THE pre budget speech has certainly got the industry talking – here’s what BCA’s commercial director Tony Gannon had to say.
‘We certainly welcome the Chancellor’s efforts to put more money into consumers’ pockets and free up funding for businesses.
‘Significant is the plan to delay the rises in Vehicle Excise Duty to 2010 and to reduce the size of the increases when they are introduced. This was always a blunt instrument to tackle green issues. And this has been proven this year as pressures on day to day finances have caused their own changes in people’s motoring behaviour without government intervention, with a clear move towards smaller, lower emission cars.
‘However, the threat of the VED rise has hung over the retail motor sector throughout this year. When we questioned more than 3,000 motorists earlier this year as part of the BCA Used Car Market Report we asked them about the effect of the Government’s planned changes in vehicle excise duty on their car buying plans.
‘Worryingly 16 per cent said they would consider buying used rather than new next time as a result of the planned changes.
‘Hopefully this u-turn by Alistair Darling, combined with greater flexibility from the lenders, will see some renewed confidence in new car sales and a knock-on pull-through to used car sales too.’
