Carmakers are calling on the UK government to continue the car scrappage scheme, which has boosted sales of new cars.

There are concerns that sales will fall sharply once the scheme - which provides a £2,000 discount provided equally by the government and the car industry - runs out of money.

The government has set aside £300m for the scheme of which over half has already been spent and it is estimated that money for the scheme will run out in November.

"We're worried that it's [the scrappage scheme] going to stop very abruptly, so what we'd like to see is it extended for a period of time," said John Fleming, chairman of Ford Europe.