Green travels on plane shock!

I love flying on planes. It’s the whole thing. The airport and anticipation of the flight, the flight itself and the feeling when you realise you have left the ground somehow defeating (if not exactly defying) gravity and coming into land at somewhere strange and exotic. Part of this fascination I’m sure comes from the fact that I travel on a plane once in a blue moon and then it is related to work.  So for the first time in 5 years I hurtled into the wild blue yonder from Manchester Airport on my way to a seminar in Dusseldorf for UK Trade and Industry. As a kid I was an avid watcher of all the Gerry Anderson stuff, Thunderbirds, Space 1999 all that sort of thing so all the hardware, the planes, the technology hits all those futuristic buttons that I like.  Funnily enough my (would have been) Father in Law, who is sadly no longer with us, worked with Gerry Anderson as a cameraman on UFO and Captain Scarlet. He told me, in what was sadly our only conversation, about his bemusement at all the strange Sci-Fi geeks who used to go through the bins at Century 21 studios in the 70s looking for cast off models of spacecraft. “Did they get anything good?” I remember asking enthusiastically and rather giving the game away regarding my own geekiness.

The environmental impact of air travel is now well known and completely disastrous as far as carbon emissions are concerned. I don’t believe air travel should be completely banned but it should have to play its part in reducing global carbon emissions and not be allowed to expand unchecked. Of course I checked out the rail alternative to Dusseldorf and it added another couple of days onto the travel arrangements and so I had to give it a miss. If it was a regular thing I’d probably work it into my work schedule. 

Manchester Airport seemed keen to display its environmental credentials. Top of the range hybrid diesel buses to transport you to and from the car parks (I got the train there), interactive environmental displays greet you on arrival from the train station and there are prominent recycling points and information. This is of course just scratching the surface of the environmental impact of air travel and flights can quickly negate a lot of positive work done to reduce carbon emissions through conservation and use of renewable energy.  This is why we have characters like Richard Branson trying to find ‘techno fixes’ such as bio fuels to power his planes.  These are very unlikely to be a realistic resource given the many pulls there will be on truly sustainable biofuels for road transport etc. Though I don’t share completely the line of the ‘no bio-fuels at all’ lobby I think it would be wrong to plough on with biofuel production without any fundamental changes in the amount of air travel we need. It is not a form of ‘growth’ that can go into the stratosphere forever.

Here's the first ever episode of UFO. Produced in 1970 set in the far off time of 1980 when we would all be wearing silver suits and living on the moon. Mike Rainer my wife's late father is credited on later episodes.

LGA Environment and Housing Board Report – June 2012

Flytipping on farmland

This Environment and Housing Board was in Birmingham to coincide with the LGA Annual Conference. It was half the cost of travel to London which I was pleased about. I suggested they held some meetings in Huddersfield – a nice central location.

The revised Memorandum of Understanding between the Department of Energy and Climate Change and the Local Government Association was up for discussion. There had been concern that DECC had on occasions implemented relevant policies (such as changes to Feed In Tariffs) with little or no consultation with Local Authorities. I made 2 contributions on the proposed shared statement between DECC and LGA. One to acknowledge that Councils had been the instigators of many of the leading energy efficiency projects that have occurred in recent years and that it is they and not central government that have the expertise and experience to deliver action on climate change.. Another point I made was that simply reducing local authority estate emissions on its own was not enough. If this was achieved simply through the sale of old energy inefficient buildings this and not through improvements to the existing stock this would not necessarily mean any reductions in carbon emissions in the area just a transfer of those emissions from the public sector to the private sector.

DEFRA are to hold a Flytipping Summit in July. One proposal on their agenda is to encourage Councils to exempt farmers from costs for disposing of flytipped materials. This proposal is fraught with difficulties. A small minority of unscrupulous farmers could effectively run illicit waste disposal businesses at no cost to themselves. There is also the question as to why should we exempt farmers as opposed to any other private landowner and why should cash strapped local authorities shoulder the cost of disposing of this waste. We should be focussing on the problem of flytipping not letting one particular group off the costs of paying for it. This proposal from DEFRA looks like an unworkable non starter.

The ongoing welfare reforms was another contentious issue on the agenda. The proposed benefits cap, the size criteria for under occupied rented housing and benefit payments no longer go to private landlords but straight to tenants all seem designed to make life more difficult for those on low incomes and to generate more homeless families and suffering. Government seems to have developed these policies  believing there is a mass availability of alternative cheap accommodation in other areas and that households would be able  to move many miles to  find a job in another area with cheaper accommodation.  The broad thrust of this was that households in London and the South East would move from the overcrowded and expensive south to the cheaper North where there are apparently lots of jobs. Clearly  a policy not in any way related to the real world.

