Here are my notes from David Milliband's visit to Swindon today to talk about environmental policy, as advertised at http://www.talkswindon.org/index.php?topic=586.0

Warning - this is a very long post!

When reading this, please bear in mind that my shorthand skills are hardly Olympic standard, and as part of the session involved splitting into 5 groups, I'll be lucky to have even captured a quarter of what was said, so anyone else who was there, please feel free to make additions / corrections.

The first surprise (apart from the shock at seeing New College unrecognisable as the place where I studied my A-levels) was that this event was being held by the Labour party rather than the govt's dept of the Environment. At least they were open about that, with two banners at the front of the room saying "Shaping the future - Labour south west".

The session was composed of 3 parts - an introductory speech by David Milliband, followed by the split into 5 groups with facilitators and note-takers, and then reconvening for a Q&A session. As we were waiting for David Milliband to arrive (he was nearly 1/2 an hour late), Anne Snelgrove went round allocating people to one of the 5 groups. "You're number five" she said to me, and I had to restrain myself from retorting "I am not a number, I am a free man!".

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Part 1 - the speech

Once the meeting got going, Anne Snelgrove introduced herself and David Milliband, and said a few things, including defending the massive housebuilding plans for Swindon by saying that there were 5 thousand people on the housing waiting list, and congratulating nPower on their plan to build a wind turbine at Windmill Hill.

David Milliband then took the metaphorical stage (actually he stood in front of a table in a classroom, with about 50 people sat on a semi-circle of chairs around him). He pointed out that he had only been secretary of state for the environment for 9 weeks, so had a lot to learn.

He said that the challenge posed by climate change was more dangerous and more short term than a lot of people realise.

Addressing the point often made by climate sceptics that climates go in cycles and the world naturally gets warmer and colder, he asked whether anyone knew when the CO₂ concentration in the atmosphere was last at its current levels. No-one in the room jumped to answer (although I suppose that's the sort of trivia I ought to know), so he told us. 120 thousand years ago.

He said that if everyone in the world adopted the lifestyle and consumption patterns of the average UK resident, we'd need 3 planets to live on. This apparently is the reasoning behind the target of reducing CO2 emissions by 60% by 2050.

He said that 27% of CO₂ emissions come from households, 1/3 comes from business and 1/3 from transport.

He said that the UK's energy supply currently consists of 20% nuclear, 75% gas and coal and 3% renewables (of which 0.7% is wind). I presume these figures refer to the electricity supply rather than total energy supply, but neglected to clarify this point at the time.

He said that 9 gigawatts worth of renewable energy sources are currently stuck in the planning pipeline, with a big problem being people who object to wind turbines etc being built where they can see them. To put this figure in context, he said that the UK's peak winter electricity demand is 60 gigawatts. He said that he personally thinks wind turbines are beautiful.

He said that taxpayers money will be not used to subsidise nuclear power. I am sceptical about this, given that Railtrack was supposed to stand on its own financial feet but ended up being bailed out by the taxpayer more than once.

He also said that failing to recycle is just as anti-social as being a noisy neighbour.

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Part 2 - the groups

As I said, at this point we split into 5 groups, so what follows is just my recollection of what was discussed in the group I was in, and not very complete at that as I was quite busy trying to talk as well as trying to take coherent notes.

We were all presented with a handy summary of the government's energy policy, for those (including me) who haven't taken the time to read the energy review in full

Ensure a secure supply to meet future energy needs an effective mix of energy sources will be required in the future

Address sustainability, safety and security of supply as well as competition and price

Encourage long term planning in the energy industry to ensure that the necessary investment is made to maintain security of supply and reduce CO₂ emissions

Achieve a target of 10% of electricity supplied by renewables by 2010, with an aspiration to double this by 2020

Support the renewables industry with around £1 billion by 2010 to help deliver this expansion

Support further research and development in these areas including clean coal technology

Encourage energy efficiency by cutting UK carbon emissions by more than 12 million tonnes by 2010 through energy efficiency, saving business and households more than £3 billion each year in energy bills

Fund the Energy Saving Trust, which works to achieve the sustainable and efficient use of energy and cut carbon emissions

