QPA condemns 25% rise in aggregates levy in two years

THE Quarry Products Association has branded the Chancellor’s decision to index link the aggregates levy in 2009 as environmentally and economically perverse, pointing out that next year’s 5p rise will amount to a 25% increase in just two years.

‘The Government claims that the aggregates levy is being increased ‘to maintain its environmental impact’, but as it has yet to produce any evidence of the green benefits of the tax, there is no justification for the increases,’ commented Simon van der Byl, director general of the QPA.

Mr van der Byl said the Association had been asking the Government for environmental benchmarks with which to monitor the effectiveness of the levy since its introduction in 2002, yet despite refusing to publish any such benchmarks, or to carry out any assessment of the environmental impact of the levy, the Government was continuing to claim significant environmental benefits.

‘These claims are nothing more than greenwash,’ he argued. ‘The ratcheting up of the aggregates levy will generate increasing tax revenues of £75 million in 2008/9 and £85 million in 2009/10, compared with 2007/8. These costs will ultimately be paid by construction clients, including the Government, in effect transferring money from the transport, social housing, school and hospital budgets back to the Treasury.

He added: ‘The irony is that the environmental performance of the industry has continued to improve in recent years, evidenced, for example, by the increasing recognition of the industry’s contribution to creation of wildlife habitats and biodiversity through site restoration.

‘Unfortunately, the methodology used by government to create the aggregates levy in the first place assumed that quarry restoration generates nil social or environmental benefits,’ said Mr van der Byl. ‘The bizarre consequence is that as the industry’s environmental performance improves, the level of this perverse environmental taxation increases.’