If you are keeping track of the people and organisations who didn’t enjoy Rachel Reeves’s second budget as chancellor, then you can add the National Motorcyclists Council (NMC) to your list. The riders’ rights group calls the 2025 budget “a lost opportunity”, saying that Reeves could have used the budget to “recognise and support the role of motorcycling in the future of transport, but she slammed the brakes on instead.”
Echoing the points raised by the MCIA, the NMC welcomes the decision not to include electric bikes in the eVED (electric vehicle excise duty) per-mile charge outlined for cars to replace lost motor fuel duties, and there was praise for pothole repair investment.
After that, it’s a broadly negative take from the NMC. No extension of the plug-in grant for battery-powered bikes, together with the £10k grant price cap, it sees as a missed chance to prop up the moribund electric bike sector. Meanwhile, an RPI increase in vehicle excise duty for bikes means less incentive to switch to two wheels.
NMC executive director Craig Carey-Clinch (above) said: “Given that the chancellor significantly increased her fiscal headroom in the budget, she could have done much more to support motorcycling. Instead, we have a budget of missed opportunities. Far from accelerating the uptake of zero-emission motorcycles, the net effect of removing the motorcycle plug-in grant next April will simply slam the brakes on an already struggling sector.
“Indeed, to add insult to injury, the budget increases the threshold for the VED Expensive Car Supplement to £50,000, while leaving the maximum retail price threshold for an electric motorcycle to be eligible for the grant at £10,000 for the remaining period of the grant. This no longer affects real-world electric motorcycle pricing.
“The NMC is calling for the original grant levels to be reinstated for motorcycles, with a return of support for e-mopeds being particularly important given the rise in the use of illegally used high-powered e-bikes.
“For far too long, vehicle excise duty has been regarded as a blunt tax-raising tool, which no longer works for motorcycles. This is because VED rates for pre-2017 cars with CO2 emissions of under 110g/km are set at a lower rate than for sub-150cc motorcycles, despite various studies showing that this sector has average CO2 levels of between 70-90g/km. We call on the Treasury to correct this anomaly and zero-rate sub-150cc motorcycles and freeze VED rates for other classes. This would properly recognise the positive environmental contribution that all types of motorcycles offer.”