I informed the meeting that I had been in touch with Councillors in Calderdale asking for feedback on issues arising from the recent floods  in my capacity as the Chair of the LGA’s Inland Flood Risk Working Group. Todmorden, Mytholmroyd and Hebden Bridge were badly affected by the recent floods and I am keen to ensure our contacts with DEFRA on flooding issues are informed by real life experiences from people and communities affected.

Working with Independents

Terry, Charles and Edgar - The Valley Independents

The Green Party forming a group on Kirklees Council with the Valley Independents has taken us up to 8 Councillors and we are now officially recognised as a 'major group' on the Council. The threshold of what constitutes a 'major group' was set at 7 in around 2003 by the larger groups and I always thought that this was designed to exclude the Green Party. At the time we were close to winning Kirkburton (and remained 'close' till 2007) so winning 6 seats for the Greens seemed to be reasonable in a just a few years but getting to 7 might take a bit more time. So I don't think the 7 seat threshold was just plucked out of the air, it was designed to preserve the power of the larger groups and the support they were able to call upon.

It would be wrong however to think that the Green Party working with the Valley Independents is simply a marraige of convenience. I do know that the term 'Independent' can cover a range of political views. My Grandad, on my mothers side, was an Independent Councillor in Newcastle under Lyme and he was a Daily Express reader with views probably not too distinguishable from a Conservative. Though we have worked with Conservatives on Kirklees in the past it would  be totally inconceivable for us to feel comfortable working in a group with them or people who to all intents and purposes were Conservative in all but name. The Independent Group leader Terry Lyons had been a Labour Party member and Edgar Holroyd-Doveton (who has his own blog) is a former member of the Green Party before he moved to Kirklees. So we were not dealing with any 'Con-dependents' here.

We spent the best part of the last year working together on the budget and other issues. So we have built trust and dialogue to better understand where we were both coming from. We both rejected the 'Party whipping system' and therefore the use of 'Party discipline' on dissenting members. A respect for difference of opinion was shared and therefore if on occasions we disagreed it would not necessarily be a huge issue. Consensus, mutual respect and leadership by consent, as opposed to coercion, were at the heart of this partnership. Following the local elections when the Greens won in Kirkburton and the Independents in Holme Valley North this took us over the magic 7 threshold with 8 Councillors. Another thing that bound us together was our shared experience of being elected largely through our own efforts regardless of the national swings to and from the larger parties. It makes getting elected harder but once you're there you should be more resilient to the ups and downs which effect the larger parties.

 The 3 wards we each represent share a common boundary so over a wide area of Kirklees  people are now used to electing representatives who are not party of the big 3 parties.Providing real choices for people is important and showing they are not constrained by traditional parties is empowering to communities freeing them from the paternalism which often characterises the larger parties.

Examiner Letters on Kirklees Leadership

Mr R J Bray of Shelley is a regular contributor to the Huddersfield Examiner Letters column and invariably supportive of the Conservatives. Obviously the Tories abstaining at the Annual Council meeting on the Leadership and allowing Labour to run the Council presented him with a bit of a dilemma. Here's how he dealt with/rationalised it and my response below that.
 

“Local people gave the Labour Party an increased number of councillors showing we’re in tune with residents,” were the resounding words of Clr Mehboob Khan after his re-election as leader of our council.
I and others were unhappy that the Conservative councillors decided to abstain from the vote.
This is to a degree understandable when all they would face would be derision at failing to oust Clr Khan from his secure seat.
If the Conservatives had voted against Clr Khan it would have made no difference whatsoever. He is leader by the constitution for four years even though he puts himself up for re-election each year it’s a case of the winner of this year’s one horse race is. The Labour Group has 32 members and the Conservatives have but 18.
If, however, Conservative Clr Robert Light had put up for council leader not one of the other groups would have supported him.
The Greens would not have voted for an alternative. It was the votes of the four greens three years ago which lost the Conservatives control of the council. The Lib Dems would not support the Conservatives nor would the Independents.
The four independents – three of whom are now in with the Green group – voted against and the other independent voted for Clr Khan.
This year was the first time the Greens voted against Clr Khan and the main reason being they did not get the chair of Scrutiny Panel or any chairs of major committees which they wanted.
They therefore voted as a matter of pique rather than policy.
Labour is the largest party and so by the constitution has to form the administration. All other minor groups would not support the Conservatives running the council.
Perhaps Clr Andrew Cooper and Clr Kath Pinnock would care to explain why they would not support the Conservatives in running the administration as the major opposition party thus trying to break the cycle of negativity from the clueless Labour party.