Double the level of the Energy Efficiency Commitment on energy suppliers

Tighten building regulations for new homes and requiring condensing boilers to be installed in homes from 2005

Promote the development of homes and communities that combine energy efficient technologies and renewable energy to reduce their demand from energy from the National Grid

Do not rule out the possibility that at some point in the future new nuclear build might be necessary if we are to meet our carbon targets

Hold the fullest public consultation before any decision to proceed and publish a white paper setting out the proposals

There was a very well-spoken man who seemed to have a keen interest in farming. Talking about farm payments (this is a subject I'm not familiar with), he said that although 90% of the payments have been distributed, 80% of farmers had not received their payments. I think the point he was trying to make was that large-scale agri-business (as Michael Wills would say) seemed to be at the head of the queue for these payments, and the small-scale farmers were being neglected.

Neil from the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust said that 7 out of 10 species locally were threatened with extinction.

David Milliband visited our group in his wanderings at this point, and said that nuclear power was a low-carbon energy source, even when taking into account the energy expenditure of building and decommissioning the power plants, so of course I had to challenge him on this point. Surely once one takes into account the fact that the uranium ore needs to be mined, the uranium metal needs to be extracted from the ore, and the tiny fraction of fissile uranium needs separating from the majority of non-fissile uranium, nuclear power is actually a very high-carbon energy source. No, he said, it's still lower-carbon than fossil fuels. It's quite disconcerting to have a government minister look one in the eye and state that black is white in the face of rational argument to the contrary. I suppose that's what makes a successful politician though.

Someone raised the point that the advocates of the Front Garden Southern Development Area project are making a big thing about how some of the houses to be built there will be built to the highest eco-standards, when actually it's only a tiny percentage of all the houses which will be built like that. There was quite a lot of support for the idea that ALL houses should be built to the highest eco-standards, not just a few for the benefit of greenwash.

The facilitator asked how people could be persuaded to change their behaviour. A few people agreed that just raising taxes is not the solution, and would hit the poorest hardest whilst the rich carry on regardless - the congestion charge in London was cited as an example of this. The need to arrange for aviation fuel to be taxed was highlighted.

I pointed out the changes in tobacco advertising over the last couple of decades - we used to see cigars and whatnot advertised on the telly, and they were almost always the most entertaining of all the adverts. Now tobacco advertising is severely restricted, and smoking is seen as less and less acceptable all the time (I am keenly aware of this, being a smoker myself). I suggested that a similar approach be taken to car advertising, that surely it is wrong that we are constantly bombarded with adverts telling us that unless we own the car they're selling then we have no status / attractiveness to the opposite sex / we're putting our kids in danger etc.

Following quickly on from this, one of the others said (sarcastically I think) that people need cars in order take their kids to school. There followed a discussion of how terrible it was that people were driving their kids 250 yards to school, and also the point was made that the government policy of giving parents a choice of school was contrbuting to excess car travel, with parents ferrying their kids to schools on the other side of town, and "criss-crossing" each other. Someone suggested that maybe parents should have the choice of which school to send their kids to, on the condition that they walk or cycle there, and someone else suggested that this could be a solution to the childhood obesity problem (I think tongues were firmly in cheek at this point).

The plastic carrier bag tax which was introduced in Ireland recently, and the subsequent drastic reduction in their use, was mentioned. There seemed to be general agreement that it was crazy the way we go through plastic bags, and there was some remeniscing about the days when people took their shopping home in paper bags, carefully flattened them and took them back to the shop to carry their next lot of shopping home. Someone mentioned that supermarkets don't seem to offer cardboard boxes for people to carry their shopping in any more.

Someone asked what had happened to the idea of hydrogen fuels, so I felt obliged to point out that hydrogen in itself is not an energy source, as it is not a naturally occuring substance on our planet. In order to produce hydrogen to use to use as a fuel, you must first put energy into electrolising water to split it into hydrogen and oxygen, and then you burn the hydrogen to release some of the energy you put into producing the hydrogen. At best hydrogen can be considered only an energy store, not a source. I think I read somewhere that hydrogen which escapes into the atmosphere is very damaging to the ozone layer, in the same way as CFCs are.

