Green Left rejects the Green Party’s remain pact with Liberal Democrats

Only a few days ago

Green Left says ‘no’ to supporting Jo Swinson’s second rate Tories. The Liberal Democrats nationally oppose our Green values.

Green Left believes a step forward for the green movement in the UK has taken place recently, with many people joining both the Green Party and Labour Party, reflecting real concerns about the threat of climate change to our very existence on this planet.

Green Left welcomes the fact that the Green New Deal is gaining support on the left, especially in the Labour Party,  and we believe that Greens should engage with others who share the same policies as us, to build the green movement for change which is the only way to save the planet. 

Green Left believes the mass movement of Extinction Rebellion and the Youth Strikes shows up the pro capitalist parties for what they are – gambling with the planet. The Lib Dems are part of the problem not the solution.

The Liberal Democrats are a party whose leader, Jo Swinson, received funding from a major fracking company and voted for fracking. She and her party also voted for the bedroom tax, benefit cuts and the introduction of Universal Credit, the scrapping of the education maintenance, increased tuition fees, opposed increasing the tax rate on those earning £150,000, supported cuts to the police and emergency services, supported zero hours contracts, supported the badger cull and did little to challenge climate change, preferring instead nuclear power.

The Lib Dems are also uncritical supporters of the EU, unlike the Greens who want major democratic reform and accountability. The Lib Dems reject a proper further referendum that allows people a democratic say on any EU deal or no deal.

Green Left believes Caroline Lucas was right to warn how dangerous the Lib Dems position of ignoring the Referendum result, and instead going for Revoke, is  : “I certainly think that the Lib Dem way out is arrogant, self-indulgent, cynical and very dangerous. I think that will put fuel on the fire.” LINK

Green Party policy has been for a second people’s vote, and in this case is closer to that of Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party, who also support a second  referendum, than the Liberal Democrats’ Revoke position.

Green Left is very concerned that the implied call to support Liberal Democrat General Election  candidates where the Green Party is not standing and where the Labour candidate was either the sitting MP or is the best placed candidate to defeat the Tory MP is  an incorrect position to take - especially if that person supports anti-austerity, proportional representation, a Green New Deal and a people’s vote.

Therefore, we urge Green Party members and supporters to support the Labour Party candidate in these areas.

The UniteToRemain pact contradicts the Green Party’s initial position that this should be a Climate Emergency election. Instead the pact makes it a Brexit election.

Editor's note: I am a member of Green Left and was involved in writing this statement which I fully support

Details of budget proposals going to Brent Cabinet on Monday

Brent residents will face another rise in Council Tax in 2020-21 (3.99%) under the budget proposals going to Brent Cabinet on Monday while council rents will be increased by 1% above the CPI (Consumer Price Index) measure of inflation over the next few years.

The officer led proposals will go out for public consultation if agreed by the Cabinet and will be discussed by the Brent Connects meetings and considered by the Scrutiny Committee.

As Brent Council front-loaded many of the 'savings' in previous years the cuts this time are not as attention-grabbing as previously and cover decisions already made last year such as the closure of Children's Centres. There are projected increases in income through marketing of services and increases in fees to external bodies, builders and developers.

A key aspect is expected savings through re-procurement and bringing services in-house but that is balanced by a welcome commitment to paying those working in services such as homecare the London Living Wage.

Throughout discussion of the various proposals the officers insist there will not be a negative impact on service users and the Equality Impact Assessments record that protected groups will not be affected.

The level of Council Reserves is discussed in the officers' paper. The Tory opposition and some activists have previously urged the Council to 'raid the reserves' to reduce cuts but no change is suggested apart from some internal shifting of the reserves to different headings.

There is a down-grading in the expected rate of growth of the Council Tax base (the number of people who pay Council Tax) and the report points out that most claims on services are made by the young and the elderly. (The 'life style' occupants of the Wembley high-rises make little demand on services while paying high services charges to their managing agents.)

