F&I Management & Training

With only a week to go before the election, and a hung parliament the most likely outcome, WhatGreenCar takes a look at the main parties' policies for greener motoring.

While the Labour Party has implemented some highly effective green car support policies, it has of late become less confident in proposing and implementing radical green car policies. While the evidence shows that purchase taxes (and breaks) are ten times more effective than road taxes in changing car buying behaviour, Labour has recently left it to the market (in the form of the 'credit crunch' and high fuel prices) to persuade car buyers to buy smaller lower emission cars. True the 'first year' road tax will make a difference - but if they'd been bolder we might have seen a 20% shift in new car CO2 rather than the 5.5% reduction over the past 12 months.

WhatGreenCar maintain that now is the time to build on the work done by the previous Government - whichever party or parties gain power on May 6th. As economic, global oil and Climate Change issues become ever more critical, the new Government should be planning to get more radical with green car issues - not for its own sake, and not in ways which only serve to penalise the motorist, but by intelligent policy making which benefits owners of low emission models and (fairly) increases the costs of more polluting vehicles - much in line with the Green Party 'polluter pays' approach.

One way to be radical is to put road user charging (in all its forms) back on the agenda - as proposed by the Liberal Democrats, the only leading party that has maintained interest in this policy. Although controversial, this system does have a great deal of untapped potential for environmental benefits, although there would need to be a review of how best to implement such as scheme to maximise effectiveness. Over the pond, at least one State in the USis experimenting with an opt-in pay-as-you-drive system which offers many green benefits without the big brother issue which has stifled much of the debate to date.

New technologies are also undoubtedly part of the long-term solution - and the Conservatives are right to promote the electrification of the car, even if the battery-electric technology they currently advocate morphs into an as yet unknown form - such as the technically possible plug-in fuel cell hybrid. Although somewhat simplistic in its approach, this party's vision of technically-led zero-emission transport will have to be worked through, along with the 'softer' measures adopted by the Lib Dems and Greens.

While committees are not always the best do-ers, the expected hung parliament could be a useful forum in which to develop and implement the next decade's radical policies to accelerate the shift towards greener, low emission transport. In this scenario, the Conservatives' push for electrification and roll-out of a national recharging network could be better integrated into the developing use of green taxation initiated by Labour. Policy benefits could then be further maximised by re-opening the Lib Dem debate on road user charging, and continuing to invest in greener (and cheaper) public transport - as advocated by the Greens. Less policy of the 'reds' versus the 'blues', and more policy of the 'rainbow'.