There is “no route to net zero” that ignores the real concerns of businesses, a cabinet minister has warned, as the government prepares to reduce financial penalties handed to carmakers not selling enough electric cars.
Ministers are also looking at how cheaper loans could be introduced to help people buy an electric vehicle (EV), after a wave of job losses and closures in which carmakers blamed the onerous fines they were facing.
Jonathan Reynolds, the business and trade secretary, stood by the government’s “cast iron commitment” to reinstate a 2030 ban on new cars that run on petrol and diesel. The deadline was dropped by Rishi Sunak a year ago. But he said the government had to be “clear eyed” in its effort to “keep the auto industry alive in the UK”.
“When this government says that decarbonisation must not mean deindustrialisation, we mean it,” Reynolds writes for the Observer today. “There is no route to net zero without backing British industries and workers. We are in no doubt at all about the global challenges the industry is facing and the need for us to play our part to support them.”
Labour sources said support for the 2030 target remains solid across government, including Keir Starmer. However, ministers are fast-tracking plans to review the fines for manufacturers who miss the EV quotas.
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