Unfortunately Truss hasn’t yet U-turned on the Tories’ post-Boris backsliding on climate change. Kwarteng has left the treasury, but we still have Rees Mogg in charge of BEIS, a secretary for international trade who thinks our net zero commitment is an arbitrary form of unilateral economic disarmament, and a governing party with increasing links with the fossil fuel lobby – including the Global Warming Policy Foundation.
This is frightening – and we need to dial up our focus on the climate emergency.
We agreed a good set of policies on the climate crisis in 2019 – This does a good job of bringing together the many aspects of the climate emergency, and setting out key priorities.
But a lot has happened since 2019! While the fundamental environmental challenge remains, the economic and political context is different. The wholesale price of gas has increased by 5-10x, and, unless the Ukraine war ends, this is likely to continue until at least 2025. Circumstance and government incompetence has made us all poorer. And after Brexit and the shambles on the economy, attacking net zero may be the Tories’ next trick.
In that context here are some thoughts to amplify, update, and build on our 2019 work:
Support for insulation and energy efficiency. The costs of having a poorly insulated home have just sky rocketed. If the state is going to protect people from this (as I believe it should) then reducing how much energy people use is better investment of public money than subsidising the cost of the energy.
Stamp Duty; there should be no stamp duty on houses EPC B and above. If someone buys a house and gets it to EPC B within 12 months they should be able to reclaim the stamp duty. Stamp duty is a bad and unpopular way of taxing property anyway and needs replacing long term. This will phase it out in a way which provides a substantial incentive to increase energy efficiency.
A properly funded Green investment bank. This was our idea before it was Labour’s. But it is a good idea and needs serious welly.
Accelerating planning decisions on renewables. It can take longer to get permission for a wind farm than it took to put man on the moon, and the government is about to put even more restrictions on solar power. No one likes taking difficult choices about obtrusive infrastructure so we kick the decisions into the long grass. Do that with renewables and there won’t be any grass left.
Tax airlines and flying. We have a strong programme here replacing Air Passenger Duty with a frequent flyer levy, and replacing current subsidies for airlines with taxes. The difficulties visited on airlines by Covid don’t give them a free pass to damage the climate.
Make foreign polluters pay. The EU has committed to introducing taxes on the most energy intensive imports from countries which don’t take climate change as seriously as we do. So should we.
Growth and the future of the UK; in 2050, if our industry is driven by fossil fuels we will be in the economic position of handloom weavers in the industrial age – we need to get this message out.
The party has a lot to think about in today’s frenetic environment. But as well as determining the correct response to the government’s latest flip-flop on energy bills we must also refresh and update our policies on climate change.
* Kevin has been a party member since June 2017, from Kingston
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
Lib Dems are reviewing policy and strategy says PoliticsHome
From Norman settlement to a civic square
Church Green video
Thinking of standing for election or re-election next year? Helpful questions to consider
Simon Robinson
Tom Arms
Andrew Ducker
David Evans
paul barker
7 Comments
Frequent flying needs to be curbed, not taxed. Taxes will not deter the mega-rich. Smoking is a health hazard and was prohibited years ago in indoor public places, not taxed.
Taxing or capping air travel is necessary, and would be accepted by the majority of the British public, but to me a bigger issue is the hypocrisy in our attitude to rainforest destruction. We might say we disapprove of what is going on, but there is still nothing to stop crops grown on de-forested land entering the food chain in the UK, and we seem to be happy to eat it. It comes in either as palm oil, as feed for British farm animals, or as imported meat from animals fed on soya grown in the Amazon basin and elsewhere.
Incidentally, when I last wrote about this in the LDV, I was called a fascist for wanting to send UN troops into Brazil to enforce a ban on tree destruction. I haven’t changed my mind, nor have I been expelled from the Lib Dems, yet. It might be worth reminding those who commented on my article that nice letters beginning “Dear Mr Bolsonaro” haven’t had much success either. And those watching what’s going on in Brazil are still being routinely reminded about “the size of Wales”, a phrase which first entered the lexicon in that context about forty years ago.
My point is that we should update our climate change policies with stuff that we can say on the doorstep and hope to make a difference (a) in terms of what the government will do, and (b) whether we get elected.
The merits of both of these comments (from Andy and from Jim) need (and doubtless have had elsewhere) long discussion – but I don’t think either would be right for us to be campaigning on as Liberal Democrats.
I don’t actually agree with either point either – though I think the parallel between destroying the climate and the history of tobacco companies is sometimes relevant and helpful, and that rain forest destruction in Brazil is a really hard problem which we aren’t yet making much progress on.
The key point is that this is an Emergency!
All flying must be taxed and individuals should face a steadily rising tax for each subsequent flight. e.g. £10 for first flight (kids go free for that one);£30 for the second and so on upwards. The income raised should be allocated to one or more of renewable energy production/storage; insulating homes; Community energy schemes; changes in farming practice etc. etc. This could be managed by the Green Bank.
The UK could take a real lead internationally if it were to mobilise the Commonwealth to look at ways of mutual self help. Listing the ten poorest countries, the ten most immediately at risk from climate change and the ten where immediate action would make a real difference enables the Commonwealth to provide the assistance needed to make change happen. Maybe from a Commonwealth Green Bank?
Agree David Garlick about the emergency, and agree about the flight tax – this is essentially the frequent flyer levy which is our policy and which I think we should make more noise about. The policy doesn’t actually commit to a particular level of tax – but it references a New Economics Foundation paper on the subject – and it’s pretty similar to what you have outlined.
Whether we should link the money raised directly to spending money on reduction of climate change I don’t know – its a political judgement as to whether linking it makes these things more likely to happen, or whether we should just propose them as part of a capital spend programme independent of how its funding is raised. In our 2019 manifesto we estimated that the frequent flyer tax (or levy) would raise £5bn more than Air Passenger Duty does – though that number will need revisiting and updating.
What is the case for focussing the UK’s support for climate change mitigation in low income cases specifically on the commonwealth?
Climate change is the most important issue we face going forward. Building affordable homes doesn’t matter if they’re consistently getting flooded; increasing medical staff members and increasing funding to the NHS doesn’t matter if more and more people die in harsher winters and summers; the wider world will become angrier and more prone to war as resources are depleted and amount of the planet we can actually live on shrinks.
The policies we come up with need to be sensible but significant and, most importantly, they need to work so China and America want to copy them. It’s therefore good to see discussion about updating our policies for dangerous times ahead.
You are right George – we shouldnt overlook this ‘soft power’ point