new government transport policy

What does the General Election result mean for fleets?

 

Last week the ruling Conservatives won an outright majority in the UK’s General Election – something they have not enjoyed since 2017. What’s more, this majority, 78, is the Tories’ biggest since 1987. Boris Johnson, Tory leader and Prime Minister since July, returns to office with a much-strengthened hand.

Fleets and mobility

LeasePlan UK’s Head of Consultancy, Matthew Walters, looks at what this might mean for fleets and mobility in the five years ahead.

Brexit

Britain’s much-anticipated departure from the EU will, it seems, finally go ahead under the terms of Boris Johnson’s Withdrawal Agreement, and soon – by 31st January 2020. Which means an end to some uncertainty, including avoiding a ‘no deal’ Brexit. At least that is, until the next hurdle: negotiating a free trade deal by the end of 2020. If this isn’t agreed then the UK will lose tariff-free access to European markets and would default to World Trade Organization (WTO) rules.

Company Car Tax

The snap December election delayed the signing of the Finance Bill into law, which included the (long-delayed) new rates of Company Car Tax (CCT) for after 2020-21. This promised to make CCT more lenient for the next few years due to the more stringent emissions testing regime – and included the ‘watershed policy’ of no company car tax at all for zero-emission or hybrids with an all-electric range of 130 miles.

The good news is that the government is expected to stick to these rates when the Finance Bill is signed into law in January.

Net Zero

The official, world-leading target for Net Zero set by Theresa May’s government in June 2019 is set for three decades’ time, in 2050. The sale of new diesel and petrol cars is to be banned a decade earlier, from 2040.

However, due perhaps to competing promises from Labour and the Liberal Democrats in their manifestos, as well as increasing general alarm about climate change, the 2019 Tory manifesto published at the end of November suggested that these dates could be brought forward. It promised to ‘consult on the earliest date we can phase out the sale of new conventional petrol and diesel cars, while minimising the impact on drivers and businesses.’

Watch this space.

Alternatively Fuelled Vehicles (AFVs)

The Tories also pledged £1bn for a fast-charging network, which would, in the words of Boris Johnson, ‘ensure that everyone is within 30 miles of a rapid electric vehicle charging station, so we can encourage more people to switch to clean vehicles’. Additionally, the Tories committed to building a new EV battery-making “Gigafactory” – batteries being the essential part of EV tech – along with a £4 billion R&D plan for decarbonisation. They also promise investment in electric buses, developing ‘the UK’s first all-electric-bus town’. (No details given on which town that might be).

Roads

In contrast to the public-transport-prioritising Labour and Liberal Democrats, the Tory manifesto promised a £28.8 billion investment in strategic and local roads, and the ‘biggest ever pothole-filling programme’ – a programme so big because repairing our roads has been neglected for so long. The manifesto also claims that ‘our major investment in roads will ensure new potholes are much less likely to appear in the future’. Let’s hope so.

Public Transport 

Their commitment to roads didn’t stop the Tories promising – an admittedly more modest – £4.2bn of ‘new spending’ on local train, bus and tram services, with a special emphasis on the north, where the Tory Party gained several traditionally Labour seats. And a region which had been historically deprived of transport funding, with high prices and poor services – Londoners receiving approx. 2.5 times as much transport infrastructure spending per head.

The ‘Northern Powerhouse’ promise of former Chancellor George Osborne is also resurrected – the manifesto affirms a new railway line connecting Leeds and Manchester will be built, mentions trams for Leeds, as well as investment in the Midlands Hub and restoration of some lines cut by Beeching.

Only time will tell how many of these pledges Boris Johnson manages to – or intends to – deliver, now that the election is out of the way. But such is the nature of manifestos.

Sources and further reading

The Conservative and Unionist Party Manifesto 2019 link here

 

 

 

 

 

 

Matthew Walters

Matthew Walters

Matthew Walters is Head of Consultancy Services and Customer Value at LeasePlan UK, and has been with LeasePlan for over 14 years.

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