UK

Terrorism legislation used against Palestine Action co-founder


September 19, 2024

https://realmedia.press/

Yesterday morning, Palestine Action co-founder Richard Barnard appeared at Westminster Magistrate’s Court for a plea hearing, after being charged for alleged offences pertaining to two speeches he made in October 2023. The speeches took place a month before a six-week trial in which eight Palestine Action supporters walked free over more than two dozen charges after the jury either failed to reach verdicts or acquitted them.

Barnard was found not guilty of encouraging criminal damage during that trial, but is now facing two new charges under the same offence (Section 44 of the Serious Crime Act 2007), along with a new charge of expressing an opinion or belief that was supportive of a proscribed organisation, namely Hamas, or being reckless as to whether it encouraged support of that organisation, contrary to Section 12(1A) of the Terrorism Act 2000.

The decision to charge him under Terrorism legislation came after 10 activists from Palestine Action were detained without charge for seven days under that same legislation, following their action which is claimed to have cost Israel’s biggest weapons producer, Elbit Systems, over £1million in damages. They were eventually charged under other more standard criminal legislation, leaving Barnard the first Palestine Actionist to face terrorism charges. There are currently 16 people in prison, some on remand, in a deepening clampdown on the campaign against Israeli arms company Elbit Systems.

Fellow co-founder Huda Ammori said that it was revealed in court the new Attorney General Richard Hermer had decided to proceed with the terrorism charge, despite his supposed pro-Palestinian signalling, and it reveals the new government is more determined to crack down on citizens who believe they are acting in line with international law, than to confront Israel and Elbit Systems, a company complicit and profiting directly from the war on Gaza.

Yesterday, Barnard’s barrister, Audrey Mogan, argued that he could not enter a plea because the Crown had not provided the full evidence they relied on, and also overturned their request for bail conditions preventing him from attending ANY protest or demonstration. He as given unconditional bail and ordered to appear at the Old Bailey on October 4th to enter a plea on the three charges against him.

Supporters rallied outside the court yesterday with various banners including a huge one calling to “Stop Arming Israel”.

Supporters of Palestine Action co-founder rally outside court

Richard Barnard is being charged under the Terrorism Act

Palestine Action co-founder Richard Barnard 

(Picture: Guy Smallman)


By Charlie Kimber
Wednesday 18 September 2024

 SOCIALIST WORKER Issue

Palestine Action (PA) co-founder Richard Barnard was brought before Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday as part of the state’s latest attempted crackdown on protest.

He faces three charges for two speeches. He is accused of inviting support for a proscribed organisation under Section 12(1A) of the Terrorism Act. The accusation is that he “expressed an opinion or belief that was supportive of a proscribed organisation, namely Hamas, being reckless as to whether it encouraged support of that organisation”.

Barnard is also said to have encouraged criminal activity under the Serious Crime Act. His charges relate to speeches during a Manchester protest on 8 October and in Bradford on 11 October.

The prosecutor said he had broken the Terrorism Act and also praised Palestine Action’s campaigns against Elbit, Israel’s largest arms firm. The magistrate sent Barnard to the Old Bailey on 4 October for the next stage of his case.

The prosecution confirmed that Labour’s attorney-general Richard Hermer, the government’s top legal adviser, consented to the terrorism charge. Hermer signed an open letter to the Financial Times newspaper last October over Israel’s possible violations of international law. Now he signs off those who oppose such Israeli action.

The prosecution sought bail conditions banning Barnard from taking part in protests or going within 100 metres of such a protest. But the magistrate did not impose any restrictions.

Outside the court, PA supporter Ayesha told Socialist Worker, “Richard is a hero for standing against genocide, and so are all those the state targets.”

Tom added, “Our action against Elbit is hitting home. That is why these prosecutions are happening.”

The state is not always winning in court. Last Friday a jury in Bradford, West Yorkshire, was divided and refused to convict four activists who cost Teledyne’s weapons factory over £500,000 in damages. They had disrupted the production of Israeli missile parts.

This result came despite the judge rejecting all legal defences, including the necessity to save lives and prevent a greater crime.

A retrial is expected in February 2026, giving another opportunity to expose who the real criminals are.

Recent arrests and trials have shown the state is hoping to intimidate Palestine solidarity. It is also stepping up sentences of Just Stop Oil activists and other environmental campaigners.


Cheers as jury fails to convict ‘Teledyne Four’ Palestine activists

We need to continue the mass movement for Palestine and back those who take direct action.

Outside Westminster magistrates’ court, PA co-founder Huda Ammori said, “It’s very clear that they are doing this because he is a co-founder of Palestine Action.

“It’s because we call for direct action against Israeli weapons factories. This is a vindictive trial.

“Rather than prosecute the war criminals, they’re going after those who speak out against them, who call for us to take direct action against them.

