UK ministers have been warned to “come clean” about when they were first told about the Volkswagen scandal.
Both the SNP and Labour have asked the Westminster government for urgent clarification over allegations Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin was aware of emissions test-rigging almost a year ago but “sat on his hands”.
VW has admitted that 11 million vehicles worldwide were fitted with sophisticated software which conned testers in the US into believing their vehicles met environmental standards.
It was reported this week that the UK Department of Transport (DfT) received a 60-page document from the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT), the same research organisation that helped uncover the VW fraud in the US, 11 months ago.
Labour’s shadow transport secretary Lilian Greenwood condemned the DfT’s response as “unacceptable”.
She said: “Ministers must come clean and admit when they were first told about the diesel emissions scandal.
“The ICCT, the body which helped to expose the problem, warned a year ago that dangerously high levels of nitrogen oxide emissions were not confined to America.
“It is unacceptable that the government waited this long to take action.”
Glasgow South MP Stewart McDonald, who sits on the Commons transport select committee, has called for it to launch an independent investigation into the claims.
He said: “VW owners in Scotland and across the UK will be anxious to know that their vehicles will not be affected by this scandal.
“We now need an immediate independent review to establish exactly what information the DfT received so that the public can continue to have confidence in the UK’s vehicle emissions testing.”
A DfT spokesman said the UK Government had been “at the forefront of action at a European level” to introduce updated emissions testing.
He added that the ICCT report published in October last year “did not identify the vehicles tested”.