Scrapping spending review shows PM’s ‘build back greener’ promise is hollow, warn Greens

21 October 2020

• “The climate emergency won’t wait,” says Molly Scott Cato

The Green Party has criticized the government’s decision to abandon the three-year spending plan that was to have framed the policy agenda for the Johnson government.

Molly Scott Cato, the party’s finance spokesperson and an economist, said:

“This is a failure of vision from a Prime Minister whose promise to ‘build back greener’ has been shown to be hollow. The climate emergency won’t wait.

“At the last election we called for £100bn every year to fund a green transition. This would not only improve our homes and our transport system but also create thousands of jobs in communities across the country to replace those lost to the Covid crisis. Without this level of ambition we risk falling into the worst recession this century.

“This failure to establish a direction of travel for the economy will create greater uncertainty for local authorities as well as business and stall the medium-term investment that is so vital to enable our economy to recover.

“The government that will host the next round of COP talks in little over a year is failing to make the long-term investments that the climate crisis demands. It is a time to show leadership and that means long-term and large-scale investments in the Green New Deal that the country and the planet are crying out for.”