“One of the charges is Section 12, under the Terrorism Act, essentially for calling for direct action. The very vindictive charge is one that has been spurred on by a Zionist campaign.

“I also want to remind everyone that we have 16 political prisoners. Sixteen people from Palestine action are in prison for trying to stop a genocide.

“They are wielding counter-terrorism powers in a bid to protect Israel’s weapons trade. And they are doing it because they know Palestine Action is a threat to the companies who are arming genocide.

“But Palestine Action will not stop. We will not give in, we will not surrender. And Elbit’s days in this country are numbered.”
Stop prisoner isolation

Palestine activists William Plastow and Ian Sanders are both in Wormwood Scrubs prison awaiting trial.

They are accused of being connected to an action which cost Elbit over £1 million in damages. They have not been allowed to receive any outside letters or emails for nearly four weeks.

William and Ian, along with eight others, were detained in solitary confinement for a week. They were interrogated repeatedly by counter-terrorism police, before being remanded to prison.

The state has refused them the right to receive outside post while on remand and access to a working phone. By doing so, it’s manufacturing the isolation of Palestine Action’s political prisoners.

Contact the prison and demand that both William and Ian have access to their post and are placed together in the same cell with a working phone.You can ask to speak to the governor, Amy Frost, or any other member of staff to raise your concerns on 020 8588 3200​​​​​​​ or 0208 588 3216 or email wormwoodscrubs@hmps.gsi.gov.uk

 WALES

Opinion

Hard Labour

19 Sep 2024NATION CYMRU

The Labour benches during the Winter Fuel Allowance debate

Ben Wildsmith

When Keir Starmer opted to launch his election campaign in the heart of Tory Kent, it signalled the beginning of a tricky new era for his party in the Senedd.

SENEDD IS WELSH FOR PARLIAMENT

This week’s Conservative motion condemning means testing of the winter fuel payment is an early taste of what’s to come for a Labour group that is unused to seeing its basic principles scrutinised.

There must be darker moments when Labour members recall the comfortable certainties of their roles under a Tory administration in Westminster. Life was so simple then: if it works, we did it; if it doesn’t, blame Westminster.

That routine was so grooved into the mechanics of Senedd business over the last 14 years that it seemed to operate reflexively. Failures in crucial devolved matters like health and education have been waved airily away by a party that had a get-out-of-jail-free card for every eventuality.

Obviously, they wanted to fund our services properly, but their hands were tied by the cartoon villains in London.

New material

Without this crowd-pleaser to rely on, Eluned Morgan’s turn at FMQs this week was like watching Keith Harris without Orville the duck. Projecting the sort of confidence you’d expect from a peer of the realm, the Baroness revealed Labour’s new material for the first time.

The First Minister is not, it transpired, to be questioned about anything that is decided in Westminster.

While it was wholly appropriate to blame the Conservative regime there for any shortcomings in Welsh governance, it is taboo to question UK Labour’s decisions on the Senedd floor.

Andrew RT Davies and Rhun ap Iorweth were instructed to seek Westminster seats if they wanted to question the impact of the UK government on Wales.

The four-legs-good-two-legs-bad naked hypocrisy of this position is untenable.

Welsh Labour (sic) has excused itself for years as struggling in the shade of unjust governance from London. It has allowed itself to continue as a wholly owned subsidiary of the UK party, reportedly without even a bank account of its own. So, the buck stops at head office, just as Morgan & Co. insisted it did when the Tories were in charge.

A poll this week revealed that a third of the Welsh electorate would like to see the Senedd abolished in favour of direct rule.

We have seen that this view does not translate into votes for parties who would enact this, but the figure is much higher than in Scotland and should be a worry for all who care about Welsh democracy.

Unionism

Mindful of incoming howls of derision, there was once a respectable Labour case for unionism.

After the war, when Labour was enacting partial socialism across the UK, the argument ran that a justly governed UK would benefit Welsh people immediately and recognise the sacrifices Wales had made.

Welsh servicemen were instrumental in campaigning for a Labour government amongst British troops stationed overseas. The new Britain was seen by many as just desserts for participating in a war on behalf of the old one.

45 years after Thatcher ended the post-war consensus, however, it is absurd to argue that a systematically impoverished Wales holds interests that are indivisible from the government in London.

In the fuel allowance debate, Labour representatives of deprived Welsh areas parroted the Treasury line about a £22bn ‘black hole’ in public finances as if chanting a Latin mass.

Do they imagine that their unusually loyal voters turn out for them in the expectation of this?

The ‘nothing to do with us, guv’ approach to UK Labour by its cohort in the Senedd is not going to wash. The communitarian values of traditional Labour voters here are being insulted by Keir Starmer’s iteration of the party.

Stockbroker belt

If the UK is to be governed according to the mores of the stockbroker belt, then the responsibility of those representing Wales is to stand up for us.

