Liquid Natural Gas (Hansard, 19 January 2004)

§ Mr. Gray
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what tax advantages are available for liquid natural gas vehicles. [147940]

§ Mr. Jamieson
Due to its environmental benefits, liquid natural gas (LNG) enjoys a lower rate of duty compared to conventional fuels, equivalent to 6p per litre compared to some 47p per litre for petrol and diesel. In the pre-Budget report the Chancellor announced that this differential will be held constant for a further three years.
Alternatively fuelled vehicles are also eligible for lower rates of vehicle excise duty depending on their CO₂ emissions.

§ Mr. Gray
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many vehicles using liquid natural gas benefited from tax advantages in the last year for which figures are available; and how many were(a) cars and (b) vans. [147941]

§ Mr. Jamieson
Figures published by the Natural Gas Vehicle Association for August estimate that there are 875 natural gas vehicles in the UK which will have benefited from the duty differential for natural gas. Of these 20 are estimated to be cars: there is no estimate for vans. Details of the split between vehicles using liquid natural gas and compressed natural gas were not published.

§ Mr. Gray
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what Government grants are available to convert petrol cars to liquid natural gas; what the take-up has been in the current financial year; and how much is available for the remainder of the financial year. [147942]

§ Mr. Jamieson
Limited grants are available under the TransportEnergy programmes to offset the additional costs of purchasing clean fuelled vehicles including those powered by liquid natural gas (LNG). Grant offers have been made for 45 LNG vehicles in this financial year, which will be honoured once the conversions are completed under the terms of the grant offer letters.
The Energy Saving Trust, who administer the grant programmes for the Government, will not be issuing any new grant offer letters this financial year as they have now received applications to cover the full TransportEnergy programme budget of nearly £30 million. This is a considerable increase from the £18 million spend in 2001–02, and the Trust forecast they will provide grants for around 8,000 vehicles this year, compared with 5,000 last year. The grant programmes will resume in April 2004.