The Green Switch
Sunday, September 17th, 2006
The Liberal Democrats are placing the environment at the centre of their Annual Conference this month and launching a campaign called �the Green Switch�.
Lib Dems have always placed the environment at the heart of their thinking. They were the only party with a Green Action section in every chapter of their manifesto at the last election. This helped to integrate environmental thinking into every policy area. Now they intend to go further with a series of proposals to ensure a sustainable future:
- Increase green taxes as a share of national income. Green taxes have fallen from 3.6% of national income in 2000 to only 2.9%. This should be reversed with the extra money being raised used to cut Income Tax.
- Reform the Climate Change Levy so that it is an effective tax on carbon use.
- Raise Vehicle Excise Duty on the most polluting cars. VED needs to be radically changed to reward clean cars and penalise �gas guzzlers�.
- Keep Fuel Duty in line with inflation. When fuel duty has not been increased emissions have risen and this cannot be allowed to happen.
- Tighten allocations in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme so that the price of carbon use in industry goes up.
- Tax aircraft emissions not passengers. Airlines should pay an emissions charge per flight. This would reward flights that are full and penalise those wasting a full tank on a few passengers.
- Provide help where cars are essential. In rural areas each household would be able to get a 50% discount on the VED of one car. These policies are the cornerstone of the Lib Dems plans to protect the environment. They are far more advanced and credible than those of any other party.
