Liberal Democrat leader Sir Vince Cable has been writing about his green vision for finance, with London at the centre.
This is a welcome this initiative. The more we can green all aspects of our policy, the better. We have a good record from setting up the Green Investment Bank in coalition, and funding renewables. Vince begins,
The prospect of Brexit threatens to cause serious damage to the UK’s financial services industry.
Paris, Frankfurt, Dublin and even Luxembourg are circling like hungry jackals waiting to pick off the weakest members of the herd.
Everybody knows that when you want to win an argument, you need to ‘walk the talk’. Doing the opposite to what you preach tends to fatally undermine your case.
When that argument is persuading the rest of the world, in Paris, to tackle the root causes of climate change, your actions back home act as a global shop window.
But saying one thing, and doing another, is exactly the course this Tory government has taken over green issues. And they do it with no apparent embarrassment, or even understanding of the problem.
So we have the Foreign Secretary in the United Nations, and Cameron at the opening of COP21 in Paris making speeches that even Lib Dems would applaud. But what’s the track record back here in Britain where they drive the nitty-gritty of climate policy?
Take the Green Investment Bank. Set up by Vince Cable in 2012, a Lib Dem manifesto commitment in 2010, over its short existence it has successfully invested £2.3 billion into the UK’s green economy bringing in a further £7 billion in from the private sector. Not just that, its operations are already profitable. As a result the UK has more renewables, more combined heat and power plants, more energy efficient road lighting, more heat pumps. It has been a great Coalition success, down to Lib Dems in government.
Yesterday, Alistair Carmichael spoke at a Green investment conference in Edinburgh, which is, of course, home to the Green Investment Bank.
It was a strong pitch to persuade those attending that the Liberal Democrats are delivering in Government on policies that are both green and pro-businesss. Here are some of the highlights.
Being Scotland, there had to be a bit on the constitution, though, and the Smith Commission:
Following Vince Cable’s gentle call for more capital spending – now reflected in the recent budget – Politics Home talks to the Business Secretary. In suitably glowing terms…
In many ways, his allies think 2013 is The Year of Vince. His once lonely call (in the Coalition at least) for more capital spending and reliefs has been heeded. His ‘responsible capitalism’ agenda will bear fruit this year with boardroom and shareholder changes. He’s outmanoeuvred the Treasury by getting a £1bn business bank – in return for a Tory policy on employee share rights that has been gutted by the
Secretary of State for Scotland Michael Moore has tonight emailed Liberal Democrat members to mark the launch of the Green Investment Bank. Three of the five Liberal Democrat Cabinet ministers were in Edinburgh today for the occasion: Mike, Vince Cable and Ed Davey.
The email said:
Earlier today I joined Vince Cable and Ed Davey in Edinburgh to give the UK Green Investment Bank (GIB) its official launch.
The triumvirate of Ministers underlines that this is a Liberal Democrat-led initiative that will stimulate renewable energy innovation in
On the last day before Parliament’s summer recess, while many MPs were packing their bags for home, I was handling the last of seventeen committee sessions for the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (ERR) Bill.
Along with important measures establishing the Green Investment Bank and creating a powerful new competition authority, the Bill contains a whole range of provisions designed to improve regulation, increase
The Protection of Freedoms Act includes the banning of rogue private wheel clampers, who are so unpopular that when Lynne Featherstone announced the plans last year it resulted in wall-to-wall positive coverage from the broadcast media, the tabloid press, the broadsheet press and even the pollsters. When the media and 87% of the public love a policy of ours …
As Nick Clegg has recently noted, there needs to be a ‘gear shift’ in infrastructure spending. Whilst George Osborne dots the i’s and crosses the t’s on his third budget, it is worth considering how such a ‘gear shift’ may be enacted. Localis has undertaken just such an analysis, and this week launched Credit Where Credit’s Due – produced in partnership with Lloyds Banking Group – that illustrates how local government can help deliver a step-change of this type from the bottom-up. Though our report alights on many policy areas, from increasing the powers of LEPs to astute asset management …
Last week many of us may have witnessed the sickening spectacle of watching a city trader declaring that Goldman Sachs rules the world… among other insights, such as how he lays awake at night fantasising about another economic depression.
If money rules the world, then surely whoever rules the world controls the money supply?
