The Labour's Manifesto of my Dreams.

I haven't written for the last 18 months - illness, then post referendum blues and a real loss of vision about what it means to be a modern Briton. I have even asked 'do I want to be English'.  

However, our Supreme Leader May has now called a snap election, despite promising that there would not be one. 

And, as a Labour party member I have had an email asking me to say what I would like to see in Labour's Manifesto. 

My first question is: Do I want a change of Government? YES, I DO. 

We have now had 7 years of austerity.

What has it really been like?

Millions of us who work in the public sector have had annual pay rises of 1%, 1.5% below inflation rates, ensuring the value of our wages have fallen by over 10% in real purchasing terms. 

All our costs are rising. I could talk about the cost of having three children at University - but I'll just say this; 

Thank God we both have jobs, as £1000 a month leaves our wages and goes directly to ensuring our young adults at University can survive. The loans they get pay tuition fees, but they don't even cover the cost of the most basic student housing, never mind food, travel, books etc. Survival is the name of the game -  any drinking and partying money they have to earn themselves, usually in a zero hours minimum wage job.

And then our young adults will leave University with a £55,000 debt, as their older sister has already.

I find myself wondering if I did my children a real disservice by saying that if they worked hard, they could go to Uni and have real choices in their lives. I should have said: real debts in their lives. 

Do you remember David Cameron promising to control energy costs. 

Our energy bills continue to rise, despite gas and oil at their lowest market cost for 10 years. 

Now food bills are rising by 7% each year, because of the post-Brexit foreseeable fall in the value of the pound. 

Those of us who have a proper job are Mrs. May's 'just about managing' group, but sometimes it is only 'just'. 

What about Wages and YOUR JOB!!! 

Millions of workers now have 'improper' jobs in the 'Gig economy' in which they are classed as self-employed. They are without any right to sickness benefits, holiday pay, or controlled hours of work. 

For those without a job at all, life is a nightmare. Welfare benefits have not risen at all - in real terms they have fallen by 20% in purchasing value. House prices are beyond most people. If you don't already own a house, you have to wait for your parents to die! All tenancies are now short term and insecure. You work, and pay your rent, but can still be made homeless. The benefits are capped so if your rent goes up, you may find yourself being moved hundreds of miles away. The only housing you are offered is in a town with no jobs at all, (Stoke on Trent) 

The WELFARE CRISIS

There are those parts of the country, London primarily, where a minimum wage job cannot be made to work for you. The rent on the tiny room in the shared multi-occupancy house is £600 a month, so after bills are paid, what have you got left to purchase food with - zilch, unless you take on a second job. 

Do you remember Cameron's pledges for his big society, and his 'happiness; assessments. 

• By 2014, evidence showed that almost 10,000 disabled or ill people have died after being declared 'fit for work' in a workplace assessment;  2,500 have been refused ESA because they were 'fit for work', and 7,500 after being placed in the ‘other work’ related category in the work assessment programme. 
• By 2015, we had seen 1000 extra suicides and an additional 30-40,000 suicide attempts.  
• By 2017, the Trussell trust [which provides around half of the nation's food banks] gave out 1.2 million emergency 3 day food parcels, with half a million of those going to feed children. 

That is 50 times more food parcels than the 25,000 given out in 2008-09, an increase of 5,000% (per cent). 

But let's stop for a moment and think about poor Mr Cameron who lost his job when he walked away from no.10 last year. Well he can't be that broke, as he has just spent £25,000 on a garden shed. That is 5 times the annual income a job seeker receives. 

But , like his friend '5 jobs Osborne' who earned £700,000 in 2016, Cameron is also raking it in. Cameron earned £1million in his first 6 years in office - nice money if you can get it and I assume he actually saved some of that. Cameron will both now receive a £40,000 annual parliamentary pension despite being only 50, but sadly, unlike his mate George, David only makes £120,000 plus each time he gives a speech - nice money if you can get it. 

