Green Party Co-Leader Jonathan Bartley: no new money for renewables in the Budget is pathetic Today the Chancellor put paid to any pretence this Government cares about our environment. With an air pollution crisis choking […]

Today the Chancellor put paid to any pretence this Government cares about our environment. With an air pollution crisis choking Britain and global temperatures rising year on year, this could have been the Blue Planet budget we need. What we got was a drop in the ocean.

That drop came in the form of Philip Hammond’s promise to investigate a plastic tax. Every minute a staggering one million bottles are thought to be bought – with the waste filling our oceans and polluting our natural world. Here in the UK our plastic waste could fill the Royal Albert Hall every year. Taxing single use plastics would be welcome news for those of us who have been saying for years this is not sustainable – but it is also shy of the challenge we face. What we really need is a complete ban on single use plastics, and it is my hope that the Chancellor’s new tax – if it is forthcoming – will be used to move towards this end as soon as possible.

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Sadly, the rest of the Budget’s ocean was bone dry when it comes to the bold environmental protections we so urgently need.

A death knell to tidal power

It is hard to understate the implications of the death knell the Chancellor sounded to tidal power and other new renewable technologies. Hidden on page 52 of the budget was the news there would be “no new low carbon electricity levies until 2025” – which translates as no new money for renewables. This defies logic at a time when we should be creating good jobs, and taking advantage of the latest breakthroughs to secure our future.

This year the price of offshore wind dropped by 50%, while investment in a renewable revolution could create tens of thousands of jobs and make Britain a world leader for the right reasons. Brilliant new technology like the tidal lagoon at Swansea could see local economies rejuvenated while providing cheap, clean energy and helping Britain meet its climate targets. Instead of seizing the opportunities the rise of low carbon presents, Hammond today placed us firmly in the past.

The energy he chose to favour with tax breaks was North Sea oil and gas. Last year the sector received £396m from the Government. The Chancellor’s announcement will see even more money poured down the drain of this unprofitable industry and continue our dependence on fossil fuels and an industry well past its sell by date. With 2017 set to be the hottest year on record yet, the Hammond has buried yet deeper any chance of Britain living up to the promises it made under the Paris Climate Change Agreement.

‘Pathetic’ response to air pollution

If the Chancellor’s plans for energy are ugly, his response to Britain’s air pollution crisis was pathetic. Our toxic air is linked to 40,000 early deaths every year. It causes asthma in healthy children and stunts lung growth. With a staggering nine in ten people living in areas with air that breaches pollution limits, inaction is simply not an option. Yet the Chancellor’s only proposal was to move vehicle excise duty on diesel cars up a band.

A tiny step in the right direction, this falls far short of what will be needed to clean up our illegal air. For many this will be £40. To really get dirty vehicles off our road we needed a boost twenty times this, with an £800 increase on Vehicle Excise Duty, which would provide enough for a diesel scrappage scheme.

As if to underline the scale of the failure of this Government the Chancellor went on to say he was “proud” of the freeze in the fuel duty escalator – which has cost the treasury £46bn. Subsidy, from you and I, given away, to fuel the air pollution crisis and climate change. Money which could have gone instead to improving public transport, and our schools and hospitals.

The Chancellor had the opportunity today to put the environment at the heart of Government. It would have made economic sense. It would have made climate sense. It would have been common sense. Instead, this budget will go down in history as the moment the Government produced the dirtiest budget for a generation.