Just a reminder that you should most definitely push aside that blurry to-do list and spend your Monday morning pondering over what to talk about with Steve Webb, the party’s energy and climate change spokesperson, here on our live Q&A session from 6.30pm tonight.
Short of ideas? Steve has a couple!:
I’m looking forward answering questions on any topic but would particularly value feedback on the following 3 questions:
– later this week, MPs will put their name into the ballot for a Private Member’s Bill; if a Lib Dem comes out of the ballot, what Bill would achieve most for the environment?
– we are soon going to launch a ‘Green New Deal’ with proposals for how the Government’s tax cut money could have been better spent; we already have lots of ideas, but how would you have spent billions of pounds of one-off cash to boost the economy and give us a more sustainable future?
– fuel poverty is at record levels, and although bills may fall slightly in the New Year, many millions are still struggling to heat their homes; given that improving energy efficiency of the housing stock is likely to take many years, what is the best way to help struggling households this winter?
If you’re not able to get onto Lib Dem Voice this evening, you can send me your question in advance at alix[at]libdemvoice.org and I’ll ask it for you. Thanks to all who have sent in questions so far, and I have picked up a couple from the comments as well. See you all there.
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6 Comments
Private members ballot – a bill to freeze the number of commercial aircraft take-off slots across the UK, with a specific reservation of slots for services to offshore UK islands and preference among rest of slots for long-haul flights; prices for ‘non-UK-island’ slots to be determined by a bidding process.
Benefits – no new runways needed at Stanstead, Heathrow, Gatwick or anywhere else; some account can be taken of the fact that so far no-one has come up with a viable alternative aircraft fuel to the diminishing supplies of oil; the bidding process could mean that air travel starts to pay a more realistic environmental charge; the farce that air travel needs to continue to grow just so that more and more international travellers can transit through the UK without stepping outside the airport can be abandoned.
A Private members Bill should be used to promote ” closing the loop” on recyclables. We can’t keep shoving stuff in Green bins if there is no demand for the recyclables. M and S is an example of a retailer puting a percentage of recycled material making up some packaging on labels. Its time to kick start this market with legal minimums phased in over a set time period. Potential problems with EU law but you could give public bodies a duty to buy a certain percentage of recycled goods. Or Super Markets .
With regards to “Green New Deal” massive back log of repairs needed to our stock of Historic places of worship. The crisis won’t hit for another 30 years but we can head off thoasands of grade 2 listed building falling into disuse and disrepair or being turned into wetherspoons. many were built using tithes.
Weather proof, insulate, renovate and install microgeneration in return for community access agreements.
most of this work can be done by local traders very quickly and would have a high local multiplier effect for local economies unlike some stimulus ideas.
re this winter. Too late for practical measures. On this we have to be redistributative. Cancel future winter fuel allowances for ex pats and the up comming £60 bung for pensioners over seas. recycle into emergency payments for the very vulnerable. see if energy comapnies will top payments for direct payments rather than the government sending cheques to everyone who then have to pay bills.
eg. Would companies credit say £1.05 or £1.10 per pound if paid directly by the government.
make comapnies make emergency credits to accounts for key demographics.
finally you could just hand out pre payment metre credit. nearly all such customers are poor(er) and would free up other incidental spending in local economies.
Linked ya from LC. Hurrah for publicity!
I can’t think of any burning questions I’d like to ask Steve, but I’ll be reading with interest.
Best practice from overseas – what good ideas from other countries’ approaches to climate change and environment issues are we missing out on?
Well, it’s 6.45 and I haven’t been able to access the Q&A from my mobile at all, sadly.
… or then again, maybe I won’t, because you’re using that bloody atrocious cover-it-live /again/.
I hope there will be a proper archive in readable format afterwards?