Loopholes wide enough to 'drive a diesel truck through' -- how to tell if a business is really net zero


Ian Thomson, 

Director of the Centre for Responsible Business, 

University of Birmingham
The Conversation

Tue, 7 February 2023 

The science is clear: greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions must peak before 2025 to prevent planetary warming exceeding 1.5℃. The solution is simple: stop doing and investing in things that emit GHGs and instead protect the natural systems that remove them from the atmosphere.

Disclosure of a company’s emissions should then let consumers and investors make informed decisions. But businesses are rarely required to disclose all of the emissions generated in their full “lifecycle”.

For example, the UK’s Cumbria coal mine, which was approved in December, will produce 2.8 million tonnes of coking coal each year for the steelmaking industry without accounting for the emissions produced when this coal is burned. These emissions instead represent the responsibility of the steel industry.

The Cumbria coal mine has made no claims regarding net zero. But other fossil fuel companies have used this reporting ambiguity to claim they are on target to becoming net zero despite the use of their products being responsible for almost three-quarters of global GHG emissions. Consumers or investors will then probably make decisions that result in emissions being generated at unsustainable levels. Since joining the United Nations (UN) Net Zero Banking Alliance, 56 banks have provided US$270 billion (£221 billion) worth of finance to fossil fuel companies.

But the actions of the UK government and several large businesses offer promise. The government now requires firms competing for major government contracts to report their full lifecycle emissions.

Read more: Exxon scientists accurately forecast climate change back in the 1970s – what if we had listened to them and acted then?
Understanding this absurdity

An organisation’s climate impact can be made immediately clear by separating their GHG emissions into four groups or scopes.

Scope 1 refers to GHG emissions generated directly by business activities up to point of sale. Scope 2 refers to the emissions related to the generation of the energy purchased by a business. The emissions generated in the production and delivery of a business’s resources are called scope 3 upstream, and scope 3 downstream accounts for all emissions after a product or service has been sold.

Current guidance only requires a business, like the operator of the Cumbrian coke mine, to report their scope 1 and 2 emissions. Yet a report conducted in 2020 by global management consultant McKinsey found that these emissions only account for between 14% and 25% of the coal sector’s total emissions. The majority of the GHG emissions associated with coal mining are therefore not disclosed.

The majority of the emissions associated with a coal mine are not disclosed. 

Sergey Borisov_88/Shutterstock

Calculating scope 3 emissions

But these emissions are essential for determining the carbon footprint of an organisation and are relatively straight forward to calculate.

The UN has published a standard called the Greenhouse Gas Protocol that details how to calculate scope 3 emissions. And most of the goods, services, materials and equipment used by businesses have readily available GHG conversion factors.

These factors allow us to convert activities like driving into their associated GHG emissions. The GHG conversion factor for driving the average car for a kilometre is 0.171 kg of CO₂e. By driving a car 100 km, we would emit 171 kg of CO₂e.

In the case of burning coking coal, we can rely on the laws of physics and chemistry. Burning coal involves a combustion process where the carbon in the coal reacts with oxygen to produce CO₂. Using the government’s GHG conversion factors, we know that burning a tonne of coking coal produces 3.14 tonnes of CO₂, regardless of what you use it for or where it is used.

By multiplying this conversion factor by the total amount of coking coal extracted from the Cumbria plant (2.8 million tonnes), we obtain a reliable measure of the emissions generated by burning the plant’s coal – 8.8 million tonnes of CO₂. Roughly the same amount of emissions would be produced by driving a car 1.3 million times around the Earth. These are scope 3 emissions that are largely ignored when determining whether a coal mine is net zero.

Applying this in practise

Companies are best placed to estimate the future GHG emissions that arise from the use of their products. Car manufacturers, for example, have the data necessary to predict the future emissions generated by their vehicles. They know the expected lifetime mileage of their models sold and the fuel type that their vehicles use.

Some organisations already calculate their scope 3 emissions and provide this information willingly. Microsoft have a tool that measures the GHG emissions of your cloud software that runs off the internet usage and estimates the emissions avoided by using the cloud. And global chemical producer BASF publish publicly available information on the GHG emissions associated with their products along their full lifecycle.

