AA voices concerns over government’s VED reforms

The Automobile Association (AA) has joined other green groups to express concern over recent changes to energy policy, which it warns will increase CO2 emissions and harm the climate.

In his budget, George Osborne announced changes to the Vehicle Excise Duty (VED), which removes the tax break for clean petrol and hybrid cars after the first year of the car’s life. Under the new measures, only zero emission cars will continue to receive a tax break into the second year of the car’s life, and low emission cars costing over £40,000 can still be subject to £310 per year supplement for the first five years.

The changes have raised concerns that drivers no longer have a good enough incentive to purchase cleaner petrol of hybrid cars, which could be detrimental to the environment.

AA president Edmund King said: “If the government is serious about trying to get motorists to drive cleaner greener cars, this is really counter-productive.

“Drivers will not be given the same incentive to go for cleaner (petrol or hybrid) cars so there won’t be the same pressure on manufacturers to produce those cleaner models. We seem to be getting rid of an incentive that worked very well.”

The AA’s comments come after leading environmental groups in the UK, including the National Trust, Greenpeace and the RSPB, wrote an open letter to Prime Minister David Cameron about changes to environmental policies, such as the ending of subsidies for wind and solar power and increased taxes on renewable energy.

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