NEWS RELEASE – Greens attack UK spending cuts

Scottish Green Party MSP Patrick Harvie today branded the UK coalition government’s spending cuts as an assault on the poorest and most vulnerable in society and urged Scottish MSPs to rise to the challenge of continuing to deliver a progressive agenda for the people of Scotland.

The Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) announced today by Chancellor George Osborne included £18bn slashed from the welfare budget and will see 500,000 public sector workers consigned to the dole queue.

The UK prime minister’s claims that the coalition government would be “the greenest government ever” also proved to be hollow. The energy secretary Chris Huhne yesterday pointed out that the UK needed £200 billion to rebuild its energy infrastructure however George Osborne announced today that the much trumpeted Green Investment Bank will have a paltry £1bn allocated to it.

Patrick Harvie MSP said: “Listening to the spending review was a nauseating experience – the LibDem/Tory Government is clearly determined to exploit the deficit to justify the most fundamental attack on the welfare state since its creation. For many right wingers this is a dream come true but it is ordinary people across the UK that will be living with the nightmare consequences for generations.

“The chancellor claims that the cuts are based on fairness but how can that be when £18bn is slashed from the welfare budget at a time when the casino-banks have returned to rewarding themselves billions in bonuses.

“And at a time when UK industry should be investing in the Green Economy we see the chancellor’s total lack of ambition in announcing that the much heralded Green Investment bank would be given a mere £1bn. The truth is that the energy budget has been pillaged to pay for nuclear decommissioning.

“The challenge for Scotland – and a key test of devolution – is to maintain a progressive agenda in the face of this radical right wing ideology. It’s vital that the SNP doesn’t just hand on these cuts to Scottish public services, but instead sets out how we can raise revenue too. Greens have put forward our ideas, by proposing to empower councils to raise a range of taxes locally. The national tax-varying power is another option. Whatever the SNP propose, Parliament must ensure that public services are maintained and the people hardest hit by the Liberals and Tories are given some protection.”

Pow-wow with GOW

Yesterday I had the pleasure of visiting the ‘GOW Community’ – so called because their tenement building is formed from Gibson St, Otago Street and Westbank Quadrant in Glasgow’s West End. Before I tell you a bit about the transformation they’ve achieved, I just want to point out how important that distinction is. Most people who live in tenements (there are lots of us in Glasgow!) are most aware of the street we live on, but we don’t often think about our relationship with the rest of the building. Tenements could provide the opportunity for a community to look inward and see shared space, shared resouces, and the chance to meet and learn from one another. Even GOW’s logo suggests this perception of a tenement…

Like many people in Glasgow, residents of the streets which make up GOW once looked out onto a backcourt which was filthy, neglected and unsafe…

Through their persistent efforts to clean up that backcourt they’ve succeeded not only in creating a delightful and welcoming shared space, but also in creating a community which is stronger and more creative. They’ve developed services for themselves like better recycling, and they’ve got ideas for the future which lots of us in Glasgow could learn from.

Some people would no doubt say that this is the trendy West End, and that they have advantages not shared elsewhere in the city. But the reality is that this is a really challenging place to build up community links – there are lots of commercial units on Gibson Street, and the needs of residents and businesses don’t always coincide; there’s also a very high percentage of short term tenancies here since it’s so close to the University. That means a rapid turnover of residents, but also some HMO landlords have been really hard to engage with constructively. It’s sad to say, but some private sector landlords to treat their properties simply as cash machines, and have little interest in looking after them as homes or as part of a community.

So the GOW residents have done something quite remarkable. Even just looking at the bin stores, which are covered to keep them dry and cleverly designed to be relatively hidden, you can see what a transformation could be achieved in tenements across the city with the right commitment and imagination.

It could be the most transformational experience for Glasgow if all our tenements offered a view not of a smelly, dirty, walled-off bin store for each close, taking up all of the space within the building, but instead a well designed shared facility like this, with room left over for lots of shared green space to relax, to play, to grow, and to meet one another. In many places we could even see shared energy systems like micro-CHP, heat pumps or solar thermal panels providing lower monthly bills as well as income to keep up the maintenance on the shared areas.

