Official figures also show that ordinary families have borne the brunt of environmental taxes and households are paying almost four times more than businesses for every ounce of pollution they create.

And to compound Mr Brown's problems, environmental campaigners warned that he was likely to go into the next election with UK carbon emission levels higher than they were when Labour came to power in 1997.

The contribution made by green taxes, which include fuel duty and air passenger duty, fell from 9.3 per cent of total tax revenue in 2000 to 7.7 per cent in 2005.

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