Con-Lib ‘manifesto’ holds few new ‘green’ surprises

Louise Bateman

20th May 2010

David Cameron and Nick Clegg unveiled their 'programme for Government’ today, a 34-page document that contained plenty of environmental pledges, but few new ones and little in the way of detail.

The manifesto-style report attempts to set out "common ground" on more than 30 areas of policy for the new Coalition Government and lists more than 40 individual pledges in the areas of the environment, energy and climate change. But it presents few green policies not already set out in the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition agreement that was rushed out by the two parties a week ago, while questions still remain over the funding an delivery of many of the policies agreed upon.

In their joint foreword, Prime Minister Cameron and Deputy Prime Minister Clegg talk of "supporting sustainable growth and enterprise" and "promoting" green industries. "We want to build a new economy from the rubble of the old," they write.

Newly announced areas of policy agreement, include the creation of green financial products so individuals can invest in the infrastructure to support the new green economy, instructing Ofgem to establish a security guarantee of energy supplies to prevent the 'lights going out’, and giving an 'Annual Energy Statement' to Parliament to set strategic energy policy and guide investment. The Coalition also pledges to invest in an offshore electricity grid in order to support the development of a new generation of offshore wind power.

Also listed in the pledges is a Lib Dem proposal for a national tree-planting campaign while there is a Conservative proposal included for councils to pay people to recycle.

But there is still no detail about how some big policy areas of agreement, such as the Green Investment Bank, are going to be funded or delivered.

The Labour Government had said that it would fund a green bank with £1 billion of public money, but there is no such commitment in the Con-Lib agreement.

Meanwhile, the 'programme for Government’ makes no mention of a previous Labour commitment to make all new homes zero carbon by 2016 or of a previous Government's incentive to get more electric cars on the road by offering drivers £5,000 towards a new one.

"Missed opportunity" on green homes

Paul King, chief executive of the UK Green Building Council, said today, the coalition agreement risked missing an open goal on green homes and buildings.

"Much of today’s coalition agreement should be warmly welcomed, such as the 'Green Deal’ proposal, which will give homeowners access to finance to make their homes more energy efficient and could lead to huge improvements in our leaky housing stock," he said. "But this was also an opportunity for the Coalition Government to commit itself clearly and unequivocally to the target for all new homes to be zero carbon from 2016 and all new non-domestic buildings from 2019 – and these targets do not feature in the agreement."

Meanwhile, Ben Caldecott, head of UK & EU energy and environment policy at Climate Change Capital, said it was "critical" that the Green Investment Bank was "appropriately capitalised so that it can make a positive and lasting difference to our country".