The green investment bank: Do it now, make it big

Article

The government has committed to setting up a 'green' investment bank. Yet the sums the government is committing are tiny: £3 billion, or about a fifth of 1 per cent of GDP, which can hardly have a huge effect on the economy. Gerald Holtham argues for swift action to establish the bank, and an ambitious change of scope in its operations.

Holtham argues that the bank should be able to borrow additional funds earlier than the mooted 2015/16 date, and that such borrowing needn't count against the government's austerity drive. Rather than as loan capital, he says, the government's initial £3 billion allocation should be committed as reserves to guarantee a much larger loan, perhaps to underpin a balance sheet worth some £100 billion: disbursed over five years or so, this much larger amount could raise investment in the UK by more than 1 percentage point of GDP per year.

Related items

  1. Adults standing in a circle and talking to each other about their mental wellbeing. There is a staff member sitting to the left of them in the frame sitting next to a table. The community centre is located in Seaton Deleval in the North East of England.

    What is the left for?: The case for a politics of reciprocism

    Liberal democratic capitalism has failed to give many people good lives, and the future looks less promising than the past. 

  2. Wildfires and climate change | Dave Hawkey from IPPR Scotland speaks to Lewis Goodall on LBC

    Europe’s heatwaves and the wildfires in the Cairngorms are a stark reminder that climate extremes are here.  The Scottish government must act now with a clear plan to prepare for what's coming.

  3. “I feel quite unsettled and unsafe”: Young people, belonging, and the broken promise of childhood

    Young people in England feel less secure, supported and connected than a decade ago. Based on nearly 200 conversations, this blog explores why childhood feels more stressful and less joyful.