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Dear Editor

The Chancellor lavished £37 billion in a single day on banks, with no real guarantees that they would improve their investment practices for the future yet in the Budget, he has committed pitifully small sums to energy efficiency and renewable energy.

With over 109,000 Kent homes in fuel poverty, and Kent having major potential as the location of onshore services supporting an expanding wind farm industry off our shores, this Budget needed to do more.

He has committed the country to building between 2 and 4 demonstration Carbon capture and storage projects at public expense.

This is a tacit go-ahead for the Kingsnorth coal fired power station and will help to keep the coal industry going at a time when it needs to be wound down.

Equally ridiculous, the Chancellor wants smaller oil fields in the North Sea to be exploited and is to provide incentives for this. Wasting resources in this way will contribute to preventing the Government from reducing emissions by 34% (1990-2020).

If we generated the same proportion of our electricity from windfarms as Denmark does, and at the growth rate Denmark achieves, we'd create about 200,000 jobs by 2020, and if we bring every home in the UK up to the proper energy-saving standards, this could create 137,000 jobs.

Both the Green Party and the Sustainable Development Commission wanted £30 billion of investment in green jobs in this Budget. The Green Party also wanted the state pension increased to £165 as the present level is a major social injustice.

Steve Dawe
Kent Green Party
European Candidate for the South East Region