Diesel scrappage: tory mps demand drivers get cash for 'betrayal'

“What’s happening here is drivers are being told not only to take their product back, but that they will be charged because the advice was wrong.” Tory MP and vice chairman of the Fair Fuel

all-party parliamentary group Charlie Elphicke said: “There should be a properly funded scrappage scheme to take the oldest and dirtiest diesels off the road.  “It could be paid for with a

higher tax on all brand new gas guzzlers - the luxury cars with big engines that have low miles per gallon. “Given that drivers were encouraged to buy diesel by the last Labour government it

would be extraordinary to allow them to be punished with higher taxes without a proper scrappage scheme in place. “People would feel it was a betrayal.” Other Tory MPs are believed to

support the demands, which are backed by the Fair Fuel UK campaign.  Friends of the Earth air pollution campaigner Oliver Hayes said: “A comprehensive diesel scrappage scheme must be part of

government plans to end the UK’s air pollution scandal that causes tens of thousands of premature deaths every year. “But the financial cost of getting the worst polluting diesel vehicles

off our roads should be paid for with a ‘dieselgate levy’ on the motor manufacturers who have done so mush to create this crisis – not UK taxpayers. “Scrappage is only part of the answer.

Slashing pollution will require tough restrictions on where the worst polluting vehicles can go.  “If the air quality plans don’t include this, they’ll fall far short of what’s needed.”