Just as this part of the day was winding up, I managed to get in the point that the way public transport is run is all wrong - it should be run with the primary aim of moving people from where they are to where they want to be, but instead it is run (seemingly like everything these days) with the primary aim of making a profit. I could have gone on for a long time about how the bus service needs a serious overhaul before the average car-bound commuter will seriously consider it as a viable means of getting to work, along with an anecdote of my visit to Italy where the cheapest part of the journey was the flight from London to Rome and the most expensive part was the train from Swindon to London 

... but there wasn't time.

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Part 3 - Q&A

Reconvening in the classroom where we started off, there was some time for questions and answers. I didn't manage to record them all, and those I did I probably missed much of the detail, so again anyone else who was there please feel free to fill in any gaps / correct any errors.

For some reason, the format was to take 3 questions and then give 3 answers, but I've done my best to match up individual answers to individual questions.

The Irish plastic bag tax was mentioned, and David Milliband again pleaded ignorance due to being new to the job, but promised to investigate the possibility of implementing it here. He suggested that another idea might be to ban supermarkets from printing their names on the bags.

Cllr Barrie Thompson (Lab, Parks, and the most outspoken supporter of the plans to build all over Coate) made a point about being bogged down in proscriptive planning legislation. David Milliband replied that compared to, say, France, where the decision to build something in a particular place is made at the top and it just happens, we have much more input from the bottom up into the planning process in the UK. I feel sure that the 28,000 who have saved the Save Coate petition and the hundreds who submitted objections to the local structure plan would beg to differ on that point.

The youngest person present at the meeting asked what we could do about the US and China's increasing CO₂ emissions, to which David Milliband replied that the US and China were two very different cases. China is building a new coal-fired power plant every week, but their policy is to use coal power and carbon sequestration, and the standards for car emissions in China are actually higher than they are in the US. The US government meanwhile is virulently against any CO₂ controls, as I think we all know, however having said that, he pointed out that 250 US cities have signed themselves up to the Kyoto targets.

Someone who identified himself as "Chris Gale, a campaigner for animal welfare within the Labour Party" asked whether DEFRA was in thrall to powerful countryside interests (I suspect this may have been a veiled reference to the pro-hunt lobby but I can't be sure). David Milliband responded that DEFRA were not in thrall to anyone. The temptation at this point to pick up the animal welfare angle and point out Tony Blair's stated support for the vivisection industry was enormous, but I had already decided to be on my best behaviour so I stayed quiet. 

It was suggested that the targets for housebuilding (one of the main reasons behind the Coate plans) should be looked at again, given that Swindon's infrastructure is already groaning under the weight of the existing population. David Milliband replied that housing was not necessarily bad for the environment, depending on how it is done. He said that 200 thousand new houses had been built in the Anglia water region (I think this was in the last 20 years although I didn't make a note of this), but that they weren't supplying any more water as a result, because they were taking water conservation very seriously. We quietly concurred that this was an evasive answer.

Someone with a very thick accent said something about vandalism, saying that it accounted for 30% of tax spending (surely that's not right - maybe I misheard?). David Milliband replied that there was no easy answer to vandalism, but that two approaches were needed - more youth activities to prevent the devil making work for the proverbial idle hands, and also education of youngsters as to what constitutes acceptable behaviour.

Someone asked why there is a 27% tax on biodiesel, making it more expensive than fossil diesel. David Milliband replied that there was an aim for 10% of all forecourt fuel sales to be biodiesel. Either my notes are confused here, or this is an answer to a completely different question.

It was pointed out that the Coate development meant that a new reservoir needed to be built. Anne Snelgrove interjected to say that the resevoir was being built anyway, regardless of whether the Coate development goes ahead. David Milliband replied by talking about water conservation, saying it was crazy to use purified water to flush toilets, and said that he was looking at ways of encouraging grey water use.