For many people, the Senedd is indivisible from the Labour Party. Casual voters see a monolith of remote power that ploughs on regardless of their complaints. If the party here persists in unrepresentative obeisance to UK Labour it will be risking the viability of devolution as voters see their views ignored.

People are exhausted with the management-class mediocrity of a government that seems to distribute jobs without regard to expertise or any track record of success.

This, right now, is what they promised us would be the sunlit uplands of Wales under a Labour UK. Here’s Mike Hedges MS on the fuel allowance.

“There is a discussion to be had over the universality of support – there’s a balance between ensuring no one misses out and the cost of provision.”

Actually Mike, there was a discussion on that, it happened in London, and nobody asked any of you to contribute to it. The result of that discussion was to draw the line just above absolute poverty.

It’s a certainty that at some point Keir Starmer will appear here to invoke the ghosts of the Welsh Labour movement and wear its clothes for the cameras.

As he stands in front of historical banners claiming that inheritance for his government, the grinning handmaids of the Senedd will applaud politely.

Just another day cheerfully managing the decline of their nation.

UK

Unite to push winter fuel vote at Labour conference

Rajdeep Sandhu
Politics correspondent
Kate Whannel
Political reporter

BBC

PA

20 September 2024

Unite, one of Labour's trade union backers, will try to force a vote on reversing the government's cuts to the winter fuel allowance at the party's conference in Liverpool.

The union has submitted a motion calling for "a vision where pensioners are not the first to face a new wave of cuts".

It also urges the government to introduce a wealth tax and to end self-imposed rules which prevent borrowing to invest.

Despite criticism from opposition parties and unease among his own MPs, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has defended his cut in winter fuel payments, saying "tough decisions" are needed "to stabilise the economy".


Unite union refuses to endorse Labour manifesto

Starmer defends cutting winter fuel payments

How much is the winter fuel payment and how can I still claim it?


He has also said that the impact on the 10 million pensioners losing out will be softened by a 4% increase in the state pension, due next April.

From this autumn, older people in England and Wales not on pension credit or other means-tested benefits will not get the payments, worth between £100 - £300.

Unite's motion says that "workers and communities voted for change - a better future, not just better management and not cuts to the winter fuel allowance".

It adds that the country should not "turn back to failed austerity".

Mick Whelan, head of the train drivers' Aslef union and chair of the group of Labour-backing unions said he would vote against the cut.

Speaking to Political Thinking with Nick Robinson, he said the unions would be asking the government to "change their minds".

Asked about the relationship between unions and the government, he said: "There'll be times when we'll be applauding... and there'll be other times where, as tradition, we'll be firm but critical friends."

Unite is understood to be confident that its motion will be put to a vote at Labour's annual conference, which opens in Liverpool on Sunday 22 September.

Under conference rules, delegates get to vote for the topics they want to discuss. Members of the Conference Arrangements Committee, delegates and party staff then agree the wording of a final motion to be voted on.

Any vote would be non-binding, but a result that criticises government policy could embarrass the party leadership.

Unite traditionally backs Labour, but has been very critical of Sir Keir's leadership and last year its general secretary, Sharon Graham, warned the party there were "no blank cheques".

In 2019, when Jeremy Corbyn was leader, the union donated £3m to Labour. This year it did not give anything to the central party's campaign.

The union also refused to endorse the party's election manifesto, saying it did not go far enough on protecting workers' rights, and jobs in the oil and gas industry.

Labour's annual conference will be its first since the party's landslide victory in July's general election.

Reeves’ Winter Fuel Payment cut: trouble ahead

19th September 2024Leave a Commenton Reeves’ Winter Fuel Payment cut: trouble ahead

“In light of the extraordinary rise in fuel prices, this decision will cost lives.”

By Steve Price

And so it begins, a newly elected Labour Government, and the first serious misstep. After 13 long years of grotesque Tory misrule, I bring you- New Labour, Old Austerity. The means testing of the Winter Fuel Allowance. And they are already coming under attack, and from all directions.

That was a very short honeymoon period indeed! And it’s entirely self inflicted. The early signs are that this is not a slick rebuttal operation, like the one deployed under Bliar, Brown, Mandy and Malcolm Tucker.

I was on a bus the other day, and a guy who had just come back from a festival (I think) was loudly telling his friend (and anyone else who was interested) that he’s 82, and doesn’t need the ‘extra’ money. He was ranting on about rich pensioners abroad, all those living in big houses, all the usual rhetoric. lt soon became pretty clear, however, that this was not the opinion of most of the people on the bus.

All of this takes me back to my days in the civil service, where the left of my old union (in CPSA/PCS) always argued in favour of universal benefits, even though in theory that would mean less bureaucracy, and fewer jobs! (We also argued that staff should be redeployed, to create a more humane benefit system, one which actually HELPED people).

