GREEN edicts forcing car firms to make more electric vehicles should be scrapped, top Tories say.
Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith blasted rules forcing car firms to sell an increasing proportion of EVs.
He said: “We must allow for real consumer choice in the sector rather than diktats.”
The rules insist the minimum proportion of electric cars sold by manufacturers must rise annually from 22 per cent last year until 100 per cent is hit by 2035.
Meanwhile, government measures to ease industrial electricity costs must go further to help the “structural disadvantage” faced by UK automotive companies, a trade body says.
Proposed relief on standing charges included in the Industrial Strategy should be extended to the sector, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders say.
The industry pays more for electricity than anywhere else in Europe, and in excess of double the average, partly as energy taxes which are six times higher.
It stated: “Rapid implementation of the reforms to industrial energy costs set out in the Industrial Strategy would cut the sector’s electricity bill by a fifth, helping ease this structural disadvantage.”
It comes as the overall cost of Net Zero is being pushed up over huge differences to how gas and electricity are taxed, experts say.
Households are facing a higher effective tax rate from electricity than from gas which is holding up the switch to heat pumps.
Businesses also have an incentive to prioritise emissions from electricity rather than gas.
Ministers are being called upon to reduce the tax gap between emissions for gas and electricity – resulting in a less costly transition to Net Zero.