Someone suggested that the definition of a brown field site needs looking at - for example if someone builds a house in their back garden, that officially counts as a brown field site. David Milliband replied by citing a report which said that there had been an increase in high quality public space in urban areas, and suggested that we google it (which I haven't done yet). As a personal observation, I can't see much of that happening in Swindon, in fact all I seem to see is buildings where once there were playing fields, and increasing privatisation of shopping areas (e.g. West Swindon Centre and the Brunel centre with all their rules about wearing hoods, taking photos, handing out leaflets etc).

Someone asked when we would have a prime minister who had attended a comprehensive school, to which David Milliband replied that he went to a comprehensive school. He then said that the comprehensive school movement seemed to focus too much on admission policy rather than in what went on in the classroom.

Someone asked what made him think the 2010 target for renewable energy was achievable, to which he said two things - it makes sense, and it has the support of public opinion. He went on to talk about the big environmental issue of some years ago, the hole in the ozone layer. That was a simple problem - the ozone layer which protects us from UV light was thinning, and the cause was the release of chloro-fluoro-carbons into the atmosphere, so the solution was also simple - stop using those chemicals. Climate change he described as a more diffuse problem, with the solution also being much more complex.

Finally, as the session was being brought to a close so that David Milliband could catch his train, someone asked whether he'd taken out a small mortgage in order to afford the fare.

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Well, there it is - two hours of "Let's Talk" transcribed onto the web via two sides of hastily-scrawled notes. As I said at the beginning of this post, this is by no means a definitive or complete record of the parts of the meeting I attended, and the output from four of the discussion groups are missing completely because I was only party to one of them.

So anyone else who was there, please add your impressions, observations, additions, corrections, whatever, so that regardless of what the Labour party bods choose to take from their notes and feed into their policy, at least we'll have a reasonably independent record of what was discussed and what was said about it.

 

Hi Simon and all,

Your notes are very comprehensive - I was tempted to ask if you could pop into the office and help us getting ours all typed up. We will be collating notes from all of the groups to forward to David Miliband and to all the people who attended. If anyone in South Swindon who has been following this would like a copy, please let me know on 01793 615444 or 7 Little London Court, Swindon SN1 3HY.

Thanks everyone who came. I've been to a lot of these events and this was one of the best for policy discussion (in my view) - lots of ideas and people with a lot of knowledge. My group was great - and I'm not saying that just because Geoff was in it!  I hope we can continue to tap into all of your ideas as I agree with David - this is urgent and serious.

Cheers - hope to see some of you again, soon.

Jude Robinson (Constituency Organiser for Anne Snelgrove MP)

thats a really good write up Simon 

I have to say I found the whole thing quite intreasting.

Ooops... yess, sorry. Tig's on the fast track for manners award...
Thnks for the the write up Simon (and Adrian)
Cannot work out how you note take as well as chip in so much Simon, we walk among giants at TS.

Forgive my tardiness.... :-[

.....I had a long overdue, but very enjoyable, meeting at a secret Wiltshire location* yesterday evening which kept me away from the forum last night, but has given me time to reflect on Mondays 'Lets Talk' meeting.


Simon has already covered what was said and has repeated it virtually verbatim, (good job Simon ), so apart from some personal observations/opinions, all I can add is some 'stuff' from discussion group number 5.

Anne Snelgrove

I was late arriving, so I didn't get a chance to have the 1 on 1 chat with Anne which she had previously suggested. It was my loss, I'm sure it would have been an interesting 10 minutes for both of us.

I consoled myself with listening very carefully to everything Anne Snelgrove said, and the manner in which she said it.

As many of you will have realised by now, my own political compass points in a different direction to Annes, but that alone will not prevent me from giving an honest first impression.

Anne has a good 'presence', speaks clearly, lucidly and concisely. Seems to have a good basic knowledge of most subjects/information/figures she covered, and did so without seeming to fumble any of it.

Politics aside, she's a good public speaker who successfully projects an air of authority when she has the floor.....

....and if she would only see the light, call for the repeal of the Identity Cards Act 2006, demand the dismantling of the National Identity Register, help prevent the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill from being passed by Parliament, renounce Blairism and throw throw her support behind someone not so intent on destroying the very fundament of this country......

