GREENS WELCOME PROGRESS ON BUDGET BUT REMAIN UNCONVINCED
Posted on January 31, 2008The Scottish Greens today welcomed the amendments put down by Cabinet Secretary John Swinney to the 2008-9 Budget, but reiterated their clear view that Ministers have not yet gone far enough to secure even an abstention from the party’s 2 MSPs.
The SNP have put forward proposals which would provide a £4.3m increase in funding for innovative community proposals to tackle climate change, expanding existing proposals for a Climate Challenge Fund. They also plan to boost police recruitment. Greens support these changes, and will back both when Parliament votes on these amendments next Wednesday.
Greens also secured a range of other commitments during the budget process, such as:
1. The initial decision to include a Climate Challenge Fund similar to the proposals made in the Scottish Green Party manifesto, albeit on a more limited scale. (1) Today’s £4.3m increase in the budget line which includes this fund takes it up to £13m;
2. Ministers’ agreement that future budgets should be carbon costed, and that future policy decisions will include formal recognition of the associated carbon costs;
3. A trebling in the level of community and household renewables investment;
4. Continued ring-fencing of local budgets for cycling and walking as well as the safer routes scheme; and
5. The winding-up of the Air Route Development Fund, which went beyond lifeline routes to the islands and promoted unnecessary internal flights.
However, Greens remain to be convinced about the overall merits of this budget, even with today’s proposed amendments. The party believes the imbalance between public transport and roads spending is unacceptable, and will continue to press for further change from the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth. Although no further formal amendments can now be brought, other changes to Ministers’ plans can still be made within existing budget lines. Such commitments will still be required to allow the Scottish Green Party not to vote against this budget.
Green MSP Patrick Harvie said:
“We are pleased to see that Ministers are continuing to make improvements to their budget. The amendments lodged today certainly represent a significant step in the right direction, and vindicate our decision last week to abstain and so allow the Scottish Government more time to make changes.
“This is still not a green budget. While it certainly has seen improvements, it still fails public transport users, and we can’t accept that. To avoid his budget falling next week, John Swinney is still likely to have to look in his hat for at least one more rabbit.
“The importance of this process cannot be underestimated. It will determine how more than £30bn of taxpayers’ money will be spent. Over the next six days we will therefore be considering the latest proposals and holding further discussions with Ministers to see if there are any further improvements they can bring forward.”
Notes
1. The Scottish Green Party’s 2007 manifesto called for a £25m annual fund of this sort.
CLIMATE CHANGE BILL – GREENS URGE MINISTERS TO GO FURTHER
Posted on January 29, 2008The Scottish Greens today welcomed the publication of Ministers’ consultation on the forthcoming climate change bill as a good start to the process, but warned that their current proposals do not go far enough. The 2007 SNP manifesto made a commitment to an 80% cut in emissions by 2050 (1), but the Greens back the tougher 90% target proposed by the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research and others. (2)
Green MSP Patrick Harvie said:
“This Bill is amongst the most important commitments the Scottish Government has made, and it’s vital that we not only pass the Bill, but make sure it’s as strong as it can be. The Tyndall Centre reports that cuts of 90% in carbon emissions will be needed by 2050 to prevent the worst impacts of climate change. Ministers are aiming for an 80% cut by that date, which is a good start, but their plans do not go far enough. We need to see clear legal duties for Ministers, which Parliament can hold them to each year, and we need the right long term targets.
“But we also need the policies in place which will help reach those targets. This won’t mean just tinkering with policy in transport, energy, housing and agriculture. It will mean nothing less than the transformation of our economy, our society and our politics. A low-carbon, sustainable future is not only possible, it’s necessary and desirable if we want to ensure a good quality of life for future generations here and around the world.”
Notes
1. “In government we will introduce a Climate Change Bill with mandatory carbon reduction targets of 3% per annum and also set a long-term target of cutting emissions by a minimum of 80% by 2050 – above the UK target of 60%.” See p.29:
http://www.snp.org/policies/our-manifesto/2007-04-12.0866446519/download
2. See the following Tyndall Centre release.
http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/media/press_releases/tyndallpr21sep.pdf
PLANNING SYSTEM “BOUGHT AND SOLD FOR AMERICAN GOLD” OVER TRUMP APPLICATION
Posted on January 16, 2008Patrick Harvie MSP said:
“Of course there are disagreements over the development itself. Some are keen on the Trump proposals, while others don’t like the idea of Scotland becoming a bag carrier for the mega-rich. But aside from that, we have seen an abysmal precedent set for the planning system.
