PM plans green investment drive

Ministers are planning a huge increase in green investment to create jobs and help to get Britain out of the coming recession.

The unprecedented drive – which will be laid out in a White Paper early in the new year – will place particular emphasis on expanding renewable energy and introducing electric cars as part of a "transition to a green economy". Tomorrow, Gordon Brown will signal his support for the initiative by reviewing a collection of electric cars in Downing Street.

The plans fit in with increasing calls for a green New Deal in the wake of the financial crisis. Ministers from the Prime Minister downwards accept that such a programme is part of the solution to the crisis and one of the best ways to increase employment, and are looking at ways of "greening" the vast investments being planned to counter the recession.

Yesterday, Hilary Benn, the Secretary of State for the Environment, told the IoS: "The Government is committed to building a green economy at home and abroad, and creating more jobs in environmental industries. We need to invest in clean technologies and our natural infrastructure of forests, soils and water."