This should allow consumers and investors to make more informed decisions.

The future emissions of other activities, such as land use change, are more difficult to measure. Yet from 2010 to 2019, deforestation is estimated to have caused between 5.9 and 9.5% of total GHG emissions. Initiatives like the UN Land Sector and Removals Guidance, which is set for publication in 2023, will produce GHG conversion factors for land use change and will enable a more accurate evaluation of the climate impact of these activities.

At the latest UN climate change summit (COP27), Secretary-General António Guterres criticised the current criteria for net zero commitments for having loopholes wide enough to “drive a diesel truck through”. Measuring scope 3 emissions is crucial to accurately assess how far an organisation is progressing towards net zero. To prevent climate breakdown, more businesses must be required to disclose what many of them already know.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Ian Thomson receives funding from Research England and G17Eco for projects related to climate accounting and finance as part of University of Birmingham's Centre for Responsible Business. He is affiliated with the Centre for Social and Environmental Accounting Research, an academic network focussing on sustainability related accountability and a member of the West Midlands Leadership Board of Business in the Community.

UK

As the detective who inspired TV’s Prime Suspect, I know this: the misogyny of David Carrick lives on

Jackie Malton
Tue, 7 February 2023 

Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

We have now heard for the first time from David Carrick’s victims – the women a serving Met police officer raped, controlled, threatened and abused. Their victim statements, read out by prosecutor Tom Little during Carrick’s sentencing hearing on Monday, painted a picture of terror, violence and control; of being made to feel “worthless”, “degraded”, “ashamed”, “like a piece of dirt on his shoe”.

I hope that Carrick’s sentencing for his 49 offences will bring some sense of closure to his victims. But it should offer no sense of an ending to the Metropolitan police. Because a running thread in the victims’ statements was Carrick’s job. He was not just a police officer who happened to be a rapist – he used his badge, his status, and even his police firearm to threaten and coerce women. “Every time I see a police car,” one victim said, “I freeze and hold my breath.” The Met failed to properly vet Carrick, and failed to take action following eight complaints about his conduct with women.

More than 30 years ago, I voiced my own experiences as a female detective chief inspector (DCI) to the writer Lynda La Plante, to inform her groundbreaking TV drama, Prime Suspect, and its lead character, DCI Jane Tennison (played by Helen Mirren). I recounted the bigotry of an institution dominated by white men, and the impact it had on the way police forces investigated crimes, based on lazy assumptions about victims of sexual assaults and domestic violence. The show’s transmission led to a flurry of debate about the cult of masculinity within policing.

Helen Mirren in Prime Suspect. Photograph: ITV/Rex/Shutterstock


On some fronts, huge progress has been made since that time: I was one of only three female DCIs in the Met when I first began working as a consultant on Prime Suspect, and all chief constables in the country were male. Now, many of them are women. Yet despite the changed leadership profile and greater societal repudiation of discrimination, it appears that a toxic culture of misogyny and racism still pervades in some parts of the organisation. Collective jaws dropped to the floor in 2021 when the then serving officer Wayne Couzens was found to be the man responsible for the abduction, rape and murder of Sarah Everard. Then there was evidence of deeply disturbing misogynist and racist views in some pockets of the Met.

And there is clearly more bad news to come. The Met is in the process of reviewing 1,633 cases of domestic violence or sexual abuse, relating to accusations levelled against 1,071 officers and police staff over the last decade, to check the appropriate decisions were made. A new hotline for the public, set up by the Met, is generating new cases – some relating to police officers in other forces. Met commissioner Mark Rowley has already warned of “more painful stories” ahead.

When it comes to turning the culture around, it is vital that officers are able to speak up about concerns they may have about colleagues – yet this is difficult in a job where a strong team spirit is integral, and where any raising of issues risks being seen as “letting the side down”. I speak from experience. In the mid-1980s, I endured a harrowing year after reporting the concerns of “Stella”, a colleague who suspected someone higher up the ranks of wrongdoing. The officer in charge of our station was furious that I had reported it through the appropriate channels, rather than keeping it in-house. It wasn’t only his wrath that I had to contend with, but also that of colleagues.

