COV0082

Written evidence submitted by Mrs Nicola Bull

1. How can any fiscal and economic stimulus packages be aligned with the UKs ambitions on net-zero, biodiversity, the circular economy, and Sustainable Development Goals? Moves that entrench energy-intensive practices must be avoided. Where aid is offered to businesses, conditions should be attached, ensuring that businesses become sustainable and low-energy.
2. How should the policy response to the current crisis differ from the response to the global financial crash in 2008? Those who contribute most to the climate crisis should not be rewarded! Instead, measures should be introduced to prevent practices that damage the environment, pollute the atmosphere or destroy biodiversity.
3. In what areas should interventions be targeted to deliver both economic and environmental benefits in the short and long term? Housing, and construction generally, introducing measures to ensure that all new construction has integral clean energy generation. In addition, the top priority in assessing the viability of large infrastructure projects should be given to the environmental and not the estimated economic impacts.
4. How could the Autumn budget be used to shift taxation from economically beneficial things, such as jobs and incomes; to environmental harms, such as pollution and waste? Increase the duty on diesel; set a minimum price for petrol – in a world that must move away from the use of fossil fuels it makes no sense for drops in demand (as has occurred as a result of the pandemic) to be accompanied by falls in prices that will tend to stimulate demand. Increase corporation tax, and intensify efforts to collect taxes from corporations who use avoidance in order not to pay amounts of tax appropriate to the size of their operations in this country.
5. What sustainability conditions should be attached to Government bailouts for high-carbon industries? Those who contribute most to the climate crisis should not be rewarded! Instead, measures should be introduced to prevent practices that damage the environment, pollute the atmosphere or destroy biodiversity.
6. How can the economic recovery stimulus be used to deliver green jobs at a time of potentially high unemployment? Retrofitting UK homes for energy efficiency, electrifying transport systems and providing green industry training opportunities should be among the priorities.
7. The pause in economic activity, fall in traffic and increase in working from home during the lockdown has resulted in rapid reductions in air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions; what measures can be utilised in the recovery to continue these trends as economic activity resumes? Retrofitting UK homes for energy efficiency – implementing the manifesto pledge of £9bn for energy-efficient homes; electrifying transport systems; provision of a national network of electric car-charging points; incentives for local sustainable-energy generation.
8. In the run up to Conferences of the Parties to UN conventions on climate change and biodiversity next year, how can the UK use its influence, as both host of COP26 and when holding the Presidency of the G7 in 2021, to influence the nature of economic rescue packages around the world? By setting an example to other nations along the lines of that adopted by Amsterdam, where municipality officials plan to use the doughnut model of economics to rebuild rather than a return to the unsustainable ‘normal’ pattern.

August 2020