For those that support green taxes, or to use the government’s jargon ‘environmental taxes’ it is worth noting just how much of the money that is collected in taxes, is actually reinvested into the environment and into reducing emissions. Given the numbers, it is little wonder that there are so many sceptics in the UK, in fact it is something of a scandal. This government is forever telling us how they value the environment, how they are leading the word in the reduction in carbon emissions and why it is so important that those that pollute the environment should pay. The reason I looked up the latest available figures was because the government offered so little new money to help those in fuel poverty in terms of saving energy and ostensibly, to reduce emissions.
According to The Office for National Statistics, the government collected £35.6bn in environmental taxes, that’s right, billion. This is equivelent to 2.7% of our GDP, a huge number by anyone’s reckoning. But how much did they reinvest? According to the ONS, in 2004, the latest year for which figures are available, the government invested £5.9bn into environmental protection measures. That is just 16.5% of the taxes collected. As we all know, since 2006, there have been further stealth taxes, sold as environmental taxes, which means that the figure collected in likely to surge in 2008, perhaps to £40bn.
How can anyone reconcile the platitudes and rhetoric spouted by this government regarding why we must pay green taxes, when they invest so little of what is collected in terms of green taxes, back into environmental protection measures? Green activists would be right to be angry, but so to should the tax payer, given we have been sucked into believing we were being taxed to the hilt in order that the government could introduce measures to protect the environment for the sake of our children.
The government have claimed that people can save up to 25% on their fuel bills if they follow a few measures in terms of insulation, low energy bulbs etc. Yet when the government told us they were investing £1bn to assist those in fuel poverty, it transpired that £910m was coming from the energy companies and just £90m from the government. This figure should also be considered in context, because the government reduced the Warm Front budget by a similar figure, so in fact their contribution was at best, neutral.
If you are angry, then consider this, our green government reduced spending on measures to prevent the atmosphere and climate change from £313m in 2003 to just £250m in 2004. This is hardly what we would expect from a government that claims to be leading the way. To be fair, the expenditure may have increased in the past 4 years, but as we all know, we cannot believe the figures provided by this government, so we will have to wait until the ONS can tell what the actual figures are. This is because, in case anyone has not noticed (we aren’t supposed to), whenever there is a tax rise, it is immediate, but when there is an investment to be made, we are told the total cost, over a period of years and there is always a delay before it is implemented. For example, “we will spend £900m over the next 10 years, starting from 2011“, you know what I mean. They will then repeat this number, making it sound like new money, every 12 months or so, or when they feel they need good headlines. Sorry, I am prevaricating.
I am not arguing against green taxes, but if they are labeled as environmental taxes, then the money should be reinvested into programmes which help the environment, reduce emissions and improve our planet. To ‘profit’ from this tax insults our intelligence, it devalues the whole green agenda and it demonstrates an indifference by a government claiming to care.
