Comment on the budget is always a game of extremes – the government’s supporters are expected by the media to defend every single line as both wise and inevitable, opposition MPs are expected to compare the Chancellor’s decisions to Caligula and Attila the Hun. Neither side falls down on these expectations, and it is my impression that most people wait for the cacophony to die down so that they can work out what the real implications. Frankly no budget is even that good or that bad! And while this is an unusual year with the unprecedented with the collapse of the banking system to be tackled at home and abroad there are still fascinating changes under the surface.
This year the Budget deserves the epithet “green”, because of the Chancellor’s promise to cut carbon emissions by 34% in the next 11years, Building on the already ambitious targets announced previously. The depths of a recession do not provide the right time to cut public spending – that would make the crisis worse – but it is the right approach in principle to invest in Green technology. It is an untapped opportunity in terms of jobs as well as the environmental benefits. Spending on these technologies is good for the economy and for the environment.
So an extra £1bn will help combat climate change by supporting and developing low-carbon industries and £405m will encourage low-carbon energy and advanced green manufacturing. Most economists think that green technology and alternative energy source industries are about to enter a boom period which will easily outperform and overshadow the internet boom of 2000. The fact that the Chancellor has taken steps to put the UK in advanced flight pattern for cultivating innovation and investment in these technologies is likely to serve the British economy well for years after the memories of this current recession have faded.
Housing is a major concern with people worried about what happens should they lose their job. The Homeowners Mortgage Support scheme, will enable qualifying people to make smaller mortgage payments for up to two years if they suffer a drop in income and the number of companies signing up to this is increasing all the time. A number of companies have introduced schemes of their own. The stamp duty holiday has been extended to the end of the year, an extra £80million is going to be ploughed into shared ownership schemes and £500m has been allocated to restart house building projects that have stalled because of the downturn.
I am often reminded of the example of the Irish Government’s use of European money. When they qualified for funds to upgrade their road network they used the money to upgrade their sewerage system at the same time, by building the new sewers under the new roads. There is no choice between saving the environment and saving the economy, we have to do both.