The International Energy Agency says 1.5°C is possible

Posted on September 27, 2023 by ianchisnall

According to the Institution of Engineering and Technology in their website that emerged yesterday from Jack Loughran with the headline 1.5°C global warming limit still possible due to renewables growth, according to study that the International Energy Agency has stated a significant aspect. The article can be obtained from here. The IET began with the comment

“Global warming could still be kept under 1.5°C due to rapid growth in clean energy technologies over the last decade, but the path is narrowing and stronger action needs to be taken swiftly, the International Energy Agency (IEA) has said.”

and at the bottom of the document they submitted the comment from IEA

“By 2050, fossil fuel demand needs to fall by 80 per cent. As a result, no new long-lead-time upstream oil and gas projects are needed. Neither are new coal mines, mine extensions or unabated coal plants,” the IEA said.

However, the body admitted that continued investment is still required in some existing oil and gas assets, and has already approved projects to meet the ongoing demand.

“Removing carbon from the atmosphere is very costly. We must do everything possible to stop putting it there in the first place,” Birol added. “The pathway to 1.5°C has narrowed in the past two years, but clean energy technologies are keeping it open.

“With international momentum building behind key global targets – such as tripling renewable capacity and doubling energy efficiency by 2030, which would together lead to a stronger decline in fossil fuel demand this decade – the COP28 climate summit in Dubai is a vital opportunity to commit to stronger ambition and implementation in the remaining years of this critical decade.”

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Last week Lloyd asked Home Office about Police Medals

Posted on September 26, 2023 by ianchisnall

Last Tuesday was the final day of Parliament for MPs prior to the various Party Conference and one of the written questions that was submitted to the Home Office came from Lloyd Russell-Moyle. He is the MP for Brighton Kemptown and he included “recognition of service medal for police officers injured on duty and unable to continue service”. His written question was responded by Chris Philp who is one of the Ministers for the Home Office. So here is the question and the answer which can be obtained from here.

Lloyd Russell-Moyle: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of the introduction of a recognition of service medal for police officers injured on duty and unable to continue service.

Chris Philp: We owe a tremendous gratitude to dedicated police officers for their continued hard work and sacrifice. There is no doubt that police officers who have their service cut short through injury have made, and in many cases will continue to make, an invaluable contribution to the emergency services.

It is right that there are provisions to support police officers who are injured in the line of duty, through the provision of paid leave, the injury benefit scheme and medical retirement where appropriate. Alongside the existing Police Long Service and Good Conduct Medal, and the King’s Police Medal, work is continuing on an appropriate way to mark the contribution of emergency workers and other public servants who are killed while serving the public. If they are injured or killed while attempting to save the life of another, they may be eligible for a gallantry award.

The Government has no plans currently to introduce a medal specifically for police officers who are injured on duty.

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A review of the close of Parliament for Conferences

Posted on September 25, 2023 by ianchisnall

(This item was published in the Brighton Argus on 25th September 2023 with their document “XL bully debate has sparked huge response“ which supports Glyn Saville who formed that e-petition) This week is the beginning of the Party-Political annual Conferences so there will not be any formal Parliament until the second half of the October. The first Party holding its annual conference is the Liberal Democrats in Bournemouth which began on Saturday 23rd September finishing tomorrow. Sunday the 1st October will see the opening of the Conservative conference in Manchester ending on Tuesday the 4th.  On Friday the 6th the Green Party will begin their Conference in Brighton and Plaid Cymru will start their Conference in Wales. Plaid Cymru ends on Saturday and Green Party ends on Sunday. The following weekend on Sunday 8th October the Labour Party Conference opens in Liverpool closing on Wednesday and on Friday the 13th the DUP Conference in Ireland opens closing on the Saturday. Finally, the SNP Conference will open on Sunday the 15th and it closes on Tuesday the 17th which is the second day of the new Parliament arrangement. It will be interesting to observe the results of all of these Party Conferences.

It has been surprising to notice how quickly a news item can become an e-petition. In the last 12 days an e-petition that was published on 13th September was written by Glyn Saville. On Friday 15th September early in the evening there were 60,000 signatures which were gathered together with another 20,000 signatures in that hour. By the end of that evening another 60,000 people had signed it and by the following morning there were an additional 90,000 people who had signed. By the end of Saturday there were a further 170,000 people had endorsed it. That petition is now the 7th largest out of nearly 49,000 petitions that exist since November 2006 when the Prime Minister Tony Blair introduced the e-petitions. This petition is entitled as “Bad owners are to blame not the breed – don’t ban the XL bully” and it includes the text

I believe that the XL bully is a kind, beautiful natured breed that loves children and people in general, and are very loyal and loving pets. An XL bully is a “Heinz 57”, a mixture of different breeds, so if you ban them then this will have implications for cross breeds of dog because nobody can be sure on the breed specifics. They are all different sizes and shapes. Just because a dog is big and muscular doesn’t mean it can be labelled an XL bully, it is unfair to do this.

