By Paul Homewood
https://labour.org.uk/manifesto/a-green-industrial-revolution/
Labour’s new manifesto has been deliberately vague about its policies to decarbonise transport, following attacks from its trade union backers worried about the effect on jobs.
It talks about improving public transport, investing in EV charging infrastructure and supporting EV manufacture. In other words, all of the usual, bland promises all the parties are making. Nowhere is there any mention of concrete action.
However, we do have a pretty good idea of what they intend, because we have the Thirty by 2030 report, published in October, which they commissioned and which they have already endorsed.
This included some very specific recommendations for the transport sector:
Perhaps the most significant is the target to have between 21.5m and 25m EVs on the road by 2030, out of a total of about 32m. Assuming a lifetime of ten years for cars, this would effectively mean that all new car sales would have to be EV by about 2025 at the latest. (New car sales are running at 2.4m a year at the moment, so if every new car sold from now was an EV, we would only get to 24m by 2030).
This raises the question of how drivers are to be “encouraged” to buy EV. The simple fact is that very few want them, even with massive subsidies. Will Labour tax petrol and diesel cars at punitive levels to force them off the market? Will car manufacturers be restricted to the number of them they can make and sell? (Presumably something the EU would not allow anyway!)
The report is also clear that by 2030, all EVs must be pure electric, and not hybrid.
The second sinister demand is that, even if all new cars are EVs, vehicle mileage must be reduced by 20% at the very least, but maybe up to 60% by 2035, if we are to meet our climate targets. Apparently our future mobility will be determined by “modelling assumptions”! (I assume this relates to assumptions made about the sources of electricity).
This is quite a horrific proposal, and it is not surprising labour are keeping quiet about it, as it will totally transform people’s lives, and not for the better. Just imagine what impact on your life reducing mileage by 60% would have.
It would almost certainly mean you could not use your car to get to work, and instead have to waste time and money using public transport. Maybe you would have to think twice before having a day out in the countryside, or taking the car on holiday.
Then there is the question of how they would enforce this reduced usage. Would there be punitive road pricing, in order to force poorer drivers off the roads, leaving them free for the better off? Would there be some form of rationing? Maybe a Paris style system where you are only allowed to drive on certain days of the week?
Or perhaps the simplest option of them all – increasing taxes on car ownership so high that most ordinary people could not afford cars at all.
Whatever the outcome, it is bound to be extremely bad news for ordinary motorists. Little wonder then that the Labour manifesto is so desperate to hide it from voters.
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December 1, 2019 at 07:18AM
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