The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has produced a report warning that the Treasury and HMRC have a \u201climited understanding of the environmental impact\u201d of taxes.<\/p>\n
Blake, who sits on the Committee, said: \u201cThe scale of the climate emergency we face demands urgent, unprecedented levels of action, and steps to reach net-zero should be a priority for every Government department.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is therefore extremely worrying to see such a lack of coordination or leadership from within the Treasury.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur report today indicates that time and time again the immediate priorities of the Treasury have outweighed the action needed to support long-term environmental objectives.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we are to reach our net-zero goals and make a success of the COP26 summit later this year, the HMRC and HMT must set out a clear, longer-term vision for how it will work to help the UK achieve net zero – including how the tax system, and every tax measure, can help us reduce emissions and curb the worst effects of this crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n
Currently, HMRC and the Treasury recognise four environmental taxes which have specific objectives regarding climate change.<\/p>\n
The PAC says that the departments have not kept track of other tax measures with environmental impacts, such as tax reliefs to support energy-saving technology, or how taxes affect the consumption of fossil fuels<\/p>\n
According to the report, the Treasury was unable to explain to the Committee \u201chow the tax system is used in achieving the government\u2019s environmental goals.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meg Hillier MP, Chair of the PAC, said: \u201cThe economic revolution required to abandon fossil fuels and reach net zero must be the greatest co-ordinated task, of governments around the globe, in history.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut the UK government has been blithely issuing ever more ambitious climate targets for years now, with no sign of a roadmap to reach any of them.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe departments in charge seem stuck in a bygone era, with little sign of the innovative thinking needed to achieve all this.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sheffield Hallam MP, Olivia Blake, has called out the Treasury for neglecting their role in tackling climate change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35844,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-environment","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"\n