This is a worrying non answer. Banning all petrol and diesel cars earlier than othe producers could lead to a big loss of factories and jobs here. No firm commitments mentioned for EV replacement.
Department for Business and Trade provided the following answer to your written parliamentary question (187011):
Question:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what estimate she has made of changes in the level of investment in the car industry as a result of the ban on new diesel and petrol vehicles from 2030. (187011)
Tabled on: 02 June 2023
Answer:
Ms Nusrat Ghani:
The UK has demonstrated international leadership with our plans to implement a zero-emission vehicle mandate, phasing out the sale of petrol and diesel cars by 2030. The Department for Transport are carefully considering the responses to the recent consultation on this matter.
The government continues to work with industry to unlock private investment in the future of vehicle manufacturing, including via the Automotive Transformation Fund, which has already helped secure major investments in the UK.
The answer was submitted on 09 Jun 2023 at 12:00.
June 19, 2023
Why doesn’t John explain properly, in simple terms for idiots like me, what exactly Net Zero is and what it really entails or is the answer too unpalatable and terrifying to accept?
I’ll give my moronic answer. NZ is Fascsim, Marxism and a quasi-political cult demanding total adherence or else you will be removed from all areas of life
I am sick and tired of halfwitted politicians dancing on the head of a pin, desperate to appear to be opposing while all the while endorsing it under the radar
I am convinced the only way to mitigate the cancer of the progressive cult is the undermining of the SNP, Labour, Tory and LD uniparty who quite obviously do not give a toss for liberty, freedom, privacy and a world in which the STATE KEEPS HIS FILTHY NOSE OUT OF OUR LIVES
Reply I oppose net zero policies that do damage in terms the pro net zero people should worry about.
June 19, 2023
The answer is a lie. This is what it should say: “The Government has demonstrated a complete detachment from reality with the announcement it will implement a zero-emission vehicle mandate by 2030 ……”
It’s indulging in international, virtue-signalling, idiocy which will achieve nothing except impoverish British citizens.
June 19, 2023
Agree.
June 19, 2023
I think, Dom, that as with Covid; a lot of MPs have no idea what the end situation will be.
I saw that government requested report from Fires showing the end game. Very little flying; closure of all but three airports, very few private cars, ineffective heating and costly… more of what we are starting to see really.
Other researchers have reported of the culling of cattle, and four global food distribution centres. Insect food and lab produced meat…
The conspiracy theories are starting to happen in other parts of the world, digital currency in Sri Lanka and I think Nigeria.
I think most MPs would be horrified or not believe what net zero means.
June 19, 2023
Net Zero? This is from the National Grid Group:-
“Put simply, net zero refers to the balance between the amount of greenhouse gas (GHG) that’s produced and the amount that’s removed from the atmosphere. It can be achieved through a combination of emission reduction and emission removal.”
Unfortunately we seem to be embarked solely on a reduction plan in order to reduce our share of World carbon emissions from c. 1% to c. 0%.
June 19, 2023
UN adopts UK co-sponsored resolution on climate change: UK at the UN”, “130 countries have agreed the UN can use the world court to decide when countries breach climate change commitments.” (This is taken from Gov.UK)
We have now ceded sovereignty for Net Zero to the UN just like we have with health to the WHO.
MPs are delusional if they think they have the power to change anything against the WEF agenda. Our own Government is chaining us to the net zero band wagon and it won’t change no matter who we elect, they have removed our democratic rights without our consent. The majority of people are totally unaware of what is being done by the traitors who were elected to protect serve and us.
June 20, 2023
Well said. They are traitors.
Don’t endorse them with your vote.
June 19, 2023
Agree.
June 19, 2023
Net-Zero is binary, you either agree with the UN IPCC report or you don’t
June 20, 2023
Reply to reply :
I’m sorry, Sir John, but “pro net zero people” will accept any all damage to our economy and freedoms because we must save the planet and nothing is more important.
June 19, 2023
With the standard of replies that these departments produce in light of the road we are being driven down it does rather bring to mind the scene in the Dambusters where on their training flights getting lower and lower a crew member mutters ‘this is bloody dangerous’
Have these people no idea on the depth of fears and concerns of the vast majority of us? Maybe they are in auto pilot mode charging to the edge of the cliff with their eyes shut.
Please somebody open up the sludge valves.
