Fewer than half of UK vehicles in emissions scandal fixed, says VW boss

Fewer than half of the UK vehicles caught up in the Volkswagen emissions scandal have been fixed, the company's boss has said.

Around 470,000 of the 1.2 million vehicles fitted with software to cheat environmental tests have been dealt with, according to Paul Willis.

He told MPs some "small issues" that were "very problematic to fix" had caused delays but the rest should be done by autumn.

In the US, Volkswagen has agreed a 15 billion US dollar (£12.3 billion) settlement, but the company's UK boss repeatedly said the company in Europe did nothing wrong and "misled nobody".

During a combative session of the Transport select committee, he insisted there was "no legal basis" for compensation claims because there was "no degradation" to the vehicles.

"At no time were any vehicles sold to anyone in Europe based on nitrogen oxide levels," he said.

In a fractious hearing, MPs attacked VW's UK boss for failing to give answers to straight answers.

"You come before us and your mouth opens and words cascade out and then the next time you come before us those words have changed in meaning," Mark Menzies said.

The Conservative MP attacked Mr Willis for repeatedly using phrases such as "to the best of my knowledge" and "I can't recall".

Mr Willis said he had "prepared very diligently" for the session and had answered the questions as "open and transparently" as he could.

Of the 1.2 million UK vehicles affected by the crisis, there were 508,276 Volkswagen cars, 393,450 Audis, 131,569 Skodas, 79,838 VW commercial vehicles and 76,773 Seats.

Around 20,000 cars a week are being fixed by the company, Mr Willis told MPs.

He added: "We are very pleased with that level of technical fix. Our customers are telling us that they are satisfied with the level of technical fix and we have been talking to the Department for Transport and informing them of this progress.

"So, in the main we are pleased. It's not perfect, of course, I wouldn't ever pretend to you that it's perfect.

"We are pleased to say that by autumn time that we should have achieved what we hope to achieve, which is all the vehicles we committed to applying the technical measure."