-group, are available in the House Library.