R J Bray
Shelley

 And my response


R J Bray says in his letter (Examiner, May 28) “Perhaps Clr Andrew Cooper and Clr Kath Pinnock would care to explain why they would not support the Conservatives in running the administration’’.
The fact of the matter is that they never sought support and never made a ‘pitch’ to other groups.
I tried to get the non Labour groups round the table on a number of occasions to discuss how to address the leadership of the council and to put pressure on the Labour Party on issues of mutual concern, such as the libraries, but to no avail.
There simply wasn’t the will for joint discussions from the Conservatives.
Personally I have no particular enthusiasm for either Labour or the Conservatives running the council but my prime concern, in a hung council, would be about the policies they were seeking to pursue and their willingness to involve other groups in decision making.
The Greens have supported (and opposed) all the other political groups on the council at different times on different issues on the basis of the policies and their impact on local people.
Another statement by Mr Bray in his letter was “the Greens voted against Clr Khan and the main reason being they did not get the chair of the Scrutiny Panel or any of the chairs of major committees that they wanted”.
This maybe what he believes but it simply isn’t true.
Clr Khan threatened to remove the Green Party from chairing the Resources Scrutiny Panel if we didn’t support him as Leader before we made our decision.
It would be true however to say that these threats did inform our view of his character as a potential leader of the council.
In the end we didn’t support him because we couldn’t get a firm commitment on policy issues, including the libraries.
As a consequence of our decision at the annual council meeting Labour voted in favour of the Conservatives taking the Chair of the Resources Scrutiny Panel from the Green Party and Valley Independent Group as punishment to us and as a reward to the Conservatives, for abstaining on the vote on the leadership, thus allowing Mehboob Khan to become Leader of the Council.

Councillor Andrew Cooper
Co-Leader of the Green Party and Valley Independent Group

Strange Bedfellows - Kirklees Councils Annual Meeting

Ming the Merciless - a 'Strong Leader'

Given the outcome of the Annual Meeting ' Strange Bedfellows' was my immediate thought as a title for this blogpost. The outcome of the May Election left Labour without a majority, though with more seats, and so the opportunity to get some leverage on them in the run up to the Annual Meeting and election of a 'Strong Leader' was a limited one. The term 'Strong Leader' is one dreamt up by the last Labour Government as part of their alternatives to an elected Mayor (an even stronger leader!)

A common thread among non Labour Parties in the run up to the election was around retaining staffed provision in village libraries. The direction of travel indicated, in the consultation, is for more volunteer run and assisted libraries. So this was the main area where we could get some joint action if we could agree a common approach to the Labour Party. I talked to all the other Party Leaders in the run up to the Annual Meeting but to get the Conservatives to sit down for 3 Group talks with ourselves and the Lib Dems proved very difficult and I didn't detect a lot of enthusiasm from them in any case. Labour were quite keen to talk to all the groups seperately to get the best deal they could or 'divide and rule' if you prefer. Given we weren't getting anywhere with the Conservatives both ourselves and the Lib Dems declared publicly on Monday that we would vote against Labour on the Libraries issue to try to get the Tories to declare their intentions. On Sunday Eveening Mehboob Khan indicated that if we were to vote against them leading the Council they would remove us from Chairing the Resources Scrutiny Panel this along with the fact that they had told the Lib Dems we had already made a deal with us convinced me, if it were necessary, of the character of the Labour leadership.

On Wednesday I went into the Annual Council Meeting not knowing which way the Conservatives were going to vote on the Leadership of the Council. In the end they abstained. If they had voted against Mehboob Khan he wouldn't have been Leader and we may then have been able to exercise some leverage on the libraries issue at the very least. So I guess the big question is why the Tories did what they did? There is the 'foaming mouth' wing of the Tories who won't talk to the Greens in a civilised way at the best of times so I can imagine Robert Light had his work cut out with those characters in any case. Then of course if Labour weren't  going to vote for the Green Party and Valley Independent Group to have any Committee Chairs who were they going to support? The Tories of course. Instead of our Cllr Terry Lyons chairing the Planning and Highways Committee you have the delightful Conservative Cllr Christine Smith instead of Green Cllr Julie Stewart-Turner chairing the Resources Scrutiny Panel you have Tory Cllr Donald Firth. Loyalty to the 'strong leader' obviously brings its rewards (and punishments to those who defy him).

