So the scrappage scheme...

I'll forego the rest of the budget, at least for the time being, and look at the car scrappage scheme (covered here, here and lots here)

In order to help the car industry and retail trade, I can announce that a scrappage scheme will be implemented next month.

It will provide motorists with a £2,000 discount on new vehicles bought when they trade in cars over ten years old.

It will be a time-limited scheme until March 2010. My Right Honourable Friend the Secretary of State for Business will announce details shortly.

Sounds good surely? Newer models should be more efficient and therefore have less emissions and the motor industry gets a large boost. Except (as in the articles I linked to above) it's full of more holes than a block of swiss cheese.

• Although the full details are published yet, there seems to be no enforcement that the car must be more efficient than the previous one (people tend to upgrade to a more powerful car when they buy a new one)
• If the car is more efficient, the rebound effect means some of the savings (hard to place figures, UKERC suggest 50%) is lost as people drive more
• 80% or so of cars sold in Britain come from abroad, so the boost to British jobs is greatly reduced
• The cost in manufacturing the car isn't considered (defra link here suggests it's 10% of the lifetime emissions based on 10,000 miles per year for 13 years)
• It seems that the traded car is scrapped regardless of how roadworthy it is
• If the Government offers £2000 off, dealers may well reduce the discounts on their cars, reducing the benefit to consumers (who also still need to find £10000 or whatever
  
• It (arguably) continues to subsidise a bloated and environmentally damaging sector
  
• It continues to promote a message to the public that energy usage and climate change will have no impact on the way people can live and that the Government can still meet its legally binding emissions targets even with these policies
  
• No mention of funding or promotion for public transport/cycling/walking
• There might be more but that'll do for now
  

It's like trying to solve fuel poverty by burning money directly, yes it works, but it's hard to think of a more inefficient way of doing it.