Tenements were once a model of community living. Few of us would want to go back to shared wash-houses in the 21st century, but by sharing the green space and perhaps the energy which can be generated locally, tenements could help to rebuild the community relationships which were once central to tenement life and could be again.

Response to Stop Climate Chaos

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been receiving hundreds of emails from activists around the country who’ve been visiting the Stop Climate Chaos website. Their campaign bombard the five party leaders with proposals for turning Scotland’s green potential into reality has been really active, and I’d like to thank everyone who has participated.

Crushingly though, a problem with Parliament’s pesky IT means that at least a couple of hundred of those emails were lost before I got a reply out to them. Hopefully SCCS will be able to point people at this post, or at any rate people who don’t receive a reply from me will come here looking for the reason. So here’s the text of the reply I’ve been sending out, which deals with each of the policy proposals in turn as well as setting out the reasons why the Greens are the only party which is joining all the dots on this issue:

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Thank you for your email setting out the case for credible action on climate change in the next session of the Scottish Parliament. It’s hugely encouraging to see so many hundreds of emails about this from people all over Scotland. There have been so many that it’s taken me a while to get replies out to everyone, so please accept my apologies if you’ve had to wait a while.

I’ve had regular meetings with Stop Climate Chaos Scotland, and its member organisations, throughout the current session of Parliament and met with them most recently to discuss their proposals for inclusion in our manifesto next year. I hope it won’t come as a surprise when I tell you that it was a pretty consensual meeting! SCCS and the Greens have long agreed on much of the agenda, and I’m sure we’ll continue to work together well in the future.

Below is a short response to each of the proposals which SCCS have raised. But first I’d like to stress one important issue – it’s not just what the political parties put in their manifestos next year that matters – what they leave out will make a difference too.

The current government and the previous one committed vast sums of money to a climate-busting road building programme – so far the Greens are the only MSPs to challenge this.
The last government gave aviation subsidies for new routes and the current government is trying to find a legal way to bring them back – so far the Greens are the only MSPs to challenge this.
Despite big increases in renewable energy, the current government and the other opposition parties have supported an increase in open cast coal mining, and a new coal-fired power station. The Greens were the only MSPs to vote against the national planning framework’s support for coal, and we’re still pushing the issue in Parliament.
Astonishingly, every other party in Parliament is backing new deepwater oil drilling off Shetland right now, despite the safety fears and despite knowing that the world has more than enough fossil fuel reserves to make out climate targets meaningless. If we burn what we’ve already found, our good intentions will come to nothing. There is no justification for new exploratory drilling, but so far the Greens are the only MSPs to challenge this disgraceful indulgence of the oil industry.

I hope that you’ll agree that some of the policies the others forget to mention in their speeches and press releases on climate change really need to be challenged. So enough with my rant; here’s my response to the SCCS policy proposals:

Reduce greenhouse gas emissions from buildings by investing in home insulation schemes and setting minimum energy efficiency standards
We couldn’t agree more, and though we’re disappointed with aspects of the Government’s delivery of the existing Home Insulation Schemes, we feel vindicated in having pushed them to make a start. We took a big risk in voting down the budget because of its failure to fund this basic work, but it’s one of the cheapest and easiest ways to cut emissions, cut fuel poverty, and support jobs at the same time. Our manifesto will certainly build on our record here.

Rule out the use of carbon credits to meet greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets, and provide an adaptation fund for developing nations
Absolutely. Scotland has huge potential to make emission cuts at home, and the use of credits would undermine this. An adaptation fund would also recognise that while our historic emissions are high, it’ll be other countries which are hit hardest as a result. While nobody can promise to put a figure on an adaptation fund until we see the draft Scottish Budget in November, I’ll be very keen to achieve a figure as significant as the SCCS proposal if it’s at all possible.

Establish a strategic climate fund to ensure that Scotland’s local authorities cut carbon emissions in line with the Scottish Climate Change Act in a sustainable way by using a carbon assessment tool
The carbon assessment which is carried out on the Scottish Budget was a proposal we first put to the Government in 2007, and it has been gradually developed into a more robust tool. Now that it’s in place and public duties under the Climate Change Act are coming in, it’s time to look at applying that same tool at local authority level. It might well work best if it’s attached to a strategic fund of this nature, though this would have to be worked out alongside the councils – it would have to become an integrated part of their funding agreement with the Government.

