Dundee Liberal Democrats support effective green taxes

6.55.22am GMT Sat 3rd Feb 2007

Clive Sneddon supports effective green taxes

Dundee East Liberal Democrat parliamentary spokesperson Dr Clive Sneddon today (Saturday 3rd February) welcomed yesterday's UN announcement that the international scientific community is now 90% certain that climate change is due to human activity.

Clive said, "This means that the onus is now clearly on all of us, individuals, businesses and governments, to take effective action to cut carbon emissions.

"To take just one example, the Liberal Democrats as part of their green switch taxation proposals, have said that it is not individual passengers who should be taxed for flying but each individual flight. This would give airlines an incentive to maximise the number of passengers per flight, as opposed to British Airways' recent willingness to fly empty planes after the cabin crew strike was called off."

Clive concluded, "This is not about increasing taxation overall, but about using taxation to change behaviour.

"Tony Blair's New Labour Government prefers to raise the current tax on individuals instead, which gives no incentives to airlines, is inflationary without necessarily cutting passenger numbers, and which risks reducing the number of passengers per flight without changing the number of flights.

"It is the Liberal Democrats who are offering practical proposals to change behaviour and thus help save the planet. The money raised would go towards cutting income tax to 20p and taking those on the 10p rate out of income tax altogether."

Related Link:

Top scientists hail UN climate findings.