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Scottish Budget: low carbon commitments encouraging
Published 31 January 2018 by Transform ScotlandResponding to this afternoon’s Scottish Parliament debate on the Scottish Budget 2018-19, Transform Scotland director Colin Howden commented:
“The commitment from finance secretary Derek Mackay that the share of investment in low carbon infrastructure will rise for the remainder of this Parliament is very welcome. The Scottish Government’s capital expenditure plans for transport have become overwhelmingly dominated by high-carbon road schemes, so this proposal for greater carbon proofing of the Budget is overdue.”
Investment in low carbon will continue to increase in each year of this parliament @DerekMackaySNP announces #ScotBudget
— scotgoveconomy (@scotgoveconomy) January 31, 2018
Howden continued:
“We are also pleased that Mr Mackay has shelved proposed for a £300m tax cut for the aviation industry in the Budget in the form of an abolition of Air Passenger Duty. This was always an ill-thought-out proposal, which would have proved bad for the economy, equalities, and climate, and which would have devastated Anglo-Scottish rail travel. Given that this began as the headline commitment of the Scottish Ministers on transport, we are happy that they’ve seen sense here.”