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165 – Green Budget

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9 April 2009

So, the Prime Minister wants a green budget to enable a green recovery according to an interview in the Independent. That little brown briefcase that gets paraded every Budget is a difficult one for Gordon Brown to give up. But leaving aside the question of whose Budget it really is – Gordon’s or Alistair Darling’s – is Brown’s idea of car electrification a good one?

Well, of course it is. Electric cars will cause far less pollution as they are zero emission vehicles – no sooty deposits from their exhausts – and there will also be less noise pollution, too.

And the idea of the UK being the leader in the exportation of such green technology is hard to argue against too. I’m all for that forward thinking.

In Glasgow, for example, the Technology Strategy Board
is trialling electric cars in the city over the next two years.

While in London, Elektromotive
will have completed the installation of its 100th Elektrobay charging station iby the end of next month.

But what really sticks in my throat is that this is all green thinking for the future. It puts a warm, green feel-good blanket around some of the current, here and now issues. The hard problems. The ones, in the main, caused by Brown’s fiscal policy in the first place.

How about automatic rate relief? According to the Federation of Small Businesses, Wales and soon Northern Ireland receive automatic rate relief. Yet, in England, the Treasury is sitting on £400 million of rates relief that could be given back to hard pressed businesses. Relief that would help ease cash flow problems and stem the tide of around 120 business closures each day.

And then there’s the car scrappage debate – of which there are various views on the pages of Business Car Manager. But how about this? A rebate to small businesses – any sized business actually – that goes out and leases or buys a business car that emits less than 110g/km? In addition to the ultra low company car tax, there are many corporation tax benefits, too. It would be one winning way to lower car emissions now. Today. Not just a greenworld dreamworld sometime in the future.

PM wants green revolution

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Ralph Morton

Ralph Morton

Ralph Morton is an award-winning journalist and the founder of Business Car Manager (now renamed Business Motoring). Ralph writes extensively about the car and van leasing industry as well as wider fleet and company car issues. A former editor of What Car?, Ralph is a vastly experienced writer and editor and has been writing about the automotive sector for over 35 years.

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