The Environment

Green Tax Switch

The average person in Harrogate generates 10.6 tonnes of carbon every year, more than the national average (which is 9.3 tonnes)

The global average is 2.5 tonnes per person

With the advancing effects of climate change the need to change our behaviour and reduce emissions has never been greater. To achieve this the Liberal Democrats want to fundamentally change the way Britain is taxed. We need to switch to green taxes to switch off climate chaos. We need to switch to taxing bad things like pollution and carbon emissions. Green taxes can change our behaviour and safeguard our planet for our children and their children. This is about using taxes in a new way to change behaviour, not to raise money for the Government. Liberal Democrats want fair tax, not more tax.

The Liberal Democrats believe in fairer and green taxation, but not higher taxes overall. Any increase in green taxes would merely pay for a reduction in taxes on income. We call this the green tax switch, because it moves taxation from good activities like work onto bad activities like carbon emissions.

The green tax switch proposals include:

• Replace Airport Passenger Duty with an Aircraft Tax based on the emissions of each aircraft.
• Introduce more steeply graduating Vehicle Excise Duty for new vehicles based on carbon emissions, with a higher level for the highest emissions band.
• Reform the climate change levy, indexing it annually and eventually changing it into a simpler carbon tax.
• Index fuel duty to inflation except in periods of oil price spikes.

Visit the Green Tax Switch website

View my Power Point Presentation on Climate Change to help preserve something for our children

Excess Packaging 

I am writing to constituents who have previously contacted me to express their concern about environmental issues to let you know about my support for a current campaign to reduce levels of excessive packaging.  

I was shocked to learn that seventeen pence of every pound spent in the household food bill pays for packaging rather than food.   Many commercial packages are difficult for individuals to recycle, particularly where different materials are bonded together and so much of it ends up in dustbins before being disposed of in landfill sites.   Disposal of packaging costs the average household £470 a year in direct costs and taxes.

I therefore intend to support the Retail Packaging Recycling Bill, introduced by my Liberal Democrat colleague Andrew Stunell MP, which seeks to establish free of charge collection points in shops for customers to return packaging materials sold or supplied by retailers.   The retailers would then have the responsibility to recycle or safely dispose of the packaging.

Similar legislation introduced in Germany and Switzerland quickly resulted in retailers putting pressure on their suppliers to cut down on packaging, saving money and reducing the amount of waste going to landfill.

If you are concerned about excess packaging, as I know many people are, you can contact the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs directly at Nobel House, 17 Smith Square, London, SW1P 3JR.   I am also encouraging people to ask their local supermarkets whether they are willing to recycle packaging for customers.