More choice, safer cars

Release No. 468 - 13 May 1999

Proposals to widen consumer choice and promote competition in the car market while improving safety and environmental standards were jointly announced today by the Minister for Transport, Dr John Reid and the Trade and Industry Secretary Stephen Byers.

Presently there are extremely tight limits (50 per model per year) on the number of commercially-traded vehicles, not built for the European market, which can be imported into the UK each year under the the Single Vehicle Approval Scheme (SVA) scheme. Following consultation, Ministers have agreed their intention to introduce changes to the scheme from March 2000.

Commenting, Dr Reid said

"These measures are a progressive steps towards my clearly stated objectives of delivering increased competion and choice for car buyers together with better safety and environmental standards.

"The practical effect of these changes will be higher standards, coupled with a progressive increase in the number of non type-approved vehicles that can be sold here. That's good news all round for consumers."

The main elements of the proposed changes are:

Progressive lifting of limits on the total number of commercially traded vehicles which can be approved and registered under SVA, starting with 1000 vehicles in March next year and increasing by 1000 each month until the end of year 2000 when all limits will be lifted.

Introduction of enhanced technical standards for key environmental, safety and security (anti-theft) items to apply to commercially traded vehicles. The current SVA standards will continue to apply to amateur-built vehicles and genuine personal imports as redefined below.

Complete lifting of limits on vehicles which have been approved to equivalent standards to the enhanced SVA in other European member states.

Tightening of the rules for vehicles to qualify as "personal imports" by requiring importers to have lived abroad for at least 12 months and used their vehicles abroad for at least 6 months.

Notes to Editors

1. The review of SVA was announced on 14 October 1998 (see press notice 842). The Department consulted on the principles of amending the Single Vehicle Approval (SVA) scheme and associated import procedures for cars and light goods vehicles to:

(a) remove the current numerical limits that apply to commercially traded vehicles(both imports and domestically manufactured) that are not type-approved for the EC or UK;

(b) enhance the standards for some key items in the SVA test for these commercially traded vehicles; and

(c) close the personal import loophole so that only genuine personal importers such as expatriates would be able to use the existing, less rigorous, SVA. (Individuals would still be able to import non type-approved vehicles, but their cars would need to meet the enhanced SVA standards).

2. The proposals announced today will achieve this in a progressive way, starting in March 2000 and relaxing the limits over 9 months until they are completely removed on 1 January 2001. Unlike the existing limit of 50 per year for each model, these limits are independant of model and are for the total number of vehicles which can be approved under SVA each month. The table below gives the detail of how the limits will be phased out.

3. Proposals to revise the regulations and inspection manual will be the subject of a public consultation and formal notification to the EC and WTO. We expect this to be undertaken during the middle of 1999.

4. The proposals announced today will not affect the arrangements for importing type-approved vehicles with valid certificates of conformity; they will continue to be free of any legal limits on imports.

Proposed Transitional Quotas Toward Full Lifting of Limit From 1 January 2001