First part of a first draft
This manifesto has two parts and six sections
Part 1
- Inequality
- Housing and planning
- Growth, inequality & inward investment
- Growth and climate
- Growth and jobs
Part 2
- Socialism and Capitalism
- Foreign policy
Inequality
We will bring in measures to reduce inequality in Britain.
The rich are getting richer pushing the working class and now the middle class into debt – as Gary Stevenson notes:
The rich accumulate an enormous amount of money and they use that to out compete other groups in society (such as the working class and the middle class) for assets. Meaning that over time the middle class and the working class have less and less and less assets and go further and further and further into debt.
Gary’s Economics, Why Labour is crushing your living standards (2025)
We will tax the rich to stop them being too rich.
We will increase benefits for the poor and substantially cut the cost of housing.
Taxing the rich and affluent
Taxation collects revenues to spend on public goods like the NHS but another reason for taxation is to stop the rich becoming excessively rich. As Gary Stevenson has noted, the recent increase in the wealth of the rich has enabled them to buy assets, particularly housing, which are rented to the rest of us or sold at higher prices.
We will increase taxes on the rich and affluent and tax wealth as well as income.
Example: VAT +£35 billion
At £160 billion per year VAT is 15% of Government income. In the UK, VAT has exemptions for many goods and services, for example food. The Institute of Fiscal Studies calculatet that removing these exemptions would bring in a an extra £50 billion per year
They show that this would increase the VAT collected from the wealthiest 20% of the population by £1474 per year but would also take an extra£651 from the poorest 20%. A sliding range of increased benefits to protect the poor but tax the richest will collect 70% of the £50 billion – an extra £35 billion in taxes.
We will remove VAT exemptions, increasing benefits to protect the poorest.
Example: Wealth tax +£52 billion
VAT is a tax on ongoing economic activity, not on existing wealth. It reduces income inequality but is not effective in reducing the inequality in wealth that has buit up in recent decades. To reduce that inequality a tax on wealth is required.
According to the final report of the Wealth Tax Commission., a wealth tax on millionaire couples paid at 1% of their wealth each year for five years would rsise £260 billion. That’s £52 billion a year (2.0% of GDP)
We will bring in a wealth tax, initially at the 1% rate on millionaire couples.
Example: Environmental taxes +£10 billion
The world is facing many environmental crises.. The headline is climate changecaused by hhuman emissions of greenhouse gases. The UK will lead the way to a safer world, starting with a reduction in the use of fossil fuels,. An increase in fuel duty would reduce their use. In 2024-25,the Office of Budget Responsibility expects that fuel duties will gather in £24.3 billion. Raising fuel duties by 50% might initially collect an extra £10 billion, which would fall as less fuel is used.
We will increase fuel duty by 50%.
Government borrowing
VAT, wealth taxes and fuel duty can raise an extra £97 billion from the rich and affluent. This equals 64% of government borrowing in the year to March 2025.
Perhaps more taxes are needed. Increased rate of VAT? A larger wealth tax? Increased fuel duty?
We will increase taxation on the rich & affluent and cut UK Government borrowing.
Housing and planning
Increasing taxes on the the rich and affluent will reduce house prices if they succeed in curbing the wealth that allows the rich to buy too much property. This will tend to cut the cost of housing – but probably not enough.
Planning Gain
The price of a new house is a combination of the cost of counstruction, the builders profit and the cost of land. In a Gresham College lecture in 2024, Professor Martin Daunton said
In the United Kingdom less than 30% of the value of a house is in the building 70% is in the value of the land. Martin Daunton: Why Does Britain Have a Housing Crisis? 2024)
The cost of newly built house in the UK averages about £300K:
The Nationwide average UK house price increased [to] almost £296,000 in the fourth quarter of 2023. This was a slight increase from the previous year, when the average newly built house cost £292,000 pounds. Nevertheless, this figure was lower than in the third quarter of 2023, when the average price exceeded 300,000 British pounds.
Nationwide average price of new houses in the UK to 4th quarter 2023, Statista
Using Professor Daunton’s rule-of-thumb, a new house costing £300,000 will have building cost of £90,000 and a land cost of £210,000.