And then came Brexit, and it WILL only get worse. 

Our Supreme Leader May now insists that we vote for her proposed one party state as it is essential for our democratic future. She says she is going to be a strong, and steady hand controlling our departure from the EU  - despite the fact that she has known all along that Brexit will be a real economic disaster for the future of ordinary people in Britain.

So, yes I do want a REALLY NEW Government - and this is what would I really like in the Labour Manifesto: 

Labour will Be Bold and offer a Real Alternative for Britain, with an new, dynamic, socialist economic programme for the people.

PUBLIC STANDARDS

1. Political parties will be prosecuted under the rules for electoral fraud if during any election or referendum campaign if they promote, or otherwise condone, what they know to be, or should have known to be, lies, falsehoods, fraudulent statements, and untruths.

2. Individual Politicians who promote, or otherwise condone what they know to be, or should have known to be, lies, falsehoods, fraudulent statements, and untruths, when campaigning (for anything) will be prosecuted for fraud with a maximum Level 5 fine and barred from serving in government, and from taking a Public appointment for a minimum of 5 years.

EUROPE and BREXIT

In order to safeguard the wellbeing of the British people, their jobs, the economy, the Union, and UK business:

1. On winning the election, Labour commits the UK to remaining in the EU, or

2. Labour will 

• fight Brexit, and commit to returning to Europe as soon as possible,
• vote to stay in Europe if the Brexit deal isn't good enough,
• provide immediate protection to those EU citizens who live/ work or wish to come to the UK to live and work,
• protect the health, pension and welfare rights of British people living in Europe,
• vote to ensure an open border between Eire and Northern Ireland.

THE REFUGEE CRISIS

Labour will have 

• a refugee settlement programme, enforceable in the UK courts, for refugees from war, famine and persecution,
• commit the UK, as a country, to taking up to 12,000 refugees in the first year (1 for every 5,000 members of the population), and thereafter, 6,000 per year.
• commit 5% of International Aid to the resettlement of refugees in their home or other country,
• have a separate programme whereby all child refugees under the age of 18 who have family in the UK, will have a right to come here - and quickly,

CLIMATE CHANGE

Labour will 

• raise £1billion by increasing landfill taxation by 5p in the £, so enabling Labour to
• support business to ensure the UK meets its commitments and obligations under the Paris Climate Agreement, and
• commit to a 20 year programme of bringing renewable energy to all homes using subsidies and grants to support the introduction of ground heat pumps, home wind turbines, wave and solar power.

HEALTH and SOCIAL CARE

Labour will ring fence £20 billion of NI Payments for Health and Social Care Provision, so enabling Labour to commit to immediately

• fully funding the NHS with an additional £8billion by 2020,
• enforcing minimum waiting times in A & E, for cancer treatments, and for surgery
• extending health beds for emergency admissions by 10%, with an additional 10% of intensive care beds;
• enforcing EU working times for all Junior doctors;
• training an additional 1,000 junior doctors each year for 5 years
• placing nurse and supporting health professionals training back into a combined fully funded ward and university setting, with grant aided studentships.
• bringing social care provision under a new NHS ‘wing’, with ring fenced funded of 1% of National Insurance,  5% of council taxes, and 1% of VAT,

Labour will also

• require at least 4 years commitment to NHS employment from all who have benefitted from UK medical training, or former students will repay any bursary received..
• create a new two year apprenticeship programme for all new social care workers;

THE ECONOMY and BUSINESS

Labour will ensure the full taxation of the transactions of ‘offshore companies’ selling or otherwise trading in the UK, regardless of where a business says it is based,  and

Labour will raise the Business Tax levy by 1% every two years, to a maximum of 30% for businesses with profits (before dividends) of £1 million per year, and 35% for businesses with profits of over £3 million per year, so enabling Labour to commit to:

• prioritising business growth, but only where it increases the employment of UK residents and citizens, or benefits ordinary people in Britain, or another economy with similar employment welfare standards. 
• Increasing research funding, and bringing business to, the renewable power industry by committing to bringing renewables to all homes in Britain, so allowing the industry to become world leading

Labour will improve employment opportunities by

• creating an additional 100,000 apprenticeships in British businesses;
• allowing low cost visa controlled immigration, which includes, after 4 years, automatic settlement for employees from all industries where appropriately qualified UK based workers cannot be recruited.

