The Dutch government misses out on 37.5 billion euros in income every year due to schemes that favor using fossil fuels. Researchers from SOMO, Oil Change International, and Milieudefensie arrived at this amount in a study into how the government “subsidizes” the fossil fuel industry.
Researcher Boris Schellekens of the Foundation for Research on Multinational Enterprises (SOMO) called the estimate conservative. He and his colleagues ignored all costs of environmental damage. “We purely looked at missed state revenues.” The researchers are convinced that their overview is the most complete to date.
The report published on Monday describes 31 regulations that, in one way or another, make the use of fossil fuels more economical. That usually does not concern money that the government transfers to companies’ accounts but mainly tax discounts and exemptions. For example, major natural gas consumers do not have to pay energy tax on most of their consumption, and aviation and shipping are exempt from excise duty on kerosene and fuel oil. Oil refineries, coal-fired power stations, and the steel industry also enjoy such tax benefits.
The biggest hit, 13.5 billion euros per year, is in the energy tax, which is degressive in the Netherlands. That means that companies that use more energy have to pay relatively less tax on their consumption. The researchers call this “a perverse incentive.”
Nederlands: Spandoek van Extinction Rebellion bij het bezoek van de koning in Amersfoort. Image by Daandelft, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
Participants in a climate march set off from Arnhem, Alkmaar, and Almere on Sunday morning, ending six days later in The Hague. The march is an initiative of Extinction Rebellion (XR), in advance of the next blockade of the A12 highway, which the climate activist group has announced for next Saturday. According to XR, the march will be “public-friendly and fully within the law.”
For each day, the activists have set a route of about 20 kilometers. The routes will go from station to station, so people who want to join the day’s march can do so easily. A similar march already took place in May, but then only from Arnhem.
Starting Saturday, September 9, XR plans to block the A12 in The Hague every day. This part of the road passes the temporary Tweede Kamer and the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy. According to XR, this is exactly the right place for a protest against the financial benefits that the government grants for the use of fossil fuels. These fuels cause by far the most CO2 emissions and thus contribute significantly to global warming.
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Loop van 3 t/m 9 september mee met de A12-Mars! Wandel de hele mars of kies een etappe. We starten in Arnhem, Almere en Alkmaar en eindigen in Den Haag op de A12 of in de support demo.
The Conservatives have overseen 13 years of decline – with soaring rents and mortgages, devastated public services, sky-high bills and the highest tax burden on working people in a generation. They have nothing to offer.
That’s why they are desperate to confect a bogus war on the motorist. Division is both their strategy and overriding priority.
Regrettably, fostering this type of damaging politics is more important to Rishi Sunak right now than the harm being done to our children’s lungs by air pollution or the decline forced on our economy because of their recklessness and incompetence.
Serious, robust, reasoned discussion is essential in any democratic society, and something I have always welcomed.
My objection is not to good-faith debate, but to the Tories sowing discord and division, in a desperate attempt to distract from the mess they’ve made of our country.
Senior Labour figures accepted valuable gifts from Google in the days before abandoning a plan to tax digital giants more, openDemocracy can reveal.
Labour’s shadow business secretary Jonathan Reynolds, his senior parliamentary assistant (who is his wife), and Keir Starmer’s political director all attended Glastonbury festival in June as guests of YouTube, which is owned by Google. Including accommodation and ‘hospitality’, Reynolds estimates his Glastonbury package for two was worth £3,377 – significantly more than the cost of two regular tickets, which were £335 each.
The next day, reports emerged that Labour had ditched its proposal to hike tax on digital businesses like Google.
The Digital Services Tax, introduced in 2020, is a 2% levy on the UK income of online companies like search engines and social media platforms. In August last year, Reynolds and his shadow chancellor colleague Rachel Reeves had called for an increase in the tax to 10%, saying the income would be used to fund a slash in tax for small businesses.
As recently as 5 June, Reynolds was still talking about the policy. Yet on 26 June this year, the day after Glastonbury ended, The Times reported that the policy had been ditched, with Labour saying it had “no plans” to raise the digital service tax when in government. Reynolds declined to comment.
It was not the only time senior figures in Starmer’s team accepted luxury gifts from Google in the months before the party’s U-turn. Shadow culture secretary Lucy Powell’s political adviser, Labour’s executive director of policy, and the party’s head of domestic policy all accepted tickets and transport to, and ‘hospitality’ at, the Brit Awards in February from the digital giant. Powell’s register of interests estimates that the adviser’s ticket was worth £1,170.
Starmer’s political director also accepted transport to and ‘hospitality’ ahead of the event from Google, though his ticket, along with that of Starmer’s private secretary, was covered by Universal Music.
YouTube will sponsor an event at Labour’s annual conference next month with the chair of the business and trade select committee, Darren Jones. The talk, hosted by the New Statesman Media Group, will be on “harnessing tech for growth”.
Last week, openDemocracy revealed that Starmer had accepted a £380 dinner from Google for him and one staff member during the World Economic Forum in January.
In total, openDemocracy estimates that Labour shadow cabinet members and their staff accepted luxury gifts from Google worth nearly £10,000 over the months before they announced their policy U-turn. By contrast, the value to the British public of the policy Labour appears to have ditched is estimated at around £3bn.
Nick Dearden, director of Global Justice Now, said: “This is a really very worrying set of events which suggests that big business has far too much access to senior opposition politicians.
“But this isn’t simply about foolish behaviour on the part of the individuals concerned. In office, Labour needs to radically restructure our economy if it’s to have any hope of creating a more sustainable and equal society, and undoing the damage of recent governments. To do that, they must take on vested interests, like the Big Tech monopolies, which have far too much wealth and power.”
Staff for other Labour shadow cabinet members have also accepted valuable gifts from controversial companies. A political adviser to the shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves, accepted two ‘box’ tickets to a Harry Styles concert worth £250 each from BT. In the 2019 Labour manifesto, the party committed to nationalising BT, a measure the company opposed. It’s not clear whether the party maintains this policy, but Reeves has distanced herself from other nationalisation plans.
In April this year, BT announced a 14.4% average increase in its prices, and £1.7bn in profit. An Openreach spokesperson said: “As you’d expect from any major employer investing billions into the UK, we engage regularly with a range of stakeholders to support the interests of our people, our customers and our business. Any hospitality is consistent with the rules, fully declared and transparent.”
Updated 31 August 2023:The original version of this article incorrectly stated that the value of the Harry Styles box tickets was £700 each. They were in fact £250 each.
“Representatives from regimes such as Saudi Arabia, who have used UK-made weapons to commit war crimes in Yemen, will be wined and dined and encouraged to buy yet more arms.”
The biannual Defence & Security Exports International (DSEI) fair is taking place on September 12 – 15 in London. The event is one of the largest arms fairs in the world. It is attended by delegates from across the globe, including from some of the most oppressive regimes. This year’s fair will see over 2,800 manufacturers display their arms.
Ahead of the event, a group of activists are launching a campaign protesting the arms trade and the manufacturers showcasing their products at the trade show. They are campaigning under a ‘Stop the Arms Fair’ (STAF) banner. STAF formed in 2011 with the aim of putting a stop to arms fairs in the UK, particularly DSEI.
Every two years, DSEI brings thousands of arms buyers from over 100 countries worldwide together to network and make deals. The high-profile event connects governments, national armed forces, industry thought leaders and the entire defence and security supply chain on a global scale. The anti-arms trade activists say DSEI is an important event for the UK state, which ‘heavily subsidises and promotes the arms industry, and helps organise the arms fair.’