Undeveloped land (e.g. agricultural land) big enough for a house costs less than £1000, so the value of the planning permission can be estimated as £209K (£210K -£1K) for the average house.
Planning permission for a million houses, at Professor Daunton’s estimates, would be worth over £200 billion to land owners. Most of the cost of a new house is paying for land value.. It is a transfer of wealth from the house buyer to the landowner, who has been granted the planning permission.
If Professor Daunton’s estimates are correct, removing planning gain could make housing 70% cheaper – down from £300K to £90K.
We will ask the Office of National Statistics to examine Professor Daunton’s claims.
Planning permission is a major factor in rising house prices and increasing the wealth of the rich and affluent. In York, for example, a plot big enough for a house and garden costs less than £1000 at agricultural prices. Given permission to build a house makes it worth nearly £200,000.
To curb the increase in the cost of building land (and therfore houses) many more houses must be built.
In Fact Sheet 1. The need for homes (2024), the UK Government says that, in England, 300,000 new homes are needed each year because of projected population growth. The high price of houses, driven by a scarcity of supply .
However, in The housebuilding crisis: The UK’s 4 million missing homes, (2023), the Centre for Cities says:
Compared to the average European country, Britain today has a backlog of 4.3 million homes that are missing from the national housing market as they were never built.
This housing deficit would take at least half a century to fill even if the Government’s current target to build 300,000 homes a year is reached. Tackling the problem sooner would require 442,000 homes per year over the next 25 years or 654,000 per year over the next decade in England alone.
We will ensure the number of new houses will reach a milliona year in the next few years.
Modern Methods of Construction
Houses could be even cheaper (and greener) using Modern Methods of Construction (MMC). The £90k constructon cost could be reduced considerably but there is a problem in understanding the wide range of things that can be described as MMC
Building methods covered by the term [Modern Methods of Construction] range from factory-produced structures that are built entirely offsite to modular components that enable structures to be assembled more quickly or easily onsite, and other building techniques that increase productivity on construction sites.
House of Lords Library, Modern methods of construction in the building industry (2024)
We will promote research into new building techniques for constructing buildings.
A new Building Research Establishment
The Building Research Establishment was a government agency providing independent advice on building performance, construction, and fire safety. Since it was privatised in 1997 to become BRE Ltd, it has had to make its way in the commercial world. Inside Housing reports that it has been criticised for its testing of products implicated in the Grenfell fire. Lord Rooker has said in a debate in the House of Lords
Given the Grenfell report, the BRE should no longer be involved in certifying modern methods of offsite construction techniques or products. Such work should be seen to be fully independent and professional.
Lords call for BRE to stop certifying MMC after criticism in Grenfell Tower Inquiry report
A government agency is required to assess and push forward the use of new building techniques, which promises much cheaper construction Also much greener construction using materials with much lower environmental impact.
We will create a new Building Research Establishment. Possibly by re-nationalising BRE Ltd.
Prefabs
Prefabs were a precursor to MMC They were emergency houses built after the destruction of the second world war. They were built in factories then deliverd to their sites. 158,000 werere built. Although they were meant to last 10 years some 8,000 still exist some 80 years later. Articles written about them are usually followed by comments by former residents which emphasise how happy prefab estates were as places to live. Often emphasising community spirit:
I lived in Porters Field Estate in Leyton East London on quite a large prefab estate and it was simply the best community that you could wish for. A safe haven for kids to be left out to play in all day. Hated it when we were all moved out and dispersed into tower blocks or low rise flats….Happy days!
Tony Perryman, Customer Review on “Palaces for the People, Prefabs”
We will fund academic projects to investigate claims about prefabs and prefab life.
Comunity spirit and neighbourliness.
Increasing community spirit and neighbourliness rarely (if ever) appears as a political objective – or in the aims of the designers of mass housing.. However, one article was written for the Architectural Review in 2012:
When neighbours can meet each other casually and routinely in the street or glimpse each other in less private parts of the house, friendly familiarity can flourish. The architecture of neighbourliness would allow us to watch our neighbours, but only out of the corner of one eye.