Back then, it was all about take up. For all the claims about benefit fraud, there was always much more benefit being unclaimed or underclaimed. In light of the extraordinary rise in fuel prices, this decision will cost lives. I mean, it just will. Restricting the benefit to those on pension credit is basically cruel. That top-up benefit is set at a very low level, so even if you’re only a tenner above the limit you’re basically poor.

And many pensioners who could be entitled to it will not claim because of the excessive bureaucracy (there are 213 questions), and the intrusive nature of those questions. “I’m not going to tell them all my personal business…”. This becomes an issue of personal dignity. And we know how low UK pensions are compared to most of Northern Europe.

And it’s not even being argued effectively. Reeves’ assertion to those losing £300 (or more) that ‘your pension went up by £400 last year’ went down like the proverbial lead balloon. It was borderline offensive, considering how much the cost of living rises disproportionately affected poor people.

And disingenuous too, in relation to the ‘shock horror’ £22 billion black hole. Ooh, didn’t see that coming. And yet, with a slight adjustment of the Treasury’s Fiscal Rules, the supposed hole would disappear. This is a political choice, not a financial necessity.

It has been noted that retaining the Winter Fuel Allowance was written into the 2017 and 2019 Manifestos, but suspiciously absent from the one the Party just got elected on! Hmmmm.

And what happened to the much hyped massive rebellion of Labour MPs against this cruel and unnecessary policy? After endless speculation as to the size of the rebellion, the group of already-suspended MPs has been increased by – one. Thanks Jon.

Many of the others were involved in an agonising struggle with their conscience, and for most of them their consciences lost. What did those abstaining think they were going to achieve? The amendment (from the Tories!) was easily defeated, so what was the point?

The voters and party members won’t look the other way so easily though. First the refusal to abolish the two-child benefit cap, now this. Labour’s own figures show that 4,000 older people could die this winter – that’s on top of the 8,000 who die every year from living in fuel poverty. This is just storing up trouble for the future.

---

• This article was originally published in the September/October 2024 edition of Labour Briefing magazine

UK

FABIAN SOCIETY

CHANGING COURSE

Rachel Reeves's first budget will define our ability to tackle the climate crisis, writes Tim Root

BY Tim Root
DATE 19 September 2024
FABIAN SOCIETY 



Rachel Reeves is preparing her budget, which is set to position Labour as “the party of wealth creation”. However, it is vital not just to create wealth, but to preserve the wealth we already have, which is increasingly threatened by climate breakdown. An example is the likely reduction by nearly a fifth of five important UK crops this year, due to unprecedented wet weather in the winter and spring. A survey of 400 climate scientists found that more than three-quarters judge that unless we increase emissions cuts, we face a cataclysmic global temperature rise of over 2.5°C. Numerous experts have emphasised that it is much more economical to invest now to limit climate breakdown, compared to huge potential impact of extreme weather if we fail to take preventive action. Storm Babet caused the death of seven people in Britain in October 2023, but even worse catastrophes await us.

Considerably higher proportions of under-30s than older electors voted Green at the election. Reeves pledged she would be Britain’s first green chancellor, saying: “I want the electorate to judge me by my actions on tackling climate change”. She must live up to this to avoid further voters deserting Labour.

If the world does not reduce emissions enough, every nation will suffer increased severe weather disasters. Food will become scarce, and we will face increasing numbers of climate refugees. Yet there are still upward pressures on worldwide emissions. These include the massive emissions due to wildfires, increased demand for air conditioning, and the increasingly vast amounts of electricity AI is likely to use. Our reduction in emissions must go beyond our own current targets, and be sufficient to help counter these predictable rises.

Leading for international co-operation

Developing nations’ leaders insist that the west caused climate breakdown and therefore should pay both to reduce it, and to help vulnerable nations repair the damage they have suffered. The UK aspires to exercise positive leadership in the COP negotiations. However, we will only have the credibility to pressure other nations to cut emissions if we cut our own sufficiently, and help persuade other wealthy nations to contribute climate finance for developing nations.

The Climate Change Committee stated this July that the government should “act fast to hit the country’s commitments”, and that “only a third of the emissions reductions required to achieve the 2030 target are currently covered by credible plans”. One of the chancellor’s best options is a Frequent Flyer Levy, which would target the 15 per cent of Britons who take 70 per cent of flights. It could raise at least £5bn annually. Ninety per cent of Britons support the levy. Emissions at altitude contribute much more to climate change than the same amount of fuel burned at ground level. The levy could be charged on a second flight within a year, with the rate increasing for third and subsequent flights. However, recent change has been in the opposite direction: the new governenment recently gave authorisation for a large expansion in flights from London City Airport, despite the fact that two-thirds of current journeys could have been made by train.

