20110324_R4

Source: BBC Radio 4: Today Programme

URL: N/A

Date: 24/03/2011

Event: Green MP Caroline Lucas criticises the UK Budget of March 2011

People:

• Caroline Lucas: Green Party MP for Brighton Pavilion
• James Naughtie: Presenter, BBC Radio 4: Today Programme

James Naughtie: The Green Party says its a "betrayal of our environment", I quote, its leader is Caroline Lucas, MP for Brighton Pavilion. Morning.

Caroline Lucas: Good morning.

James Naughtie: Why a 'betrayal'?

Caroline Lucas: Well, this was supposedly the greenest government ever, and yet it's had a serious step backwards with the budget. Osborne's abolished the fuel duty escalator, he's cut fuel tax for vehicles, he's frozen the air passenger duty, he's given incentives to nuclear via a carbon floor price and he's launched a green investment bank that isn't really a bank, because it can't lend or borrow until at least 2015.

James Naughtie: Well -

Caroline Lucas: That comes on top of - can I just say it - that comes on top, as well, of slashing the funding to support solar installations, which is a massive step backwards for the solar industry in the UK, and a U-turn on zero-carbon homes. And all of that's not just a tragedy for the environment, it's a tragedy for the economy, it's huge numbers of jobs not created.

James Naughtie: Well, he's got a problem, though, a rather big problem, that he needs to encourage growth by one means or another, if he's going to get the deficit down on his target, and he argues that, you know, for all of us, if that deficit doesn't come down, we really are in long-term trouble, and if he's going to do that, he's got to encourage economic activity, and he will argue that the changes in fuel are necessary if that's going to happen.

Caroline Lucas: Well, let me just take up that point, because there's often a kind of assumption that to do things that are good for the environment are somehow bad for the economy, and that's absolutely wrong. If he'd gone ahead with this green investment bank, that would have been a huge opportunity to really boost investment in clean tech jobs, absolutely get the economy working again. You know, it's been estimated that this green investment bank could have leveraged billions of pounds that we need for the low-carbon infrastructure up to 2025. It could have been a fantastic way of getting that private capital, which Osborne keeps saying that he wants, into the economy. And if you're really going to try to say that you're a greenest government ever, then instead of just indiscriminate growth, what we should be looking at is where we can put a boost into the economy where it's going to make a difference to the environment as well as to the economy, and it's just such a lost opportunity here, where he could have done that, and he's blown it.