Chancellor Alistair Darling has confirmed that the UK will get a car scrappage scheme from next month.

The UK car industry has put considerable pressure on the government to introduce a scheme to encourage new car purchases and help support UK dealers and manufacturers.

The chancellor announced that when a car more than ten years old is scrapped the government will offer a £2000 discount on a new car.

There will be no C02 restrictions on the new cars in order to help sales of cars from luxury manufacturers - particularly Jaguar Land Rover - and the scheme is scheduled to close in March 2010.

The path towards the scrappage discount has been tortuous, with widely reported disputes between business secretary Lord Mandelson, who has been vocal in his support for such a scheme, and the treasury, which has been desperately looking for ways to cut spending.

Later in his budget, the chancellor announced that fuel duty would increase by 2p a litre in September.

Source article: Autocar 22 April 09