Expanding aviation will do much less for economic growth than promptly training the additional workers needed to extend the National Grid so we can maximise supplies of cheap renewable energy. Similarly, the Climate Change Committee has emphasised that the “development of a skilled workforce in buildings construction and retrofit is pressing”. It has assessed that this sector will require an additional 120,000 to 230,000 workers by 2030. Failure to train sufficient workers promptly will deter vital investment.

The rise in the energy price cap underlines the urgency of insulating draughty homes. If vulnerable people cannot afford to heat their homes adequately, many will become ill, which will cause additional expense for the NHS. The government should prevent fuel poverty, preferably by widening eligibility for universal and pension credit, and raising benefits to match the rise in fuel prices. It is important to move away from fossil fuel subsidies, which keep prices down artificially. They reduce the important incentive to use energy economically. Research shows that a lot of energy is wasted.

Cut car pollution


The Climate Change Committee recommends a cut of 72 per cent by 2035 in surface transport emissions. It highlights that new sales of electric cars and vans are not increasing fast enough. Emissions have reduced much less than expected, as many more people are driving heavy SUVs. New roads, such as the planned £10bn Lower Thames Crossing, would take investment away from vital schemes such as insulating homes – and insulation which cuts emissions and fuel poverty simultaneously. Congestion would be reduced much more effectively by discouraging car travel, which accounts for 76 per cent of miles driven. Cars constitute 58 per cent of vehicles using the Dartford crossings.

The latest National Travel Survey shows that 45 per cent of all car miles driven are for leisure. Higher income families drive four times further than poorer households. The budget should take steps to reduce this mileage substantially by increasing fuel duty, which, astonishingly, has been frozen since 2010. A substantial majority of Britons support taxing pollution. Cuts in national insurance, including employer’s contributions, and income tax rates for low earners, could offset increases in fuel duty. This would give everyone an incentive to rationalise their journeys and drive less. It would also boost the nation’s health by cutting air pollution. Some of the additional revenue should be invested in public transport, which is currently expensive and relatively inconvenient. Cutting car mileage would reduce emissions immediately, unlike other important policies such as insulation and heat pump installation, which depend on training many additional workers.

The Climate Change Committee has an over-optimistic plan that 11 per cent of emissions reductions could be achieved by techniques to remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere or at the power station. Much of this is to be achieved by bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, a costly and energy-intensive process. There is little evidence for the successful use of carbon storage, with two well-known projects having shown major flaws. The government plans to invest £1bn in carbon capture and storage. It would probably be much more effective to invest most of this in speeding up National Grid expansion. Far too much land would be required for the crops to produce bioenergy, reducing both food production, and permanent forest carbon sequestration. In the event, carbon removal’s contribution to cutting emissions would probably fall well short of 11 per cent.

Labour’s manifesto states “The climate and nature crisis isthe greatest long-term challengethat we face.” The consequences of failure are unthinkable. Rachel Reeves’ budget must rise to this challenge, or the crisis will soon become even more severe.

BUILDING A CASE

The government's plans for a state-owned energy company will require public buy-in – Labour must start winning over voters now, writes John Morrison

BY John Morrison
DATE 17 September 2024

FABIAN SOCIETY

Great British Energy has a familiar ring to it – almost as if it were, like Great British Railways, an old public asset brought back to life by the new Labour government. But GB Energy has no precedent in the UK, and there is nothing traditional about how it will operate. Whilst it will be a fully publicly owned asset, it will rely on leveraging private capital at ratios of at least three to one to realise the impact it proposes. Part of the Conservative party’s pre-election attack line was that GB Energy will not in itself deliver any new energy to the consumer’s door. Indeed, it will not. As a ‘business to business’ company it will lie ‘upstream’ from the energy utility markets.

But despite not being a consumer-facing company, GB Energy will require a ‘social licence’. It will be judged not primarily by the value it returns to shareholders (which will ultimately be taxpayers) but by how its investments affect the lives of British working people, by reducing household energy bills and creating new jobs while fully decarbonising electricity by 2030. Not easy to do given the sclerotic progress of recent years, and the de facto embargo on onshore windfarms which has only now been lifted.

To make things more difficult still, the challenge of deploying twice as much renewable energy over the next five years, when there is currently up to a 10-year wait to connect renewable assets to the grid, is one that GB Energy cannot tackle on its own. It must be part of a wider ecosystem of change. Whilst GB Energy is focused on the “delivery of clean power by coinvesting in technologies” and to “deploy local energy production”, the new National Wealth Fund will take a whole-of-economy approach to encouraging private investment into “ports, giga-factories, hydrogen, and the steel industry”.

The new government is also promising to shake up planning. Whilst the specifics are yet to be announced, this might include extending the compulsory purchase powers under the 2023 Levelling-up and Regeneration Act to include housing and renewable energy as nationally significant infrastructure projects. Green Belt protections will also need to be more nuanced.

