Budget is "betrayal of our future"

Caroline Lucas's response to todays budget:

"In his determination to balance the nation's finances, George Osborne has forgotten that living within our means is also about natural resources. This budget is an attempt to return us to the failed policies of the past - unsustainable growth based on dwindling and ever-more expensive resources.

"The Chancellor had five opportunities to deliver a budget for the future, that could have turned the growing crisis over energy resources and climate change into a catalyst for creating much-needed jobs and wealth in new energy efficiency and renewable industries."

The Green Party, with leading environmental and conservation groups, had identified five key areas where the Chancellor could act to help tackle climate change and boost jobs and sustainable growth.

* The Green Investment Bank: this should have been the key to unlocking the £450 billion in finance for renewable energy needed in the next fifteen years. Instead, by creating a bank that cannot borrow, its impact will be limited to the original £3 billion funding.

* Carbon Floor Prices: at £30 a ton, the new levy on carbon will not be high enough to promote low-carbon energy. But it will give nuclear power companies a windfall subsidy of anything from £1.3 billion to £3 billion - paid for by the "hard-pressed families" George Osborne claims to want to help.(1)

* Transport: taxing the excess profits of North Sea oil companies is welcome; but it would have been better spent on protecting rural bus services, which are even more crucial to isolated communities and the poorest in society than the cost of fuel. Instead, by cutting fuel duty the Government is pretending that high fuel prices are temporary, rather than an inevitable consequence of dwindling supplies and unchecked demand.

* Environmental taxes: though George Osborne claims the proportion of revenue raised from green taxes will rise, the decision to postpone the rise in the Aggregates Levy and to scrap the planned rise in Air Passenger Duty will reduce revenue from environmental taxes by £160 million. It will also encourage more people to holiday abroad, hitting UK resorts.

* Zero Carbon Homes: property developers were expecting to have to contribute towards community renewable energy generation in order to offset the remainder of the emissions from new homes, which, from 2016, have to be zero carbon. In the budget, the Chancellor has changed the rules to exclude emissions from appliances, which means that supposedly ‘zero-carbon' homes would in fact create carbon emissions for years to come. It will also undermine many community energy schemes.(2)

In addition, the Chancellor announced a weakening in the protection for the countryside and green space with changes to the planning system, putting precious landscapes and habitats in even greater risk. Caroline said:

"In Opposition, George Osborne pledged that "If I become Chancellor, the Treasury will become a green ally, not a foe."(1). Now he is power, we see the reality. This budget contains nothing to shift us away from our dependency on oil and gas, nothing to take advantage of the potential of new technologies such as wind, wave and tide, and precious little to encourage investment in renewable industries.

"Instead, he has gone for the gesture of a penny off fuel duty. It gives drivers the false comfort that as fuel prices rise, the government will cut fuel duty. The reality is that petrol is a dwindling resource and we need to help people with alternatives, such as public transport. But while Osborne could find £2 billion for petrol, there was not a penny today for buses or trains.

"The depressing truth is that, rather than being the greenest government ever, this Conservative-led coalition is less green that John Major's administration, who introduced the fuel duty escalator, boosted energy efficiency and protection for threatened habitats. That this should be a coalition with the Liberal Democrats is doubly shocking."

NOTES

1) The Government's own analysis (by Redpoint for HMT and DECC) is that the subsidy will be £1.33 billion; WWF estimate it at £3 billion.



2) http://cdn.hm-treasury.gov.uk/2011budget_growth.pdf (p.117)

Will Libya be Cameron's Shot in the Arm?

I’m pleased Caroline Lucas, our one and only Green MP, voted against continuing Britain's military involvement in Libya.

There are so many valid arguments for not getting involved in the conflict even when it’s just about protecting innocent civilians i.e. hypocrisy,what about similar situations in other countries; the costs of involvement at a time when we’re all tightening our belts; the possible opened ended nature of the involvement; the tricky nature of the tasks involved, and so on.

Also the majority of us see regime change as the ultimate goal. Here I think caution needs to be exercised. For the simple reason that Gaddafi, irrespective of the tyrannical figure he presents, probably has a lot more support in Libya than we want to believe.

