MPs to grill Volkswagen and McLoughlin today over emissions violations

The Commons transport committee today hears evidence from Volkswagen Group on emissions-rigging and what action the company is now taking as a result.

There have been claims that VW's evasion of emissions limits has contributed to thousands of early deaths and there have been calls for new emissions tests, based on real world emissions, a call backed by transport secretary Patrick McLoughlin in his speech to the Conservative party conference last week for "real world testing with result we can trust to protect air quality".

The Guardian predicts that Paul Willis, managing director of VW U.K, will be in for "a rough ride" today over how the so-called 'defeat devices' ended up in VW cars and how the company intends to repair the 1.2m vehicles affected in the U.K.

The MPs will also this afternoon ask questions of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders and of McLoughlin and DfT vehicle standards officials. They want to find out what steps the Government is taking to "restore public confidence in the vehicle type approval testing regime".