Word soon got around that “Stella” and I had reported one of “our own”. A group of officers manifested their disgust by standing up and walking out when I went to get a cup of tea in the canteen. I was told of graffiti in the men’s toilets about my sexuality, and – in what seemed unlikely to be a coincidence – appalling porn was pushed through my letter box at home at midnight. “Stella” had it no easier, with excrement smeared on her car handle and her tyres deflated. When she moved on to a new station, she was told there was a “trust” issue as a result of her reporting on a senior colleague – even though she had been proved to be right. Should she ever need “urgent assistance” on the streets, she was told, none would be forthcoming.

Related: David Carrick sent victim photo of gun and told her: ‘I am the boss,’ court told

This occurred almost 40 years ago but it seems that on this front, not enough has changed, as an October 2022 interim report into the culture and standards at the Met by Louise Casey recently laid bare. “Too often”, said the report, people who had reported wrongdoing said that they found the system “stacked against them”. Many officers and staff said that they were made to feel as if they were the problem for speaking up. “We heard that supervisors and managers are actively dissuading their staff from reporting misconduct,” the report continued. A police officer has told Sky News that she, too, was raped by Carrick, but didn’t report it because it would have been “the end of my career”; that colleagues would have “laughed” in response.

After Casey’s report came out, Rowley vowed to root out racist and misogynist behaviour in the Met; leaders who turn a blind eye, he said, are “as guilty as the offender”. He is right. Ultimately, nothing will change until leaders right across the organisation make raising concern about colleagues a less punitive and lonely experience. Elsewhere, reviews triggered by ministers are under way around vetting, disciplinaries and dismissals.

All eyes are now on Rowley, with much at stake: without the public’s engagement, police officers will struggle to do their job, and our streets will be less safe. Added to that, we risk losing talented police officers who are fed up with being tarred with the same brush.

There’s no way round the fact that meaningful change in an organisation as vast as the Met will take time. Rowley has already warned that kicking out those not fit to wear the uniform won’t be a speedy affair, and it is likely to be a painful one too. To get on with the job, he needs to be free of the usual kneejerk expectation from politicians in search of quick results. Patience is the order of the day.

As told to Hélène Mulholland. Jackie Malton is a former senior police officer who inspired the character of DCI Jane Tennison in Prime Suspect. She is the author, with Hélène Mulholland, of The Real Prime Suspect: from the beat to the screen

Insulate Britain protester faces prison over contempt of court conviction

Damien Gayle

The Guardian
Mon, 6 February 2023

Photograph: Alicia Canter/The Guardian

A supporter of the Insulate Britain climate protest campaign faces a prison sentence after he was convicted for contempt of court for telling a jury his actions were motivated by the climate crisis.

David Nixon was one of four defendants found guilty at Inner London crown court on Monday for causing a public nuisance by blocking the junction of Bishopsgate and Wormwood St in the City of London on 25 October 2021.

The four were among a group of protesters who walked out into the busy junction during morning rush hour. Some used superglue to stick their hands to the asphalt to make it more difficult for police to clear the area.

The action was part of an extended campaign of disruptive protest by Insulate Britain, calling for the government to begin a programme to retrofit every single home in the country with insulation.

The judge, Silas Reid, told the defendants at the beginning of the trial last week not to cite climate change as one of their motivations for taking part in the protest.

But as closing speeches were made in court on Monday, Nixon turned to the jury and, in reference to evidence that an estimated 8,500 bus passengers’ journeys were affected by their protest, said: “Coincidentally, 8,500 people is the amount of people estimated to have died in cold homes. This is significant and substantial.”

As Reid directed the jury to leave the court, Nixon continued: “That’s before moving on to climate change. Posters around the court building are saying that we are on a highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator.

“You’ve not been able to hear these truths because this court has not allowed me to say them. Our safety is at risk, our society is at risk.

“I have only one apology: that Insulate Britain did not get our demand met.”

After the jury of seven women and six men jury returned, Reid told them to disregard Nixon’s statements. No application was made for them to be discharged, and he ruled the trial could continue.

He told jurors: “This is not a trial about climate change, fuel poverty, etc. Matters relating to that are not relevant to your deliberations, no matter how much Mr Nixon wants them to be.”

