Environment Protection: Taxation
(asked on 17th December 2014) - View Source
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment he has made of the net Exchequer effect of green (a) taxes and (b) subsidies in the last five years.
The Government classifies environmental taxes as those that meet all of the following three principles:
The tax is explicitly linked to the Government’s environmental objectives
The primary objective of the tax is to encourage environmentally positive behaviour change
The tax is structured in relation to environmental objectives
Based on these principles, the Government has defined the environmental taxes as the Climate Change Levy, the Aggregates Levy, Landfill Tax, the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS), the Carbon Reduction Commitment Energy Efficiency Scheme, and the Carbon Price Floor.
In May 2010, this Government committed to increasing the proportion of tax revenue accounted for by environmental taxes. The forecast from Budget 2014 demonstrates that the Government remains on track to achieve this commitment, as shown in the table below:
2010/11 | 2011/12 | 2012/13 | 2013/14 | 2014/15 | 2015/16 | |
Revenue from Environmental Taxes | £2.5bn | £3.0bn | £3.0bn | £3.8bn | £4.7bn | £5.1bn |
Total Tax Forecast Receipts | £555.7bn | £577.5bn | £593.5bn | £619.8bn | £648.2bn | £675.5bn |
Proportion of total tax receipts | 0.5% | 0.5% | 0.5% | 0.6% | 0.7% | 0.8% |
Many of the policies aimed at supporting renewables and reducing the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions are funded by consumers, with neutral cost to the Exchequer. Detail on spend which is funded by the Exchequer in these areas, including the Renewable Heat Incentive, is published in the Department for Energy and Climate Change’s Annual Reports and Accounts.