Help communities and individuals to cut carbon emissions and raise awareness about climate change through a Public Engagement Fund
Our Climate Challenge Fund has already supported hundreds of community-led projects around the country to take on the work of reducing emissions, both through direct physical measures and through awareness-raising and public engagement. We’re still in talks with the Government and others about the future of the CCF (everything comes back to the budget process at the moment!) and I would see the SCCS proposal for a Public Engagement Fund as part of that discussion. The CCF has been very good at some things, but there’s a strong case for separating out some of the different aspects of the work it’s been funding.

Accelerate the move to a low carbon power sector by 2030 by increasing the use of renewable energy to produce electricity and heat without damaging nationally important natural habitats
Indeed – we believe that Scotland can more than meet its own demand for electricity and heat from renewable sources within the next decade or two. There will still be a case for continuing to increase generation even then, so that we can supply low-carbon power south of the border or even to Europe if work gets under way on a subsea supergrid.

Bring forward a Green Procurement Bill
There’s a huge amount we can do with green procurement, now that the EU rules have changed to make this easier. Indeed we were the first to bring a debate on this to Parliament back in the last session. However it’s still the case that good examples are few and far between. I’d like to think that we can transform procurement more quickly without legislation, for example through the Climate Change Duties which will apply to public bodies. However if legislation is needed, we will certainly use it.

Reduce greenhouse gas emissions from transport by investing less in road building and more in sustainable transport, and reducing the national single carriageway speed limit to 50mph
This is a hugely important area – it’s probably the aspect of Government spending which has most spectacularly failed to respond to the climate change agenda. At every election we’ve put forward proposals to shift spending toward sustainable travel and demand reduction, and of course we’ll do the same this time. The speed limit proposal needs to be developed in detail too, to make sure that it’s enforceable and that it will actually turn a potential emission cut into an actual one.

Lock up carbon in the natural environment by restoring Scotland’s degraded blanket bogs and phasing out peat extraction for use in horticulture
Naturally we fully support this, and the recent all-party working group which looked at the first batch of annual targets looked at some specific proposals to get the work under way. In fact the first thing the Scottish Government did when Parliament rejected their first ‘flatline’ emission targets was to announce an acceleration of work on peatland restoration.

Set up a Scottish Forum for a ‘Just Transition’ – which will enable the benefits and costs of moving to a low-carbon economy to be shared fairly across society
I’ve met with the STUC on several occasions to discuss the idea of Just Transition, and will be hosting a discussion about related themes with them in Parliament soon. I’d be happy to explore the idea of a Forum with them, though if it was set up I’d be concerned to make sure that it wasn’t seen as a ‘second fiddle’ to the various forums which already exist on social and economic issues – it would need to provide something additional rather than replicating work that’s already under way.

Integrate health and climate change policies and ensure public health policy maximises the related benefits to individuals and society
This is a really important area, and one where there’s lots of new thinking happening. The links between climate and health impact on everything from housing to transport to food to education… and the rest. Ultimately we won’t reach the climate targets unless it’s integrated with every other area of policy, but health is a particularly urgent area to get started, given the huge health inequalities which Scotland has.

OK, so there’s my initial response to the SCCS proposals. I expect that everyone you’ve had a reply from will be pointing out that the party manifestos aren’t written yet, so we can’t tell you point-by-point what will be in them. We’re in the same position there – but I hope that what I’ve written here gives you a pretty strong steer.

I also hope that you won’t let matters lie there. When you know who your local candidates are in the election – from all the parties – you might want to repeat this exercise with them directly, or to attend public meetings to ask them questions in person… or even to get more involved with the campaigning yourself. Elections in themselves aren’t guaranteed to change the world, but if people like you get involved and help get the policies you care about on the agenda, and help the candidates who’re serious about those policies get elected, you can make all the difference. Please make this email just the start; you know what to do!

All the best,

Patrick Harvie MSP

Video clip – yesterday’s FMQ on deepwater oil drilling