Tories urge Sunak to scrap ‘anti-motorist’ net zero vote
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More than 40 Conservative MPs and peers have urged Rishi Sunak to drop a vote, due on Monday, to approve “anti-consumer” and “anti-motorist” net zero quotas for the sale of electric cars.
In a letter to the Prime Minister, the parliamentarians, led by Craig Mackinlay, the chairman of the Net Zero Scrutiny Group, Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg and Dame Priti Patel, warn that the Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) mandate is “likely to cause enormous harm” to companies and consumers.
The intervention suggests Mr Sunak faces a potentially significant rebellion if he goes ahead with the vote on Monday – although the measure is likely to be passed with the help of Labour votes even if Tory backbenchers abstain or vote against.
The mandate will require 22 per cent of cars sold by manufacturers to be electric from next year. By 2030, the quota will gradually rise to 80 per cent.
It has been retained as Government policy despite Mr Sunak’s separate decision to delay the planned ban on the sale of petrol cars from 2030 to 2035 as part of a shift to a “pragmatic and proportionate” approach to net zero.
The letter, sent to Mr Sunak on Saturday, reminds the Prime Minister of his insistence, when he softened some net zero targets in September, that it would be wrong to “interfere so much in people’s way of life without a properly informed national debate”.
The MPs and peers, also including Lord Frost, Sir John Redwood and Sir Iain Duncan Smith, continue: “The legislation will enforce an aggressive ramp up of electric vehicle use to 80 per cent of new car sales in 2030 – regardless of what people would prefer or could afford.
“Many in the car industry do not regard this as a realistic aim, but the attempt to get there through legal coercion is likely to cause enormous harm.
“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.”
The letter says the Government “should not be in the business of picking winners”, adding: “We urge you to reconsider this statutory instrument and refrain from putting it to a vote in Parliament on Monday.”
A government spokesman said: “We’re on the side of drivers, which is why we have set out a fairer, more proportionate route to net zero and pushed back the date to end new petrol and diesel car sales to 2035 – aligning the UK with other countries like France, Germany and Italy.
“We are also backing British jobs, with the Zero Emission Vehicle mandate giving the car industry the certainty they need to keep investing in the UK and employing skilled workers across the country.”
In September, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders described the mandate as the “single important measure to deliver net zero” but called for “an attractive package of fiscal and other incentives ... that encourages drivers to switch now”.