......then I believe a Ministerial Position will be hers if Labour can only win next years general election and Anne has found a safer seat to defend than South Swindon.
.

Would I buy a used car from Anne ?. Yes, but only after a lot of haggling, reading of fine print and agreeing which version of English dictionary & thesaurus we were using. 


David Miliband

Was something of a dissappointment. Perched atop a turned-backwards chair, David came across as a 'Son of Blair'. Same mannerisms, speech patterns, body language etc.....

...is there a 'Book Of Blair' somewhere ?, perhaps a dojo exists where Blairism is studied with the same intensity as a martial art.....and if so, David Miliband must be a Blairite-blackbelt.......with just a hint of weasel about him.

Obviously David Miliband might be a fantastic guy, (who's mate, Alan Donnelly, just happens to both chair Mr Miliband local constituency party....and  be a professional lobbyist with a company called 'Sovereign Strategy', who just happen to represent the US multinational Fluor, one of the world’s biggest nuclear companies, who just happen to be hoping to win a stake in the £70 billion British nuclear waste market sometime very soon....)  afterall, I've never met the guy before, these are just first impressions afterall.....

....but, ignoring some of my background niggles concerning Mr Miliband, I just wasn't impressed. No real presence, very poor public speaker, was snappily dressed though and I'm sure his personal grooming was beyond reproach. Probably a big hit with the birds, particularly those with a a wavering voting arm.

Based soley on one mornings worth of observation, and no other experience whatsoever, I fail to see why David Miliband is considered 'ministerial quality'....unless Stock, Aitken & Waterman are now managing the PR for Labour Ministers.....

In summary of the two main characters:  Annie appeared to be better informed on the subject matter than Miliband, and also seemed better equipped to deliver, and discuss the salient points.

In mitigation for Miliband ?: He did offer the early excuse of 'I've only been in the job 9 weeks'. I was suprised, usually when a minister apologises, he, (or she), is about to resign 

Sadly, Miliband wasn't essential to the meeting at all, in fact he successfully managed to impede it's progress.

Would I buy a used car from David Miliband ?. No. Never buy a used car from a man who reminds you of a vicious rodent 

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The discussion group

Great fun, really enjoyed this part..... I obviously suffered an 'on the spot epithany' and realised how to make those  bastard developers finally give something back to the communities they so very often take more from than they ever give back....

I reckon, that wherever they, (The developers), are building medium to large scale housing/industrial developments....certainly large enough that they could quite reasonably be expected to make improvements/additions to the local infrastructure..... they should also be required to provide for a substantial, renewable and sustainable input to the local electricity grid.

Simplisticly put, a windmill for every village they build.....and every house in the village should be fitted with grey water bog flushes and have photo voltaics and solar panels (for pre-warming water in the hot tank) on the roof.

I also offered a couple of thoughts on our energy squandering habits, and how people might be encouraged to consider how, when and why they use their energy....but that's stuff for another thread in the Department of the Environment.....

Everyone on table 5 came up with some good suggestions, even clllr Barrie Thompson...(which suprised me greatly, as I'd kind of assumed anyone who so wholeheartedly and publicly supported the Identity Cards Act 2006 was either easily led or lacking in common sense......), came up with some good, common sense stuff.... (although he did completely blow it when he apparently asked David Miliband to help deregulate the planning and appeals process - I wonder why you so desperately want that to happen Barrie, eh?, eh?.  Chris Gale's mum/girlfriend/wife gave a good show, as did everybody really.

I won't attempt to recite other particpants contributions as I didn't take notes and I'm not usually in the habit of quoting others unless I can do so verbatim....

....but what would be really and completely excellent: would be if Jude Robinson, (nice to meet you btw  ), could perhaps invite some/many/all of the meetings participants onto talkswindon, to make this a truly rounded and well balanced discussion about the meeting, and also the important, (yes, I agree they are very important), topics that we were discussing, (all too briefly), at the meeting. Talkswindon is emminently suited to discussions such as these.

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But, (there's always a but, isn't there ?), during the discussion group phase, I found myself wondering why we were discussing topics taken directly from the Labour Election Manifesto for the 2005 General election.

