The government’s car scrappage scheme certainly seems to have provided a boost for vehicle sales, but who exactly is buying? Dare I say it, but could someone be on the fiddle?

Car sales had their best month of year in June (or their least worst, but exclude fleet-buyers and private sales rose for the first time in 18 months and small car sales more than doubled). June was the first full month of the scheme that gives owners scrapping 10-year old cars a £2,000 subsidy on a new vehicle – half from the industry and half from the taxpayer.

But maybe I’ve misread the marketplace, but what owners of decade-old bangers suddenly buy a brand new car, even with a price cut?

Surely the ownership pattern is that some people (and companies) buy new cars then sell them after three or so years to a second-hand buyer who holds the vehicle until it is, perhaps, seven or eight years old and then resells it cheaply to someone who can afford only a banger.

OK, a few people buy new and drive the car until it drops apart – or until the repair bills exceed the vehicle’s value – but they are very rare. For most people with an old banger, the prospect of paying £6,000 (nevermind £16,000) for a new vehicle, even with zero per cent finance, is inconceivable.

I smell rats. I suspect there are multi-car families for whom the 10-year old banger is their second of third vehicle and they are trading in the old car to replace one of their main vehicles. So if they own a four-year old main car and a 10-year old run-around the scheme allows them to have a new main car with the four-year old relegated to second vehicle.

Or perhaps owners of old cars are acting as a front for people buying new cars? There are rules to prevent a new buyer purchasing a clapped out banger specially to claim the subsidy, but maybe the old car does not need to change ownership for someone else to benefit. Or could owners of old bangers be turning them into subsidised new cars and reselling the new as new? Could dealerships be helping them?

Those are the sorts of tricks only an unscrupulous second-hand-car dealer would know. Methinks the government should recruit one as an adviser before the full £300m of taxpayers’ money disappears on this unlikely scheme.

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