Emily Cockayne, Love thy neighbour, The Architectural Review (2012)
The work of Leon Festinger, Social Pressures in Informal Groups: A Study of Human Factors in Housing, showed how neighbours became friends by being meeting frequently but informally because they shared spaces near their homes. He used the term “propinquity” to describe the close spatial relationship:
Festinger, Stanley Schachter, and Kurt Back examined the choice of friends among college students living in married student housing at MIT. The team showed that the formation of ties was predicted by propinquity, the physical proximity between where students lived, and not just by similar tastes or beliefs as conventional wisdom assumed. In other words, people simply tend to befriend their neighbors.
There are, of course, several other factors that contribute to (or detract from) neighbourliness and community spirit but with the wrong spatial layouts, neighbotliness becomes difficult.
Research by Professor Carmona of UCL has shown that “Households with a private garden or terrace space were the most comfortable” and:
houses were more comfortable than flats, with apartment blocks – more prevalent in the social sector – becoming progressively less comfortable and offering a lower sense of community the higher they were off the ground.
Home Comforts: Stress Testing Our Homes & Neighbourhoods During Covid-19 Lockdown
Note “a lower sense of community the higher [the homes] were off the ground.”
We will set up a new goernment agency, the Community Research Esteblishment, to promote research into community and neibourliness.
Social housing
In The story of social housing, Shelter ask “How did we go from a golden era of social housebuilding to the housing emergency we face today? “. Shelter outlines a story of decline that started in the 1980s with Thatcher’s reforms, which gave council tenants the right to buy their houses and also took the development of social housing from councils and gave it to “housing asociations” backed by private finance. Much less social housing was built. Shelter concluded:
The government can end the housing emergency by delivering 90,000 new social homes a year by 2029. As the Spending Review approaches, we must ensure Chancellor Rachel Reeves acknowledges the urgent need for investment in social housing.
We will ensurea very large increase in housiing – both for sale and for rent – at cheaper prices by significantly reducing planning gain and promoting modern methods of construction.
Greenbelts
Timothy Worstall from the Adam Smith Institute once posted the following on X:
But that’s the whole point of the green belt(s). In order to stop any housing or other economic growth anywhere near where upper middle class people who make their living in our most important cities might want to live. That’s the whole point of it all.
These ‘upper middle class people’ have lifestyles that are destructive to the climate. The website carbon.place has estimated peronal emissions for areas (Lower Super Output Areas) for England and Wales. In York settlements in York’s Greenbelt such as Copmanthorpe, Esrick and Strensall have per capita emissions between 13 andd 15 tonnes CO2e per year. Other areas, in the centre of York, such as in Guildhall, Hull Road and Fishergate have emissions between 2.7 and 7 tonnes CO2e per year.
Greenbelts are sited on the edge of towns so are somewhat distant to inner urban dwellers who value green spaces in the cities (such as urban parks or rewilded brownfield sites) much more than the green belts which are typically more distant from where they live. See National Planning Policy & Green Belts on BrusselsBlog.co.uk.
We will promote urban parks and rewided brownfield sites in cities and use some greenbelt land for housing. While recognising that some of the principles behind greenbelts have value, we will loosen the grip greenbelt policy has on housing. See A car free plan for Greater York.
Growth, inequality and inward investment
The USA has higher income inequality and higher wealth inequality than the UK but it also has much higher GDP per capita. However USA life expectancy is lower than the UK, despite the USA spending much more on healthcare. See the notes below: Google searches comparing USA with UK.
However, the UK government aims to grow UK GDP and says:
Economic growth is the number one mission of the government. Growth will fund our public services, enable investment in our hospitals and schools, and, most importantly, raise living standards for everyone.
UK Prime Minister’s Office, Kickstarting Economic Growth (2025)
The UK Government welcomes inward investment, for example from the USA: The Prime Minister and the Chancellor have recently met with Larry Fink, CEO of the huge Amican Investment Fund, Black Rock, with the aim of securing investment to fuel economic growth.
See Starmer meets BlackRock’s Larry Fink for growth talks – City A.M.