In a short subsequent hearing while the jury went out to consider their verdict, Nixon admitted contempt and declined two offers from Reid to apologise to the court, telling the judge: “I wish I could but I don’t think it would be genuine.”

Reid adjourned contempt proceedings until Tuesday, when he said he would pass a sentence on Nixon. “It seems to me inevitable that there will be a custodial sentence for this because of the nature of the contempt,” he said.

The jury returned to court and found the four protesters guilty.

Nixon was standing trial alongside Kai Bartlett, Alyson Lee and Christian Murray-Leslie. Reid said he would sentence them at a later hearing.

SIR KEIR'S NICER TORY PARTY

Don’t cut the army, says Labour as it positions itself as the party of security

Kim Sengupta

Mon, 6 February 2023 

The government needs to rearm the British military to keep Ukraine supplied and to ensure the country is the lead European state in Nato, Labour’s defence spokesman will say in a keynote speech.

Positioning Labour as the party of security for Britain, John Healey will call for a halt to cuts in the Army and a strategic pact with European partners to face challenges in an increasingly dangerous world.

Speaking at RUSI (Royal United Service Institute) in London ahead of next month’s publication of the Integrated Review, Mr Healey will call for urgent action to repair a military that defence secretary Ben Wallace acknowledges is “hollowed out and underfunded”.

A Labour government, he will pledge, would conduct a Strategic Defence and Security Review within its first year in government, and carry out a “Nato test” on major projects during its first 100 days to ensure Britain is on track to meet its Alliance commitment.

Mr Healey holds that the Ukraine war may continue until next year. He will say “the next government will inherit the Ukraine conflict and Russia’s wider aggression. With a general election, there may be a change to Labour but there will be no change to Britain’s resolve in confronting Russia’s threats, pursuing Putin’s crimes and standing with Ukraine”.

In the meantime, the shadow defence secretary will call on Rishi Sunak’s government to “set out a stockpiles strategy to maintain military help to Ukraine and replenish our armed forces, reform defence procurement, and publish a 2023 Action Plan for Ukraine”.

John Healey, Shadow Secretary of State for Defence speaks to delegates during the Labour Party conference on September 27, 2022 in Liverpool, England (Getty Images)

The government needs, he will say, to “give the highest priority to security in Europe, the Atlantic and the Arctic – our Nato area, ensure our UK commitments to the alliance are fulfilled in full and halt further cuts to the British Army”.

The Tories also must “fix their post-Brexit blind spot over Europe to seek a security pact with the EU and new defence agreements with leading European allies like Germany to make Brexit work and keep Europe safe”, he will say.

Amid warnings from current and former senior commanders that the UK’s munitions arsenal is dwindling with munitions being sent to Ukraine, Mr Healey will call for an overhaul of a “wasteful peacetime procurement system”.

Domestic manufacturing needs to be urgently geared up to “maintain UK military help to Ukraine and restock weapons and ammunition for our own armed forces ... We need to shift parts of our defence industry and MoD procurement onto an urgent operational footing ... to replenish UK stocks for any future conflict”.

https://www.trilateral.org/people/sir-keir-starmer

Sir Keir Starmer - The Trilateral Commission 

Sir Keir Starmer is Member of the British Parliament, Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition in the British Parliament in London.

Too many LGBT people have heard ‘the words of rejection’ from Church of England

Gwyn Wright, PA
Mon, 6 February 2023 

Too many LGBT people have heard “the words of rejection” from the Church of England, the Archbishop of Canterbury has said.

Justin Welby made the remarks in his opening address to the General Synod 2023, the national assembly of the Church of England, which will debate its policy on blessings for same-sex couples.

The church’s recently announced policy of allowing blessing for same-sex couples but not their marriage in church buildings has caused controversy.


Mr Welby said: “Where people find it difficult to believe what Christians say about God’s great love for them because they have been excluded, or made to conceal their identity, or made to feel in some way less, they have not been spoken to in Christian.

“Along the way, too many people, especially around sexuality, have heard the words of rejection that human tongues create.”

Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby speaks during a Church of England press conference in January (PA)

He described the church as having a history of antisemitism, racism, slavery and “collusion with the evil structures of power – look at how we have and do treat those with different sexualities”.

The church’s desire for unity has often made casualties of “those who are different”, he said.

He added: “We have deep and passionately held differences but let us not fall into caricaturing those among us who don’t agree with us as those who are trying to construct their lives away from God. The evidence is far from that.”

The church does not exist to “avoid or endorse wokery” and should reject being dragged into culture wars, the Archbishop said.

Instead he urged Anglicans to unite and accept “the unity we desire is not one based around agreeing in everything”.

During his 15-minute address, he also said the NHS is “in crisis”, the education system “misses out on aspiration for the poorest” and “care systems and housing … do not reach those most desperately in need”.

Mr Welby also said the absence of ‘strong family life’ causes more children to suffer from mental health conditions and leads to ’emotional trauma’ in adults (PA)

His comments could be interpreted as thinly veiled criticisms of government policy.

Mr Welby also lamented the absence of “strong family life”, which he claims causes more children to suffer from mental health conditions and leads to “emotional trauma” in adults.

He added: “We live in a time of danger and crisis, the greatest since the terrors of World War Two, terrors worse now because of advanced technology.”

The Synod, at Church House in Westminster, London, will sit until Thursday.

Same-sex blessings will be debated on Wednesday afternoon. The issue is also expected to be raised in question-and-answer sessions on Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning.

The Synod will also debate safeguarding and the cost of living. Earlier on Monday, attendees were reminded the gathering is not a single-issue Synod.

Muslim leaders warn Archbishop over impact of same-sex blessings on schoolchildren

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2023/02/uk-muslim-leaders-warn-archbishop-over.html

Same-sex marriage row looms over Church of England synod

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2023/02/same-sex-marriage-row-looms-over-church.html

UK

Officials warned they did not have enough time to assess energy support plans

August Graham, PA Business Reporter
Mon, 6 February 2023 


Civil servants warned ministers that they did not have enough time to properly assess some of the energy support packages that will together cost the taxpayer about £69 billion, an official report has found.

The programmes were rushed through after ministers had held off announcing extra support because they were waiting for the Conservative leadership election to play out.

It meant that civil servants only had three weeks to put a full plan in place after Liz Truss in September announced the Energy Price Guarantee. The scheme capped bills for households at 34p per unit of electricity and 10.3p for gas.

They also only had a short time to assess an equivalent scheme for businesses.

A report from the National Audit Office (NAO) reveals that the accounting officer for the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) had raised objections to both schemes.

The accountant was given so-called “ministerial direction” – where politicians push ahead with a scheme despite the concerns of officials.

The accounting officer said that the pace at which the business support had been developed brought “inevitable risks”. They also said that small rates of fraud in the household scheme would have “significant financial impacts”, the NAO said.

In May last year, then chancellor Rishi Sunak announced a £400 payment to each household in the country.

However, as the months dragged on, it became clear that this would not be enough to protect thousands of vulnerable families.

Boris Johnson, who said in early July that he would resign, refused to announce extra support. It was an issue for his successor, he said.

But that successor – Liz Truss – did not get into office until early September.

With bills expected to spike at £3,549 for the average household from October, she needed to get something in place quickly.

This left civil servants with just weeks to put her ideas into practice.

The National Audit Office said that the Government had to “make compromises” to ensure that support reached the places it was needed on time.

As a result, the taxpayer ended up supporting households that could have managed fine on their own, the NAO said.

So far, £16.3 billion has been paid out as part of the three biggest schemes.

The Energy Bill Support Scheme (EBSS) – the plan to give every household £400 which Rishi Sunak announced in May while still Chancellor – had cost £7.7 billion by the end of December.

The Energy Price Guarantee – Liz Truss’s household support – had cost £7 billion.

Meanwhile, the Energy Bill Relief Scheme, which helps businesses, had cost £1.6 billion.

BEIS acknowledged to the auditors that it had created “value for money risks”, in a bid to roll out the support as rapidly as possible.

The report also showed that the fraud and risk assessment on Mr Sunak’s Energy Bill Support Scheme was not ready until weeks after the scheme had gone live.

