What’s Green In The UK Coalition’s Emergency Budget?

What’s Green In The UK Coalition’s Emergency Budget?

Posted on 22. Jun, 2010 by Ross in Government Policy, United Kingdom

Today’s emergency budget from the UK’s Conservative-Liberal coalition government has been pre-empted in the press as many things. The austerity budget. The bloodbath budget. The brutal budget. A game-changing budget.

But with the coalition parties having most in common with each other on environmental matters, one question begs to be asked: was today’s budget a green one?

Separating the economy from the environment is now almost impossible in the country which introduced the world’s first government Carbon Budget. After March 2010’s second Carbon Budget, which brought little new to the environmental table due to the recession other than promises for a new green investment bank and an energy market review, environmentalists started to look for clues in the election manifestos of the main political parties to see what else would soon emerge from Westminster.

The green investment bank was the first measure announced to please environmentalists, with the intention of driving investments into low-carbon technologies. Green start-ups will also be happy with no National Insurance to pay for the first 10 employees of a company if located outside the south-east of England, and an overall emphasis on capital spending and local investment on job and wealth creation in the private sector.

A lowering of the corporation tax paid by small businesses to 20% will also assist those looking to break into the clean technology arena, and green entrepreneurs will also benefit from an massive increase in the 10% capital gains rate threshold from the first

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  3. What The UK Carbon Budget 2010 Means For Small & Medium Businesses
  4. Little Christmas Cheer For Green Business In UK’s Pre-Budget Report; Broken 10:10 Promises
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