A couple of years ago I had some contact with a Libyan family who were staying in Widnes as the father was on a technical course at Halton College (now Riverside). The family had a meal with us and during our conversation I talked to them about Gaddafi and what they thought about his regime.

They seemed to accept the status quo in Libya – as long as they didn’t step out of line they were OK. They had community meetings were any problems they had could be thrashed out in a communal way. They were not particularly pro Gaddafi and were aware of his many faults but they were doing all right - no reason to rock the boat.

Being an extreme liberal with socialist and Green tendencies I found this incredible. But their calm response was that it was an imbedded cultural phenomenon. They kept saying that people were reasonably well off in Libya and Gaddafi was canny enough to exploit this.

A couple of issues – first, revolutions that are successful have to be overwhelmingly popular – is this the case with this revolution? I don’t know. Second - a population which presumes itself to be under assault from foreign forces, even though it might not be particularly supportive of its ruler, will rally to his call in such circumstances.

Anyway, Maggie Thatcher had her Falklands in the early 1980’s to provide her with a new lease of life - will Libya be David Cameron’s and the coalitions shot in the arm given its current stormy passage, or not? Only time will tell.

Halton's Poor Position on Microgeneration.

Halton has come third from bottom out of 38 council areas in the north west in relation to the amount of energy microgeneration produced in its locality. Microgeneration is energy generated from solar and wind sources (including domestically) linked to the feed in tariff scheme.  Have a look at Ofgem data on the  'AEA Energy Consultants' website  here for further details:  http://www.aeat.com/microgenerationindex/ .

Like in all the other areas in the region Halton's residents have not recieved much help in such endeavours in the form of government grants compared with other European countries ( we're near the bottom of the European  league here) from the previous Labour government and I wouldn't hold your breath about what the Coalition is going to do about microgeneration but perhaps I'll be proved wrong. It's a shame really there would be many advantages.

For instance Halton could emulate a scheme that Green councillors championed in Huddersfield (Kirklees) that enabled residents to obtain financial help in the form of loans to assist people in purchasing solar energy panels. This stimulated the local green economy and lowered energy bills for residents in the longer term and helped lower the carbon footprint of the area.

Think Bus!

There’s just nothing that could drag me from my car onto public transport – my car’s just too convenient. Is this you? Are you one of the vast majority of us who just switch off when we hear about getting out of our cars and trying new ways of getting around.

There are many reasons, apart from the obvious ‘green’ one, to consider if we use the bus rather than travel by car. It means there’s less traffic on our overfull roads, makes for more relaxed travel, it can be healthier (you have to walk to and from the bus stop) and it extends your social contacts as opposed to being stuck in your cocoon of steel and glass normally on your own.

But perhaps more importantly and certainly of great relevance in today’s economic climate it can save you masses of money, particularly if you commute, as oil prices continue to rise and rise with no end in sight.

What masses of money - well ‘Stage Coach’ carried out some research a couple of years ago in relation to commuting to work and came up with a figure of up to £3500 per year! This amount would pay for the typical UK household’s main bills such as council tax, gas, electricity, water, fixed line telephones, home insurance and TV licence (This 2008 figure was calculated by the Citizens Advice Bureau).

Such savings could be achieved just simply by leaving the car at home – the ‘up to £3500’ figure was just related to cost of fuel and car parking charges. Interestingly have a look here at 'Arriva’s' bang up to date fuel calculator on http://www.arrivabus.co.uk./fuel/ It enables you to find out your individual costs of commuting by car to your place of work and comparing this with using the bus for the same journey and also how much your carbon footprint is reduced.

But what about the efficiency and comfort of travelling by bus? Most of you probably feel like I did, that is before my eyes were opened after spending a day last year bussing it to raise funds, that buses are not fit for purpose being inefficient and uncomfortable. This was clearly not my experience.

On major routes travelling to 9 towns in the same number of hours all buses were on time and there were no hold ups. Although the older buses didn’t like the potholes the newer buses took everything in their stride and provided more leg room as well. (see this blog 7/04/2010)

So if you want to save money, potentially improve your health and well being and do a bit more for the environment - think Bus