“It seems that our democratic planning system has been bought and sold for American gold, and I expect to see other developers issue threats and demands in this way in future, abusing their power against the interests of local communities.”
BUDGET STILL UNSATISFACTORY
Posted onToday’s Finance Committee report on the Budget includes some minor recommendations for change on police funding and taxation for small businesses, all apparently designed to encourage Scottish Conservatives to back John Swinney’s budget. However, Ministers’ proposals still fail to come up to scratch on transport, housing and a range of other issues, Greens say, and Labour-led moves to reintroduce the Air Route Development Fund would simply make a bad budget worse.
Commenting on the budget overall, Patrick Harvie MSP said:
“We have approached our discussions with the SNP positively and in good faith, but unfortunately they remain committed to a budget that cuts public transport funding (1) while it wastes enormous sums on massive climate-busting projects like the M74 and the Aberdeen Western Peripheral. The budget also falls short across a range of social justice issues. For example, Ministers have failed to provide vital funding for affordable housing (2), put inadequate resources into energy efficiency (3), and missed an excellent opportunity to support the families of disabled children.
“As things stand, we do not support this budget. I urge SNP Ministers to think again on these issues, as the Scottish Greens would rather find ourselves voting for a good budget for Scotland than having to vote against the current flawed proposals.”
Patrick Harvie, the Scottish Green Party’s spokesman on transport and climate change, also responded to the Labour move to subsidise non-essential domestic air travel:
“The decision by Labour members in particular to push for the reintroduction of aviation subsidies shows their true lack of commitment on climate change. Direct routes clearly don’t cut domestic flights, and all arguments for subsidising new routes are utterly discredited.
“Sadly it seems that members of all parties other than the Greens are happy to see aviation continue to grow, even at public expense, while the public transport which people depend on day by day in Scotland gets more and more expensive. This change would, if accepted, make an already climate-busting budget worse.”
On this specific issue, today’s documents from the Finance Committee include a recommendation from the Parliament’s Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change Committee that “Support for Air Services spend should be increased by £10m per annum”. (4) Although the draft budget commits Ministers to phasing out the Air Route Development Fund (5), at last week’s First Minister’s Questions Alex Salmond backed other similar measures to increase air travel in response to a question from a Labour MSP. (6) When the issue was voted on at Committee, Labour and Conservative MSPs backed air subsidies. The one Lib Dem MSP abstained, even though one more vote against the change would have blocked the Labour move to subsidise air travel. (7)
Notes:
1. Calculation by Jo Armstrong from the Centre for Public Policy for Regions, see p.8: http://www.cppr.ac.uk/media/media_55715_en.pdf
2. Shelter report that “Additional spending on affordable housing supply is, at best, less than 20% of what is needed. The budget is cut by 6% in real terms in year one, before recovering in later years.” – see their submission to the 12th meeting of the Local Government and Communities Committee.
3. See the Sustainable Development Commission’s written evidence to the Finance Committee, which states:
“More importantly only limited action on improving the energy performance of the existing building stock is set out in the Spending Review. This is an area where significant action is required should the greenhouse gas emissions targets have any chance of being met.”
http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/s3/committees/finance/reports-08/fir08-01-vol1-02.htm#sdc
4. See paragraph 30 of the report from the Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change Committee.
http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/s3/committees/finance/reports-08/fir08-01-vol2-04.htm#ANXK
5. See page 92 of the draft budget, which states: “Support for Air Services is lower because the cost of the Air Route Development Fund is being managed down.”
6. “As regards the route development fund, the member should be well aware that the discretion that was granted under European rules to buy all Scottish airports in the fund came to an end. That left us in a position in which pursuit of that particular avenue was no longer the way to encourage direct flights for Scotland. The Government is actively considering the matter because we recognise the importance of having more, not fewer, direct flights from Scotland. The Scottish Government very much welcomes anything that enables us to avoid going through the London connection to make our case internationally.” – First Minister Alex Salmond, in reply to Iain Gray MSP.