June 19, 2023
I agree with you. I work in the industry and the whole green complex has a life of its own. One group sets the targets and agrees the funding to produce more evidence it is the right course of action, and more funding for more committees, government bodies and industry groups to organise things, who in-turn lobby the media and government agencies to accelerate down the same path. Nothing is objective. Nothing can survive without massive subsidies, or taxes on alternatives and no dissenting voices are permitted in any committee, or anywhere at all. It’s the west’s own version of the Soviet Era stupidity of Lysenkoism https://scholar.harvard.edu/kleelerner/publications/lysenkoism-deadly-mix-pseudoscience-and-political-ideology
June 19, 2023
Sir John, good morning.
The (alleged) purpose of Net Zero is to eliminate humanity’s CO2 emissions. The chosen pathway via solar and wind energy is bound to fail in the medium term. Best to face up to that fact and take another route.
Using methane as a bridging fuel to an SMR nuclear economy will work and, as it can be approached incrementally, will not crash the economy.
JF
(A question: if the UK were to replace oil by gas (everything including cars but excluding aircraft) , by how much would our CO2 emissions be cut?)
June 19, 2023
“International leadership” presents the suggestion that the destination is desirable and the world is willingly following.
Venezuela may have international leadership on crime. That is similarly undesirable.
June 19, 2023
the privileges committee would make a more useful contribution to the life of the nation if it took ministers to task for such useless and deliberately obfuscatory responses as this.
June 19, 2023
This reply demonstrates just how hopelessly detached these Ministers and their Civil Service Officials are from reality. I want to know more about who briefs these Ministers and their officials and how much involvement the Unelected officials at the Climate Change Committee have in shaping this nonsense policy? This reply is a disgrace.
June 19, 2023
There is eventually bound to be a Net Zero Inquiry set up when the political great and the good will profess that they always had suspicions that Net Zero was a scam
June 19, 2023
If you persist in ordering bullshit from ministers and their scribes you will get it with an iced topping.
Do you ask these questions in expecration of intelligent useful answers, proof that ministers and scribes are as ill informed as the office cleaner, or just to prove that you are active. It would be much more effective to write a weekly news column or to get yourself a regular slot on GB News. I don’t doubt your sincerity or desire to inform , but I see little point in you banging your head against a ministerial wall of obstuction. From where I sit current ministers and their appalling civil service are dead men walking.
Reply I write a daily column! Very happy if others want to publish it but they have not offered.
June 19, 2023
and German industrialists have got the German government to backtrack, while us mugs carry on with automobile surrender.
June 19, 2023
I would recommend people read
“The Unpopular Truth about Electricity & the Future of Energy” a short easy to read book
https://tomn.substack.com/p/the-unpopular-truthabout-electricity
and watch the author present and narrate it here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiHrCjqP4KQ
The book explains that you cannot have an energy transition because there aren’t enough mineral resources to make all the stuff supposed to replace fossil fuels and there isn’t enough fossil fuel energy to make it once let alone every 20 years or so when it has to be replaced. You need more fossil fuels to make the supposedly renewable and sustainable stuff including solar-panels, wind-turbines, EVs, batteries etc than they return.
Volvo and VW have both estimated that you need to drive 70,000 miles in an EV without replacing the battery to break even with a petrol or diesel on CO2 emissions and you do an awful lot more environmental and economic damage along the way.
There is no engineering or economics at country or system scale, let alone at global scale. Other than nuclear combined with hydrogen there is no way to wean ourselves off of fossil fuels. Even that would cost a small fortune, but admittedly a slightly lesser fortune and lesser folly than wind, solar, batteries, hydrogen, EVs, heat-pumps and all the taxation and bans of essential everyday things.
The plain fact also is that CO2 and CH4 are not controllers of the climate. Human only make a small amount of the annual cycling of CO2 (as can be shown from various methods) and has a residency time in the atmosphere of a decade. That is to say that CO2 is increasing naturally in the atmosphere due to the current natural warming cycle we are in. That causes emissions from the ocean due to Henry’s Law and emissions from soils as decomposition speeds up. But human emissions which have significantly increased since the 1950s have not changed the rate of increase in CO2 over annual or decadal timescales one bit, nor did the complete lockdown of people and industry for a year affect the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. The trend is naturally driven. Further increasing the CO2 concentration does not increase warming affect since most heat arrives in the tropics and is convected from the surface to the upper atmosphere rather than radiated. And further the spectral lines of absorption and emission are already saturated and controlled by water vapour. QED no greenhouse warming.
Time to end this charade and pozy scheme which is impoverishing everyone and undermining our economy, industry and military.
June 20, 2023
DB :
Correct.
June 19, 2023
The best thing for the economy, the environment and my pocket is to keep the petrol and diesel cars running as long as possible. The best way to keep the cost of fuel down is to overcome the supply side shortages and cost hikes caused by international clowns pushing the NET ZERO agenda.