This is despite officials having almost five months to prepare for the launch.

The same assessment of the Energy Price Guarantee again only finalised after the scheme was launched.

However, in this case, officials only knew about the policy three weeks before it was set to launch.

NAO boss Gareth Davies said: “Similar to the Government’s assistance during Covid, the energy bills support schemes were introduced universally, and at speed, to reduce the impact of soaring energy costs for people and businesses.

“This approach led to compromises – introducing these interventions at speed meant that BEIS has less time to consider fraud and error risks; and their universal nature meant that a significant number of households received financial support they did not need’.

“As the Government seeks to target future assistance, it must be mindful of the risk of introducing complexity which could aid fraudsters. The National Audit Office will continue to monitor these schemes to understand their impact, particularly the costs and benefits of universal versus targeted support.”

Meg Hillier, chair of the Public Accounts Committee, said: “Today’s NAO report shows that BEIS moved quickly to shield most people and business from soaring energy prices, by introducing universal support schemes.

“However, it must take steps to better protect taxpayers, now and in the future.

“To introduce support, at pace, it accepted a greater risk of error and giving to those who do not need it.

“As it refines its offer, BEIS will need to juggle protecting citizens and businesses from unacceptable hardship, while managing the risk of fraud and error.

“It must grasp the chance to learn lessons by planning for the long term and developing options for the next crisis.”

AN IDEA WHOSE TIME HAS COME

UK

Apprenticeships to be showcased alongside degrees on Ucas website

Eleanor Busby, PA Education Correspondent
Mon, 6 February 2023 


Young people will be able to apply for apprenticeships alongside degrees through the university admissions service.

From this autumn, school and college leavers will be able to explore apprenticeship opportunities alongside undergraduate courses via the Ucas website so they can decide between their options in the same place.

Prospective students will then be able to apply for apprenticeships through Ucas, and employers will be able to manage applications for their apprenticeship vacancies through the service, from autumn 2024.


Under the plans, the Education Secretary hopes to develop a “one-stop shop” where young people can compare a range of occupations, training and education opportunities available to them.

The Government will collaborate with Ucas to share vacancy information collated through its Find an Apprenticeship Service to ensure as many apprenticeship vacancies are advertised through the Ucas hub as possible.

It comes after a previous Ucas survey suggested that half of students looking to apply to higher education are interested in apprenticeships, but many struggle to access the relevant information they need.

The Ucas hub will display the different routes – both undergraduate courses and apprenticeships – into a single career destination side-by-side.

It is hoped that thousands more young people will benefit from a wider choice of options by opening up the service to apprenticeship opportunities.

Clare Marchant, chief executive of Ucas, said: “Presenting students with all their choices in one place will not only transform the apprenticeship offering but create real parity by putting these options side-by-side with undergraduate courses.”

She added: “Today’s announcement by the Department for Education shows the commitment to deliver a clear, accessible and joined-up service that will help students discover, decide and apply in one place, enabling them to achieve their future careers aspirations.”

Announcing the plans, Education Secretary Gillian Keegan said: “My apprenticeship was my golden ticket. It gave me a unique insight into how a business operated, from the shop floor to the boardroom. I learnt the skills that businesses truly value and it launched my career in international business.

“This National Apprenticeship Week I hope more people learn about the incredible opportunities available in everything from engineering to accountancy, healthcare to gaming software development.

“Whatever career goals you aspire to, they can be achieved through an apprenticeship which go up to masters degree level.”

Kevin Gilmartin, post-16 specialist at the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), said: “We welcome the steps being taken to allow young people to search and apply for apprenticeships through Ucas.

“It’s crucial that school and college leavers are well informed about the full range of options available to them and showcasing apprenticeships alongside degrees seems a sensible approach.

“In order to make this work, there needs to be more resources and support for schools and colleges to be able to deliver guidance from expert careers advisers who are familiar with the complex apprenticeships landscape.”

Mr Gilmartin added: “If schools and colleges are not better supported to deliver this, then the worthy ambition of fully informing all students of the entire range of occupations, training and education opportunities available to them is dead in the water.”

