Phil Peace, director of sales, Hitachi Capital Vehicle Solutions, shares his thoughts on today's PBR:

“This Pre-Budget Report contained little of much significance for fleet managers or suppliers.

"Most of the key policy changes were put in place in the last budget

“The current company car tax policy is already working well and driving down the CO2 of fleets.

Fleet managers are already in the “green mindset”, and this will continue to influence vehicle choice due to the benefits of the company car tax regime.

“The nod to exemption on electric cars and vans was interesting, however, but reliant on considerable development of the infrastructure to support the use of electric vehicles before it is likely to stimulate widespread adoption.

“Manufacturers will suffer most from the biggest changes in this report and as such are facing a potentially difficult time in 2010.

"The withdrawal of the scrappage incentive scheme and the return to 17.5% VAT could combine as a negative ‘double whammy’ and suppress volumes.

“All-in-all it was a rather predictable pre-budget report – leaving any difficult decisions to the next elected government.”