Others worry about the USA buying UK businesses. For example, The Big Issue describes Angus Hanton’s book Vassal State, How America runs Britain:
So what has become of the UK’s independence? Didn’t we have a referendum in 2016 to take back control? It turns out that the UK exited Europe only to hand over control to the US along with ownership of large swathes of the UK. In Britain US ownership now means profits are sucked out of the country, with only very low taxes paid along the way, and control is exercised thousands of miles away.
The Big Issue, Americans are buying up Britain from right under our noses. (2024)
Could growth led by foreign investment lead us to a way of life where (on average) we consume twice as much but according to the World Happiness Report (2025), we would, like the USA, be slightly less happy? (The UK is rated as the 23rd happiest country, just ahead of the USA at 24th.)
As for greenhoue emissions, the USA generates 16.3 tonnes CO2e per person and the UK generates 7.0 tonnes, where consumption emissions are from Our World in Data (2022), and populations are from Wordometers (2025). The average US lifestyle is much more climate damaging than the current UK lfestyle.
These issues do not just concern wealth from the USA. Wealth to invest in (or buy up) the UK economy does not just come from the USA as many football fans will have noticed.
We will monitor the influence of foreign wealth on the UK economy and inform the public.
Growth and Climate
“Economic growth” is an increase in the value of goods and services produced in an economy. It brings increased income and wealth but these rewards can increase inequality, boosting the wealth of the rich, leaving the poor behind.
Progressive taxation can remedy inequality but, at present, there is a bigger problem – climate change.
Producing goods and services also produces pollution, in particular carbon pollution which is driving climate change. Although inprovements in production can decrease the quantity of carbon pollution from production processes, the increase in production means that global carbon emissions are increasing.
Climate warnings
In June 1988, NASA scientist James Hansen made a presentation on The Greenhouse Effect and Climate Change to the US Congress.. His predictions of global temperature increase have been broadly correct but there has been a pushback from vested interests, often related to the oil industry.
Recently, Hansen has produced another warning, Large Cloud Feedback Confirms High Climate Sensitivity. This claims that the assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change significantly underestimate the climate changes that are happening.
We will ask James Hansen to host a conference on the current state of the climate in the UK Parliament.
Earth’s Energy Imbalance
One of the measures of climate change is Earth’s Energy Imbalance. This is balance between the incoming sunlight, and the reflected and emitted radiation from Earth. The American Geophysical Union has warned that Earth’s Energy Imbalance More Than Doubled in Recent Decades. They say:
The imbalance leads to energy accumulation in the atmosphere, oceans and land, and melting of the cryosphere, resulting in increasing temperatures, rising sea levels, and more extreme weather around the globe.
…our capacity to observe it is rapidly deteriorating as satellites are being decommissioned.
We will fund satellites to measure Earth’s Energy Imbalance.
The Paris Agreement on Climate Change
The Paris Agreement is a “legally binding” international treaty on climate change, adopted by 196 parties at COP21 in Paris in 2015. It aims to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius, and preferably to 1.5 degrees Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels.
The European Union noted that changes will increasingly bring droughts, floods, heat waves affecting health and food production.
We will ask and expended Climate Change Committee to publish quarterly assessments on the consequences of climate change and see they are well publicised
Causes of climate change
While the causes of climate change are quite well understood, there is too litle knowledge in the wider public about them – or the seriousness of the situation.
Fossil fuels – coal, oil and gas – are by far the largest contributor to global climate change, accounting for over 75 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions.
We must cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Transport emissions: The UK government estimated:
transport is the largest emitting sector of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, producing 26% of the UK’s total emissions in 2021.
Home heating: The National Audit Office says (2024):
Heating the UK’s 28 million homes accounted for 18% of all UK greenhouse gas emissions in 2021, the most recent year for which data are available. The main source of these emissions is from burning natural gas to heat homes.
Animal agriculture: This is also a large source of greenhouse emissions: The Journal of Climate Change and Health said in 2023:
Global food production is responsible for 35% of all greenhouse gas emissions (GHGE) with the use of animals as a source for food, as well as livestock feed, responsible for almost 60% of all food production emissions.
