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press
office: press releases
carrier bag plan sums up a real zero-impact budget
17/03/2008
Alistair Darling’s claims to be a ‘green Chancellor’ are looking distinctly underwhelming after his debut Budget, according to one of Birmingham’s best-known climate change experts.
Andrew Whitehead, the partner who heads Martineau Johnson’s energy unit, describes the statement’s environmental elements as ‘more grey than green’.
He admits he had been hoping for radical and innovative ideas, across a wide range of green issues.
However, after studying last week’s announcement from Mr Darling in detail, Mr Whitehead believes Labour is struggling to maintain its reputation as the party with the strongest environmental credentials.
“When Tony Blair proclaimed his commitment to reducing greenhouse gases and to developing alternative energy sources, it seemed the government was determined to take the high ground on green issues,” he recalled.
“Instead, all we have heard subsequently has been about missed targets and backtracking. The Chancellor’s comments about possible carrier-bag charges sum up Labour’s paucity of ideas.
“Exactly why a measure designed to reduce household waste should be included in legislation dealing with carbon emissions remains a mystery.”
Mr Whitehead accepts that any government facing economic slowdown would struggle to bring in green measures of major significance.
“The Chancellor did face a major dilemma. The global economy is struggling, and one of his key priorities is to protect UK plc from a deeper economic slowdown,” he said.
“At the same time, the world faces the much greater challenge of global warming, and there is an urgent need for policies which quickly deliver carbon emission reductions across the UK economy.”
However, the Martineau Johnson partner was still disappointed by the lack of innovative thinking and commitment in the Budget statement.
“Mr Darling’s green taxation measures - most of them not new - are not of sufficient magnitude to lead to the required changes in behaviour by consumers, householders and motorists,“ said Mr Whitehead.
“Recent criticism of the Treasury, from the House of Commons’ Environmental Audit Committee, that it ‘lacks ambition‘ in this area, now seems even more well-founded,” he added.
“Green taxes also do not appear to have been offset by tax reductions elsewhere, which suggests the government is simply using climate change concerns as an excuse to raise money.”
Mr Whitehead was particularly dismayed that so many of the measures highlighted by the Chancellor are simple restatements of proposals already announced by Brussels
“Similarly, on aviation, which is predicted to account for a fifth of carbon emissions by 2050, he again had nothing new to offer, and largely recycled existing policies.”
Mr Whitehead was delighted to hear more on the government’s ambition that all new homes will be zero carbon from 2016, including some new measures to help achieve it.
“However, the key point is that we will have to wait until the end of the year for a definition of what zero-carbon actually means in this context. On top of this, we now have an ambition that all new non-domestic buildings will be zero carbon by 2019, with all new public sector buildings zero carbon from 2018.
“Setting goals is very easy, but creating strategies to deliver the desired outcomes is much harder,” he said.
“And rather than setting targets for new buildings, it would have been nice to see fiscal measures to encourage householders to invest in energy efficiency measures in relation to the UK’s existing housing stock.”
One welcome announcement was the prospect of a feed-in tariff for microgeneration, with the prospect of a consultation later in the year.
“Public subsidy for small scale generation in the form of a simple feed-in tariff would be one way of kick starting action at an individual and community level, where we need a step change in new renewables capacity if the UK is to meet its binding European targets for renewable energy.”
However, the absence of the oft-mentioned windfall tax on energy suppliers was no surprise.
“It has made great tabloid headlines in the last few weeks, but nothing of substance was ever going to materialise,” said Mr Whitehead.
“There are inherent difficulties - from both a political and market perspective - of imposing one-off taxes of this nature.
“Targeting taxation measures on only the major players in a competitive market could also be seen as ’reverse state aid’, in favour of the smaller energy suppliers who would be left untouched.”
For further information please contact Andrew Whitehead on
andrew.whitehead@martjohn.com
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