'Green Tax Switch essential for real environmental change' say Lib Dems

8.00.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Sun 17th Sep 2006

Northampton Lib Dem members attending their party's annual Conference in Brighton have welcomed the launch of the Lib Dems' Environment Campaign by Leader Ming Campbell at Sunday's evening rally

"The heart of our message on the environment is the need to switch taxation to green taxes on to things like pollution and carbon emissions" said Lib Dem Parliamentary spokesperson for Northampton North Andrew Simpson. "The principle is that the more you choose to switch to a greener living the more you save. We must stop taxing good things like work and move taxation to bad things like environmental damage".

Among the Lib Dem policy proposal announced are:

· Replacing Aircraft Passenger duty with an aircraft based on the emissions of each aircraft

· More steeply graduating vehicle excise duty for new vehicles based on carbon emissions

· Indexing the current climate change levy and replacing it long term with a carbon tax

· Indexing fuel duty to inflation.

· New regulations for water management to reduce wastage through leaks

· New measures to grow capacity for renewable energy production and opposition to new nuclear power stations

· Incentives for energy conservation

Northampton Borough Council Lib Dem Environment Spokesperson Cllr Trini Crake said.

"These policies place a burden on us all to change our behaviour to help the environment - we can no longer afford to let climate change go unchecked".