Spot on there Ethel. Producing a new car and putting it into the showroom causes as much pollution and damage to the environment as that car will cause by burning fuel throughout it's projected lifetime. It's far less damaging to keep older cars on the road once they have been manufactured. It's the same with most products we are told by the very same government. Once something has been manufactured - keep using it.
Any car, regardless of age, that passes a modern MoT must be in excellent condition with emission levels approaching those of new cars. For the government to state that new cars are 'cleaner burning' is the same outrageous mentality as when they told us ex-smokers years ago to "always smoke cigarettes with filters on them - they are healthier for you!" The fact is, any new car is still extremely damaging to the environment. If you put a hosepipe up the exhaust of any new car and ran it inside then you will be dead just as quick as with an older car. New cars are just as poisonous!
Secondly, any �2000 saving will immediately disappear in depreciation the moment a new car is driven from the showroom.
Thirdly, this nonsense about helping our motor industry is rubbish - we have no motor industry left to save! The government has allowed our car industry to be outcompeted and it's now gone!
It's the same with the whole of our former industrial and manufacturing base, our food, fuel and power production, and the economy in general - it's all been destroyed by the last few governments and membership of the EU. How can the government now bleat about trying to shore up ruined industries?
Britain has nothing to come back with now. I haven't got any children but God help those British kids in school today - they haven't got a hope.