Six months after reaching power, Keir Starmer’s Labour government has decided to reverse the previous administration’s decision to extend the ban on the sale of petrol and diesel cars until 2035. This means no new ICE cars will be allowed to be sold in the UK after 2030 – a move that critics have described as “a step too far”.
Heidi Alexander, who recently replaced Louise Haigh as Transport Secretary, said in a statement that “the need to transition away from a reliance on fossil fuels has never been clearer, and the transition to zero-emission vehicles will play a critical role in quickly reducing carbon emissions and improving our energy security.”
Wind the clock back to September 2023, and the then-Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, chose to push back the ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars to avoid households being faced with what he described as “unacceptable costs”. Such a decision caused ructions within the car industry and has long been something that Labour said it would reverse.
Now, the government has launched a consultation to “consider stakeholders’ preferences on technology choices and the types of vehicles permitted between 2030 and 2035 alongside ZEVs”.
Up until this point, the general consensus has been that the only petrol or diesel-powered vehicles that were expected to be allowed past the 2030 deadline were those with what were described as having a “significant electric range” – like plug-in hybrids. However, the government’s decision to launch a consultation clouds things even further.
To read more, please visit: Labour reverses 2035 ICE ban: no new petrol or diesel cars to be sold after 2030 | Auto Express
