A cross-party group of 42 Parliamentarians have countersigned a letter from the chair of the environment, food and rural affairs committee, Neil Parish MP, calling on the Chancellor to use Monday’s Budget to stimulate the uptake of electric vehicles.

This call comes only days after the BVRLA, along with other leading transport, business and environmental organisations submitted a joint letter to the Chancellor making a pre-Budget plea for tax incentives to drive the uptake of electric vehicles.

Both letters make clear that taxation policy is a critical lever in stimulating demand for electric vehicles and urge the Chancellor to bring forward the company car tax reduction to 2% in April 2019, rather than maintaining the current plan to increase it to 16% in 2019/20, before falling to 2% in 2010/21.

Parish said: “We are urging the Chancellor to bring forward a planned reduction in company car tax by just one year.

“Patchwork tax policy is not helping drive consumer behaviour and should be replaced with streamlined legislation to encourage the uptake of electric vehicles.

“The Government cannot tackle the urgent issue of air pollution with the handbrake on.”

The letters emphasise the commitment being made by the vehicle rental and leasing industry reiterating the BVRLA Plug-in Pledge that will increase the number of plug-in vehicles from 50,000 today, to 720,000 by 2025.

Gerry Keaney, chief executive of BVRLA, said: “Last week the BEIS Select Committee made clear in its report about driving the transition to electric vehicles that time is of the essence if government is serious about the UK leading the transition to zero emission.

“This month’s Budget provides the Chancellor with the perfect opportunity to address the glaring lack of cross-government alignment when it comes to creating a supportive environment to incentive the uptake of electric vehicles.

“The whole automotive industry is speaking with one voice on this, and we are pleased to see that Parliamentarians from across all parties are supportive of our calls.

“We can now only hope that on Budget day, the Chancellor will support our collective voice of reason and take the right steps to create a tax system that incentivises the uptake of zero-emission vehicles, rather than one than prevents progress.”

  • Bringing forward the 2% BIK incentive for ultra-low emission vehicles is one of the key points in the Fleet Budget Manifesto – click here to find out more

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