HOUSING

Labour will raise £600 million each year by raising taxation on Share and Insurance Premiums by  £10p in the £, so enabling Labour to commit to

• funding an annual building programme of 50,000 affordable homes and 50,000 social rental homes, to be built on grey and brownfield sites, with a maximum of 10% will be 1 bedroomed homes, 20% two bedroom homes, with the remaining 70% being 3 bedroom homes, 
• with affordability of such homes to be based on a maximum purchase price for a 3 bedroom home of four times the regional average wage, and
• with all new builds, whether homes, commercial or industrial being environmentally sustainable buildings, with solar panels and heat exchangers or ground heat pumps.

National Building standards will require all new homes to be environmentally  and family friendly homes with controlled minimum room and external garden sizes, and parking provision. 10% will be accessible homes for people with disabilities.

Labour will release 2000 acres of grey and brownfield land at no cost, for 10,000 self builders of eco-homes, each year of our government

Labour will introduce a National Standards Building force, of current and prospective house builders, committed to meet the above standards, to be controlled through local Building standards committees.

Labour will facilitate the introduction of minimum housing standards for ALL rental property, enforced by fines, and ultimately, prosecution of a criminal offence.

Labour will ‘tax to end’ the scandal of ‘buying to let’ former social housing.

Labour commits to:

• a 5 years programme of  repurchasing former social housing from buy to let landlords at current market value minus the cost of renovating the property to meet the new national building standards.
• Immediately ending the Bedroom Tax.
• Introducing a local Rent Tribunal & Rent control system for the Private sector based on the living wage and the property condition.
• Landlords of properties will be able to request an assessment to fix the rental rate for 3 years.
• Tenants will be able to request a Rent assessment and be protected from eviction during the period of any such tribunal and assessment, and at least 12 months after the completion of an assessment, provided the assessment was not requested solely with the intention of protecting the tenancy.

Labour will introduce Assured Guaranteed Tenancies (AGT’s) of at least 5 years, with 6 months’ notice before eviction can be sought.

• Current Assured Shorthold tenancies (AST’s) to be withdrawn immediately, and automatically converted to an AGT, unless the landlord was living in the property prior to and at the date of the withdrawal of AST’s.

Labour will introduce legislation to make all buildings to which employees or the public have access, fully accessible including a commitment to accessible bathrooms by 2025. This requirement to be enforced through building standards.

• Property owners of exceptional ancient or historic buildings will be able to seek exemption. If successful, notification of lack of access is to be advertised outside of the building.

EMPLOYMENT

Labour is committed to fair work, at a fair pay, for all, and Labour will:

• ban zero hour contracts,
• raise the minimum wage to the Living wage rate, and will include a living wage for all young workers from the age of 18
• enforce employment rights within the ‘gig’ economy, including maximum hours, minimum wage, holidays, compulsory employers and employees national insurance, and pensions.
• ban businesses from burdening the social security budget by offering only part time work, when full time work could be made available e.g. retailers offering employment only of less than 16 hours at minimum wage rate, employers offering posts of less than full time, employers only offering falsely described ‘self employment’.
• enforce a minimum and maximum working hours agreement for all employees.
• ensure full employment by removing from businesses their ability to supplement minimum wages through overtime or tax credits, by banning the use of ‘normal’ overtime and enforcing the living wage for all.

