Lord Bradshaw – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Bradshaw on 2014-04-03.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of whether lower quality fuel used in road vehicles has any impact on air quality.

Baroness Kramer

We have made no specific assessment of the impact of low quality fuels since all fuel supplied for road vehicles has to comply with the Motor Fuel (Composition and Content) Regulations, and these requirements are set in order to reduce the environmental impacts of vehicles.

In practice, all producers supply fuel that also meets the EN 590 (Diesel) or EN 228 (Petrol) industry standards. The Composition and Content Regulations, and the standards, have been revised over time, most notably to remove lead from petrol and to ensure that all road fuel is effectively sulphur-free. There should be little difference between the air quality emissions from vehicles running on fuels that meet the statutory and industry standards.