They are making you waste your Money!
June 18, 2007 12:00 PM
There is much press talk about 'stealth taxes', but what about 'stealth spending'? There's a lot of it about, and I've been working in Westminster to get it stopped! Here are a couple of examples:-
Why is it that the supermarkets put so much wrapping round the stuff we buy? It is costing the average household in Hazel Grove £470 a year, just for the plastic and cardboard, polystyrene and junk that we throw away when we unwrap the stuff we actually want. And then we throw it away, and pay a load of Council Tax for it to be collected and tipped in a hole in Lincolnshire.
At every stage it is using energy, and causing damaging carbon emissions, as well as burning a hole in your pocket.
My Retail Packaging Recycling Bill is designed to put pressure on the shops to stop - by giving you the right to take wrappings back to them to get rid of. In Switzerland and Germany that has led to a big cut back in wasteful packaging. The big stores don't like it, though one famous chain did write to me to say they were 'experimenting' with selling unwrapped fruit!!
The second needless cost is on energy bills. The average home owner in Stockport is spending £385 per year more on gas and electricity than a resident of Stockholm, in Sweden, where average winter temperatures are 6 degrees lower. That is because our houses are built to low standards of energy efficiency, and we never get round to improving them. The Liberal Democrats have just published our plans to help people upgrade their homes and cut fuel bills. Chris Huhne MP and I are the authors of "Climate Change Starts at Home", and if you want a copy I will send you one.
Meanwhile, for a total cost of under £350 I put an extra 150mm (that's 6" in old money) of loft insulation in my roof, and had my wall cavities filled earlier this year. It will take less than 2 years to get my money back, and after that it is all profit. And yes, it will be going to the Liberal Democrats' campaign fund!
Andrew Stunell
What would you like to do next?
-
Subscribe for updates
Follow the party's activity on...
- Twitter:
- Liberal Democrats
- Facebook:
- Liberal Democrats
- YouTube:
- Liberal Democrats