EDUCATION

Labour will raise £1 billion per annum, by raising VAT by 1p in the £, so enabling Labour to

• bring all funded schools back under the control of the Local Education Authority,
• introduce a schools renovation programme, to ensure all schools meet new buildings standards, and education provision standards,
• revisit the national curriculum, bringing in compulsory  education in European Language, Civil Society, Personal sex education (from the age of 10), and critical and transferable skills based learning into the education of all children from junior school age
• end the scandal of the national baccalaureate, reintroducing variety into GCSE ad A’Level courses
• revisit primary education, creating a new ‘kindergarten education’ for children from the age of three, allowing for entry into primary education between the ages of 4 and 8 depending upon the child’s physical and mental development;
• build upon the expertise and experience from countries such as Finland and Germany, and recognising variable age literacy and numeracy education, the kindergarten system will ensure that all children will leave primary education, being able to read and having basic numeracy.
• require grammar and other secondary schools based upon selection to either join the funded comprehensive education system, or become privately funded schools;
• ensure real social mobility in business, and public appointments, by requiring the privately funded secondary schools to provide 50% of all places through a newly created subsidised direct grant system available to local children who meet the public school’s entry requirements. Fees to be met by Government at normal schools rates and subsidised to full fee cost by the private schools’ charitable endowments,

Labour will raise £10 billion by scrapping Trident, and all other nuclear armaments, and £1 billion by encouraging overseas students for UK Universities by ending the high cost student visa fee, so enabling it to:

• reintroduce national University funding and individual living grants, and end university fees, including all fees owing. There will be repayment of fees paid through beneficial taxation.
• ensure research council funding of £1.5billion per annum, whether through re-entry into the EU, or otherwise,

TRANSPORT

Labour will increase vehicle tax by 1p in the £, so raising £300 million, enabling Labour to:

• remove annual car mileage from the roads, by supporting Local, Regional and City authorities to bring back subsidised local transport via environmentally friendly schemes, for all
• support, and subsidise the construction, and purchase, of UK electric cars and other vehicles
• plant a publicly accessible forest of carbon reducing trees, at the rate of one for each vehicle on the roads.
• Labour will make road safety a priority and will
• increase maximum penalties for causing death by dangerous driving an offence up to imprisonment for life.
• increase penalties for driving without insurance, a licence, or a properly registered and taxed vehicle

TAXATION

Labour will raise £3billion for the NHS by increasing higher rate taxes:

• for the super-rich (over £150,000 per annum) to 50%,
• for the rich (over £70,000 per annum) to 44%,
• for the better off (currently over £45,000) to 42%
• for those on their regional living wage, basic rate tax will rise by 1p in the £ to 21%

During its government, Labour will not raise the current personal allowance, so facilitating the move of more workers into direct and personal investment in the country, and thus encouraging public participation in civil and political society

DEFENCE

Labour will end our participation in the nuclear arms race, this will enable the UK to

• meet the costs of ending student fees and loans for Higher education
• meet the 2% of GDP investment in ground, sea and air forces committed to NATO
• create a new peace centre, in Bradford, providing national and international expertise, and a permanent home for international conferences and debates relating to peace requirements anywhere in the world,
• create a research and practice based legal unit, to directly engage in talks with the parties threatening  the stability of ordinary lives in any region of the world

EQUALITY

Labour will bringing into effect clause 2 of the Equality Act 2010, and provide a further £20 million for the Equality and Human Rights Commission, whose duties will then include enforcing new equality targets including

• All public transport being made full accessible, including toilet facilities for train journeys of over 60 minutes, and bus journeys of over 3 hours.
• Introducing Caste as a protected category in the Act
• Minimum targets of 12% for employment rates of people with disabilities in all businesses and other types of employment, where there are more than 20 employees,
• All workers and employees investing in a pension scheme so as to ensure a better old age for all
• Introducing into the national curriculum of primary, junior and high school, compulsory education which includes an understanding of equality, anti-discrimination law, to support all children of difference
• Removing court fees for the unemployed in the Employment Tribunals and for those on welfare benefits in the Divorce Courts.
• Introducing standard national quotas for disabled, BME, LGBT and female court judges at all levels of the UK courts