Over the last three weeks in Parliament from the beginning of September until last Tuesday, some the Early Day Motions were raised. Sadly, the item that Peter Bottomley the MP for Worthing West submitted in July on the last day of Parliament which is “Holocaust Memorial and Victoria Tower Gardens” has not yet been signed by any MP so far. He submitted another item last Tuesday which is “Transitional arrangements for All-Party Parliamentary Groups” and it would be very positive if MPs would endorse it when Parliament reopens in mid October. Earlier in September he put forward a piece entitled “All Party Groups” so far only two MPs have endorsed it a Labour and a DUP MP.  The only other Sussex MP who has submitted EDMs in this short period was Caroline Lucas, the Green MP for Brighton Pavilion. The first one was entitled “COP28” which was submitted on the 14th September and so far, eighteen MPs have signed it, which including eleven Labour, four SNP and all 3 Plaid Cymru MPs. On the 18th September she submitted another entitled “COP28 and human rights” and to date only 4 MPs have endorsed it. It is rather disappointing that only three of our Sussex MPs have taken part. Peter and Lloyd Russell-Moyle from Brighton Pavilion only approved one EDM during that three week time period and both focused on the same one which was “UK manufactures of lower carbon construction vehicles” that a Liberal Democrat MP Alistair Carmichael submitted. A total of 15 MPs approved it. Although Caroline did not sign that EDM, she did sign eight of them over that period. It will be valuable to see what happens in the next period of Parliament. 

Last Tuesday a discussion was held entitled “Youth Programmes and Girlguiding: Further and Higher Education Students: Cost of Living” with sadly only one Sussex MP Caroline Lucas taking part.  At the beginning of the session a Liverpool MP George Howarth, the Chair person, began with the comment “I remind Members that they should bob if they wish to be called in the debate.” The person organising the discussion was Paul Blomfield a Labour MP for Sheffield. His first few words were “I beg to move, That this House has considered the impact of increases in the cost of living on further and higher education students.” The contribution from Caroline included

The fact that universities are themselves having to provide food banks for students is an indictment of the fact that clearly our young people cannot afford to make ends meet at university. Does he agree we should consider bringing back things such as the maintenance grant so that our young people can focus on learning rather than spend all this time trying to make ends meet?

Such an important range of issues representing serious viewpoints and effecting everyday lives deserves the fullest support from all of our MPs in making every effort in bringing positive resolve.

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New petitions for public schools and art primary schools

Posted on September 23, 2023 by ianchisnall

Back on 10 days ago on 13th September a petition entitled “Bad owners are to blame not the breed – don’t ban the XL bully” was published by Glyn Saville and his document has so far achieved 571,600 signatures. I did write about it a few days ago which can be found here and his petition which is 643611 can be obtained from here. Five days later on 18th September a person called Bilaf Shifa submitted his petition which is entitled “Ban private schools to improve equality of education” and tragically so far he only has had 15 signatures which is 643761 that can be obtained from here. Two days later another person called Caitlin Clifford submitted a petition which is listed “Increase funding for art departments in primary schools” and currently that petition only has 14 signatures. It is clearly vital for these petitions to raise many more signatures so we need more people to endorse them. If they achieve 10,000 signatures they will be responded by the Government and if they achieve 100,000 signatures they will be responded by MPs in Parliament.

The Ban private schools to improve equality of education involves this statement

We want the Government to ban private schools, and for all students to be educated under the state school system, to remove the disparity of school services between public and private students.

Finland has been ranked as having one of the world’s best education system, having abolished private schools that charge fees. Equality of education should help make skill/talent development a more important factor in obtaining influential roles in society, rather than financial background.

The Increase funding for art departments in primary schools involves this statement

Many primary school art departments have had funding reduced, impacting art education. The Government must provide additional funding so all primary school students receive the arts education they deserve, as it can be greatly beneficial for their development and allows them to express themselves.

Art is a lesson which allows children to express themselves, and as one of the most popular subjects, the Government must ensure it is properly funded.

Studies have shown just how important art can be for children as can help their awareness of shape and colour grow, in addition to helping them align classrooms with having fun. It is imperative the Government increase the funding so art classes can continue.

