Caroline Lucas MEP, leader of the Green Party, has expressed disappointment at the lack of detailed economic measures in Gordon Brown's conference speech, which offered no specific ideas to tackle recession. Dr Lucas urges a Green New Deal of banking reconstruction and public works to solve the triple crunch of financial crisis, rising oil prices and climate change.
Dr Lucas said:
"Brown has probably succeeded, at least temporarily, in steadying the Labour ship. But he hasn't paid nearly as much attention to the economic storm raging outside.
"His speech bore the New Labour hallmark - a flotilla of headline-grabbing initiatives, this time on health, nursery education and pensions. But on the crucial issue of the economy, there was very little beyond a dire warning that it would all be much worse under the Tories.
"The Greens are proposing a Green New Deal to create jobs, turn the economy around and address the climate crisis. We expected a big announcement from Brown today, but he still isn't proposing anything serious on the economy.
"The only specifics were on more transparency and accountability in banking. But we know that Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch are not Enron - this crisis is not caused by people breaking the rules, but by the rules being wrong to start with. The chairman of the Financial Services Authority has already warned him that "it can't be tidied up by a little more disclosure or transparency" - but that is all Brown's offering."
"We don't need Brown's 'belief' in a million green jobs; we need a plan to create them. Like Roosevelt in the 1930's, we need to invest in infrastructure and public services, not asset-strip as we are urged to do by Cameron and Clegg. We need to redesign banking, with smaller, more agile companies closer to the real economy, and more democratic control of finance through credit unions and building societies. We need to actively create job opportunities by investing in the energy efficiency, renewables and public transport that will make our economy less dependent on oil and tough enough to face down future energy shocks."