GB Energy, then, is at the centre of proposed systemic change: despite appearances, its implications make it the most radical part of the King’s Speech. At present, the new government with its large majority has political licence to start this process. But the ‘wide but shallow’ majority Labour holds will soon be under attack via the nimbyism that is already knocking at the door of many backbench and opposition MPs. With streamlined planning will come reactions from communities the country over, many who agree with renewable energy in principle, but do not to wish to see it – or the grid infrastructure it requires – near their homes. The social licence must be established now, before the backlash builds.

The government needs to be very clear about why the transition is essential. The case must be made both in terms of our moral responsibility to protect the climate and the economic necessity for the UK to remain at the forefront of the race to net zero. Energy security is clearly central to this, which – over the longer term – will deliver cheaper energy. But to set up expectations that secure energy will mean cheap energy any time soon (compared with pre-Ukraine crisis levels) is misleading, a point Mark McAllister, the chair of Ofgem, has repeated over recent months.

The government also needs to set out the principles through which it will ensure the transition is both ‘fair’ and ‘just’. Tough decisions will need to be made about where to invest and where not to invest, where to build power grids and pylons, where the onshore wind and solar farms should go, and so on. The principles must be set now and so too the oversight and accountability mechanisms that will operate at pace over the next 25 years – both within the new company and externally. The new Net Zero Economy Authority in Australia is one emerging model to look at, integrating social considerations (eg impact on workers) into overall delivery structures. In the UK, we can look to the early thinking of the Climate Change Committee, Scotland’s Just Transition Commission or city-based initiatives such as those in London or Bristol, to frame how we might best deliver a fair and equitable transition. However it is done, streamlined planning and greater coherence from central government must be accompanied by dynamic accountability so that the public can see hard decisions can also be made fairly. GB Energy needs to build, and then maintain, its social licence.

UK

Work to remove deadly cladding hasn't started on more than half of all residential buildings identified since Grenfell

The first batch of data to be published by the Ministry of Housing since the Grenfell Inquiry completed its work shows more than 258,000 flats have been highlighted as "life-critical" due to cladding issues or fire safety defects.

Rachael Venables

Sky News
News correspondent @rachaelvenables
Thursday 19 September 2024 

Work still hasn't started to remove deadly cladding on more than half of all residential buildings identified as at risk since the Grenfell tragedy

Work still hasn't started to remove deadly cladding on more than half of all residential buildings identified as at risk since the Grenfell tragedy.

The first batch of data to be published by the Ministry of Housing since the Grenfell Inquiry completed its work shows that 4,771 buildings have now been highlighted as having "life-critical" cladding or fire safety defects since 2017. This covers more than 258,000 individual flats.

The Grenfell Inquiry found that flammable cladding was the "principal cause of the rapid fire spread" in 2017. It concluded that "systematic dishonesty" from cladding and insulation companies and government inaction all contributed to the disaster in which 72 people died.

Flat owners ignoring cladding laws
Flat owners are ignoring laws aimed at stopping a repeat of the Grenfell Tower fire tragedy, Sky News has discovered

Flat owners ignoring cladding laws

After the fire, it emerged that hundreds of thousands of people around the country were also living in unsafe buildings with similar flammable materials on their external walls. The scandal trapped many leaseholders in dangerous homes that were unsellable, causing financial worries for owners.

Several schemes have been introduced by the government to fund and support the removal of cladding from social and private housing over 11 metres in height. But the latest data, published monthly, shows that yet again, remediation schemes are moving at a glacial pace.



Only 1,392 buildings (29%) have completed remediation, while 985 buildings (21%) have started the process.


Most alarmingly, the numbers show that each month more buildings are being identified than are being fixed.

From the end of July to the end of August, 42 buildings completed remediation, and 78 began the process. But another 141 buildings were brought to the government's attention.

At least another 4,000 "medium-height" blocks of flats are still to be investigated.

Matt Hodges-Long, founder of the Building Safety Register, said these figures are far from complete.

"This data only shows the blocks which have been accepted for the various funding schemes," he said. "There are still blocks out there, such as those under 11 metres, or with non-qualifying leaseholders, which are ineligible for help and so not recorded in the data."

Two new buildings with aluminium composite material (ACM) cladding, the same as that on Grenfell Tower, were only discovered in August for the first time.

Mr Hodges-Long says: "New buildings are being found all the time. No one knows how much bigger this problem really is. But it's clear we haven't hit the top of the hill yet."

Every month the MHCLG publishes the latest remediation data. There was a huge surge in October 2023 after they expanded the funding to medium-rise blocks, and included developer-funded projects in the numbers.

The government is investing £5.1bn into removing unsafe cladding and is trying to make the construction industry pay for the rest, including through a building safety levy.

A Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government spokesperson said: "The progress on remediation has been too slow - and this government is taking action to ensure that dangerous buildings are urgently dealt with.

"The full force of government will be brought to bear to make sure building owners fix this and people have the safe and secure homes that they deserve.

