6th December 2006

Flimsy eco-taxes will line Treasury pockets, not change behaviour

Gloucestershire Green Party spokesperson, Philip Booth today has dismissed suggestions that the Chancellor's pre-budget report would be environmentally friendly.

Cllr Philip Booth, a Stroud District councillor said: "The Chancellor's pre-budget report will not even start him on the right road to gaining some green credentials. This is gesture politics at its worst: he is trying to outflank the Tories on sounding Green, when neither party is prepared to take the radical measures needed to prevent climate change."

Philip Booth added: "Headline grabbing figures about rises in air passenger duty and Vehicle Excise Duty miss the point. Why raise a tax on airline seats when his support for airport expansion will ensure the biggest growth in the aviation sector for a generation?"

Green Party Principal Speaker Siân Berry, who was brought up in Cheltenham but now lives in London, said in response to the budget: "The treasury raises around 70 billion annually from VAT - an administratively over-complex sales tax that makes no link between taxation and the environmental consequences of consumption.  The Green Party would phase this out in favour of proper environmental taxes that would adjust the market so that the price of goods and services reflects their real cost.

Siân Berry added: "The last ten Brown budgets have enabled carbon emissions in the UK to actually rise, it will take a lot more than an additional penny on fuel tax to counter the devastating effects of this. Unlike Browns flimsy 'eco-tax' proposals, we would aim to encourage behaviour that contributes to long-term sustainability rather than raise additional government revenue."