Government fogs the issue
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by David Harris • All Governments are fond of grand plans. Broad brush strokes sound good and don't need specifics. They inspire but don't demand too many commitments from politicians. The perfect pre-election drum roll.
Enter the United Kingdom National Air Quality Strategy. Stripped to its essentials it requires two things of the haulage business: cleaner fuel and fewer emissions. But on the thorny issue of how this will be achieved, and the even thornier one of who will pay for it, the strategy is less than convincing.
"The polluter pays" (a phrase so hackneyed that even the strategy document puts it in inverted commas), is a favourite solution to the second question. By which, in the case of trucks, the Government presumably means the haulier operating the vehicle will pay. The document is noticeably silent on the obvious consequence of this: that if hauliers costs go up then what their customers pay should go up as well.
Platitudes about the responsibilities of the polluters fade away when any Government expenditure might be involved. The strategy then starts sheltering behind ugly acronyms, including BPM (Best Practicable Means) and BATNEEC (Best Available Technique Not Entailing Excessive Cost). In other words: "If you think we're paving for this you must be mad". Sir Humphrey would be proud.
None of this stopped John Gummer launching the strategy document with fervent enthusiasm. It is, he said, "the first strategy of its type in Europe, and I believe the world". We are not, he promised, "in the business of generalisations" but "leading Europe in the campaign to have consistently clean air.... We want to get a different sort of atmosphere on environmental regulations— a co-operative regime rather than an enforced one. Let's try it !"
"Just as the children of today ask what London smog was like, so the children of tomon-ow will ask what had air quality was like."
Marvellous stuff. The problem is that the strategy contains nothing that is new. It suggests targets of how quickly we should make our air cleaner and says sternly that the polluters must be responsible for this. But it doesn't address the detail and it doesn't answer the tricky financial questions.
On the one specific issue of cash that did come up—the proposed Vehicle Excise Duty reduction for hauliers who use super-low-emission trucks—Mr Gummer predictably played up the £500 saving. He did not mention that the particulate trap many will need to qualify for this costs up to £4,000. Not really much of a reward, Mr Gummer.
E The United Kingdom National Air Quality Strategy costs £17.85. Tel: 01 7 1 -873001 1.