It would be fantastic if we could strengthen both of these petitions even if they don’t achieve 640,000 signatures.

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A member of the House of Lords has Sussex experience

Posted on September 22, 2023 by ianchisnall

The Earl of Lytton who is John Lytton has been speaking this week on a couple of discussions and it is fascinating that his role is officially “Earl of Lytton, in the County of Derby” while he seems to be focused on Sussex. On Monday he was speaking in the “Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill – Amendment 260A” when he referred to West Sussex and then on Tuesday he took part in the “Non-Domestic Rating Bill – Amendment 5” when he referred to Lewes High Street. So here are the references he mentioned, that are both part of a larger discussion aspect.

Amendment 260A: I make it clear from the outset that I may wish to test the opinion of the House but, before deciding that, I particularly wish to consider and gauge the views of noble Lords on a matter that I believe to be of fundamental importance to the purposes of good government, justice, equality under the law and economic stability. I refer to a crib sheet, if I may call it that, which I submitted to the department. I hope that it reached the attention of the noble Earl, should he be responding to this. I apologise for the fact that it was not sent earlier, as I had intended, which is something to do with the stability of the electrical grid in my part of West Sussex during most of yesterday.

Amendment 5: I am afraid that HMRC, which has global responsibility for this, has been extremely slow to catch up with what is happening and to realise the paradigm shifts created by the increasing burden of business rates. Leaving aside things such as small business relief and so on, I did a calculation—a few years ago, so the analogy is even more potent now—showing that business rate payers in small premises of between 1,000 square feet and 3,000 square feet were paying materially more by reference to property value and square footage occupied, by some considerable factor, than their residential counterparts. I use that because when I first started working in this area, in what was then known as the Valuation Office, all those years ago, there was a common rating system, and residential and commercial had a common base. That is why I got little old ladies in cottages in Lewes High Street in Sussex complaining that the pub next door, which sold all this liquor, had a rating assessment that was half theirs.

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Additional Jobcentre Support Pilot in Sussex and Surrey

Posted on September 21, 2023 by ianchisnall

On Tuesday Guy Opperman who is the Minister for Work and Pensions introduced a statement which was entitled “Additional Jobcentre Support Pilot – Phase 2 rollout” and one of the themes he referred to was “The second phase will be tested in the existing 60 pilot sites across Central Scotland, Surrey & Sussex, West Yorkshire, Leicestershire, and Northamptonshire.” Guy is the MP for Hexham which is based in Northumberland. The whole of his statement is listed below and it can be obtained from here.

I wish to update the House on the Written Statement tabled on 27 February 2023.

Earlier this month the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) started testing a second phase of the Additional Jobcentre Support pilot. The first phase went live on 27/02/23, following a proof of concept. It tested how enhanced daily work-focused support, across two weeks, can further help eligible Universal Credit claimants in the Intensive Work Search regime into employment.

Evidence shows that the longer a person is out of work the harder it is for them to return. A claimant’s likelihood of securing employment declines after 13 weeks, so we are focussing this support on those who remain unemployed or with low earnings after 13 and 26-weeks of claiming Universal Credit.

The second phase will provide an additional week of daily support after the claimant’s first assessment period. This new earlier intervention will test the impact of a week of skills and employability focused support.

This builds on the first phase of the pilot which, in addition to this extra week of support, continues to test how enhanced daily work-focused support, across a two-week period, can further support eligible Universal Credit claimants into employment.

As with phase one, phase two of the pilot continues to provide additional one to one work search conversations with work coaches and work search support sessions to help claimants. The Claimant Commitment, which sets out each claimant’s agreed work-related activities, will be regularly reviewed and activity will be focused on specific steps to support people to move into work.

Claimants will receive prior notice of the requirements they will be expected to fulfil. Eligibility remains unchanged and those with reduced requirements remain out of scope, including those:

• Awaiting a Work Capability Assessment;

• Required to undertake less than 20 hours a week of work search activity;

• Who are Gainfully Self-Employed;

• Who have no work related requirements;

• With an easement in place; and

• On a full-time provision offer.

The second phase will be tested in the existing 60 pilot sites across Central Scotland, Surrey & Sussex, West Yorkshire, Leicestershire, and Northamptonshire. Over the coming months, the pilot will expand further into more jobcentres.

DWP remains committed to providing tailored work-focused support to help move claimants into appropriate and sustainable work, where they can then experience the many benefits of employment.

