Chamber and committees

Scottish Government submission of 15 October 2021

PE1856/D - Support the taxi trade

Low Emissions Zones

The aim of the Low Emission Zones Retrofit Fund is to provide financial support to make it affordable for microbusinesses and sole traders, living and operating within a 20km radius of a LEZ, who couldn’t otherwise afford to upgrade their older, more polluting vehicles. The LEZ Retrofit Fund is a generous package and is intended to support commercial operators, including taxis, who may not be in a position to apply for other funding schemes already offered by the Scottish Government, such as interest free loans for ultra-low emission vehicles. The grant funding levels have been determined so as to be an incentive to commercial businesses to upgrade their fleet whilst at the same time allowing for the highest number of awards possible from a set budget.

The fund offers up to £10,000 per taxi, to a maximum of 80% of the total costs, to retrofit non-LEZ compliant vehicles to meet the emission standards for driving within a LEZ. This is a non-repayable grant, funded by the Scottish Government and administered by the Energy Savings Trust. The LEZ Retrofit Fund is already an attractive offer and has awarded over £1 million of grant funding to taxi operators to upgrade 129 wheelchair accessible taxis since 2019, 53 in this current fiscal year alone. Funding and budget plans have been set for within the current fiscal year and any future funding rounds would be subject to the usual spending review process.

The national exemptions for LEZs are set out in the regulations: The Low Emission Zones (Emission Standards, Exemptions and Enforcement) (Scotland) Regulations 2021 (legislation.gov.uk). Public transport vehicles, including coaches and buses, must comply with the standards set out for the LEZs. Each local authority can set local time-limited exemptions for some vehicle types and this will be considered by the local authority as they develop their final schemes.

Having LEZ-compliant taxis is an important and valued part of the urban transport mix and funding remains available in this current fiscal year for operators wishing to take up the support on offer. In developing and administering the LEZ Retrofit Fund, we have engaged with the taxi industry, as well as other commercial organisations who could benefit from this fund.

Taxi Sector Engagement

As mentioned in our previous correspondence, Transport Scotland are willing to consider suitable channels to engage with the Taxi sector. Officials will make contact with the Petitioner to discuss engagement between Transport Scotland and the Taxi sector outwith that which already takes place to understand what gaps they believe exist.