Draft Road Vehicle Carbon Dioxide Emission Performance Standards (Cars and Vans) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020 — 17 Nov 2020 at 18:23

The majority of MPs voted for European Union derived regulations on the carbon dioxide emissions of newly registered cars and vans to be updated to reflect the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the union.

The regulations, for example, applied an emissions performance target for all vehicles newly registered in Great Britain rather than all those newly registered across the European Union.

The motion supported by the majority of MPs in this vote was:

• That the draft Road Vehicle Carbon Dioxide Emission Performance Standards (Cars and Vans) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020, which were laid before this House on 13 October, be approved.

The explanatory memorandum associated with the regulations^[1] states:

• If these changes are not made, then the retained EU legislation would fail to function and would have no legal impact on newly registered cars and vans in GB. This would mean that, after the transition period, newly registered cars and vans would not be subject to any functioning CO2 emissions regulation.

The regulations which were approved in vote amended Regulation (EU) No 2019/631 in light of the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union. Had the regulations not passed the existing regulations may have interpreted as continuing to apply under the terms of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 and the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020 which provide for the retention, and interpretation, of existing EU law, even though the Government considers the unamended regulations deficient and inoperable^[2].

The intent of the regulation which was the subject of this vote was not to change policy, but merely to modify the European Union derived regulations so that they functioned in Great Britain after the end of the implementation period associated with the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the union. There will be differences between the regulations in the European Union and Great Britain as the calculations of both the emissions standards themselves, and related financial penalities, are changed by the regulations to localise them to the United Kingdom, but they are not intended to be substantive policy differences.

Not implementing the regulation would have led to a hard to interpret position.

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• [1] Draft explanatory memorandum to the draft Road Vehicle Carbon Dioxide Emission Performance Standards (Cars and Vans) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020, Legislation.gov.uk
• [2] UK Government consultation on the "CO2 emission performance standards for new passenger cars and light commercial vehicles", Updated 13 October 2020, Gov.uk

Debate in Parliament |