Whilst I\u2019ve not been obsessing about the \u00a328bn that the Labour Party promised to borrow to invest in green matters every year in the next parliament, I\u2019ve been trying to keep track of it; just as I\u2019ve been wondering what it would be spent on. The sum has been vanishing before our eyes. \u00a0First it was revised to become \u00a328 billion in the last year of the next parliament, and then the pledge was dropped and instead we now have \u00a34.7 billion a year being spent on green investment. \u00a0Such a trifling sum, not even \u00a3100 per head, has been condemned by eco-NGOs.<\/p>\n
The \u00a328bn figure was conjured up by Ed Miliband when interest rates hovered around 0%, so it's perfectly understandable why the idea has been abandoned now that rates involve real numbers. \u00a0The Party made a complete horlicks of explaining all this.<\/p>\n
But the \"spent on what?\" question lingers. \u00a0The habit of dreaming up a sum without knowing what it might be spent on gives economic planning a bad name. \u00a0Governments (and oppositions) are not subject to the financial disciplines that ordinary folk are. \u00a0Short of forging or thieving, we can't magic up money or borrow for somebody else to refund at some future point.<\/p>\n
Philip Collins, writing in The Times<\/a>, says this:<\/p>\n \"The trouble with \u00a328 billion<\/a> is that the Labour Party does not control what it means. Delve into the policy documents \u2014 and who doesn\u2019t like to spend their weekends researching Labour\u2019s green proposals? \u2014 and you will discover that Labour has plans for home insulation (\u00a36 billion), eight gigafactories (\u00a32 billion), six clean steel plants (\u00a33 billion), net-zero industrial clusters (\u00a31 billion) and money as yet uncounted to establish GB Energy.\"<\/p><\/blockquote>\n This does not add up to 28 x 5 (or so). \u00a0As such the \u00a328bn with next to no clarity looks more like a millstone than a set of milestones.<\/p>\n