"We are ramping up work with regulators and local authorities and using new tools to identify properties with plans to accelerate the pace of remediation to be announced in the autumn."

UK

Restore Our Right to Strike – Steve Gillan, POA 

19th September 2024Leave a Commenton Restore Our Right to Strike – Steve Gillan, POA 

“In opposition, Tony Blair promised to scrap this pernicious legislation – but in a bitter betrayal he reneged on this promise as Prime Minister.” 

By Steve Gillan, POA

Although the POA are not affiliated to any political party, as General Secretary I was relieved to see the back of the Tories at the general election and I am looking forward to the first Labour conference under a Labour government in 15 years. 

The past decade and a half have seen billions of pounds robbed from the prison service under the guise of Tory austerity – and the consequences are clear for all to see. Overcrowded, ultra-violent, vermin-ridden – our prisons are completely unfit for purpose. People leave prison more criminalised, more traumatised, more drug-addicted than when they arrive. We simply cannot continue like this. 

Many of the problems in our prisons will take major investment to fix but there is one urgently needed change that won’t cost a penny – ending the 30-year ban on prison officers taking any form of industrial action, leaving my members at the mercy of management and ministers to exploit them with impunity, knowing there is no way for their union to fight back apart from costly court action. 

This draconian restriction on my members’ basic human rights was introduced via Section 127 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, which made it illegal to “induce” a prison officer “to take (or continue to take) any industrial action”. This led to the High Court fining the POA £210,000 in 2019, with the national chair and me threatened by Tory government lawyers with imprisonment, simply for protecting my members from danger. 

In opposition, Tony Blair promised to scrap this pernicious legislation – but in a bitter betrayal he reneged on this promise as Prime Minister. So, now is the time for this new Labour government to put right past wrongs as part of its pledge to repeal Tory anti-trade-union laws. Give prison officers back their industrial muscle and we will be able to help rebuild our shattered and demoralised service and drive down reoffending! 

Ministers must trust their committed and brave public servants, who risk their lives every day to protect the public, as the Scottish government did in 2015 – sparking not strikes but dramatically improved industrial relations. Prison officers are a disciplined service, they sign the Official Secrets Act and they are loyal to the crown. In other words, they are the last people to engage in industrial conflict, except as a last resort. 

At TUC earlier this month, delegates unanimously approved POA’s two motions on restoring the right to strike and the urgent need to build more secure hospitals, because so many prisoners have serious mental health problems that are simply made worse by the prison environment. 

This new Labour government may have inherited a ticking time-bomb in our prisons by the Tories but they also inherited as £4 billion prison-build budget, which they have pledged to use. But there is no reason they have to follow the last government’s plan to spend this money on a new generation of privately run mega-prisons – little more than human warehouses, in my opinion. Instead, they could build smaller-scale public prisons and secure hospitals, which are widely recognised to be more effective at promoting rehabilitation. 

And more importantly, they should use some of these billions to invest in and improve the prisons we already have. Privatising prison maintenance has proved to be an utter disaster, and procurement is a bad joke, as any governor trying to replace kit can tell you. Same with the canteen of goods prisoners can buy – private companies charging well over the odds to literally a captive audience. Tear up the contracts, bring it all in-house or at least under public control, and end the privatised rip-off in our prisons that is doing so much damage at the heart of our criminal justice system. 

A decade-and-a-half of Tory failure has led us to the brink of disaster in our prisons. The POA stands ready to play its part in fixing this but, if Labour is serious about treating workers and their trade unions as part of the solution, not part of the problem, it must give our members back their basic industrial rights and listen to us about urgent priorities across the prison estate. Restoring our right to strike – and the dignity at work that comes with this – is a vital step towards achieving justice, boosting morale and taking back control of our prisons before it’s too late. 

I will be speaking about the many prison crises at the Conference fringe meeting at Revolución de Cuba on Monday at 11am, alongside fellow union leaders Mick Lynch, Fran Heathcote and Matt Wrack, Employment Rights Minister Justin Madders and Lord John Hendy from the Institute of Employment Rights, on the subject of how this new government will deliver its New Deal for Working People. 

And for the first time, this year the POA will have a stand at Labour Conference (location C10). Please come and say hello and pick up some of conference’s hottest merch, including the new POA bucket hat! More seriously, we have copies of our new briefing on the right to strike, with plenty of ideas on how to support prison officers win back their basic human rights. See you there! 

 

---

 

• EVENT: How will the Labour Government Deliver a New Deal for Working People? 
• Trade Union Coordinating Group, Labour List and the Institute for Employment Rights. Supported by Arise – a Festival of Left Ideas. 
• Monday 23 September, 11 am, 
• Revolución De Cuba (Casa bar, upstairs) 
• Dr Jo Grady (UCU), Justin Madders (Minister, invited,) Matt Wrack (FBU) Mick Lynch (RMT) Lord Hendy, Steve Gillian (POA), Fran Heathcote (PCS) 

UK
Teachers strike over medical appointments policy

Daisy Stephens
BBC News
National Education Union
Staff have gone on strike at two schools run by the same trust


Teachers and support staff at two schools have walked out over their trust's policy on leave for medical appointments.

