Darren Johnson, London Assembly Member, and Green Party spokesperson on trade and industry, says the "scrappage" policy likely to feature in this month’s Budget is "fundamentally flawed."
Darren Johnson said:
"This was tried in Germany. It increased sales of new cars by 40% but it probably had little real positive impact. Consumers simply shifted their spending from elsewhere in the economy, which effectively meant shunting job losses elsewhere."
"It only benefits people who can afford to buy a new car, and they often buy bigger cars which cause higher emissions."
"In short, paying people to scrap old cars and buy new ones will not create jobs, and will not cut emissions."
He added:
"There are a wide range of Green measures that would immediately create huge numbers of jobs – for instance, a massive programme of home energy-saving measures, which would create almost 140,000 UK jobs and would save people money on their fuel bills."
Cars "should be quality-built to last"
Professor John Whitelegg, the Green Party’s national spokesperson on sustainable development and an independent transport and environment consultant, says:
"In the Green Party’s view, cars – like most things – should be quality-built to last. They should be capable of being upgraded and retrofitted as technology improves.
"Some years ago a study showed that if a car’s life was extended from ten years to twenty, there were significant benefits in terms of both pollution and employment. Specifically, doubling the car’s life reduced its lifetime energy-use by 42% compared with scrapping it and building a new one, because repair and maintenance were more energy-efficient than new manufacture. And at the same time it increased the labour involved by 56%, because repair and maintenance were more labour-intensive than new manufacture."
"This is a very important factor as we try to tackle both a recession and the climate crisis – we need jobs and we need reduced emissions – so we need to go with the processes that involve more labour and less energy use. And that ultimately means building cars to last, then looking after them."
"Scrapping a perfectly good car is an outrageous thing to do from a Green Party perspective. Some15% of the total energy associated with the car is in its manufacture – what’s called the "embodied energy" – and when you scrap the car before its useful life has ended, that’s energy thrown away."
"There is uproar in Germany at the moment over the present scheme, and with good reason. A lot of people are trading-in relatively efficient cars and buying new cars which are up to four times worse. For us Greens, that’s entirely the wrong policy, both because we need to create jobs and because we need to reduce energy-use."