SOCIAL WELFARE

Labour will enhance the non-pension related social welfare budget by £400 million by adding 2p in the £ to alcoholic drink taxation. This will allow Labour to immediately:

• reintroduce ESA for the disabled
• retain the triple cap on pensions,
• ensure that no family on social welfare benefits ever has to seek support via a foodbank – one of this country’s national scandals  
• remove the Benefits cap of £23,000 for households in London, and just £20,000 for those
• reintroduce housing benefit payments to those aged under 21

SOCIAL JUSTICE

Labour will add £40 million to the annual Legal Aid budget, £20 million by raising £100 million over the life time of the Government through extending the system for obtaining control of assets gained through criminal activity, and £20 million by raising Capital Gains Tax by 5p in the £. This will allow Labour to

• maximise social justice funding by increasing access to Legal Aid
• Reintroduce the publicly funded lawyer for all defendants in criminal cases.
• Labour will further extend social justice by introduce a system whereby non-practicing Barristers, solicitors, or academic lawyers, can be employed at all levels of the Court system.

________________________________________

I doubt I will see much of this in Labour's manifesto, but I truly believe we need to see something really different this time, something that could truly enhance the wellbeing of all in the country. Only then could we actually contribute to solving the problems of the rest of the world. If we do not act, then one day those problems WILL become our problems. 

Trans People are Still Frightening some Parts of the Nation.

Under the Headline "Fast-track transgender teachers for a £30,000 grant, school heads told" (Monday 7^th December 2015) in today's Telegraph, we are told that Schools are being offered £30,000 extra funding to hire and promote gay and transgender teachers.

It is clarified later in the article that "Schools can get a grant of up to £30,000 per project to provide training to existing teachers or recruit new staff to plug gaps in diversity, such as low number of gay or older teachers or staff with children. The fund encourages applications on the basis of so-called protected characteristics, defined by the Equality Act in 2010."

So in other words Schools don't have to promote Trans people to get the £30k; they have to become more diverse in their staffing to get £30k.

Why Headline Trans Teachers when it is really about Diversity?

The Telegraph (and I am sure the Mail tomorrow) singled out trans people, primarily because for their constituent reader group we are are still terrifying.

It is only 16 years ago that in the 1998 Consultation on the Sex Discrimination (Gender Reassignment) Regulations 1999, the (then Labour) government sought the public's

“views on whether there should be a specific exception (to the employment of Trans people) for jobs which involve working with children. If so should all children be regarded as vulnerable up until 18 … or is this unnecessarily restrictive? Information would be helpful about the merits of (i) a comprehensive approach permitting discrimination against transsexuals for all jobs in schools, and for any work involving substantial contact with children under age 18, during the gender re-assignment process plus one year, ... or  (ii) a narrower approach which allowed employers to exclude transsexuals from work bringing them in contact with children regarding changing facilities (e.g. swimming trips) and sleeping accommodation (e.g. boarding schools) during the gender re- assignment process…)."

In those pre-social media days, PFC was given less than 3 weeks to respond to the consultation. The kitchen table was turned into a mail room, with our kids and their friends paid a fiver each to pack envelopes as we endeavoured to quickly inform the trans community of the proposals so that they could respond to the Consultation. Ultimately, over 800 trans people and friends did respond pointing out, amongst other things,that the proposals would ultimately lead to the dismissal of many teachers, nurses, and doctors who were trans and already satisfactorily doing this work with children and vulnerable people. 

Thankfully the proposals were watered down, but less than a year later we had to support a trans woman at an employment tribunal. A social carer fought to keep a her job attending to a disabled young person - a job which she had been already doing satisfactorily for more than a year (DA-v-Suffolk County Council (Employment Tribunal, Nov 1999). The young person, and their parents knew about her transition. Thankfully they were more than happy to attend court and state that they were extremely happy with the service she provided and wished it to continue. Fortunately, her local authority employer did not succeed - but their assumption all along had been that the family would prefer not to have a trans woman as a carer.