The 'savings' which include cuts, efficiencies, digitising services and income generation,  will balance the budget for 2021/22-2022/23 and amount to £6.1m which includes a contingency of £0.5m:

The Direct Schools Grant is separate from the main budget and comes direct from the government. Its distribution is decided by the Council in  consultation with the Schools Forum. Brent pupils are funded above the Government minimum standard so are unlikely to gain. The recent pay increase for teachers is not fully funded by the Government so school budgets will be under pressure. Meanwhile the Special Education and Disability (SEND) budget faces increased demand and there appears to be a potential cut in the money for Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) for the most needy pupils.

An interesting and likely controversial proposal is for the Council to develop a commercial training arm for apprenticeships that would deliver the Apprenticeship Standards. This would require initial investment of £20k in 2020-21 and £80k in 2022-23 but generate an income in the longer term. The Council says this would be delivered via the Council, local schools, health sector and the care sector. Previous attempts have foundered on questions over the quality of provision and allegations that these are not 'real apprenticeships' but cheap labour.

OVERALL  POSITION

The officers' report can be found HERE and I have inserted the list of savings below. A more detailed list is available HERE  

Click bottom right corner for full page version.

UK government's fracking 'ban' has a convenient loophole

Keith Baker, Glasgow Caledonian University and Peter Styles, Keele University
 
With a general election underway, Boris Johnson, the UK prime minister, recently announced that fracking has been halted in the UK – but a closer look at this moratorium covers reveals a loophole. The suspension applies in the north of England, but the smallprint reveals that similar fossil fuel exploration in many traditionally safe Conservative constituencies in south-east England will be just as open for business as before.

The term fracking (from “hydraulic fracturing”) has come to describe a range of methods of drilling for oil and gas that are more correctly known as unconventional extraction. These are techniques reserved for oil and gas that is hard to access. Fracking – the injection of sand, water and toxic chemicals at high pressure to widen small fractures in shale rock, releasing trapped gas or oil – is just one of them.

The government’s moratorium makes clear that fracking in Lancashire is a no-go. After government agency the Oil and Gas Authority reported that it was not possible to predict the probability or size of tremors from fracking, Cuadrilla’s operations at the now infamous Preston New Road site – which caused a magnitude 2.9 earthquake – are no longer lawful. The same is true for other fracking sites in earlier stages of development in Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire.

How fracking works. jaddingt/Shutterstock

But the north of England is not the only region in the UK that unconventional exploration for oil and gas is afoot. In the rolling hills south-west of London, work is also underway to extract gas and oil using similar methods. At numerous sites in Surrey and Sussex, companies are in the process of – or are planning to – inject acid in boreholes to widen fractures in the rock below.

This may be at a low pressure (a technique termed acidisation) or a higher pressure (acid fracking). But, crucially, both of these techniques tend to use pressures lower than the threshold at which the government’s moratorium outlaws fossil fuel extraction. So, fossil fuel exploration in south-east England usually encompassed under the term “fracking” is in fact exempt from this “ban”.

Similar to the opposition to fracking in Lancashire, many local residents in Surrey have expressed serious concern at earthquakes as strong as magnitude 3.2 in the area. Researchers at the British Geological Survey and Imperial and Bristol universities ruled out a link to oil and gas exploration, but the earthquakes alone indicate that there are faults, or cracks, underground that could potentially be further destabilised by fossil fuel extraction. As such, there is strong local opposition to the operations.

Interestingly, the constituencies surrounding these sites are largely safe Conservative seats that are expected to be held relatively comfortably. In contrast, Leave-voting seats in the North are key targets for the Conservatives this election.

Dinner at the gates of Preston New Road, where fracking is no longer allowed. Reclaim the Power, CC BY

The party may struggle to reverse its distant second to Labour in the constituency of Preston itself, which houses the epicentre of local resistance to fracking in the Preston New Road protest camps. But in a region largely opposed to fracking, the ban may well be a boost to efforts to win over the so-called “Workington Man” – older, white, Leave voters who could be tempted to deviate from their usual Labour leanings.

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Read more: Can the Conservative Party win in the North of England?

