Following the Chancellor's statement, The Green Party believes that the the Government is failing the people of this country as it again targets the least well-off by squeezing another £3.7billion from people already insecure and desperate, thus ensuring 'foodbank Britain' continues.

It has completely failed to meet its own targets on public borrowing, it has failed to present a coherent proposal to crack down on tax avoidance, and then gives tax breaks to the wealthy and multinationals, rather than levelling the playing field for small businesses who struggle to compete against them.

The Green Party is calling for an immediate investment of the £4bn windfall from the 4G phone spectrum auction and the £35 billion quantitative easing surplus to create jobs in low-carbon infrastructure and in sectors such as renewable energy, energy-efficiency, low-carbon finance and manufacturing and in our contracting construction sector. The Green Party is calling for green quantitative easing to fund solar PV, insulation and other efficiency schemes that could create 140,000 jobs.

The continuation of the failed PFI system also ensures that not only will the Chancellor's plans for headline projects fail, but taxpayers will carry on paying over the odds for projects that could be better and more cheaply financed with a return to traditional procurement based on public interest rather than private profit.

The Chancellor's statement is another missed opportunity and will ensure an extension of his failed austerity programme. It simply re-arranges the deck chairs on his sinking ship by making cuts elsewhere to pay for capital projects and adding no new stimulus into the economy.

STEPHEN BROWN, Wyre Forest Green Party, Macarthur Way, Stouport