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17 September 2009

Where the axe should fall

Caroline Lucas, Jon Cruddas, Peter Tatchell and others tell us where spending cuts should be made

By Staff Blogger

Caroline Lucas, Green Party leader Build fewer roads

We shouldn’t be tempted into an obsessive, macho competition to cut costs, but there are viable ways of boosting government coffers other than attacking our vital public services. For a start, we can address gratuitous spending on road building. The latest figures from the Department of Transport show a steady increase in such spending: we are looking at about £50bn for a ten-year spend on new roads. The policy of large-scale road building is on a collision course with the UK’s climate-change targets, as well as posing a threat to air quality and natural landscapes. A more progressive transport policy would limit road building, incentivise train travel and make it easier for people to share cars, walk and cycle.

John Sauven, director of Greenpeace
Make polluters pay

We need a shift to green taxes – not just to raise revenue, but also to incentivise sustainable economic activity. Increases in tax on energy use, road fuel and road use, carbon emissions, water, waste and resource use could raise a significant proportion of the revenue required to repay
the national debt, while creating a price signal in the economy to improve efficiency and reduce emissions. It’s time we realised that the economy must be subsidiary to the planet, and not the other way around.

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Tim O’Toole, ex-managing director of London Underground
Make finance deals simpler

The infamous public-private partnership for the maintenance and rebuilding of London Underground is a well-intentioned mess. To be fair, the investment in the Tube since the PPP began in 2003 has helped to deliver record levels of service and quality. The problem is that this improvement has cost an outrageous premium and is less than what it should have been. So a conventional financing and contracting structure should be preferred. Financing is cheaper; flexibility is retained to respond to new projects, such as the Olympics, and to imperatives, such as climate change; and the private sector can still deliver the projects, but subject to market disciplines. Moreover, the private sector can be forced to consider new ways of working, such as delivering line upgrades without years of weekend line closures. The record of large, urban civil projects is spotty at best under any structure, and success is most dependent on good people. Yet, when resources are dear and a government must sort priorities, one is best advised to adopt a structure that is transparent and simple. That should be the north star for the rebuilding of the Tube and Crossrail.

Jonathon Porritt, co-founder of Forum for the Future
Invest in the right kind of energy

The last thing the UK should be doing is committing huge amounts of new investment on ­energy and transport infrastructure that will work against, rather than with, the transition to an ultra-low-carbon, hyperefficient economy. Yet that’s exactly what our government is doing. The new energy economy will depend on huge improvements in energy efficiency, and huge new investments in renewable energy. I believe it’s right to be trialling carbon capture and storage technologies, but no new permits for either coal-or gas-fired power stations should be granted without a 100 per cent binding commitment to instal them. If the technology is as “robust” as the industry claims, that shouldn’t be a problem. If
it isn’t, then the risk of ending up with unabated coal- and gas-fired stations is far too high.

Jon Cruddas, Labour MP
Invest in housing

The recent collapse in housebuilding adds to the already pressing need for a housing crusade – to rebuild the mixed economy through huge investment in social housing, as nearly five million people are in need of a home for rent. The private sector is in no position to deliver this and the state must step in to raise investment. We need to free up local authorities to borrow and invest in local priorities, and allow local bond finance for local infrastructure. Reform of local taxation is needed to end the all-too-often centralised funding streams and prescriptions that have warped our search for equality.

Peter Tatchell, human rights activist
Ditch ID cards

Identity cards will cost up to £18bn. But the former head of M15, Eliza Manningham-Buller, says they will not stop terrorism. Nor will they have a significant impact on crime or benefit fraud. The only certain outcome of ID cards is that they will create a surveillance state, whereby law-abiding citizens will have to produce an ID card to buy, rent or sell property, claim welfare benefits, get medical treatment, open a bank account or enter employment. ID cards will enable the government to monitor almost everything we do, creating a snooping state that will make invasions of privacy universal, routine and systematic.

Kate Hudson, chair of CND
Declare war on defence spending

Most people’s gut reaction to the prospect of spending cuts is just to say no, but there are “good cuts” that can be made. UK spending on military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan has topped £4.5bn this year – 50 per cent up on last year. The total cost to the taxpayer of these two wars, since 2001, is in the region of £14bn. This is on top of the defence budget, which is also on the rise. As the MoD says, by 2010/2011 the budget will be around 11 per cent higher in real terms than in 1997, representing the longest period of sustained growth since the 1980s. In a recent poll,
a majority opposed spending on Trident, while 84 per cent wanted increased investment in education. The money’s there – it’s just a question
of priorities. Now is the time for the government to unlock the peace dividend.

More on public spending and additional articles guest-edited by Ken at www.newstatesman.com

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