Green co-leader rejects Liz Truss comparison over borrowing

Published

12 months ago

June 20, 2024

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The co-leader of the Greens has rejected comparisons with Liz Truss for proposing to borrow COVID levels of money to fund his party’s manifesto programme.

Adrian Ramsay, who leads the Greens alongside Carla Denyer, did not reject that his party would spend £325bn over the course of the parliament to invest in public services.

But speaking to Sophy Ridge, Sky News’ lead politics presenter, Mr Ramsay denied the suggestion his proposals could be likened to those put forward by the former prime minister whose economic plans unravelled and forced her from office.

According to the House of Commons library, the total cost of the government’s COVID-19 measures ranges from about £310bn to £410bn.

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The numbers in the Green Party’s manifesto were crunched by Sky News economics editor Ed Conway and total £325bn.

Put to him that his party could borrow that figure to fund spending, Mr Ramsay said: “Our proposal is that over the course of the parliament, the extra spending that we would have on day-to-day spending would be funded by increased day-to-day taxes.”

He added: “This is money that’s being borrowed for investment. Investment in things like our school buildings that are crumbling, hospital buildings.”

The Green Party’s manifesto, launched last week, promised to “mend broken Britain” through a programme of investment paid for by the “very richest” in society.

It includes a 1% annual wealth tax on assets above £10m and 2% on assets above £1bn, along with reforms to Capital Gains Tax to align with workers’ income tax, and removing the upper earnings limit on national insurance.

The Greens believe this could raise up to £70bn a year, with their plans to introduce a carbon tax adding another £80bn to the government’s coffers.

But unlike some of their rivals, the Greens have also made clear they are “prepared to borrow to invest”, rather than be “trapped by a self-imposed fiscal straitjacket”.

Challenged on the choice of language – which Ridge said mirrored that used by Ms Truss – Mr Ramsay said the key difference with the former Tory leader was that she “borrowed to give tax breaks to the very richest in society”.

“We’re talking about investing in a future that will be better for everybody,” he argued.

“And we need to bring about those changes because we have high levels of inequality. We have changes in the climate that are running away with themselves. And the climate experts are always, always very clear. The costs of not acting on the climate emergency are far greater than the costs of acting.”

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Mr Ramsay also defended increasing tax on people earning more than £50,000 by changing national insurance for those who earn over that threshold.

“Our proposal is that national insurance is changed so that everybody pays the same percentage of their salary on national insurance, regardless of what they earn,” he said.

“I’m not saying £50,000 is too high a salary,” he added.

“Someone earning £55,000 on our proposals would pay £5 extra a week, but let’s look at what they’d get for that – because at the moment we have a situation where people are forking out for a private dentist because there’s no access to NHS dentists, they’re paying exorbitant rail fares, they’re paying high energy and food bills.

“Green proposals are about tackling the cost of living crisis, and the causes of why people are having to fork out those things, and we’d all be better off overall if we put the investment in.”

You can watch the full interview with Adrian Ramsay on the Politics Hub with Sophy Ridge from 7pm on Thursday.

Politics

‘No doubt’ UK will spend 3% of GDP on defence in next parliament, defence secretary says

Published

2 hours ago

May 31, 2025

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'No doubt' UK will spend 3% of GDP on defence in next parliament, defence secretary says

There is “no doubt” the UK “will spend 3% of our GDP on defence” in the next parliament, the defence secretary has said.

John Healey’s comments come ahead of the publication of the government’s Strategic Defence Review (SDR) on Monday.

This is an assessment of the state of the armed forces, the threats facing the UK, and the military transformation required to meet them.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has previously set out a “clear ambition” to raise defence spending to 3% in the next parliament “subject to economic and fiscal conditions”.

Mr Healey has now told The Times newspaper there is a “certain decade of rising defence spending” to come, adding that this commitment “allows us to plan for the long term. It allows us to deal with the pressures.”

A government source insisted the defence secretary was “expressing an opinion, which is that he has full confidence that the government will be able to deliver on its ambition”, rather than making a new commitment.

The UK currently spends 2.3% of GDP on defence, with Sir Keir announcing plans to increase that to 2.5% by 2027 in February.

This followed mounting pressure from the White House for European nations to do more to take on responsibility for their own security and the defence of Ukraine.

The 2.3% to 2.5% increase is being paid for by controversial cuts to the international aid budget, but there are big questions over where the funding for a 3% rise would be found, given the tight state of government finances.

While a commitment will help underpin the planning assumptions made in the SDR, there is of course no guarantee a Labour government would still be in power during the next parliament to have to fulfil that pledge.

A statement from the Ministry of Defence makes it clear that the official government position has not changed in line with the defence secretary’s comments.

The statement reads: “This government has announced the largest sustained increase to defence spending since the end of the Cold War – 2.5% by 2027 and 3% in the next parliament when fiscal and economic conditions allow, including an extra £5bn this financial year.

“The SDR will rightly set the vision for how that uplift will be spent, including new capabilities to put us at the leading edge of innovation in NATO, investment in our people and making defence an engine for growth across the UK – making Britain more secure at home and strong abroad.”

Sir Keir commissioned the review shortly after taking office in July 2024. It is being led by Lord Robertson, a former Labour defence secretary and NATO secretary general.

The Ministry of Defence has already trailed a number of announcements as part of the review, including plans for a new Cyber and Electromagnetic Command and a £1bn battlefield system known as the Digital Targeting Web, which we’re told will “better connect armed forces weapons systems and allow battlefield decisions for targeting enemy threats to be made and executed faster”.

On Saturday, the defence secretary announced a £1.5bn investment to tackle damp, mould and make other improvements to poor quality military housing in a bid to improve recruitment and retention.

Mr Healey pledged to “turn round what has been a national scandal for decades”, with 8,000 military family homes currently unfit for habitation.

He said: “The Strategic Defence Review, in the broad, will recognise that the fact that the world is changing, threats are increasing.

“In this new era of threat, we need a new era for defence and so the Strategic Defence Review will be the vision and direction for the way that we’ve got to strengthen our armed forces to make us more secure at home, stronger abroad, but also learn the lessons from Ukraine as well.

“So an armed forces that can be more capable of innovation more quickly, stronger to deter the threats that we face and always with people at the heart of our forces… which is why the housing commitments that we make through this strategic defence review are so important for the future.”