Scrappage scheme 'to be extended'


The government is to extend its car scrappage scheme, the BBC understands.

The scheme, which started in May, gives consumers £2,000 off a new car if they trade in one at least 10 years old.

Business Secretary Lord Mandelson is set to announce the move, which has been called for by the car industry, in his Labour Party conference speech.

The director general of business group the CBI, Richard Lambert, told the BBC such a move would be welcomed by firms which still faced "fragile" demand.

'Risks'

The initiative is currently due to end in February, or when the £300m the government has allocated towards the scheme runs out, whichever happens first.

Carmakers, including Toyota and Ford, and unions urged Chancellor Alistair Darling to extend the scheme to help save manufacturing jobs amid concerns that car sales would fall sharply without continued incentives to boost demand.

Manufacturing associations recently wrote to Mr Darling warning about the "clear risks" of ending the scheme.

"It is far from certain that consumer demand for motor vehicles can remain at these levels without government and industry providing incentives to replace older vehicles," said Giles Toppin, head of the EEF association.

"There are, therefore, clear risks that the recent upward trend will go into reverse once the current scrappage scheme expires."

The letter was also signed by heads of other groups including UK Steel, the Manufacturing Technologies Association and British Plastics Federation.

The 5bn-euro German scheme, the largest of any government, ran out early this month. It encouraged almost two million motorists to scrap their old cars and exchange them for new ones.

The US version spent its $3bn allocation in a matter of weeks.

The UK, US and German governments have spent a total of 8bn euros ($11.4bn; £7bn) on similar scrappage schemes.

THE BBC

Yay, I think we really need to give more money to the car industry. I can't think of any better way to spend 7 BILLION POUNDS!!!!

Out of order imho; the biggest gainers from this are Korean car manufacturers and the like, none of whom support the British car industry.

It should apply only to car's manufactured in Britain, or maybe even car manufacturers with significant investment and production in the Brtish car industry. But certainly not a blanket scheme.

Having said that, imagine how many jobs may have been saved with £400 million pumped into helping SME's instead of channeling everything to the car industry all the fkin time!!

It's all about votes, the same as every announcement from now until next spring will be. A little bit for you, a little bit for me and a little bit for the one down the road. There will be a lot of suckers who fall it as well.

The Sooner The Useless B*%$£"d's In Goverment Are Removed, Booted Out Or Assasinated The Better. We Might Be Able To Actually Do Something Right For The First Time In 12 Years.

Speaking to one of my middle eastern clients and he rekons a lot of car manufacturers out there are offering deals along the lines of $2500 USD for your old car towards a brand new car. These are "not" government subsidised (the government wouldnt even have the money in the country this client is from to offer something like this).

Listening to their radio station today, heard adverts for Audi and Renault offering such incentives.

It does make you wonder why they can offer these deals out there, yet in this country they expect the government to do it. Mind you, the countries in the middle east seem to be where all the money is atm, in the past 9 months, adverts on the stations I stream out there for banks like HSBC and big car companies, finance companies, credit cards etc have increased ten fold!! They used to be mainly localized companies advertising, but apparently ad-revenue has gone through the roof thanks to all the multi-nationals moving into the markets. Whereas clients in this country are informing me of ad-revenues being in freefall atm.

Deffo the best place to have your money now!

The west is finished.

What's the £2,000 off. if its off the RRP then it means nothing, very few new cars are sold at RRP anyway.

Of course, when my dad bought his new Chevvy last month, they asked if he had a car over 10 years old to scrap, he does but he wasnt prepared to lose his beloved Alfa lol.

So they said in this case, they would still give him nearly £3k off to get the sale or summit along them lines.

The manufacturers are pricing cars stupid atm, and yet again the public are paying for it. When the new base Astra is £16k, there is deffo some fishy business going on.

Don't even know what my base Aygo was. It certainly wasn't 16K.

My boss has just bought a new car - a Megane convertable. He was given five grand off original price.
The problem is that the scrappage discount is off full amrket price, take the discount off and you're probably still paying more than if you'd just negotiated. A bit like duty free knocks the duty off full price and ends up more expensive than in the high street

Seeing the amount of usable cars piled up when I went to the scrapyard today was heartbreaking.

The only winner in all of this is the car industry, which has been consistantly failed and bailed since the 70's. An industry that is 100% reliant on oil. The government gives £1,000 from the tax payer to the dealer, who then sells the car to you at many times the gross manufacture value; 7,000 - 19,000 for a standard family sized car.
If you can afford two grand off 7,000 - 19,000, you do not need an incentive or any of my tax money. I can't afford this, so why am I not being offered an incentive for something else?

I've tried explaining why this scheme is bad, but nobody seems to do the maths, like 'Duuuuhh, it's 2 grand off'. fook off.

I would love to know how much it costs to dispose of these old cars ? how much dose that cost us as well, I feel there pulling the wool over peoples eyes with this crappage scheme, if anything as it's been said, manufactures should be bring the prices down them self’s, it's all greed and using tax paying peoples money to pay for it and yet again while these fat cats sit there and watch the money roll in just like the banks

Like I said, if you're going to buy a brand new car for 14k (for example), 1 grand of my money shouldn't be going to you, or the car industry. What a fcking joke.
The government is in the pockets of the banks and corporations - it's too late to do anything, we are totally fcked.

I read somewhere that someone had done the maths and it costs the exchequer about £65 per car once they get the VAT and what have you back and it gets a lot of bangers off the road apparently, so the govt thinks it is worth it.

Ive always been opposed to the scheme for reasons such as this, and also the fact in encourages consumer debt, when the government are saying on the other hand that people need to lower their credit levels thanks to record consumer debt levels, one of the main contributors to the current recession. Yet again, the Labour government helping those who have money to burn, at the expense of the poorest (10p tax) people in the country.

Im not sure about my washing machine as its pretty new and top of the range, but I would like to see the government offer an incentive for me to replace all my white goods with AAA energy efficient ones.

And how about my media centre, I would love a Via Nano or Intel Atom Dual Core ULV CPU-based system, how about a deal on this as well?

Less electricity usage = less carbon emmissions and less reliance on foreign importing.

but how many votes would that get them?