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Consistent with the notion that government policy on domestic fossil fuel production is aimed at winning votes rather than coming from a desire to cut emissions, it has just approved the opening of the Woodhouse Colliery coal mine. The mine sits in the Cumbrian constituency of Copeland, where the Conservatives hold a marginal lead over Labour and the Liberal Democrat vote barely registers. Importantly, unlike the broad opposition or ambivalence to fracking, the promise of new jobs from the coal mine has helped build local support.

Deliberately or not, the current party of government’s “ban” on fracking hears local opposition in seats it is targeting in the north of England, but ignores similar opposition to unconventional extraction in its southern strongholds. Whether this will help the government to remain in their position come election day remains to be seen.

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Keith Baker, Researcher in Fuel Poverty and Energy Policy, Glasgow Caledonian University and Peter Styles, Professor Emeritus in Geophysics, Keele University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

High rise leaseholders warned about Advice Notice 14 impact on selling their home

Letter from a Wembley Matters Reader

Dear Martin,

Are you aware of 'Advice Notice 14' resulting from the Grenfell inquiry. It covers owners of all types of homes across Brent but specifically for leaseholders living in high rises.
Until they have a safety certificate issued by the council, all homes are valued at £0.

The council have published a tender (see below) for the work that checks the composition of all wall material in high rises for fire safety.  Once each building is passed as safe, then a certificate is issued but it is likely to take several months, if not years to pass every home across Brent.

It affects 500,000 owners across the whole of England and hardly any of them are aware of it.

They only find out if they try to sell their property, as no buyer can get a mortgage unless the home they are buying has a current safety certificate, covering all the flats within each block.
The problem in Brent and everywhere else is that there are no fully trained inspectors.  So the council tender is trying to find a company to do the work and then pass the buildings by issuing 'a certificate of safety' saying the wall material does not have any Combustible material within it. This material was often used as packing around the steel embedded in the concrete in buildings erected in the 1960's.

But most of the suspect buildings have been built recently and will have to be checked for cladding that is combustible.

I think this is the biggest story to come out of Grenfell so far and hardly anyone in the country is aware of it.

An article in the Guardian on Saturday November 2nd LINK covered the plight of what it called 'mortgage prisoners':

They have all become caught up in the confusion over cladding on tower blocks – specifically, whether or not buildings meet new fire safety standards introduced following the Grenfell disaster, how much it will cost to put any problems right, and who will ultimately foot the bill.

All of this is feeding through to thousands living in “high-rise” (defined as more than 18 metres) apartment blocks, as well as many living in smaller blocks, because property valuers are taking the view that unless they have all the facts at their fingertips – for example, is there any chance the cost might fall on the leaseholder? – they can’t put a valuation on the property. That means these owners can’t sell up or switch to a cheaper mortgage.

This is the decision notice published by Brent Council on October 31st 

This decision seeks approval for the appointment of a building consultancy to complete a data collection exercise to identify external wall materials and insulation used on high rise residential buildings over 18 metres in height within the London Borough of Brent under Contract Standing Orders 88 & 89.

Decision:

To approve:

(1)      Inviting tenders under a mini competition via the NHS SBS Construction Consultancy Services 2 Framework on the basis of the identified pre-tender considerations.

(2)      Officers evaluating the tenders on the basis of the identified evaluation criteria.

Reasons for the decision:

Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) is requesting that Brent Council complete a data collection exercise to identify external wall materials and insulation on all high rise residential buildings over 18 metres.  The Council is therefore seeking suppliers to submit a proposal for carrying out the requirement.

Alternative options considered:

The procurement options for this requirement were either an OJEU procurement or a mini-competition from a framework.  Given the estimated value of the procurement and limited time available to procure a contract in order to commence in December 2019 it was considered that the NHS SBS Framework offered the most appropriate mechanism to procure.

Interests and Nature of Interests Declared:

None
Wards Affected: (All Wards)

UCU calls for submissions to the union's response to the Government's Prevent review

From the University and College Union (UCU)

The government recently announced that it would be carrying out a formal review of Prevent, part of which includes the duty on universities and colleges to have 'due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism' which was imposed as part of 2015 terrorism legislation.