 So where does this leave the new 'Strong Leader' of Kirklees, 'Mehboob the Merciless'. A bit embarrassed I think. It doesn't do his dubious 'left credentials' much good having to do a deal with the Tories who are as we know the 'bad guys'. We had quite an amusing exchange of tweets where he rather illogically accused me of wanting the Tories to run Kirklees instead of him. The only question put to us was "do you want Mehboob Khan to be leader of the Council?" there wasn't a mutiple choice question. If there was "None of the above" would probably have been my answer.

LGA Environment and Housing Board Report

A new understanding between LGA and DECC?

It was a lively Environment and Housing Board in May. The LGA produced a campaign plan entitled ‘Housing the Nation’ to lobby government to give Councils more powers to encourage new housing in their areas. One of the weaknesses of the campaign, in my opinion, was the lack of any emphasis on the need for more social housing to rent. Purchasing a house is beyond the reach of many people particularly young people. You have to question the wisdom of encouraging someone to spend an increasing proportion of their income over their entire working lives to purchase a home. We need a change in culture in the UK away from the dubious virtues of ownership to one where a secure affordable rented home is a serious option. There was an interesting and indeed surprising suggestion that came from one of the Conservative members to have an increasingly punitive tax on land where planning permission had been granted but development had not commenced. I christened it the ‘Tesco Tax’ due to their large land banks of land where building had not yet taken off.

The renewal of the LGA’s Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Department of Energy and Climate Change provoked a lot of comment. The MoU was one where the 2 bodies were supposed to share intelligence and information on current policy developments and work together on action to tackle climate change. One bone of contention was the illegal cuts in the Feed In Tariff for solar PV which had been pursued with no reference to the LGA and had cost Councils many thousands in preparing for large scale solar projects which were now defunct. Clearly the MoU had been disregarded by DECC here. There were other examples which brought into question DECCs real commitment to buy into the MoU. There was general agreement that we needed to secure more assurances from DECC before renewing the MoU. One suggestion I made which was well received and accepted was for the LGA to establish another MoU but this time with industry. The interests of the microgeneration and energy efficiency sectors and local government coincide in a number of areas. We both want to see action on the ground and our principle common constraint is the policies of central government. Approaching DECC with a common message could give more weight to both organisations. I’ll let you know how it progresses.

'Flood RE' - will it help areas at risk of flooding?

Armitage Bridge Flood 2008

If you want to know whether or not Climate Change is real and getting worse don't listen to Friends of the Earth, don't listen to the Campaign against Climate Change and whatever you do don't listen to the Green Party! You want to go the people who really know, none other than the Association of British Insurers. As representatives of the insurance industry the ABI have a vested interest in assessing the risk and likelyhood of flooding events and understanding what action has been taken to mitigate those risks. As we all should know changing weather patterns are upon us. We have longer, heavier rain events, flash flooding and the consequential damage to property.  This has had a real impact on Armitage Bridge in the ward I represent as a Kirklees Councillor but hopefully measures the Council has put in place and action taken by local people will limit the risk of flooding in future. So far so good!

For  a number of years now there has been an agreement, called the 'Statement of Principles' between the Government and the ABI which has ensured that many homes at risk of flooding have received reasonable levels of insurance. This agreement runs out next year but households are already seeing the consequences of this as the cost of  their renewal premiums drops through their letterbox. One householder in Runnymede was quoted £10,000 for their home insurance due to flood risk. So what can be done to address this problem? In the short term we need to do all we can to reduce the impact of flood and heavy rain events though strategically placed resevoirs, sustainable urban drainage systems and putting measures in place which reduce damage to homes at risk of flooding through flood secure doors and higher electrical sockets. It almost goes without saying that we need to take ongoing urgent action to reduce our carbon emissions but the issue of insuring homes remains.

Last week, as Chair of the Local Government Associations Inland Flood Risk Working Group I facilitated a meeting last week between DEFRA, the Association of British Insurers and Councillors from around the country who had been badly affected by flood events. The ABI's proposal to government is called 'Flood RE' where government will underwrite the cost of insurance for major flood events. It is estimated that the cost to government could be around £100- £200 million per annum. It is based on a similar agreement between Government and the ABI called ' Pool RE'. 'Pool RE' is nothing to do with pools of water, or Religious Education come to that, but is how the government helps the insurance industry insure property against the risks of terrorism events. Basically Flood RE is a guarantee by government that they will step in if flood events occur and help with cost. I've asked to see the details of 'ABI's 'Flood RE' proposal so the the Local Government Association can comment and if happy with it lend its support to the document.It seems a good principle for government to 'underwrite' the risk to the people they represent who find themselves in dire unaffordable circumstances due to no fault of their own. DEFRA is due to report back in 'Spring' this year. Admittedly I don't feel Spring has really sprung yet but we should know something shortly I guess.