Green budget response: Darling bottles it in a budget that is Brown, not Green
12 March 2008
Caroline Lucas MEP has responded with disappointment to Alistair Darling's first Budget, pointing especially to climb downs on the planned 2p increase in fuel duty and the missed opportunity of a windfall tax on energy company profits to tackle fuel poverty.
The Green Party's Principal speaker also expressed her doubt that the government's target for reducing child poverty could be met without much greater spending commitments, with the £3.4bn calculated to be required gallingly matching the £3.3bn due to be spent on the Iraq and Afghanistan occupations this year alone.
Dr Lucas said:
"This Budget isn't Green, it's Brown. After spinning extensively that we were going to see the most environmental budget ever, the government have given us more of the same.
"It tells you all you need to know about the government's attitude to the environment that Darling chose the section on climate change to reaffirm his commitment to expanding both Heathrow and Stansted airports. He claims he wants tougher carbon reduction targets, but if air travel expands in the way he wants, the only way to meet the cuts we need would be to sacrifice every other part of our economy.
"Under pressure from roads lobbyists, he has backed down on the already timid 2p rise in fuel duty, putting it back until autumn apparently due to high oil prices. If he really thinks oil will be cheap by October, his basic understanding of economics must surely be in doubt. Fossil fuel costs will remain high as long as demand remains high, and cowardly decisions like this will only make the problem worse, not better.
"The £20 increase in child benefit is of course welcome, but it falls well short of what is required to meet the government's laudable targets for cutting child poverty. The £3.4bn that it would take to halve child poverty by 2010 is instead being spent on occupying Iraq and Afghanistan in 2008 alone. We need a real commitment to spending on the things that matter, we need to insist that employers pay a real living wage, and we need to end the assault course of benefit traps and welfare blackmail that the government has set up on the border between benefits and work."
