Our streets should belong to people first, vehicles second
Jenny has worked to make safe space for walking and cycling, to improve public transport and to reduce traffic levels
Read on for her latest posts on this topic
These national policy statements were Labour’s idea – and they are a really good idea. To make them work, we have to make sure that the Treasury listens and that the next Government get the funding to deliver real change. We need to imagine a future that is better than what we have now and spend the money building that future
Continue reading “National Networks National Policy Statement – a message to Labour”
On 5th March Biofuelwatch and the Stop Burning Trees Coalition held an emergency demo outside the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy in response to the Government’s proposal to offer billions more in new ‘transitional’ subsidies for unabated wood biomass burning. This goes back on previously government policy to stop all subsidies for unabated biomass burning in 2027. The only two power stations eligible for these subsidies are Drax (the UK’s biggest carbon emitter) and Lynemouth. These subsidies have no clear end date in sight, so if approved, could lock us into decades more of forest destruction, pollution of communities and carbon emissions. We called on DESNZ to scrap these plans to keep funding tree burning, and invest in genuine renewables and climate action.
Lord Berkeley asked HMG what assessment they had made of reports alleging that HS2 Ltd did not disclose accurate cost estimates for the project and the Sunday Times offered a helpful list of what that £100 billion could have been spent on, including 270,000 nurses, 1 million council homes, 200 hospitals or 10,000 schools. I asked: Have this Government looted the public purse for so long—13 years—that they do not understand how important it is to keep track of this sort of alleged corruption?
Our Westminster representatives won two of the six Nature 2030 Political Purpose Awards: Jenny won the 2023 Pollution, Waste & Air award and Caroline Lucas MP won the Lifetime Achievement award at the inaugural Political Purpose Awards held at the House of Lords on 20th September.
Continue reading “Green Party recognised at Nature 2030 Political Purpose Awards”
Jenny yesterday introduced Natalie’s aviation amendment to the Levelling Up Bill: the amendment proposed a review to examine the costs and benefits of planned expansion of the UK air transport sector and was based on a report from the New Economics Foundation entitled Losing Altitude: The Economics of Air Transport in Great Britain Continue reading “Aviation”
Jenny’s long standing campaign to stop incineration and raise the alarm over CO2 emissions and local air pollution has been joined by Greenpeace. They have teamed up with Exinction rebellion and UK Without Incinerators to deleiver a 10 point action plan to the PM for a swift shift to a circular economy.
Noting social justice concerns, the action plan stresses that better measures to curb pollution from incinerators are urgently required. It points out that incinerators are “imposed on communities against their will, harming their air quality without their consent” and that these plants “are more likely to be built in poorer areas and in areas with higher racial and ethnic diversity”. Greenpeace data has shown that UK waste incinerators are three times as likely to be located in deprived areas.
Jenny met them at the Big One weekend of protests in London, saying that “Everyone deserves clean air”
A key green party demand is to stop more incinerators being built and for councils to withdraw from the long term contracts that have such a negative impact on recycling rates.
On Friday Jenny went with Caroline Lucas MP and Ella’s mother, Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah to 10 Downing Street to deliver a letter to the PM – urging him to take up #EllasLaw and to make clean air a human right for all. The longer it takes him & his Govt to clean up our dirty, toxic air, the more lives will be put at risk – they *must* support this Bill.
The 2nd reading of Ella’s Law (Clean Air Bill) in the Commons is scheduled for 24th March.
Caroline has an Early Day Motion (EDM) in support of the right to breathe clean air, has your MP signed in support of the EDM yet? Please email your MP and ask them to sign Caroline’s Clean Air EDM
I signed this open letter today:
Rt Hon Mark Harper MP and Rt Hon Thérèse Coffey MP
Dear Secretaries of State,
An urgent call to address new evidence of ecological assessment errors by HS2 Ltd
We write collectively to bring a new report to your attention which shows that the environmental cost of HS2 is far higher, and more serious, than HS2 Ltd has claimed. Continue reading “Open Letter from the Wildlife Trusts on HS2”
