Budget reaction: Environmental measures

Despite today’s Budget being widely anticipated as a major attempt to tackle
climate change, the measures introduced have been met with a tepid response.

Lisa Macpherson, national director of tax at accountants PKF, said:
‘Considering this was trailed as a green Budget, the measures he spoke about
were a massive anti-climax. The reality is that we’re falling further behind in
the battle against climate change and the Chancellor fiddled while the
environment overheated.’

Friends of the Earth director Tony Juniper said that instead of putting
sustainability at the heart of Budget, chancellor Alistair Darling ‘merely
tinkered in the margins’.

Juniper welcomed some of the announcements such as a car purchase tax and an
increase in air passenger duty, ‘ but the overall package falls a long way short
of what is required’.

Frank Sangster, head of KPMG’s environmental tax and incentives group, said
today’s Budget will only account for a reduction in carbon emissions of ‘around
5 per cent by 2015 at the earliest’.

‘Considering the Chancellor’s promise back in December to put sustainability
at the heart of the budget his announcements amounted to no more than minor
changes, more reviews and a headline grabbing plastic bag tax in 2009,’ he
added.