Sir Ed Davey pledges £100bn to tackle the climate crisis
Liberal Democrat deputy leader Ed Davey this afternoon laid out his party’s economic plans, announcing that his party would spend an additional £100bn of public finance on tackling the climate crisis.
Speaking at an event in Leeds, the party’s shadow chancellor said: “This includes a new £10bn renewable power fund to leverage in over £100bn of extra private climate investment.
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“This will fast-track deployment of clean energy, to make Britain not just the world leader in offshore wind, but also the global number one in tidal power too.
“And we will invest £15bn more to make every building in the country greener, with an emergency ten-year programme to save energy, end fuel poverty and cut heating bills.”
Davey pointed to his own track record in delivering renewable energy projects, saying that as secretary of state for energy and climate change under the coalition government he had led “stage one of Britain’s decarbonisation”:
“I’ve seen what we did in government. And I know what we can do in government again.”
Davey also hit out at the Conservatives, saying that the government had “made our economy weak”, and criticising the “fantasy economics” of both the Tory and Labour election pledges:
“So far, the economy debate in this election has been a debate between fantasies. Fantasies born of nostalgia for a British Imperial past, competing with fantasies from a failed 1970s ideology.”
In addition, Davey said that the extra growth that the UK would enjoy as a result of his party’s principal pledge to stop Brexit would generate “a £50bn Remain bonus” for the country.
He pledged that the Liberal Democrats would use the money to invest in the UK’s human capital, its schools, and its infrastructure.
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In a dig at Labour’s marquee British broadband announcement this morning, he also promised that his party would not “put Big Brother in charge of your digital broadband.
“Lib Dems won’t waste your taxes and scare of private investment
with a nonsense return back to state-owned telecoms – where long delays and
low quality were the order of the day.”
Main image credit: Getty