It is a frequent assumption - usually by middle-managers who are primarily concerned with what the customer, client, patient, student, etc. will think. They never actually ask the customer, client, patient, student., etc what they think. Instead they assume that 'of course' they will not wish to receive a service from a trans person. Sadly in many quarters, the 19650s-1970s attitude that trans people are mentally unstable, sexual perverts, whose very presence will harm children and the vulnerable still persists. 

The truth is that we are still the people that Telegraph Readers think will harm the kids.

What is it like to have other people being frightened of you? 

It is grim.

I had always wanted to teach, but had left teacher training college in 1973 because I knew I needed to transition if I hoped to live. Eight years later, with several years of experience as a TEFL teacher, I applied again. The doctor who undertook the medicals for prospective teachers took one look at my history and said

"absolutely no way - YOU People (I used to hate the way they said that) cannot possibly imagine you could be let near other people's children".

Ten years later, in 1991, when my partner and I wanted to try for a family, we knew that no adoption agency would even look at any application of ours, so instead we hoped to obtain donor insemination through a licensed fertility clinic. I won’t bore you with the whole story (and it went on and on and on ….) but eventually we reached a clinic with a visionary clinician. He was all for it, but he did have to have the matter put before the clinic’s Ethics committee. The committee decided (and I am paraphrasing here) that my partner (now wife) Sarah could never be a good enough woman to be allowed to become a mother whilst she was in love with someone like me.
  

My anger knew no bounds. It was then that I realised why I had spent 5 years taking a part-time law degree; to fight that sort of injustice.

We challenged the clinic, and of course they backed down rather than have a precedent set in court, and we were then lucky enough to have the opportunities and adventures that come with raising four amazing, well balanced, carefree, children – whom we are often told are a credit to us.

I had been a scout leader and group scout leader for 10 years, but in 1992, just after our daughter was born and just before I came out (in the full ‘public glare’ sense) I resigned, knowing that the Scout Association would have felt it had no choice but to dismiss me. However, one former scout very kindly wrote to say that it didn't matter one jot and he thanked me for being the very best scout leader he and his mates could have ever had. He was right of course; I was the best scout leader they could have had – not least because I knew all that campfire training in the Girl Guides had to be put to some good use, one day. 

At the time I also gave up a post I had held every summer for 8 years, as head of a language school – again knowing that the Company of which our centre was a part, would have felt they would have no choice but to dismiss me.

And so it went on. In 2001, the parents of our daughter’s best friend rang up. The mother said she was extremely concerned to have discovered my background – and as her daughter regularly came to stay with us and they were 'naturally' concerned. I listened carefully to what she had to say and then replied;

“Yes, I really do understand how very difficult it must be for you and that you do have concerns. I must say I had very much the same reaction and level of concern when I discovered that you and your husband are ‘born again’ Christians.”

It was one of my wittier moments, and I will give Debbie her due - she roared with laughter and replied “touché”. We have been very good friends ever since, much as our daughters have remained friends despite moving to different parts of the country and moving into very different lives.

Is this Fear Real?

Yes it is. But it isn't a real fear.

In 2005, when the Gender Recognition Act 2004 was in the process of being developed, the government held a private and limited consultation with both the Anglican Church and Press for Change. PFC stuck by the rules and we responded without seeking further consultation with the trans community. We had however been naïve. The Anglican Church had forwarded the consultation to all of its ministers, and consequently over 800 of them responded to the Government. That consultation resulted in the religious exemptions in the The Gender Recognition (Disclosure of Information) (England, Wales and Northern Ireland) (No. 2) Order 2005 which allow church ministers to grass on transsexual people, so as to ensure nobody accidentally conducts a marriage in an Anglican church of two people, one of whom is trans. I have copies of the responses made by Church Ministers to that consultation, and have gone through them all. 21% of them mentioned their concerns for the safety of the children in their churches if they were not allowed to discriminate against trans people. That was just ten years ago.

