Time for chancellor to U-turn on green taxes - Huhne

3.08.00pm UTC (GMT +0000) Mon 4th Dec 2006

The Liberal Democrats today called for the Chancellor to tax pollution and not people in this week's pre-budget report, and welcomed the all-party Environmental Audit Committee's backing for green taxes.

Liberal Democrat Shadow Environment Secretary, Chris Huhne MP said a shift in the tax burden from good activities like work, effort and risk onto bad activities like burning fossil fuels and emitting carbon was essential to safeguard our childrens' future.

Commenting, Chris Huhne said "Labour and the Tories have been woefully irresponsible in talking green but acting brown. We should tax pollution and not people. Labour has cut green taxes steadily since 1999, which is why carbon emissions are rising, especially from cars and planes."

Commenting on the Conservatives Mr. Huhne said "The Tories are just a shambles on green taxes. George Osborne set up a special commission to look at taxes, but in a year's work it did not come up with a single plan for green taxes and said it had not been asked to do so. This proves that the Tories are all mouth and no trousers on this issue, and Mr Osborne's efforts to jump on the bandwagon are laughable".