7. See the notes to the Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change Committee Report. Four MSPs voted in favour, three against, and one abstained. Patrick Harvie MSP would have used his casting vote to block this unsustainable proposal had there been a tie in Committee.
http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/s3/committees/finance/reports-08/fir08-01-vol2-04.htm#_ftn304
NEWS RELEASE – Post Office closures
Posted on January 11, 2008GREENS OPPOSE GLASGOW AND WEST OF SCOTLAND POST OFFICE CLOSURES
The announcement that 44 Scottish post offices will be closed, including 24 in Glasgow, represents a serious blow to local communities, the Greens said today. UK Ministers have put the Post Office in an impossible position by asking this vital public service to pursue profitability. (1)
Patrick Harvie MSP said:
“Not content with savaging the post office network in rural areas, it now seems that Post Office Ltd are looking to decimate the urban network too. With 24 post office closures in Glasgow alone, I fear for the ability of people to get access to the services they rely on week in and week out.
“The UK government has pursued a deliberate policy of undermining the services which post offices provide, in order to justify closing them. They fail to recognise the public service which the post office network provides, and that’s unforgivable.
“I have never once heard from a constituent who wants post offices to be seen as just any other business, left to sink or swim on the basis of turnover. Overwhelmingly the public see post offices as a public service which should be supported by government, not undermined and broken up like this.”
Notes:
1. Sally Buchanan, the Post Office’s network development manager for Scotland, said today: “We believe that the amended plan offers our customers across greater Glasgow, Central Scotland and Argyll and Bute the best prospect for a sustainable network in the future, bearing in mind the government’s minimum access criteria and the other factors the UK Government has asked us to consider.”
PRESS RELEASE – Nuclear power
Posted onNUCLEAR POWER: SCOTS TO PAY FOR “VAMPIRE” TECHNOLOGY
Greens today reacted with dismay, but not surprise, as UK Ministers announced their much-trailed approval for a new round of nuclear power stations. Although the election of a majority of anti-nuclear Parliamentarians in May 2007 means Scotland will not be home to any of these new plants, Scots taxpayers will still be funding the vast and irresponsible subsidies being planned in Whitehall, and paying out again through increased electricity bills.
Patrick Harvie MSP said:
“This is vampire economics, using massive infusions of taxpayers’ money to try and bring the nuclear industry back to life. Labour have decided that we should pay the industry’s decommissioning costs, plus the costs of setting up waste storage facilities, and, staggeringly, an extra fee per unit of electricity we use. All this on top of the £70bn of waste we have already been left to deal with from existing plants. (1)
“What’s more, the idea that nuclear power is a sensible response to climate change has been comprehensively rubbished, not least by Labour, back when they were in opposition and before the nuclear lobby got to them. (2) Has word not yet reached Westminster that the right answer is increased installation of renewables and increased energy efficiency?”
Notes:
1. Nuclear Decommissioning Authority figures, quoted here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4859980.stm
2. “What is unbelievably depressing about the [Conservative] government’s response is that they see, in the evidence about greenhouse gases, not an opportunity to promote environmental concern but a chance to make the case for nuclear power” – Tony Blair, Neil Kinnock’s shadow energy secretary, 1988-89 (Hansard link: http://tinyurl.com/3azeuo)
GREENS CHALLENGE SNP APPROACH TO PLANNING
Posted on January 8, 2008The National Planning Framework published today restates Ministers’ commitments on sustainable development and climate change. It also notes the link between climate change and increasing road and air traffic. However, Greens point out, it contains no proposals to end the over-reliance on aviation, and instead removes Edinburgh and Glasgow airports from proper planning oversight. In it Ministers also back the building of more road capacity, through vanity projects like the second Forth Road Bridge.
Patrick Harvie MSP said:
“The National Planning Framework clearly shows Ministers’ priorities: more roads, more bridges, more airport expansion, and barely a thought for the major renewables projects that should be front and centre in a document like this. While some mention is made of designating grid upgrades to support renewable generation, there is nothing to give confidence that Scotland’s renewable electricity generating capacity will be put on a stronger footing by this Framework.
“Sadly, this document confirms the major contradictions between the SNP’s transport policies as Ministers and their environmental rhetoric. Like their Labour-Lib Dem predecessors, they treat the economy and the environment as if they’re in conflict with each other, and nine times out of ten they come down on the side of unsustainable projects in the hope of growing the economy.
“Finally, there should be no surprise that the Trump luxury golf resort, so controversially called in by Ministers because they considered it a nationally important development, is not included in the list of national developments to be decided on here. The Planning Act is clear – national developments are for infrastructure, not commercial investments in tourism.”
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