Building and construction. In March 2024, th United Nations Environment Programme wrote:
Energy demand and emissions from the building and construction sector represent over a fifth of global emissions.
We will ensure that news media educate the public on the seriousness of climate change and its sources.
Global Remaining Climate Budget
The Potsdam Institute caculates the amount of greenhouse gases that can be emitted before the Paris limits of 1.5°C and 2.0°C are reached. These amounts are the “remaining carbon budgets”.
The remaining budget for a 1.5°C rise is 21 tonnes CO2e per person. For a 2.0°C rise it is 113 tonnes CO2e. At the current level of global emissions, Potsdam estimate that there is 4 years before the 1.5°C budget is exhausted and 22 years before the 2.0°C budget is exhausted.
These estimates are based on data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), but Hansen’s latest warnings suggest that Potsdam’s budgets are much too high. The chances of even staying below a 2.0°C rise in global temperature is small unless there is a drastic fall in greenhouse emissions.
The current target of net-zero emissions by 2050 sidelines carbon budgets targets because it allows unlimited emissions until the target date.
We will raise public awareness of carbon budgets for the UK and the world and ask an enhanced Climate Change Committee for quarterly reports and see they are well publicised
Actions needed
To combat climate chage we need to use much less fossil fuels, eat less animal products, cut household emissions and build differently. We need to:
- reduce air travel and car driving
- consume less meat and dairy
- cut household emissions
- build differently
We will increase taxes on these activities in proportion to their greenhouse emissions.
Air Travel
There have been hints from UK Government that Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) will cut the greenhouse emissions that come from air travel. SAF is made from biomass that has absorbed CO2 from the atmosphere so its total climate impact is reduced. However, the use of SAF will be limited. The UK Government has set a mandate to increase the use of SAF:
The SAF Mandate starts in 2025 at 2% of total UK jet fuel demand, increasing linearly to 10% in 2030 and then to 22% in 2040.
From 2040, the obligation will remain at 22% of total UK jet fuel demand until there is greater certainty regarding SAF supply.
At 22% SAF will be put just a small limit on the greenhouose gases from aviation – but that does not affect the other climate changing effect of aviation, the effects of clouds from condensation tails. This is measured by the Radiative Forcing Effect. In Radiative Forcing Associated with Emissions from Air Travel, Stanford Scope 3 Emissions Program says:
In order to capture the non-CO2 climate impacts associated with aviation, a carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions multiplier – commonly referred to as a radiative forcing index (RFI) or radiative forcing factor (RFF) – of 2.7 to 3.0 is recommended for carbon accounting.
This effect at least doubles the effect of CO2 emissions because of the effects of burning fuel in the upper atmosphere. A doubling is used in the Parliamentary answer in Hansard 2 May 2007 : Column 1670W. The radiative forcing effect effect is not diminished by the use of SAF.
We will implement measures to limit air travel to and from the UK.
Electric cars
Car free living may be forced on us by the climate emergency. The House of Commons Science and Technology Committee concluded:
In the long-term, widespread personal vehicle ownership does not appear to be compatible with significant decarbonisation.
Electric cars may help – a little – as grid electicity switches to renewable sources but making a new electric car creates several tonnes of greenhouse gases. In Should I buy an electric car? (2021), David Lomax estimated emissions from the manufacture of small cars:
[A report for the European Commission] estimates the embodied carbon of a small petrol or diesel car to be about 8.5 tonnes of CO2e. This is roughly the same as the annual carbon footprint of the average UK person. So, it’s a lot! Interestingly a small electric car actually has a larger embodied carbon, about 14 tonnes CO2e.
Driverless taxis will soon be here. They will have similar embodied carbon to these. However, to bring mobility to a community far fewer driverless taxis are needed than private cars so the emissions created during manufature are shared by many more people.
As an interim measure, we will promote driverless taxis for communities where it is difficult to reduce the number of private cars without demaging the quality of life.
Car free living
When car ownership increases in a neighboourhood, local facilities reduce. Local shops go as cars move in. For those without a car their neghbourhoods become worse places to live. One solution is to create neighbourhoods where there a few private cars.
