Conclusions and recommendations
Current Policy
1. The
Government should urgently increase the amount of money that contributes
to the overall green stimulus by 'greening' more of its current
spending plans and ensuring access to European Investment Bank
capital; by doing so it will help create home markets and develop
first mover advantage. (Paragraph 17)
2. The Government
must provide industry with a clear and stable long-term policy
framework to guide them through the low-carbon transition with
enough detail to enable them to secure investment. Business needs
to be confident that financial incentives and regulation designed
to promote low-carbon industries will be maintained. In addition
a bipartisan political approach should be sought wherever possible.
(Paragraph 22)
3. The Government
must remove barriers and provide both financial and non-financial
incentives for the faster development of all the low-carbon sectors
of the economy highlighted by the Committee on Climate Change.
(Paragraph 27)
4. Increased investment
in renewables and low-carbon industries depends on a stable carbon
price at a sufficiently high level. The Government should take
steps to ensure that a strong carbon price signal will encourage
the investment needed to drive the low-carbon transition. (Paragraph
31)
Where are the green jobs?
5. To
inform its activist approach the Government should build on the
work of the Committee on Climate Change and the Low Carbon Industrial
Strategy to reassess the number of new jobs that will be created
in the move to a low-carbon economy and provide more robust data
on where these jobs will come from and why. (Paragraph 35)
6. The Government
should undertake research in partnership with trades unions, employers
and Regional Development Agencies to gain a broader understanding
of the impact of any job displacement resulting from the move
to a low-carbon economy and to develop strategies to mitigate
these effects. (Paragraph 41)
7. The Government
needs to do more to link its policies on tackling poverty and
unemployment with the green agenda. The forthcoming DWP White
Paper provides an opportunity for the Government to embed this
thinking within its employment policy. (Paragraph 45)
8. We recommend that
the Government immediately and substantially increases the scale
and speed of its programmes to improve the energy efficiency of
existing buildings, and make this the UK's number one priority
for green fiscal stimulus. The Government must ensure that a workforce
is developed to enable the work on energy saving to be carried
out and that it is equipped with all the necessary skills. (Paragraph
51)
Skills for the Transition
9. The
Government must put employer participation at the heart of its
changes to the skills system. (Paragraph 60)
10. The Government
must establish a leader for the green skills agenda to deliver
the skills needed for the low-carbon transition, to coordinate
on removing barriers in the current system and to maintain a focus
on the current environmental skills. (Paragraph 65)
11. In its role to
assess demand and prioritise sectors for extra funding, the new
Skills Funding Agency must take account of the need to develop
skills in sectors recognised as vital in the low-carbon transition.
(Paragraph 68)
12. Government must
use the first National Skills Audit to provide a comprehensive
assessment of current and future gaps in low-carbon skills. The
results of this could provide the basis for any future development
of the green skills strategy. (Paragraph 72)
13. By establishing
a leader for the green skills agenda the Government could provide
an opportunity to deliver green skills across all sectors. This
will be important as green skills must eventually be mainstreamed
throughout the whole economy. (Paragraph 75)
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