For some people, Trans people are still very frightening – mostly I suspect because they don’t know any of us, or rather they don’t know whether or not they know any of us. Partly that is our own fault; if we all came out, on mass, then they would certainly know that they knew at least one of us, possibly many more. 

Having now taught at a University for over twenty years, I know that by always being out as a trans man, I have personally ensured that thousands of my former students; young lawyers, HR managers, senior civil servants, judges etc. know that we really, really, are not at all frightening.  

Having said that, however, I still think we have a right to our privacy.

Some years ago, on her retirement, our friend Carol, who had been a primary school teacher for our each one of our four children came to visit. She said, she had something very important to say to Sarah and me. This is what she told us; Apparently, when she had been told that the children of a woman living with a transsexual were joining the school, she was sure she would meet 4 very damaged children. But, she wanted to tell us that having known our children and us, she now wished every child in that school could have had parents as thoughtful as Sarah and myself, in fact she wished every child in the school could have actually had Sarah and me as their parents.

It was the best thing that anyone I think has probably ever said to us. A vindication of the commitment we made to be truthful, fair, and considerate of our children as beings independent from ourselves. Carol had exonerated us of the guilt we had from daring to be so selfish as to want to have children and raise them.

And what has become of those children about whom everyone felt great concern because of me? In February, we as their parents will be bereft as all four of them will be in different continents, not one of them even in Europe. Our eldest daughter is going to teach and continue her own music in China, whilst our son is in Canada at University for a year, playing his cello with a local symphony orchestra and his trombone in a jazz ensemble. One of our twin daughters is in Australia picking oranges amongst other jobs on a gap year before going to University, and her sister is heading out to South and Central America to improve her Spanish and work on conservation projects before she also goes to University. 

As for us, we will be desperately waiting for next July when these wonderful young people will come home for a short while before the next series of adventures start. I am, of course, and rightly so, very proud of our kids – they are true contemporary world citizens, each with a strong conscience, an actioned environmental awareness, a tolerance which also means they do not judge others, a cleverness which they don’t flaunt, and a depth of understanding of what it is like to be comfortable in their own skin, which somebody like me could only dream of at their age.

These are the children people least needed to be worried about, because they were always truly wanted and will always be loved. As their parents we knew how privileged we were to be given the responsibility and role of helping them grow into themselves. But all we had to do, when we could stay awake, was tell them we loved them, often, and be true to them. Subsequently, we have been rewarded with children whom we now know as our friends. 

They are people of whom it will never be said that they are a waste of the world’s oxygen. 

URGENT - Respond to the Fracking Consultation

URGENT ACT NOW 

STOP this Government Fast Tracking a ‘free for all Fracking boom’.

The Conservative government is trying to fast-track fracking. 

The changes, which have been VERY QUIETLY put out to public consultation, mean the advice of local residents would no longer be sought in the early stages of most new oil and gas developments. 

This is the eleventh consultation on such Draft Rules - just ask yourself, did you hear about the other consultations?

The proposal would allow 

"An operator who wishes to carry out a particular activity can look at the standard rules and, if they can comply with them, they may decide to apply for a standard permit. We are able to issue the permit more quickly and more cheaply because we have no decisions to make on site-specific permit conditions and therefore do not consult on them." 

Basically, the Government is attempting to fast-track fracking by doing away with the need for the public to be consulted before test drilling goes ahead. They want fossil fuel energy companies to be able to do test drilling *without* consulting local people first. 

Governments can ‘get away' with doing things we won’t like, by keeping consultations quiet and then rushing through regulatory changes which are never discussed in Parliament.

Go to the Consultation and Draft rules.

You have ONLY got until Monday 15th June 2015 to respond to the government consultation. 

Below is the letter I have sent – you can send something much shorter – and there is a suggested text on the 38 Degrees automated email page.

But, PLEASE TRY AND PERSONALISE your comments a little, or like a ‘postcard’ campaign, they will ignore your response.  Personalise it and they cannot ignore you.