Many of us would, therefore, assume that the Bank of England creates money and regulates its supply to the economy, thereby controlling inflation and interest rates. However, whenever we look to finance a house, car, business project, etc, we invariably turn to the banks (in the …
Last year I was probably the only MP to be elected while still living with my parents. Of course, I’d moved out of home and, like many others, had to move back again. It’s a symptom of the fact that housing policy in the UK is in crisis. We have millions of people languishing on social housing waiting lists, first-time-buyers priced out of the market
Plan A is looking shakier than ever. After a slow climb out of recession, growth is now stalling and unemployment rising again, the approach taken thus far – cutting the deficit, and waiting for a spontaneous boom in the private sector – feels ever more risky, both politically and for our pockets. Vince Cable, who has always looked uneasy with a “plan for growth” that involves little except sitting back with fingers crossed, must feel increasingly unnerved.
And he’s right to be worried. His credibility is on the line and his legacy at BIS is yet to be secured. Now is …
The Green Investment Bank is set to be a “transformational institution”, Transform UK has claimed.
Following deputy prime minister Nick Clegg’s recent speech on the establishment, programme director for Transform UK Ed Matthew welcomed the news that investment opportunities will be open from April 2012.
However, he noted that there are a number of points that need to be addressed.
“The key thing is to have a process where they confirm that the bank will have the power to borrow from the capital markets and not just the treasury,” Mr Matthew commented.
It’s been a great month for Liberal Democrats who are setting the pace on the green agenda!
It doesn’t quite say it’s been a great month for ‘the’ Liberal Democrats but most people will read it that way and think vaguely of my one and only Kipling joke:
If you can keep your head while all around are losing theirs…then you haven’t understood the true seriousness of the situation.
To be fair on Simon and his team, we do need reminding that there is more to this coalition than AV, Lords reform …
Over the last two weeks, as the crisis he faces steadily deepened, he has been the driving force behind two of the most momentous decisions any administration has taken, ones that could shape Britain’s economic development for the rest of the century, and beyond.
Last week the government adopted the world-beating goal of cutting carbon emissions to half 1990 levels by 2025. No other
Lib Dem Deputy Leader Simon Hughes has emailed party members to update them on the party’s influence in government, in promoting the green agenda. He highlights the Energy Bill, the fourth Carbon Budget, and the Green Investment Bank, detailed this week by Nick Clegg and Vince Cable.
It’s been a great month for Liberal Democrats, who are setting the pace on the green agenda!
Two weeks ago, Chris Huhne, as Energy and Climate Change Secretary, led for the government when his Department’s Energy Bill received its second reading in the House of Commons. This creates the framework for the Green Deal,
Nick Clegg gave a speech today on climate change and the green economy, giving more detail on how the Coalition will meet its ambition to be the greenest government ever. (It’s good to see another Lib Dem policy being enacted too.) Nick’s proud that the Liberal Democrats have long been seen by green groups and the general public as the most committed of the main three parties on environmental issues.
In his speech at Climate Change Capital in London, he detailed the workings of the world’s first Green Investment Bank, which aims to close the gap between venture capital and the green economy, provide the finance for low carbon infrastructure and lay the foundation for long-term, balanced growth:
For me, this budget goes some way towards rebalancing the economy. The last Government left the country in almost financial ruin and have come up with no credible policies in opposition. The chancellor had very little to play with in his budget but I think the steps he is taking are the right ones.
This was definitely a budget influenced by Lib Dems. It was pleasing to see how many of our policies made an appearance in the budget, particularly the increase in the personal allowance over the next three years.
The budget also provided confirmation of the go ahead of the …
Earlier today the Liberal Democrat Press Office’s Phil Reilly tweeted, “Income Tax cut – from the front page of the @libdems manifesto to the pockets of 25m taxpayers”.
Certainly better to pick from the front page than the back page, as announcing a barcode would have been lacking a little in interest (except, perhaps, to one of my former economics lecturers, who once tried to persuade us that the checksums on barcodes matched up with a warning from the Bible and predicted an imminent Second Coming).
That however wasn’t the only major policy was a distinct Liberal Democrat flavour to it. So too was the news about pensions. As Stephen Williams MP put it, “Proposals for a £140 flat rate pension, together with the Lib Dem commitment of restoring the earnings link, will ensure our pensioners get a fair deal”.
Both of those announcements were unsurprising, but one decision that had been up in the air was over the Green Investment Bank and how much power it really would have. George Osborne’s previous strange absence from the debate was put to rest when he announced a series of pieces of good news on the Green Investment Bank: starting a year earlier, £2 billion more in funds and, crucially, it can borrow. As Paul Waugh put it “Big victory for Cable”, not to mention Chris Huhne and Nick Clegg, who had taken the lead in settling the internal debate over how much powers to give.
