§ Dr. Roger Thomasasked the Secretary of State for Industry if he will seek to make it mandatory for British motor vehicle manufacturers to provide lead-free petrol-using vehicles for the home market as they are already required to do for vehicles exported to certain overseas countries.
§ Mrs. ChalkerI have been asked to reply.
Very few British manufactured cars are produced for export to the United States of America and Japan, which are the only countries where ability to run on lead-free petrol is a practical requirement.
Our main trade in vehicles is with Europe, where no country has introduced petrol with a lower lead content than 0.15 grammes per litre. A reduction to that level will come into effect in the United Kingdom by the end of 1985 and will cut lead emissions from all petrol engined vehicles—new and old—by more than half.