Paul Flynn – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Flynn on 2015-10-09.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, when his Department first learnt of the installation by Volkswagen of software to distort emissions tests on diesel vehicles; and what steps he took in response to that information.

Andrew Jones

The government first became aware of the installation of software fitted to Volkswagen vehicles to distort emissions tests following the announcement of the US Environmental Protection Agency investigation in the US on 18 September 2015.

In response, the Vehicle Certification Agency, the UK regulator, has started investigations to establish whether this affects other manufacturers.

As part of this work they will re-run laboratory tests where necessary and compare them against real world driving emissions.

The government have called on the EU to conduct a Europe wide investigation into whether there is evidence that cars here have been fitted with illegal defeat devices.