Theresa May criticised for “non-answer” to Green Investment Bank query at PMQs
Theresa May was criticised today for providing a “complete non-answer” to questioning about the Green Investment Bank sale.
Michelle Thomson, an independent Scottish MP and member of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) committee, asked May whether she would reconsider the sale at Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs). The PM said she would provide a written response.
Read more: Farron demands an industrial revolution led by a new Green Investment Bank
Thomson described this as a “disappointing response”, while Green MP Caroline Lucas said it was a “complete non-answer [to a] very reasonable question”.
The privatisation of the £2bn-valued Green Investment Bank has attracted controversy this year, amid fears that Australian investment bank Macquarie, the government’s preferred bidder, is planning to asset-strip the organisation.
A number of MPs from various parties have condemned the proposed sale, which the government has kept quiet about in recent weeks.
Earlier this week, former business secretary Vince Cable and former energy minister Lord Barker wrote to the Treasury warning that Macquarie could stand to make hundreds of millions of pounds from the Green Investment Bank at the expense of the taxpayer.
Read more: MPs turn the heat up on government over Green Investment Bank privatisation
The letter said:
We are concerned that the Treasury’s accounting methods – which may be manufacturing excessively high discount rates on future cash flows in order to justify this significant discrepancy in taxpayer return – could be dragging the government towards an economically irrational decision at odds with its commendable agenda for a world-class industrial strategy, productive infrastructure investment and an emissions reduction plan that underpins these.
Meanwhile, Lib Dem leader Tim Farron today called on the government to create a successor to the Green Investment Bank if it is sold off.