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A nine-month wait for granting simple probate is unfair

Posted on September 19, 2023 by ianchisnall

Last Tuesday in Parliament on 12th September there was a session called Topical Questions and one of the MPs who took part was Peter Bottomley, the MP for Worthing West who is also the Father of the House of Commons. It was very interesting to see his question and there was a response from Mike Freer who is the Minister for the State of Justice who was responding to all of the questions. The session is available here and here is Peter’s question and the response from Mike.

Peter Bottomley: May I put it to Ministers that the nine-month wait for granting simple probate is unfair on people trying to sell their parents’ home? I failed to get the probate service to work, and I have a constituent who has written to the Prime Minister. Will Ministers please sort it out?

Mike Freer: The time taken once all required documents are received is between six and nine weeks. We always advise that no one should take a decision on the sale of a property until probate is granted, but I can reassure my hon. Friend that despite a significant increase in applications, the service is recruiting and training up more than 100 new caseworkers to ensure that it delivers the service that my hon. Friend wants, as do I.

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last week in Parliament some unusual voting took place

Posted on September 18, 2023 by ianchisnall

Today is the beginning of the third week of Parliament however this week marks the end of usual Parliament sessions until the third week of October as the three main political parties will hold their Party Conferences for this year. Other political groups will also hold conferences during this time. According to the “TheyWorkForYou” website the MPs are not involved in any events this week after the end of business on Tuesday although the House of Lords will be operating until the end of Thursday. Sadly, this week there are no listed indications of debates being organised by any of the Sussex MPs but there are two Committees that are taking place involving two local MPs. Today there is a session entitled “Environmental Audit Committee” which is a group including Caroline Lucas from Brighton Pavilion and tomorrow there is another session of the “Education Committee” which includes Caroline Ansell from Eastbourne.

It also appears that there is nothing planned for this week relating to the e-petition events in Parliament. There are many local members of public living in their constituencies which have taken time to endorse these e-petitions in the past and so they will be disappointed that this week there will not be any discussions which represent their views. Last week there was a planned session for three e-petitions on Monday entitled “relating to pay and financial support for healthcare students” which was organised by Marsha de Cordova, the Labour MP for Battersea in London. Although she did speak on other questions her planned event to focus on the e-petitions did not take place last week and again so many of us will be disappointed. It will be interesting to see if there will be future opportunities that focus on the e-petitions that have obtained more than 100,000 contributed signatures. I certainly hope so.

Last Tuesday there was a discussion set out by Tim Loughton who is the MP for East Worthing and Shoreham. His event was entitled “Flying Schools” which took place in the Westminster Hall. Speaking contributions for the debate included two MPs from the DUP, one SNP and one Labour MP. Jesse Norman, Minister for Transport participated and one other Conservative MP, Henry Smith, representing Crawley also spoke. At the beginning of the session Tim began with

I beg to move, that this House has considered flying schools. I am grateful to colleagues who have come along to contribute. On the face of it, this is quite a niche subject, but it has implications beyond constituencies, such as mine, that contain flying schools. My interest is primarily because of Shoreham airport in my constituency — Shoreham airport, not Brighton City airport as it was somehow re-christened at some stage. It is the oldest commercial airport in the United Kingdom, founded in 1910, and the oldest purpose-built airport in the world still in operation. It mostly operates leisure flights. It has an art deco terminal building, often used for films and by air-related businesses. It encompasses helicopter training and fixed-wing pilot training.  

At the end of the discussion, he states “Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered flying schools. Sitting suspended.” It would be very helpful if he and his colleagues could publish a document about this important subject that we could all read or listen to. Reading the recorded writing from the “TheyWorkForYou” website does not really present the full information in an accessible format.

A total of five voting sessions took place on Tuesday and Wednesday last week with a number of our local MPs and a significant number of the parties participating.  Two of the five events involved a discussion from a group of MPs. The first debate on Tuesday was “Dangerous Drugs” Interestingly only one of our Sussex MPs Lloyd- Russell-Moyle took part in that discussion but did not vote. However, there were a small group of MPs that voted to reject the content which included Caroline Lucas, the SNP, Plaid Cymru, three Labour and two Conservative MPs, a total of 35 people. On Wednesday the first item to be discussed was entitled “Deferred Division — Exiting the European Union” and once again the majority of the Conservative and Labour MPs voted together for it along with Caroline Lucas from the Green party, some Liberal Democrat and Plaid Cymru groups. It was rejected by only 10 MP’s all of which were Conservative and DUP members.

The other three items are “Delegated Legislation – Police” on Tuesday and on Wednesday “Procurement Bill [Lords] – Discretionary exclusion grounds” with a short discussion and “Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill – Failure to prevent fraud”. Conservatives voting Aye and Labour, Green and other groups voting No.