A review of Prevent is something that UCU and others have repeatedly called for since the statutory duty was introduced and we want your views and experiences of how Prevent impacts on both staff and students across England, Wales and Scotland.

UCU has a number of objections to the Prevent duty, including its threat to academic freedom and freedom of speech, the risk that the broad definition of terrorism could stifle campus activism, damage staff/student relations and discrimination against BME and Muslim staff and students.

The specific questions being asked by the review can be found in the formal online Home Office survey but it will look broadly at the following areas:

• Is Prevent achieving its objectives?
• How effectively is Prevent being delivered at local and national levels?
• How effectively does Prevent interact with other safeguarding and vulnerability strategies?
• How effective is the statutory Prevent duty; and how effectively is it being implemented?
• How could Prevent be improved to respond to criticisms and complaints?
• What should the government consider in the development of Prevent over the next 5 years, as the threat evolves, in order to best engage with and support people vulnerable to being drawn into terrorism?

If you have experience of Prevent in the workplace and would like to inform the UCU response, please send your views and examples to Will Pickering by Monday 18 November. We are also interested in hearing from members who are studying the impact of Prevent.

The review is also welcoming individual responses from those with direct experience of, or views on, Prevent. A summary of the review and questions can be found here and the full survey is here if you want to respond to it in person as well as through UCU.

Jo Grady
UCU general secretary

Indefatigable NEU members fight for their jobs after Brent Council's decision to close the Strathcona site

Protest to save Roe Green infants-Strathcona jobs 4pm tonight Brent Civic Centre

Cllr Butt addresses staff and parents at an earlier demonstration against closure

Following the Brent Labour Cabinet's decision to go ahead with the closure of the Strathcona site of Roe Green Infants School the battle has now shifted to saving the jobs of school workers. The two sites are run as one school so everyone is affected by potential redundancy although Gail Tolley, Strategic Director, has said that she does not expect compulsory redundancies.

To ensure that jobs are not loss NEU members will be demonstrating outside Brent Civic Centre at 4pm today.

Gail Tolley told a meeting of Chairs and Vice Chairs of governors last week that at least two neighbouring boroughs were closing primary schools due to falling pupil numbers and several primary schools in Brent that had expanded with new build were now going to reduce their numbers by one form of entry.

The Impact of Air Pollution on Children's Health - Clean Air for Brent meeting November 12th

From Clear Air for Brent

As you hopefully know by now we are holding an exciting public meeting at Queens Park Community School on Tuesday 12th November 7.30-9.30pm with a really strong variety of speakers.  It is also our AGM and we are inviting members to stand for the steering group. 

 

There is a particular vacancy for someone who would like to up our social media profile, though we would love to hear from anyone who feels they might have something to offer the group, taking us forward or in different directions. Your energy and enthusiasm will be appreciated. We meet five or six times through the year with email conversations between the meetings. If you would like to stand please  email cafbrent@gmail.com as soon as possible and one of us will be in touch to find out what your strengths and interests are.

In the meantime if you are coming to the meeting but have not yet signed up on Eventbrite please do here - it really helps us to know what the numbers will be.  A flyer with all the information is also attached

Please do pass this on to your network groups - all are very welcome.

At the meeting we are proud to present some great speakers who will bring a wealth of knowledge and suggest action to be taken:

Dr Ian Mudway of King’s College, London, a leading expert on air pollution and its impact on health and Rosamund Kissi-Debrah, the mother of Ella Roberta, who died aged 9 in 2013 after a severe asthma attack, whilst living next to the South Circular road.  The pathologist who carried out her post mortem said it was “one of the worst cases of asthma ever recorded in the UK”. Rosamund is now a passionate campaigner against air pollution and in May 2019 her daughter’s inquest was re-opened.  We will also hear from Cllr Thomas Stephens who chairs Brent Council's Air Quality Scrutiny Task Group and Humphrey Milles, a local resident who has been driving a national ad campaign on awareness of pollution issues.

See you on the 12th!

 

Best,

Clean Air for Brent