Jane Hickie, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP), said: “Accessing information about apprenticeships can be confusing and complicated at times.

“That’s why we’re delighted to see that Ucas will expand their apprenticeship service to match potential apprentices with vacancies.

“This could be a gamechanger, and alongside an enhanced talent finder function for employers, is much needed.”

UK

COMPASSIONATE CAPITALI$M
StreetSmart: Diners raise £750,000 for homeless as record numbers of rough sleepers on the rise

Mike Daw and David Ellis
Mon, 6 February 2023 

Longstanding support: the River Cafe raised £14,000 alone (Richard Bryant)

Diners across the country have raised £750,000 for the homeless, following another successful StreetSmart campaign. It adds to the more than £12million that the charity has put towards good causes since its founding 25 years ago.

StreetSmart’s scheme, which adds an optional £1 donation to diners’ bills, raised a record total, with London restaurants alone contributing over a quarter of a million pounds. Across the UK, 550 restaurants participated in the program, which helps more than 50 homeless charities. The simple scheme, which costs restaurant’s nothing and diners pennies, is supported by LandAid, who cover all the campaign’s costs. As such, every penny of what’s raised goes towards helping those who need it.

London restaurant groups led the way in contributions, with JKS — who operate, among others, Gymkhana and the Arcade Food Hall — raising more than £18,000, while MEATliquor donations topped £27,000; Scott Collins’ group is a long-time supporter of the charity. Elsewhere, Harvey Nichols raised nearly £40,000 across their estate, while Selfridges hauled in £97,000 in donations from their London and UK outposts. Other notable names to help include Mildred’s, which raised nearly £15,000; Fallow, which donated £17,000; the Cubitt House group, which raised £24,000; and The River Cafe, a long time supporter of the campaign that raised £14,000.

Paul Morrish, LandAid’s chief executive, said of the record amount raised: “I am delighted at the total raised from the 2022 StreetSmart campaign.

“LandAid are proud of the special relationship that we have with StreetSmart, and it has been amazing to see such enthusiasm across the hospitality and property industries in supporting the campaign, particularly during some testing years. This small choice will create huge impact in supporting homelessness projects that will bring both relief and security to those who need it most across the country.”

Among the 50 or so charities helped by the initiative is Glass Door. According to Glass Door’s most recent figures, there were more than 3,500 rough sleepers in London between October and December of last year, representing a 21 per cent increase on the year before. Glass Door CEO Jo Carter commented: “As temperatures plummet, it is becoming life-threatening to be sleeping on the street.

“Glass Door’s vital night shelter circuits are open to provide those with nowhere else to go somewhere safe and warm to sleep. We’re proud to have been working with StreetSmart for 15 years. This year, their donation could support 50 guests to stay in our emergency winter night shelter for one week.”

For more information about StreetSmart, visit streetsmart.org.uk

France braces for new pension strikes, mass protests

Mon, 6 February 2023 


France braced for new strikes and mass demonstrations against a deeply unpopular pensions overhaul on Tuesday, a day after lawmakers started debating the contested bill.

President Emmanuel Macron made the reform the heart of his re-election campaign last year, and is determined to implement it despite fierce opposition from the political left and unions, but also the wider public.

Tuesday's protests are the third such nationwide rallies organised since the start of the year.

Last week's demonstrations brought out 1.3 million people across the country, according to the police, while unions claimed more than 2.5 million people took part.

Either way, they were the largest such protests in France since 2010.

Trains and the Paris metro are again expected to see "severe disruptions" on Tuesday, operators said, with around one in five flights at Orly airport south of the capital expected to be cancelled.

"We're counting on there being rallies so that the country's elected representatives take into account the opinion of citizens," Philippe Martinez, leader of the hard-left CGT union, told the France 2 broadcaster on Monday.

More marches are planned for Saturday, although unions for rail operator SNCF said they would not call for a strike at the weekend, a holiday getaway date in some regions.

Macron's proposal includes hiking the retirement age from 62 to 64 years old -- still lower than in many European countries -- and increasing the number of years people must make contributions for a full pension.

His ruling party is hoping to pass the bill with the help of allies on the political right, without having to resort to controversial executive powers that dispense with the need for a ballot.

