'GREEN TINTED' BUDGET NOT ENOUGH - BURT

8.10.00pm GMT Wed 12th Mar 2008

Speaking after today's budget announcements, Solihull MP Lorely Burt welcomed the £12.5million capital fund to encourage more women entrepreneurs, saying:

"The proportion of women amongst entrepreneurs in the UK lags way behind figures for the USA, where there has been a sustained effort to encourage more women into business.

"I welcome this announcement as the first step towards unlocking the potential that is currently being wasted here. This is good news for women and good news for British business.

"However, the Chancellor has missed an opportunity to tackle global warming by producing a 'green tinted' budget that is in fact the great green cop out, designed more to deal with a budget deficit rather than change people's behaviour."

"The only big winner from this budget is the Government; who will be keeping an extra £1.86bn of tax payers' money by 2010