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The new budget raised excise duty on the most heavily polluting cars, and introduced grants for migrogeneration projects such as solar panels and mini wind turbines for individual homes.
John Morton, Chief Executive, the Engineering and Technology Board, said:
“We welcome the increase in public spending on science to £6.3bn, but to be effective Government must ensure it delivers ‘long-term certainty for the research community’ as this is essential to underpinning a knowledge economy.
“We welcome the funding of at least £178 million for the newly scoped TSB, however, this must be the start of a ramping-up process to much more significant funding of this essential plank in the nation’s innovation strategy.”
Nelson Ogunshakin, chief executive, ACE, which represents over 800 consultancy and engineering firms operating in the built and natural environment, said:
“Many of the chancellor’s announcements will be welcomed by consultancy and engineering firms. Commitments to increase spending in schools, hospitals, security and defence and infrastructure from £43bn this year to £60bn by 2012 should be good news for our industry as is the announcement that public investment in science will rise from £5bn this year to £6.3bn by 2010-11. ACE is also pleased to see the chancellor’s commitment to international development with the £50m pledge for a 10-country initiative across central Africa to prevent the destruction of the rain forest and also the planned £800m for the Environmental Transformation Fund. We look forward to seeing the details of all these pledges in due course.
“Gordon Brown’s Budget also signals a welcome commitment to sustainability in a number of areas. ACE welcomes the exemption from stamp duty of all new zero-carbon homes up to £500,000 and the pledge to fund grants of up to £4,000 to pensioners for home insulation.
“However, ACE is concerned about the possible ramifications for our industry of the chancellor’s announcement that government is to undertake a £6bn sale of the student loan book. If this leads to a harsher repayment regime for students it could make it even harder to attract young people into engineeringz. Recruitment and retention is a key challenge for our sector and although we welcome the Budget’s commitment to providing a training wage for some 16-17 year olds, we hope that the student loan book sell-off by the chancellor will not make that challenge even harder.
“If as expected Gordon Brown takes over in the summer from Tony Blair as prime minister we hope that he will build on his legacy as chancellor by having a proactive dialogue with our industry and its representative organisations like ACE to ensure that we can work together to help deliver the government’s future spending programme.”
Philip Greenish, CEO of The Royal Academy of Engineering, said:
“Tackling climate change is one of the critical issues of the day. The Chancellor’s decision to exempt all new zero carbon homes up to £500,000 from stamp duty until 2012, along with the plan to hold a competition to build Britain’s first full scale carbon capture and storage facility, are steps in the right direction. Engineering carbon capture and storage facilities could play an important role in mitigating the effects of climate change.”
John Loughhead, Executive Director, UK Energy Research Centre, said:
“The UK Energy Research Centre welcomes the incentives to encourage decarbonisation of the UK set out in the Chancellor’s Budget.
While we applaud the efforts to reduce household energy use and incentivise the construction of new zero-carbon homes, we believe more innovative measures are needed to boost the energy efficiency of existing houses, which will remain the major contributor to UK’s carbon emissions from homes.”
Brian Robinson Head of Environment, Institution of Mechanical Engineers, said:
“While this is moving in the right direction, it is disappointing that only very limited new measures to tackle climate change were announced.
“It is absolutely right to restructure the tax system to tax those who pollute more than those who don’t, and to maintain overall revenue neutrality by cutting corporation and income tax rates. But the battle against climate change demands political leadership and a real sense of urgency that, unfortunately, this budget lacks. Putting fuel duty up in line with inflation and raising vehicle excise duty to £400 for the worst polluting vehicles is simply not enough to incentivise the lifestyle changes needed.
“The Chancellor continues to commit more and more money to Education, the NHS and the MOD. He really needs to acknowledge that he will also need to find significantly more money for the development of a sustainable, low carbon economy.”
Tom Foulkes, the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) Director General, said:
“We welcome the Chancellor’s announcement to increase public investment in science. Failure to encourage young people into science will reduce our ability to tackle climate change. Without investment in science, we will not inspire tomorrow’s engineers who are urgently needed to enhance our ageing infrastructure. It is engineers and scientists who will provide solutions to the challenges of the future.”
Dr Peter Cotgreave, Director of the Campaign for Science and Engineering (CaSE), said:
“CaSE welcomes the Chancellor’s decision in his Budget to overturn recent policies to reduce investment in Britain’s scientific and technological future.
“By announcing an increase in the Science Budget over the coming years, Gordon Brown has made it clear he is not really happy with the Trade Secretary’s decision to cut funding for science next year. Science minister Malcolm Wicks told Parliament this morning that the cuts had been undesirable, and the Chancellor seems to agree. However, it’s a shame the specific cuts themselves will not be immediately reversed.
“CaSE also supports the Chancellor’s increase in the tax credit for research and development, especially since it comes on top of a cut in the headline rate of corporation tax, not as an alternative to it.
“If the UK’s economy is to succeed in the coming years and decades, we need to ensure that this country is seen by science and engineering-based businesses as an attractive and competitive place to come. That means competitive tax rates and a world-beating science base.
“CaSE was disappointed the Chancellor did not mention public procurement in his speech. Everyone from the Prime Minister downwards says that we need to use public procurement – billions of pounds a year – to support innovation in the economy, but we never seem to receive any specific proposals to do something about it.”
Nick Reeves, Executive Director of Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management (CIWEM), said:
“CIWEM is glad to see some incentives for encouraging good environmental behaviour have been included in this budget, but we want to see further evidence that all Government spending is committed to taking action against climate change. CIWEM wants more investment in green technologies and renewable energy, financial incentives for recycling, a halt to the Government’s road building programme with the money saved going to improve public transport, aviation tax for frequent flyers, and more spending on campaigns that will inform and educate the public on climate change. Until these measures are taken, climate change legislation will be under-mined and ministers will find it hard to meet legally binding targets on CO2 emissions.”
Hannah Chalmers, Researcher, Energy Technology for Sustainable Development Group, Imperial College London, said:
“The announcement of a competition to build Britain’s first full scale carbon capture and storage facility could be an important step to ensure that we start to learn more about these technologies as soon as possible. The UK is well positioned to develop carbon capture and storage. We need to replace many of our power plants in the next few years and have good potential for safe, geological storage under the North Sea. It is crucial that we start building real plants now. We need to understand how the technology works in large, integrated projects so that we can develop it for deployment worldwide to tackle CO2 emissions from fossil-fired power plants and other large sources of carbon dioxide.”
Professor Peter Styring, EPSRC Senior Media Fellow,Professor of Chemical Engineering & Chemistry, The University of Sheffield, said:
“The landfill tax will, rise by £8 each year from April 2008.This puts further burden on the drive to incinerate municipal waste which will necessarily create further CO2 emissions at a time when the government is trying to cut emissions by 60%.
“The Chancellor also announced a competition to build Britain’s first full scale carbon capture and storage facility This is a short term and short sighted approach. What is needed is not storage but utilisation of CO2 as a feed stock for chemicals. We will obviously compete for funding should the call for bids materialise!
“Public investment in science will rise from £5bn this year to £6.3bn by 2010-11. This is good in the long term; however, the main problem is more immediate. Due to the DTI shortfall, Science and Engineeering in the UK is suffering through cuts to RCUK. The EPSRC has a £29M cut as a consequence of this.”
Professor Julia Goodfellow, BBSRC Chief Executive, said:
“BBSRC welcomes the commitment to increased public investment in science, announced by the Chancellor in his budget speech today, and looks forward to ongoing implementation of the Government’s 10 year framework for science and innovation.”