The consultation is only open for two more days. Let’s flood it with objections. 

“Dear Sirs
As a responsible government, I trust that you will reconsider the proposal to change the way that permits to carry out test fracking are granted.

Texas: Before and After Fracking

Prior to becoming a legal academic, my first degree was in Geography.  In 1977, at University, we were discussing the desperate need to stop burning fossil fuels. The more we continue to burn, the closer the Doomsday clock will become to midnight. As a father, and hopefully one day a grandfather, I want my children and grandchildren to have a life of quality, not one approaching the apocalyptic images Hollywood delights in scaring us with. 

Fracking Wells in the Texas Landscape

I have seen the devastation that fracking has brought to the land in parts of Texas which now look like those post-apocalyptic visions. But other consequences are also quite astonishing. For example, since 2008 when fracking commenced, motor fatalities I Texas have bucked the national trend, and increased to now being the highest in the US. 51% of the accidents with fatalities involved commercial vehicles. Around some fracking sites, fatalities have more than quadrupled since 2004 — a period when most American roads have become much safer even as the population has grown. Analyses as to the reason for this show it requires 2,300 to 4,000 lorry trips per well to deliver the mixtures of water, sand, gravel and the over 700 different chemicals used in the fracking process. Older drilling techniques needed one-third to one-half as many trips. 

Close up of  a Fracking site in California

In the US, by mid 2014, researchers found there have been over 1,000 different cases of water contamination near fracking sites. In 2013, researchers from the University of Texas last year found levels of arsenic in groundwater near fracking sites, were on average, 18 times higher than in areas without fracking.
In New York state, scientists from the Department of Environmental Conservation analysed 13 samples of waste water and found "levels of radium-226, a derivative of uranium, as high as 267 times the limit safe for discharge into the environment and thousands of times the limit safe for people to drink". SAs I am sure you know, current sewage treatment plants are incapable of removing radioactive materials from waste water which is then discharged into rivers, which often then become part of the drinking water cycle.

The View out of the Window of a Texas Home

Fracking also pollutes air quality: in 2013 the American Environmental Protection Agency released a report which stated that the fracking industry emits “emits "large amounts of harmful pollutants that impact air quality on local, regional, and global levels”. Many of the chemicals used in fracking are potentially carcinogenic, and Air- borne toxic chemicals are considered extremely dangerous as they can cause cancer, harm the heart, and damage the lungs and eyes.

Furthermore, in Wyoming, for example, over 1,200 wells have been abandoned by companies which, having made huge profits during the lifetime of the wells, are now seeking bankruptcy so as to avoid the costs of cleaning up the well sites. 

Economist Max Keiser refers to fracking as ‘suicide economics’. Until we are 100% certain that fracking in the UK is going to be able to be regulated so that it is done in a way which does not pose a danger to the safety of local residents or their drinking water, or the air they breathe, or the land that will one day be returned to farming, every ‘automated’ approval is another twist in the hangman’s knot we appear to be tying for our children. 

As a responsible government, I trust that you will reconsider the proposal, in particular the changes that take away the limited safeguards local populations currently have. Recognising the austerity framework, we cannot however afford the sort of suicide economics that have seen the fracking industry devastate large areas within the USA. 

Please consider committing funding to ensure more independent ‘before the event’ scientific evaluation into:

1. safer ways of fracking, 
2. alternatives to fracking, 
3. the impact fracking will have on the government’s commitments to rein in fossil fuel burning, and what it will mean for our climate change targets

Finally, applications by energy companies to carry out fracking tests must be assessed on a case-by-case basis. The concerns of local people must be listened to as part of this process and the views of scientists and experts in climate change, must be weighted heavily in any debate with those who support fracking. 
Fracking is a short term industry, creating huge profits for its investors. Climate change will see the long term devastation which our grandchildren will have to live with, no – which they will have to try and survive in. 
Yours etc.