Interestingly Nusrat Ghani and Andrew Griffith did not vote at all on either day and Gillian Keegan only voted for Exiting the EU debate on Wednesday. Huw Merriman, only voted on Tuesday. These are all Government Ministers. Peter Kyle the Labour MP representing Hove did not vote on Wednesday. All other Sussex MPs voted for the items discussed on Tuesday and Wednesday.

What remains significant to me in addition to the vital importance of these subject matters is the way the MP’s vote. We as constituents do not get an opportunity to understand the reasons explaining why MP’s vote as they do. We are left questioning why some of Sussex Conservative Ministers have not been voting at all.

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Football and Dementia involving Gordon Smith

Posted on September 17, 2023 by ianchisnall

On Thursday there was a debate in Parliament entitled “Football and Dementia” which was organised by Ian Blackford who is an SNP MP for Ross, Skye and Lochaber which is a location I have been to in the past. He opened the session with his comment “I beg to move, That this House asks the Government to investigate the links between football and sport-related neurodegenerative disease. I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for granting this debate, and to the number of Members across the House who support the motion, particularly my co-sponsors of the debate, the hon. Members for Moray (Douglas Ross) and for Easington (Grahame Morris).” As it happened several other MPs took part and indeed Douglas Ross did not take part of the discussion. One of the people who did make a number of contributions was Chris Stephens who is the SNP MP for Glasgow South West. One of the comments that he made during the session was focusing on a football player who was born in 1954 who according to Wikipedia he is “After retiring as a player, he worked as a football agent and BBC football pundit before being appointed chief executive of the Scottish Football Association in 2007, a post he held until his resignation on 19 April 2010. Smith then worked as the director of football of Rangers during the 2011–12 season.” Gordon Smith was in Brighton and Hove Albion football from 1980 – 1983 when I was obtaining my BSc from the Brighton Polytechnic and I visited the football location several times. He played in Brighton and Hove for 109 events and he then went over to Manchester City from 1983 – 1985 when he played 45 times.

Here is the piece from Chris Stephens which states.

Gordon Smith, the former Rangers, Brighton and Hove Albion and Manchester City player, and former chief executive of the Scottish Football Association, had a chat with me about this issue, when he heard it was to be debated. He told me that when he signed for Rangers football club, Jock Wallace, the then manager, told him, “I have been trying to sign you, Gordon, for the last four seasons.” Gordon Smith did not know that because, at the time, the registration of a player was held by the club, and if the club chose to keep the player, they would not be told that another football club was interested in them. That was driving wages down.

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A very significant petition that raised in 2 days

Posted on September 16, 2023 by ianchisnall

On Friday afternoon on 15th September just before 18.00pm this petition passed 80,000 signatures and it was achieving more than 20,000 signatures in that hour. The petition 643611 can be obtained from here which was provided by Glyn Saville and it began on 13th September. A couple of hours later on Friday 15th it reached 140,000 and on Saturday 16th Morning at 8pm it reached 230,000 signatures. On 15.30pm afternoon it achieved 340,000 signatures and in the evening it achieved 400,000. On Sunday 17th morning it achieved 430,000 and by 18.00pm it reached 483,000 signatures which makes it the 9th largest petition. At the end of Sunday it reached 500,000 and it had passed 509,000 during 7pm Monday 18th morning which placed it as the 8th largest petition. Then on Friday 29th September it has reached 580,000 which is less than a 1,000 of the 7th item. This item is very significant and it is covered by the whole of the UK with a couple of significant locations in North of the Newcastle area.

It would be fantastic if some of the people who endorse this petition could also approve some of the petitions that are struggling to achieve 100,000 or even 10,000 signatures. There are several petitions that I have spotted recently that are Create income replacement scheme for crew affected by writers and actors strikes which has so far achieved 29,867 petitions, Make it free for all NHS hospital staff to park at work which so far has only got 1,173 petitions, Call an immediate general election which has only got 846 signatures, Require daily sessions on mindfulness/meditation in schools that has only achieved 124 signatures and Fund half price bus and trains fares for 16 and 17 year olds which has only obtained 83 signatures. It would be fantastic if some of these could benefit from a number of supports over the next few weeks because if they reach 10,000 the Government will respond to their requirements and ideally if they reach 100,000 the MPs will be inspired to discuss them. One can assume that the “Bad owners are to blame not the breed – don’t ban the XL bully” will be responded on both of those themes very soon.

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