Green Investment Bank: George Osborne goes missing
The Financial Times has been reporting this week again about the ongoing vigorous debate within government over the forthcoming Green Investment Bank and how much power it will have:
Nick Clegg is now the main driving force of the government’s “green investment bank” amid a Whitehall struggle over how precisely the new entity will function…
The Treasury is determined to hold back financing until the deficit is under control, towards the end of the current parliament. Officials have also argued for the bank to be a fund with little or no leverage.
As I mentioned previously, the debating lines over the Green Investment Bank are much more HM Treasury vs the rest rather than Conservative vs Liberal Democrats.
Curiously absent from the scene, however, is George Osborne who has acquired rather a reputation for avoiding taking direct hands-on interest in the issue. Instead, it is being left to Justine Greening MP and the Treasury special advisers, even when it comes to a key meeting. That would be normal if it were a low-level issue on which there is agreement. But when it has become a long-running major debate, you would expect the Chancellor to be directly involved in settling it. Yet, so far, he’s holding back.
All rather odd.
Mark,
If the funding is the issue, I wish the Treasury would implement an idea I proposed to them last year.
Public sector expenditure is in the region of 220 billion pounds a year on goods and services.
A condition of being awarded a contract to supply the public sector should include a clause that requires the supplier to pay just 1% of their net profits from government contracts into the Green Investment Bank.
This would allow the GIB to have continued investment income to build the green economy at little or no cost to the businesses that are currently making billions of pounds a year profit from governement contracts. It would also mean that the taxpayers wouldnt need to fund the GIB nor would the Treasury need to find an extra billion pounds to get it started.
It wouldnt be complicated to implement and its a win win situation for all concerned with the overall outcome that the GIB has an increasing amount of finance to drive the small businesses of our economy.
Just my two pennorth.
Jason J Hunter
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