Chancellor attacked over green tax policy
Chancellor Gordon Brown in under new attack for failing to adopt 'a more imaginative and creative approach' towards green taxes.
A report from the Commons Environmental Audit Committee complained of ‘confusion and inefficiency’ because of the growing complexity of policy instruments in the energy sector.
In particurlar, it pointing to the Climate Change Levy with its exemptions, negotiated arrangements and monitoring; emissions trading system and the electricity companies’ renewables obligation.
The CEAC denounced the failure by the government to justify plans to shelve a pesticides tax, in favour of self-regulatory measures, calls to double the controversial landfill tax and pleas to the Treasury to reverse the ‘perverse fiscal incentive to build on greenfield sites’.
The MPs said: ‘We regret the fact that the Treasury has retreated from a strategic commitment to environmental tax reform by diluting the language used in the original statement of intent.’
Furthermore, they considered the extent of Treasury research on environmental taxation to be ‘inadequate’ and said it had failed to ‘provide adequate leadership’.