I feel a rant coming on. Company car tax. Love it or hate it there's sod all you can do about it. I knew I would have to pay it, and have been for the last 12 years. Now the government are changing the way it is calculated (as you probably know), to an emissions based system. What absolute ballox that really is.

Company cars are the cleanest cars on the roads. The are almost good for the environment. They are serviced in accordance with the manufacturers schedules, regardless of cost, and most are sold after 3 years. Perfect and clean.

All this is happening to the company motorist (and to a lesser degree the private motorist through the emissions based VED - which I will come back to). So why is it that every time I go out in my 'green' car that I always get stuck behind tomorrows MOT failure. Honestly, they are everywhere, burning oil and producing large amounts of smog over Leeds. Old Metro's, Orions, Sierra's, Lada's and so on. It is a National scandal. Why can't 2 Jabs, lardy arse do something about the 'Egg and Chip' motorists and MAKE them scrap their old bangers. If they can't afford a clean motor they should use the Supertram (Oh no, we haven't got one of those yet either. 20 years in the planning so far...). It is no use having an emissions based VED system which is only calculated on engine size, when Mr 'B' reg. Maestro is burning more oil per mile than petrol now is it? The result in Company car land of the new system is that more and more drivers are choosing diesel engined motors due to their naturally low CO2 emissions on which the new tax is based. But, the particulate emissions of diesels are much higher than petrol cars http://bbs.scoobynet.co.uk/biggrin.gif. This means that all our kids will still end up with asthma and other nasty ailments that have not even been identified. A government policy that backfires? Surely not? My car produces 242g CO2/KM which is on the high side (but only slightly worse than a Lexus is200 - which is a surprise!) However, a cows arse produces more CO2 than my car! More tax on beef? Now there's a thought. Tax the farmers instead of handing out subsidies.

Motion carried. Rant over.

TONY