Zero Emission Vehicle Mandate Passes Despite Large Rebellion

New cars are parked at a dockyard in Grimsby, northern England, on Jan 30, 2009. (Nigel Roddis/Reuters)

Legislation requiring carmakers to produce an escalating minimum quota of electric vehicles passed despite Conservative 38 MPs rebelling against it.

On Monday evening, legislation bringing in the government’s Zero Emission Vehicle Mandate (ZEV) passed, which enforces an 80 percent target for electric vehicles as a percentage of new car sales by 2030.

The regulation comes into force in January, mandating that 22 percent of each manufacturer’s new vehicle registrations must be zero-emission. Under the ZEV mandate, manufacturers that fail to meet thresholds will be fined £15,000 per ICE (internal combustion engine) sold above the limits.

Twenty eight Conservative MPs, including former Cabinet Ministers Suella Braverman, Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg and Dame Priti Patel, voted against it, which the think tank Net Zero Watch said was “the biggest Tory revolt of Rishi Sunak’s premiership.”

Net Zero Watch scrutinises climate and decarbonisation policies.

‘Car-Ownership Could Once Again be Restricted to the Privileged Few’

The Draft Vehicle Emissions Trading Schemes Order 2023 will be made using powers under the Climate Change Act 2008.

The Conservative government said that the decarbonisation of cars and vans “is a priority for achieving net zero” that “it is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for the UK economy.”

In September, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak delayed the fossil fuel new car ban by five years to 2035.

The law sets targets for the percentage of a manufacturer’s cars or vans that should be zero emission each year. Those start at 22 percent for cars and 10 percent for vans in 2024 and rise each year to reach 80 percent for cars and 70 percent for vans in 2035.

Labour said that it if secured a victory at the next general election,  it would end new sales of petrol and diesel cars in 2030, not 2035.

Net Zero Watch said that Net Zero Scrutiny Group, made up of Conservative MPs who opposes many of the government’s net zero policies, wrote to the prime minister on Saturday saying: “If the cost of buying and running an EV will become cheaper than petrol and diesel cars, mandating them with this law is unnecessary. This law is anti-consumer, anti-choice and anti-motorist, and will only leave the public poorer. Car ownership could once again be restricted to the privileged few.”

Harry Wilkinson, Net Zero Watch head of policy told The Epoch Times by email that “this is a very significant vote which shows the strength of feeling on the backbenches.”

“Conservative members are clearly deeply sceptical about the whole net zero agenda, but they don’t have a government which reflects those views. I welcome Rishi’s change of tone on net zero but that needs to be followed with a change of policy—he needs to stand up to the civil servants who keep pushing through draconian net zero measures.”

ICE

Reform London Mayoral Candidate and CEO of FairFuel Howard Cox told The Epoch Times that even though there is not an explicit ICE quota it will impact diesel and petrol vehicle production.

“There is a deliberate policy to reduce the amount of diesel petrol produced by the fact that after 2030, you can’t buy a new diesel petrol car in this country. That means by definition, yes, this is actually a policy to stop diesel petrol production,” he said.

The Epoch Times contacted the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero for comment and asked how will the cap on ICE vehicles will be decided.

The lobbyist and campaigner for motorists said he believes that most manufacturers are being “blackmailed into producing electric vehicles to follow a net zero fantasy.”

“They’ve got no choice,” he said.

“By definition, the market is being dictated to by a government, which is almost like a communist state. It’s not a free market anywhere because the government have decided to tell us what we are going to drive.

“Don’t forget the Chinese are still going produce diesel petrol cars, as well as electric vehicles,” he said.

“It is absolutely disgusting how the government are following a completely and utterly pointless direction, which won’t make any difference to the state of our planet,” he added.