June 20, 2023
DB :
Correct.
June 19, 2023
I am glad to see your angry Turbo, that makes two of us and its a start to destroying the TRAITOROUS plans of the political dogs who are stupidly pushing this world war.
The target eventually must be our destruction of the Chinese driven UN.
We must continue to fight until we win. The majority will win!
June 19, 2023
If only they would say, “we do not have a clue” at least that would be honest
June 19, 2023
“international leadership” – please read this Conservative Government will destroy all UK manufacturing while ensuring other Nations get the benefit of Conservative Government stupidity.
Secondary question if the UK is leading why is that 95% of the World have shown it is not a race the wish to destroy their economy and the well being of the citizens on?
June 19, 2023
“The UK has demonstrated international leadership with our plans to…” – Jump off a Cliff?
As we fall, we look back to see how many others have followed our (‘International’) lead…
Oh Dear – Not many! Perhaps they are waiting to see if we manage to hit the ground running? 🙂
June 19, 2023
Other than import the electricity to power this lunacy, what plans has this Conservative Government in place to ensure there is electricity available for all these electric vehicles they are in part or in full importing from China?
Bearing in mind also under the Conservative Government control the National Grid have warned us their may be electricity rationing later this year just to keep the lights on.
June 19, 2023
Can the Minister explain why the UK needs to have “demonstrated international leadership”? Have we not earned the right to take a back-seat sometimes?
And also why is there a need to give the assurance that the Transport Department is “carefully considering” rather than just casually or even pretending to for form? We are supposed to infer some diligence perhaps?
And is not the “Automotive Transformation Fund” just a means of subsidizing sub-optimal investments because the products made for sale are unattractive to the prospective buyers? How often has government money spent in that way been a success?
The Minister does not inspire confidence.
June 19, 2023
Good morning
A revealing answer highlights this government’s determination to serve unspecified international interests
June 19, 2023
Which blind eye was she looking through? Or should that be which civil servant thought up that reply?
These people are either criminally incompetent or deliberately going out of their way to deceive us all.
We all know that millions of people will not be able to switch to EV by 2030 – There is not enough energy to supply all these cars, and EV’s are expensive to replace and maintain.
Why isn’t more being done to create cars that generate their own electricity? – Oh, is the technology not there yet! We should be offered self charging hybrids as an interim measure – Fully electric cars are a fools paradise.
Next these ministers will tell us to stop complaining and accept our destiny as the new dark age approaches…. After all, it is all our fault anyway! ….. (For voting in such a shambles to Parliament)
June 19, 2023
Prof. Norman Fenton’s articles on what NZ will mean for the majority of the populace are well argued and extremely worrying.
June 19, 2023
The ban on the sales of new petrol and diesel cars by 2030 is far ahead of any other country in the democratic western world. The EU has no ban at all, just that e-fuels are to be used by 2035, and the US has a target of 50% evs by 2030.
There is no CAGW and Net Zero is totally pointless for a country contributing just 1% of global CO2 emissions. Our Parliament has fallen for the communist plot to save the planet by destroying our economy, living standards and freedoms with expensive and intermittent energy and the intended rationing of food, heating and travel.
June 20, 2023
It has nothing to do with “saving the planet” and everything to do with control of the people, reduction of consumption in western nations and “levelling them down” to make them more equal with the 2nd and 3rd world.
It won’t apply to the global “elite” of course. They’re more equal than everyone else.
June 19, 2023
She says ‘phasing out the sale of petrol and diesel cars by 2030’
Has the mask slipped and this is what they intend to do – phasing out the sale of ALL ICE cars, rather than just new ones, or is this just a sloppy use of language? Surely, if they wanted Boris to come to the house and put right all his sayings, then she should come and admit a mistake if that is what it is. Otherwise, we must assume the worst. This is typical of this sloppy incompetent government, with sloppy incompetent ministers. She should be fired as she has not taken the question seriously, nor her reply.
June 19, 2023
The problem we face is that the government and civil service is largely run by people with Arts degrees, by default, because they lack the knowledge and skills that would make them attractive to industry. We are therefore being governed by people who are profoundly ignorant and in many cases, not very bright.
June 19, 2023
Thinking of the flawed committee investigations into Warburton and Johnson it is long overdue that the alleged wrongdoings of MPs was taken out of the hands of questionable house prefects and put into the hands of the judiciary with full legal representation. Do you support these committee inquisitions.
June 19, 2023
Starmers answer today on this topic was very telling: it’s going to happen, folks like it or not.
