GREEN Party leader Natalie Bennett said today that George Osborne had failed to deliver the change in economic direction Britain so desperately needs.
By further cutting corporation tax and continuing with the ending of the 50p tax rate, she said the Chancellor had reaffirmed the Coalition Government’s commitment to promoting the interests of large multinational companies and the wealthy, whilst doing little to help small business and contiuning to force low and middle income-earners to carry much of the burden of the financial crisis
With the UK’s green economy now worth over £120bn – 8% of GDP – providing nearly a million jobs and generating a third of our most recent economic growth according to the CBI, the Green leader said it was deeply disappointing that George Osborne was still refusing to prioritise investment in much needed green infrastructure.
Green Party leader Natalie Bennett said:
"George Osborne's obsession with austerity is now glaringly clear. With even the International Monetary Fund telling him he needs to spend more money, he's still stuck with Plan A, which is failing in even its own terms, with his deficit-reduction targets extending ever further into the distant future. We need to invest to create jobs, to make our economy and our homes fit for the 21st century, to create a jobs-rich, low-carbon future, with manufacturing and food production brought back to Britain.
“The Bank of England has already e-printed £375 billion for quantitative easing, to the great benefit of the richest 5% in Britain and little impact for the rest of us; what Osborne should have done today was set out a big investment programme in renewable energy generation and energy efficiency at interest rates designed to maximise uptake rather than profits for Green Deal lenders. Treating 1 million of our cold draughty homes each year would create 140,000 jobs, save each household up to £250 in fuel bills, and cut carbon emissions."
Welfare Cuts
The Chancellor has proven himself to be completely out of touch with the realities facing the majority of British families.with the realterms cuts to welfare now threatening to plunge already suffering households further into debt and desperation. The current toxic combination of tax rises, welfare cuts and wage freezes could push almost 7.1m of the nation’s 13m children "below the breadline", according to a new report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
The Foundation estimates that 460,000 children would be pushed below those levels by the increase in VAT and cuts to tax credits, an additional 170,000 by sluggish wage growth and 80,000 more by the curbs on public sector pay. Just 20,000 children would be raised above the minimum level by the new Universal Credit system, which comes into force in October. Overall., it estimates that 90 per cent of families will be worse off in 2015 than in 2010.
Corporation tax giveaway
The Government is engaged in a race to the bottom when it comes to corporation tax. The changes announced today completely let multinationals off the hook on tax while offering no benefit to small- and medium-sized British companies.
A fairer economic policy
Rather than cutting tax for the richest individuals, which will do nothing to stabilise the economy or create jobs, the Green Party would ensure high earners pay their fair share by extending the 50p tax rate to cover salaries over £100,000 – raising around £2.3bn per year. We’d also introduce a fair pay policy of a 10:1 ratio between the highest and lowest paid workers.
The Green Party would also phase out VAT - a regressive tax on spending which hits poorest people hardest - and replace it with taxes to cover the full environmental costs of pollution and raw material use, levied as close to the point of production as is practical. We would use taxes on international financial transactions and bank profits from polluting investments to incentivise and finance a transition to a greener economy.
Tax avoidance and evasion
If Osborne really wanted to reduce the tax gap we face as a result of companies and rich individals sidestepping their taxes , he wouldn’t have slashed the very department responsible for collecting them. By cutting HMRC staff by 10,000 and funding for the department by £3bn in 2010, the Chancellor has severely impaired its ability to hold tax dodgers to account.
And if the Government was really serious about cracking down on tax avoidance and evasion it would be supporting efforts to shut down tax havens and supporting Green MP Caroline Lucas’s Private Members Bill requiring all companies to publish what they earn. “It would also seek a strong international agreement to force all multinationals to report their tax practices transparently. HMRC has a duty to prosecute multinational companies who do not pay their taxes in the UK and it’s right that offenders are publically named and shamed.”
A Green government would make corporations pay a fair contribution to society by closing corporate tax avoidance loopholes, and reverse the Tory-Lib Dem tax giveaway for multinational companies with financial subsidiaries in tax havens, increasing tax rates from 5.75% back to 23%.
Tax breaks for shale gas
Caroline Lucas MP urged the Chancellor to ditching his irrational obsession with gas, calling it “outrageous that the Government is willing to gift yet more tax breaks to companies drilling for hard-to-reach shale which now risks keeping the UK addicted to polluting fossil fuels at precisely the time we should be leaving them in the ground.
She said: “A Government which really cared about bringing energy bills under control and improving energy security would put its money on renewables – where the costs are predictable and falling – and agree to recycle carbon tax revenue into a jobs-rich energy efficiency programme, rather than deepening our dependence on gas, where prices are set to keep rising.
“Going all-out for offshore wind, for example, instead would save £20bn by 2030, create 70,000 more jobs, and lead to both lower climate emissions and lower fuel bills."
New nuclear: holding the nation to ransom
With the new nuclear facility at Hinkley, announced yesterday, expected to come with a £14bn price tag, the Greens are also calling on the Government to urgently think again before ploughing ahead with its deeply nuclear strategy. For the cost of one nuclear reactor, it’s estimated that 7 million households could be lifted out of fuel poverty.
The negotiations for a strike price for nuclear operators is getting on for double the current price of electricity – to be paid by households and businesses already struggling with high bills – and it’s clear that the main beneficiaries of all this will be EDF and the French state.