LIB DEMS LAUNCH GREEN ROUTE OUT OF RECESSION

3.58.24pm GMT Tue 23rd Dec 2008

£12.5bn plans to be paid for by scrapping meaningless VAT cut

The Liberal Democrats have announced a package of measures aimed at getting the country out of recession, creating jobs and leaving a legacy that will save energy, put money back into people's pockets and fight climate change. In announcing the measures, Nick Clegg, Leader of the Party, said they would make an immediate impact on the economy and improve people's lives right away.

The proposals include:

• A five year programme to insulate every school and hospital with 20%

completed in the first year

- Funding insulation and energy efficiency for a million homes, with a

£1000 subsidy for a million more

- Building 40,000 extra zero-carbon social houses

- Buying 700 new train carriages

- Reopening old railway lines and stations, opening new ones, electrifying the Great Western and Midland mainlines and beginning the Liverpool light rail network

- Installing energy and money saving smart meters in every home within five years

Ray Earwicker, Lib Dem Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Bracknell, commenting on the package said 'he felt, as Nick Clegg did, that Gordon Brown and David Cameron were fighting over the wrong bone. The real question was not whether the Government should be borrowing more money to overcome the recession but how it was going to be used. These were real, achiveable goals that would make a real difference to people's lives now, create new jobs today, and leave us with a better infrastructure for a long term, greener, economic recovery.'

The benefits for this constituency would be most apparent in the relief it could give to the hard-pressed housing sector. Bracknell's housing list is now well over 4000 strong and the measures announced last week by Bracknell Forest Borough Council to implement a pilot scheme to help 20 families move up the housing ladder is frankly derisory.

Ray Earwicker

Lib Dem PPC for Bracknell