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BUDGET CHECKLIST How to Judge Brown's Green Credentials

16 Mar 1998

Friends of the Earth today publishes a Green Checklist to help the public judge whether tomorrow's Budget is good for the environment. Labour fought the General Election promising to "put the environment at the heart of Government" and to be "the first truly green Government ever".

But FOE fears that many key Green Budget demands may now have been rejected by the Treasury. If the great majority of the measures in FOE's checklist are not included in Gordon Brown's statement tomorrow, Labour's green credentials will be badly damaged

FOE has argued that income from green taxes could be used to invest in public transport and other green measures, and to cut employers' national insurance contributions, with direct savings of up to 1 billion a year on both health and education spending by the year 2010.

GREEN BUDGET CHECKLIST

(See the full briefing Delivering on Commitments - Budget '98 briefing)

1. Raise the road fuel price escalator (the annual increase in road fuel tax)
2. End mileage banding and 'free fuel' tax concessions for company cars
3. Reducing Tax on cleaner fuels
4. Tax private non-residential parking
5. Vary Vehicle Excise Duty (based on emissions and fuel efficiency)
6. Cut the roads programme and increase public sector funding for bus-use, cycling and walking in congested urban areas.
   

Pollution

1. Introduce tax on aggregates
2. Introduce charges on pesticides and chemical fertilizers
3. Increase the waste ('landfill') tax and extend it to incineration
4. Introduce charges on water polluters.

1. Cut VAT on energy saving materials
2. Begin consultation on taxing fossil fuels based on carbon content.

FOE has published its own Green Budget package, tested on the authoritative Cambridge Econometrics MDM-E3. (economy - energy - environment) model. It showed that a green tax package could raise up to 28 billion a year by the year 2010, and could be spent on improved public transport, home energy efficiency, and reductions in employers' National Insurance contributions. The result could be to create almost 400,000 new jobs by 2010,and contribute a 7% cut in CO2 emissions towards the Government's 20% target. In addition, there could be direct savings on health and education spending (both high labour and low energy sectors) of 971 million a year and 962 million a year by 2010.

Charles Secrett, Director of FOE said today:

"This is a make or break moment for Labour's claims to be a green Government. No amount of warm words will be able to disguise a failure to include significant green tax reform in tomorrow's Budget. A green Budget would be good for jobs, good for the environment, good for families and good for the future. Not to include green measures would be a calculated betrayal of Labour's election promise to put the environment at the heart of Government. No one who cares for our environment will forgive Gordon Brown if he fails to take this golden chance to act".

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