Govt lambasted over green tax cash cow
04 September 2007
The Green Party today responded to a report showing that that the government is raising billions in excess revenue from green taxes - and not using these funds for environmental spending. (1)
Green Party Principal Speaker Siân Berry said: "The government's failure to use the money raised from green taxes to help people lead cheaper, greener lifestyles is something the Greens have been highlighting for a long time. It is shameful not to be investing the funds raised in services that will help people to reduce their carbon footprint.
"Using green taxes as a cash cow to fund general government spending leaves people feeling ripped off, and goes against the spirit of eco-taxes.
"Green policies have to have a purpose beyond generating headlines. They must be based on evidence that they will change people's behaviour and reduce carbon emissions - or they just become 'taxes'.
"Using the revenue raised by green taxes to cut income tax and corporation tax will do nothing to help ordinary people to become greener - as the Tories want to do.
"Only the Green Party's integrated green and economic policies would ensure we make the carbon cuts we need whilst still helping those least able to pay.
"The Green Party's carbon costed budget, released in March this year, set out how the Party would save 55 million tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2007/8 alone (a 7.5% cut in the first year, with greater cuts in the following years, adding up to a 90% cut by 2030) using radical, evidence-based green taxes, tempered for the economically poorest with immediate improvements in public transport, as well as steep increases in pensions, tax credits and child benefit.
Principal Speaker Derek Wall also commented on the news:
"Investing in public services that help people live lower carbon lives - re-nationalising the railways, re-regulating buses, and cutting the UK's most iniquitous tax - VAT - would be what the Greens would spend the revenue raised from green taxes on. "
(1) news.bbc.co.uk