But members of the left-wing opposition are staunchly opposed, and have filed for thousands of amendments.

- 'Reform or bankrupcy' -

Members of Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne's government struggled to defend the overhaul as necessary in parliament on Monday, with many in the lower house booing.

As pressure grew, Borne on Sunday offered a key concession, saying people who started work aged 20 or 21 would be allowed to leave work a year earlier.

But the head of the CFDT union, Laurent Berger, dismissed the offer as a mere "band aid" -- not a response to widespread public criticism.

Macron aims to lift the pensions system out of deficit by 2030 by finding around 18 billion euros ($19.5 billion) of annual savings -- mostly from pushing people to work for longer and abolishing some special retirement schemes.

"It's reform or bankrupcy," Public Accounts Minister Gabriel Attal said in parliament on Monday.

But critics say that women will on average have to wait longer for retirement than men, as many have interruptions in their careers from childbearing and care responsibilities.

Opponents also say the reform fails to adequately account for people in physically strenuous jobs like builders and does not deal with companies' reluctance to hire and retain older workers.

Borne claimed the government would pile pressure on companies to end the practice of letting go older employees, which leaves many struggling to find work in their final years before pension age.

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Britain is desperate for workers – but Sunak won’t admit immigration is the answer

Simon Jenkins
Mon, 6 February 2023 


A sure sign of a happy country is the eagerness of foreigners to come to live there. One such state is Great Britain. Newcomers are a net benefit to a modern economy and should be welcomed accordingly. Thus, their compliment is returned.

Last year Britain’s ageing population was supplemented by a record net immigration of half a million people. After two years of pandemic retirements and EU departures under Brexit, this immigration came as a salvation to health and care employers, caterers, builders, hauliers and farmers. Yet these businesses are still desperate for more. In England, care is short of 165,000 workers and health needs 130,000, while half of UK building firms are short-staffed and a third of all UK firms say they lack a full complement of staff. Last month the chancellor duly issued a plea for 300,000 over-50s who had retired after lockdown to return to work to fill 1.19m vacancies. It was as if the nation faced defeat and was calling its veterans back into service.

Yet this same government is spending somewhere over £1bn a year billeting able-bodied Afghans, Iraqis, Syrians and Albanians in London hotels and elsewhere, paying them and their families pocket money on the strict condition they do no work. Should they sneak out to become hospital porters, road diggers, fruit pickers or care assistants, Suella Braverman’s Home Office will hunt them down and send them packing. Should they besiege labour contractors’ vans under scruffy motorways they risk deportation. Should they dare to wheel a trolley, deliver a pizza or handle a daffodil, Braverman will order them out. Whose side is she on?

This policy is a mass of hypocrisy. Brexit stifled Britain’s supply of skilled and seasonal labour from eastern and southern Europe. Market forces responded by sucking in unprecedented numbers of non-European workers. Rishi Sunak now finds himself stuck. He must promise to stifle immigration and yet somehow find more workers. To satisfy rightwingers, he has even suggested withdrawing from the European human rights convention to evict asylum seekers. Only Russia has so far reneged on that convention. Sunak is between a rock and a hard place.

Every democracy, certainly in Europe, faces political tension over immigration. Germany has welcomed both Turks and Syrians against strong domestic opposition because it needed their labour. Britain is trapped in a regulatory morass of political asylum, refugee diplomacy, key-worker entitlement, people trafficking and enslavement. Tens of thousands of people who are eager to benefit the British economy are treated as if they were a semi-criminal class. British taxpayers are now paying them not to earn a living.

Despite appearances, public opinion is ambivalent. A recent YouGov poll showed a majority of Britons oppose “more immigration” yet also welcome it for specific jobs. These are across the board, from NHS staff to builders and farmers. Some tinkering at the edges of policy may be possible. The scandal of boat crossings could be met by instantly returning them to France, if France agrees. Visa offices abroad could ease up, reducing the need for lengthy processing in the UK. The Brexit bar on free movement with Europe will surely one day end.

For the time being, Sunak should have the guts to tell Britons they have nothing to fear and much to gain from immigration. As for the newcomers themselves, he should welcome and thank them for coming.

Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist