Budget Would Set Scotland 'On the Wrong Track'
Thu., September 17, 2009. 16:31.
The Green MSPs described today's draft Budget from the SNP as a substantial missed opportunity, and a spending programme apparently unrelated to the social, environmental and economic pressures facing Scotland. (1) Ministers are proposing £87.2m worth of cuts in public transport, alongside an increase in roads spending of more than £30m. (2)
There has been no improvement in the funding allocated to energy efficiency and fuel poverty, and Greens also rejected the Carbon Assessment of the 2010-11 Draft Budget published today by Scottish Ministers as a misleading charade. (3) The Government's assessment skews the carbon costs of infrastructure, making it look as if the Scottish Public Pensions Agency is more than twice as polluting as the entire trunk road budget. (4)
Patrick Harvie MSP said:
"This is a budget which does next to nothing to boost sustainable employment or tackle the economic, social and environmental crises facing Scotland. The SNP's spending plans have been squeezed, true, but their response is simply to cut public transport like GARL and divert ever more money into the additional Forth Road Bridge. This is money down the drain, taxpayers' money being wasted on projects so unsustainable that we wouldn't build even if they were free.
"Two years ago, the SNP agreed to a Green request to carbon cost future budgets, and today we see what they meant by that commitment. The carbon assessment they have published today is bogus. The largest road-building programme in Scotland since the 1960s is apparently less polluting than administering Scotland's pensions - this is a charade, and a world-leading document only in its dishonesty.
"Savings needed to be made, but the axe is falling in the wrong places. Investment was needed to boost sustainability and employment, but Ministers appear not to have listened. Simultaneously, Parliament is being asked to approve a programme which would waste taxpayers' money left right and centre. As things stand, this Budget would set Scotland on the wrong track, and the hard work starts now to turn it around."
Notes
1. The Draft Budget is available here: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2009/09/17093831/0
2. See p31.
3. The Carbon Assessment is available here: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2009/09/17102339/0
4. See p26. Total GHG from Motorways and Trunk Roads = 213,100 tonnes CO2e Total GHG from the Scottish Public Pensions Agency = 504,900 tonnes CO2e
Contact the Scottish Greens' press team on 07909 933 074.