By Lucy Phillips
6 January 2010
The UK’s natural resources should be included in its financial assets, a Labour MP has urged.
Speaking yesterday in an adjournment debate at Westminster Hall, Barry Gardiner said raw materials should be ‘at the heart of government’s accounting processes’, forming a key part of decisions made on public policy. He warned that it was not possible for the Treasury to ‘bail out’ natural ecosystems like it had done the banks.
‘Without good natural capital accounts the importance of natural resources to economies will continue to be under appreciated and sub-optimal use made of these assets, economically, environmentally and socially,’ he said.
The MP for Brent North cited other countries which had developed accounts for resources, such as air, water and soil. He hoped eventually the practice would be undertaken across the world.
Sarah McCarthy-Fry, the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, said she wanted the UK ‘to remain at the forefront in developing best practice in relation to public accounting’.
All government departments would be required to include their environmental sustainability in their annual reports and accounts from 2011, she said.
6 January 2010
The UK’s natural resources should be included in its financial assets, a Labour MP has urged.
Speaking yesterday in an adjournment debate at Westminster Hall, Barry Gardiner said raw materials should be ‘at the heart of government’s accounting processes’, forming a key part of decisions made on public policy. He warned that it was not possible for the Treasury to ‘bail out’ natural ecosystems like it had done the banks.
‘Without good natural capital accounts the importance of natural resources to economies will continue to be under appreciated and sub-optimal use made of these assets, economically, environmentally and socially,’ he said.
The MP for Brent North cited other countries which had developed accounts for resources, such as air, water and soil. He hoped eventually the practice would be undertaken across the world.
Sarah McCarthy-Fry, the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, said she wanted the UK ‘to remain at the forefront in developing best practice in relation to public accounting’.
All government departments would be required to include their environmental sustainability in their annual reports and accounts from 2011, she said.