We will plan for car free neighbourhoods where there are few private cars so that residents can have better local facilities and safer quieter lives.
There are many advantages to car free living. More neighbourhood services can be supported because of increased demand for shops, pubs, doctors and schools that are within walking distance. Car free neighbourhoods are likely to be more neghbourly.
We will ask a new Planning Research Establishment to report on the neighbourliness and comunity spirit inherent in car free neighbourhoods.
In the short to medium term building many new car free homes will have a limited effect on the value of existing properties. This is because existing properties will initially be allowed to have parking spaces with their houses. This will allow an orderly retreat from the current situation of excessively high house prices, avoiding a precipitouse fall iin the price of existing houses, avoiding the scourge of negative equity that plagued the housing market during the economic recession between 1991 and 1996.
Cost of motoring
In 2008, the RAC Foundation reported:
14% of household spending already goes on transport and 79% of this spending itself on private motoring.
That made 11% of household spending.. Since 2008 the number of cars has increased by just over 20% increasing the percentage to 13%. For the 78% of households that own at least one car that is 17% of their household expenditure.
In 1992, Carlo Ripa di Meana was the European Commission envioronment commissioner who called for cities to be free of cars he said he was ready to become car-less, and so should other city dwellers, to prevent Europe’s cities being choked by the internal combustion engine.
Ripa di Meana commissioned a study showing that it would cost between 2 and 5 times less to live and work in car-free cities because of the savings people could make in not having cars to buy, park, insure and maintain.
We will ask the new Planning Reearch Establishment to investigate the claims of Commissioner Ripa di Meana.
Consumption of animal products
There is not enough public understanding of impact of animal products on health and climate. Nutritional Facts, Animal Products, (2025) says:
The massive Cornell-Oxford-China study conducted in the 1970’s and 80’s showed that even small amounts of animal-based food were associated with a measurable increase in risk of some chronic diseases. Diets rich in animal foods have been linked in numerous studies to higher risk for heart disease and cancer mortality.
Producing food based on animal production cause large emissions of greenhouse gases. Using the research of Poore and Nemecek (2018), Our World in Data gives the greenhouse emissions for different foods. For eack kilogram of food it estimated the greenhouse emissions in producing the food. It found:
| Food | kgs CO2e |
| Beef (beef herd) | 99.48 |
| Lamb & Mutton | 39.72 |
| Beef (dairy herd) | 33.3 |
| Cheese | 23.88 |
| Poultry meat | 9.87 |
| Eggs | 4.67 |
| Rice | 4.45 |
| Milk | 3.15 |
| Tomatoes | 2.09 |
| Wheat | 2.57 |
| Peas | 0.98 |
| Bananas | 0.86 |
| Potatoes | 0.46 |
| Nuts | 0.43 |
We will create a Healthy and Sustainable Food Establishment to promote research and advise on diets. It will have a role in public education as well as food production.
Household emissions
In the UK, most of the energy use in the home is for central heating. Most use gas. The House of Commons Library, Constituency data: Central heating (2024) wrote:
Most households (73%) in the UK said mains gas was their only central heating source. 8% used electric central heating, 5% used oil central heating and 2% had no central heating.
There is currently no VAT on domestic energy in the UK. (That is changed in our proposals above.) However both gas and electricity pay a climate change levy of 0.775 pence per kWh. In 2024, the generation of grid electricity caused 207 gm CO2e per kWh.. For gas it was 183 gm per kWh.
In the past month emissions from electricity generation have varied between 97 and 125 gm CO2e per kWh. Electricicity in the UK is being decarbonised. This is planned to continue. The UK plans to decarbonise its electricity grid by 2035.
By 2035, heating by electricity will be producing very little greenhouse gas emissions. Even now, heat from electricity produces less emissions – and much less emissions if heat pumps are used, which canmultiply the heat from using one kWh of electricity by thee to four times.
However, electricity now costs almost four times more than gas per kWh (27.03p vs 6.99p) and has a higher daily standing charge (53.8p per day vs 32.67p per day).
Nesta (The UK’s innovation agenct for social good) writes in Household energy bills include green levies. (2025):
This disparity contributes to electricity being much more expensive than gas, and essentially acts as a tax on low-carbon energy (opposite to a carbon tax) now that the UK has much cleaner electricity (due to the elimination of coal-burning power stations and the continuing increase in renewable energy).
As electricity for heating costs much more than gas and has a smaller climate effect, we will increase taxes on gas – but protect the poor with increased benefits- and subsidise electricity.
Note: In York, the 5 most affluent areas (MSOAs) use 30% more gas than the 5 least affluent areas.
Embodied carbon in building
For decades there has been an emphasis on cutting greenhouse emissions by keeping the energy use in buildings as low as possible. This is a benefit to the occupiers of buildings because it keeps running costs low. However, the occupiers are not held rersponsible for the emissions that building construction creates. These can be considerable.
Research has found that for each square metre of floor area, contruction of tall buildings creates more green house emissions than low rise buildings.
Bricks, cement, aluminium and steel cause large emissions while materials such as hemp, straw and sustainable wood can actually capture greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. A question that needs an answer is “When is wood sustainable wood”?
We will fund independent and objective research to determine the environmental impact of building styles and building materials.
Growth and Jobs
In the 19th century Robert Owen predicted unemployment and a decline in the value of labour due to industrialisation
“If we can imagine a point at which all the necessaries and comforts of life shall be produced without human labour, are we to suppose that the human labourer is then to be dismissed to be told that he is now a useless incumberance which they cannot afford to hire.”
Back in the 1970s we worried thatthe microchip revolution would remove the need for many workers, especially amongst the less skilled and low paid. See Brussels Blog: Reducing the cost of labour to create full employment (1978):
technological change can bring about conditions under which a large proportion of the population cannot live by the sale of their labour alone, and they should not be expectedto do so.
Now we worry that AI will displace skilled workers.
Critics point to the increased demand for the “comforts of life”. This increased demand has generated extra production and extra jobs. Economic growth has created jobs, which tends to generate new jobs.
The World Bank believes that it “is critical to unlock private sector-driven economic growth that creates productive jobs, which will foster dignified livelihoods”. The impact of having “productive jobs” and “dignified livelihoods” is not measured by traditional economics. Nor are many other “external costs”, especially the consequences of climate change. Economic growth has a strong relationship with incrased greenhouse gas emissions.
In a market economy, the solution is simple, create jobs using labour subsidies, especially at the lower end of the labour market. For example governments could “subsidise goods and services that use lots of labour and tax those that don’t“. Such measures keep full employment in an economy where there are less cars, less flights in planes and less production in amimal agriculture.
The World Bank rightly notes that productive jobs foster dignified livelihoods but is incorrect in implying that economic growth is the only means of creating jobs. (But they “would say that wouldn’t they?“). Unless tightly controlled, economic growth generates more of the emissions that are destroying a livable planet. Economic growth is not the only way jobs can be created.
We will use labour subsidies to ensure full employment, while controlling greenhouse emissions.
Footnotes
[Google searches comparing USA with UK]
Google AI’s response to the search phrase “inequality in USA and UK” was:
Both the UK and the US have significant levels of income and wealth inequality, but the US generally exhibits higher levels of both. The UK has among the highest income inequality in the EU, while the US is considered one of the most unequal countries globally.
Google AI’s response to the search phrase “GDP per person USA and UK” was:
In 2023, the US GDP per capita was significantly higher than the UK’s. Specifically, the US GDP per capita was $81,695, while the UK’s was $49,463.86.
Google AI’s response to the search phrase “GDP per person USA and UK” was:
In 2024, life expectancy in the UK was slightly higher than in the US. In the UK, life expectancy at birth was estimated to be 81.3 years, while in the US it was 78.6 years,
Google AI’s response to the search phrase “healthcare costs USA and UK” was:
The US spends significantly more per capita on healthcare than the UK, and a larger portion of its GDP on healthcare. The US also has a higher overall cost of healthcare compared to the UK, both in terms of private insurance premiums and treatment costs.
Don't look now 