Volkswagen, BMW and Daimler have caused the early deaths of thousands of Britons after staging exhaust tests to trick safety officials, the government’s former chief scientist has claimed.
Sir David King said that the German carmakers “have blood on their hands” for rigging experiments that convinced him to recommend a shift in policy towards favouring diesel cars under Tony Blair’s Labour government.
He was speaking as Volkswagen suspended its chief lobbyist after he admitted failing to halt experiments that exposed monkeys to diesel exhaust gases, the latest scandal to engulf VW after the emissions scandal broke in 2015.
Sir David, who was the government’s chief scientific adviser between 2000 and 2007, described the duplicity of the car companies as simply astonishing. “The number of early fatalities in Britain is really very, very large due to NOx [nitrogen oxide] air, with governments across Europe encouraging diesel on the basis that the catalyst traps worked,” he told The Daily Telegraph. “These companies have blood on their hands — I say that without any doubt.”
In 2004 Sir David visited the Johnson Matthey lab in Royston, Hertfordshire, which convinced him of the adequate safety of the new diesel capture catalysts. He said that a rigged VW and other vehicles had exhaust emissions that “smelt cleaner than air”.
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“It was on that basis, and reviews of data, that I stood back and let the regulatory system run through,” he said.
Thomas Steg, VW’s head of external relations, offered to resign after admitting that he knew about the 2014 tests on monkeys in the US that were designed to show that diesel fumes were not a significant risk to human health. Matthias Müller, VW’s chief executive, called the tests “wrong . . . unethical and repulsive”. He said that Mr Steg “has declared that he takes full responsibility and I respect that”.
•The air pollution limit for the year has been reached on one route after only 30 days. On Brixton Road in south London, hourly nitrogen dioxide limits have been exceeded 18 times so far — the EU maximum. Karmenu Vella, the European Commission’s environment commissioner, said: “The deadlines for meeting the legal obligations have long elapsed. We can delay no more.”