Ministers are expected to make steep cuts to the government’s electric vehicle (EV) targets this week, in a move that will relieve carmakers but alarm many Labour MPs who are worried about the government’s commitment to the green agenda. Louise Haigh, the de facto deputy prime minister, will finalise the plan after a crunch meeting in Downing Street on Wednesday to settle a long-running dispute between the transport, energy and business departments. Haigh is expected to agree to cut a target for EV sales by about a quarter, government sources say, helping British industry but setting up a potential fight with MPs and campaigners over the government’s single biggest decarbonisation policy.
The decision will be made just as Andy Burnham prepares to travel to his first Cop summit as prime minister, where he and the foreign secretary, Ed Miliband, will champion electrification on a global scale. With some MPs already upset by the decisions to approve the Jackdaw gasfield and to cut funding for green schemes to pay for higher defence spending, many see the upcoming decisions on the Rosebank oilfield and the EV mandate as critically important. Lizzi Collinge, the Labour MP for Morecambe and Lunesdale, said: “The upcoming decision on the ZEV [zero emission vehicle] mandate will have a huge climate impact, possibly the biggest one that’s on the PM’s desk.
We need the ZEV mandate to stay, and Rosebank to be rejected.” A government spokesperson said: “The government is united in its commitment to the ZEV mandate and no decisions have been taken. The policy is expected to create greater emissions savings than any other, leading to nearly 14% of all the reductions to which the UK has pledged between 2028 and 2032. Carmakers have warned for years, however, that the interim targets in particular are unattainable, arguing that higher inflation and a squeeze on living standards have pushed them out of reach.
The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) says the industry will miss this year’s 33% target by a wide margin, with battery EVs accounting for 26.6% of new car sales in the first 10 months of the year. Those targets, however, do not take into account exemptions that allow carmakers to avoid fines even if they undershoot their targets, such as by selling more hybrid cars, or making up for lower sales of electric cars now by selling more in the future. Mike Hawes, the SMMT’s chief executive, said: “The gap between demand and mandated targets continues to widen.
They were: to keep the mandate unchanged; keep it at 80% but extend the flexibilities by four years to 2034; reduce the interim target to 70%; reduce it to 60%; or reduce it to 50%. That consultation kickstarted an internal battle in Whitehall. Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, has argued for the 2030 target to be reduced as far as possible, to 50%.
Heidi Alexander, the transport secretary, is believed to want it to be approximately 60%, while Miatta Fahnbulleh and her predecessor as energy secretary, Ed Miliband, are understood to want it to remain at 80%. The prime minister would normally have sought to have resolved the dispute, but Burnham has recused himself from the decision because his wife, Marie-France van Heel, advises the board of the Manchester-based electric vehicle charging network Be.EV. Government insiders say Haigh will probably sign off on a 2030 target of about 60%, while also extending the flexibilities in the targets until 2034.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