Labour have already been elected on the strength of that manifesto, but now they want the gp to tell 'em how to do it ?, tell me if I'm missing something here..... (be warned though, you may need to explain it to me like I'm a two year old  :-[)

...or am I not missing anything at all, and my suspicion that the 'Lets Talk' initiative is designed to give the Constituency Labour Party members the perception that they are involved, (as Tony would say), " In a very real sense" in the process of deciding Govermental policy on the really big, really important stuff.

Hmmmmm, Tony Blair, a self important, authoritarian 'I Know Best' egomaniac, letting the little people set policy ?.

I think not somehow.


It was interesting, kind of fun, ( in a 'lets see if we can spot the parlour trick' kind of way), but only time will tell whether there will be a real and productive end result.






Now, when are the Conservatives hosting a similar do ?, will I get an invite, and will there be any bloody coffee, sandwiches and cake at their bash ?

 

all I can add is some 'stuff' from discussion group number 5.

I thought group 5 was the one I was in? Sorry, I'm splitting hairs 

Obviously David Miliband might be a fantastic guy, (who's mate, Alan Donnelly, just happens to both chair Mr Miliband local constituency party....and  be a professional lobbyist with a company called 'Sovereign Strategy', who just happen to represent the US multinational Fluor, one of the world’s biggest nuclear companies, who just happen to be hoping to win a stake in the £70 billion British nuclear waste market sometime very soon....)  afterall, I've never met the guy before, these are just first impressions afterall.....

... would go a long way towards explaning the government's recent enthusiasm for nuclear power, but can you provide any sources for this information?

I reckon, that wherever they, (The developers), are building medium to large scale housing/industrial developments....certainly large enough that they could quite reasonably be expected to make improvements/additions to the local infrastructure..... they should also be required to provide for a substantial, renewable and sustainable input to the local electricity grid.

Simplisticly put, a windmill for every village they build.....and every house in the village should be fitted with grey water bog flushes and have photo voltaics and solar panels (for pre-warming water in the hot tank) on the roof.

I completely agree with the sentiment here, although as always, the devil is in the detail. I'd add double glazing, cavity wall & loft insulation and water butts pre-installed as requirements for every new house.

Quote from: Geoff Reid on July 19, 2006, 12:02:49 AM

.....I had a long overdue, but very enjoyable, meeting at a secret Wiltshire location* yesterday evening

* and it's staying secret.....until it is a secret no longer 

Some kind of nodding and winking going on here?

Perhaps your assignation was with Ms Snelgrove - to make up for the missed 10 minute chat?

Thought those intersted may want to have a look at David Miliband's speech yesterday (19 July) with some ideas about personal carbon allowances.

http://www.defra.gov.uk/corporate/ministers/speeches/david-miliband/dm060719.htm

I hope the link works - I'm sure someone will let me know if it doesn't!

Cheers, Jude.

A thought for both David and Simon 

How's about something more radical on the carbon front Simon? Rather than CO2 gas storage (with its associated logical problems), why not take a product derrived from a naturally occuring high-carbon content substance like wood - say paper? Lets drop the nonsensical obsession with paper recylcing (This only makes the paper moguls rich - all paper sourced in the western world comes from managed forrestry. Recycling paper takes just as much energy in the pulping and bleaching process, so 'reclying' paper is cod green science in the main part, as the only benefit is a small reduction in landfill. The misguided and inaccurate supposed benefit most people think is being derrived is 'saving a tree', sadly)

Paper, as long as its not rotting away in a landfill is pretty inert. Lets just bury our waste paper deep down where this CO2 would be being stored?

Hi simon.

This comment caught my eye:

I gather there are gadgets available for compressing newspaper into fuel bricks, although I can't do this as I don't have a suitable fireplace to burn it in.

Do you have any idea where I can find info on these gadgets?  I know 3 people with coal fires that this will be ideal for, and I would rather do that than put the paper into my orange box to be taken away to god knows where.

Also does anyone have any info on grey water collection for a downstairs bathroom?  We are about to move and the new house has a downstairs bathroom, so the cheaper options for collection are now no longer viable.

Thanks