Amongst the details was success for the long-standing Liberal Democrat calls for water rates relief in the South West, though overall the details did not add up to a particularly green budget, Green Investment Bank aside. The IFS’s initial analysis is that, “The Chancellor also insisted that green taxes will rise as a proportion of total receipts. This remains the case on current Treasury forecasts, but by the narrowest of margins”. Some of the non-financial measures, such as the new standard for zero-carbon homes, give the Budget a greater overall green tinge than the pure financial numbers show. How deep that tinge is will depend on how measures such as the presumption in favour of sustainable development pan out when the details are settled.
Here’s the email from Nick Clegg to party supporters about the Budget:
Today the coalition government has announced a budget that will return the UK to sustainable and balanced economic growth and which puts helping Alarm Clock Britain at its heart.
We are increasing the income tax threshold by £630 to £8105; lifting hundreds of thousands of low income earners out of paying income tax and putting £126 back in the pockets of low and middle income earners. This is in addition to the last budget that took nearly a million of the lowest income earners out of tax and made millions of hard working individuals £200 better off. We are making a real difference in people’s lives – from the front page of our manifesto to people’s back pockets.
Alarm Clock Britain will be further helped by the measures we have taken to give motorists a fairer deal. We are shifting taxation away from the pumps and onto the broader shoulders of the oil companies instead – with fuel duty being cut and taxation on oil companies rising.
At the same time we are making the wealthy pay their fair share with increased measures to tackle tax avoidance, higher charges for non-doms and a special tax on private jets. This budget also places green growth front and centre – the Green Investment Bank will begin operation next year with £3bn of capitalisation, delivering an additional £18bn of investment in green infrastructure by 2014-15.
We were left a toxic economic legacy by Labour with a record deficit and debt. Under Ed Balls Labour have no answers and solutions to the mess they left. The difficult decisions we have taken in government have rebuilt confidence in Britain’s ability to pay its way, kept interest rates lower than they would otherwise have been, and have provided the stability that business and individuals need to invest in the UK’s economy.
There are no easy decisions in this budget. But we are delivering a budget which will mean that that those who can pay more will; and those who are working hard to make ends meet will get a helping hand. This budget is progressive, green, liberal and what our country needs at this time.
£500 billion is a lot of money. But that’s roughly how much the UK needs to invest in low carbon infrastructure over the next 10-20 years to have a chance of meeting our ambitious carbon reduction targets. Ernst and Young have estimated that the usual sources of capital can probably raise between £50-£80 billion. That leaves an enormous gap to fill.
One of the government’s top priorities is to put in place the mechanisms needed to unlock the massive investment needed. Given the need to tackle the deficit, the private sector will be needed to deliver this investment – but it …
The Financial Times has been reporting this week again about the ongoing vigorous debate within government over the forthcoming Green Investment Bank and how much power it will have:
Nick Clegg is now the main driving force of the government’s “green investment bank” amid a Whitehall struggle over how precisely the new entity will function…
The Treasury is determined to hold back financing until the deficit is under control, towards the end of the current parliament. Officials have also argued for the bank to be a fund with little or no leverage.
A quick update to my previous post about the Green Investment Bank, where I wrote:
Largely unreported there has been a heavy debate over whether the Green Investment Bank will in effect simply by a pot for government grants or whether it will have the ability to operate much like a traditional bank. The more bank-like the Green Investment Bank can be, the more it will be able to do with its initial funding if, for example, it is able to issue bonds and underwrite loans. Helped by the backing of some Conservatives, such as Oliver Letwin, Chris Huhne seems
In a speech yesterday, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg outlined the government’s four-pronged approach to economic growth, setting out the measures that are being taken whilst also admitting that no government has an effective magic lever it can pull to guarantee growth.
The four prongs are a switch from deficit-fuelled growth to investment-fuelled growth, developing the nation’s ‘hard’ infrastructure such as transport links, supporting the ‘soft’ infrastructure such as a workforce with the skills business needs and achieving a better balance across the different regions of the country and sectors of the economy.
Over at The Independent today, Lib Dem cabinet ministers Vince Cable and Chris Huhne argue that the Coalition Government’s plans to set up a Green Investment Bank, announced in the Budget, are of huge significance for establishing a successful green economy in this country. Here’s an excerpt:
… there is much to be decided about how this might work. Bob Wigley’s comprehensive review of the issue, published last week, sets out one possible model – a commercially independent bank given clear overarching goals for green investment in new technologies and infrastructure. Innovative green financial products could give an opportunity for individuals,
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Both of those announcements were unsurprising, but one decision that had been up in the air was over the Green Investment Bank and how much power it really would have. George Osborne’s 
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