“Starmer says he understands the concern felt by people working in the oil and gas industry about the transition to a green energy future. But he says it would be a “historic mistake” to delay. He says: I know the ghosts industrial change unearths. As a young lawyer, I worked with mining communities to challenge the Tories’ pit closure programme but deep down, we all know this has to happen eventually and that the only question is when.
So in all candour, the reality is this, the moment for decisive action is now……My offer, the Labour offer, is this; a credible plan to manage the change, protect good jobs and create good jobs. No cliff edges.”
First of all, ‘Labour closed more pits under Wilson, whilst Thatcher built a greener competitive energy market’ source Clark, Telegraph 2021 ‘She merely continued to manage the decline of a coal industry which had already been in retrenchment since the 1920s”. Second, as he is implying the Tories are creating a ‘cliff edge’, what precisely is he going to do differently? Is he going to put the date back? Payout compensation from our taxes needed elsewhere? What? Why don’t the newspapers ever ask?
June 19, 2023
Encouragement and stimulation of all parts of the economy is now the extreme priority . The Government don’t seem to understand this . We simply cannot plot net zero or anything like it without the means to do so ; the immediate ambition should be to get our industry and commercial house back in stride .
June 19, 2023
We, from the back streets, should worry at the apparent apathy of these Government departments.
Of particular concern should be the effect the extra weight of these Electric Vehicles will have on the upper levels of multi-story carparks, as they are not designed to carry an unlimited weight load. There could be a serious danger of their whole building collapsing. Also the extra weight increasing the damage to our in-town roads. How much extra are the necessary repairs to be paid from Council Tax?
Lots of questions maybe too embarrassing to qualify a straight answer? Or were they never considered before pressing through the Act to effectively shut down much of our car manufacturing in this country in 2030?
These answers like most, come from the back offices I believe. So, have some 40 years of EU “persuasion” AKA ‘mind bending’ turned our once commendable Civil Service into a gathering of pro-Brussels sycophants who no longer think outside of their box?
June 20, 2023
The car park issue is based on the assumption that we will need so many multi-storey car parks. We won’t. They are going to (a) prevent you from driving into cities/towns and therefore using them and (b) price at least 50% of the people off the road completely since they won’t be able to afford an EV.
June 19, 2023
The Government’s aims towards net zero are more influenced by the eco lobby than by their constituents. The eco lobby do not want us to drive cars at all, but live in small 15 minute enclaves, not fly anywhere and live on a mainly vegetarian/vegan organic diet. Those are the real aims of the eco lobby towards net zero and the public will have a real shock when they are implemented, as they are led to believe that renewables will provide all the electricity needed to continue life as before.
June 19, 2023
Why is it always the UK that has to demonstrate international leadership?
Virtue signalling comes at a huge cost to our taxpayers and consumers.
Plenty of jobs for mechanics and spares manufacturers as we hang on to our old cars for longer
June 19, 2023
It seems as if we are all passengers in an electric car being driven by a blind man towards the edge of a cliff. How do I get out?
June 19, 2023
“The UK has demonstrated international leadership” says it all. Why does a country risk its future prosperity and that of its citizens when the UK’s share of global CO2 emissions is a mere 1%? The switch to electric vehicles will require significant expansion of the generating capacity of the National Grid. Why did governments not say to the motor industry 10 years ago or more “you have 20 years to develop a CO2-free internal combustion engine”, I have little doubt that it could have been done. Posturing on the world stage is no justification for reducing the country to poverty and no-one in Government or any of its quangos is prepared to admit what the eventual cost of “Net Zero” will be.
June 19, 2023
Net Zero is a chimera. It cannot be. Nothing can be made without reliable energy, wind turbines cannot be made from wind turbines. The government may say that targets are being met, but this is because we are shutting what is left of our manufacturing with high energy costs. We are exporting our “emissions”, whilst China and India are taking full advantage and ramping up coal fired energy to boost their economies. Our 1% of global CO2 emissions is met by China in about 12 days.
June 19, 2023
Central Government trying to pick winners again. When will they ever learn that they are no good at it? When is the UK Government going to initiate measures via WTO to punish nations that burn raw coal at power stations? Power generation at coal fired power stations produces double the CO2 emissions that any other form of energy (yes, including gas fired power stations) produces.
June 20, 2023
Every time I see one of these non-answers I worry that those in charge do not have a clue what is going on or they are not capable of investigating the query and decide that this sort of civil service speak is satisfactory to give to those in the Houses of Parliament
Those giving the answers seem to do so without any embarrassment – if I gave such an answer to my boss I would, after a written warning, have my employment terminated.
No wonder the country is in such a state.