Staff at the Thames Learning Trust, which manages six schools across Berkshire, have to take unpaid leave in order to attend medical appointments during school hours.

Members of the National Education Union (NEU) at Reading Girls' School and Baylis Court School in Slough are striking on six days, beginning on Thursday.

The BBC has approached Thames Learning Trust, Reading Girls' School and Baylis Court School for comment.

Katie Gumbrell, joint branch secretary for the NEU in Reading, said the policy was "draconian".

"There aren't any schools we can find that have similar policies to this."

She said it had been in place for "a while" and the NEU had been negotiating with the trust, who had made "some concessions" - including allowing schools to offer paid leave for appointments at the headteachers' discretion if the staff member could prove they attempted to rearrange the appointment for outside of working hours.

But Ms Gumbrell said members did not feel it was enough and the requirement to try and change appointments was "not fair on the NHS".

"The solution that the members want [is] they should be treated as professionals," she said.

"Nobody's going to be taking time off work, pretending to be going to hospital."

Allison Hadwin, a striker at Baylis Court, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: "Nobody goes into teaching for the money – we do this for the children, we do it because we believe in education. We put hundreds of extra hours in.

“If we want to attract good people into education you need better terms and conditions than docking their pay for medical appointments.”

Strikes at the two schools are planned on the 19, 24 and 25 September and 1, 2 and 3 October.

UK
This is what public sector workers need from the Labour government

Fran Heathcote 

PCS

18 September, 2024

"A strong economy is not possible without a strong public sector"

TweetShareWhatsAppMail

The election of a new government this year is a chance for a new start, after 14 years of austerity that delivered public service cuts, below-inflation pay deals for our members, and rising poverty.

In Labour there is the opportunity to turn the page on years of division against migrants, benefit claimants, LGBT+ people and trade unions – bolstered by anti-union laws – which have left our country poorer and more divided.

Our members working in areas like the DWP and Home Office want to end the stunts and demonisation of those claiming benefits or seeking asylum. We need efficient systems that treat people fairly, not government departments repurposed as the attack dogs of ministerial prejudice.

We’ve seen some encouraging signs from the Labour government already: the above-inflation pay offers this year are a start, but only a start, in addressing years of our members’ pay being driven down. Likewise, the immediate scrapping of the Rwanda scheme shut the door on a policy that was equal parts malice and gimmick.

We keenly await the New Deal for Working People being implemented without dilution. The Government says this package will make work pay. We will hold them to that, and ensure they tackle the poverty pay among their own staff – many of whom are reliant on Universal Credit to make ends meet, and 1 in 10 of whom have needed to rely on food banks.

In the Department for the Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra), our members are campaigning for a 4-day week – and have established a dialogue with the department on this issue.

The last Conservative government had an almost kneejerk reaction against the 4-day week; even going so far as to threaten local councils that piloted the policy – so much for devolution!

But successful pilot schemes on a reduced working week have been held involving our members working for the Scottish Government, and it’s being raised in other UK government areas too.

Evidence suggests a four-day week would lead to a better work-life balance for staff and could improve productivity for the employer.

Previous trials have led to a reduction in sick leave and improvements to staff retention and satisfaction.

If Defra wants to seriously address the issues of employee burnout, stress and poor wellbeing they will listen to our members who have made a strong case to implement a pilot scheme.

To encourage ministers, we are organising a fringe meeting with the 4-day week campaign at Labour Party conference.

As part of the New Deal for Working People, it has been reported that Labour might be considering a ‘compressed hours’ scheme where employees would be allowed to work their regular hours over four days instead of five.

This is not the same as the 4-day week campaign, which involves a shortening of the working week – to increase morale, work-life balance and productivity. Nevertheless, it’s welcome at least that Labour appears to be open to these questions.

It’s vital that Labour represents a real break with the last Conservative government – the ‘Change’ that Labour promised as its election slogan.

First and foremost that means ending austerity. Next month’s Budget is pivotal for the party. Talk of “tough choice” and “painful decisions” is painfully reminiscent of George Osborne’s rhetoric. And the choice to cut winter fuel allowance from pensioners has proved deeply unpopular

Our public services are, as Keir Starmer and others said throughout the election campaign, on their knees. They cannot take more austerity. Services will collapse – hitting the public and the dedicated staff doing their best in trying circumstances.

Labour has to be bold and reject calls for restraint. You cannot solve the problems caused by austerity – underinvestment, low growth, low productivity – with further austerity.

The TUC unanimously voted for a campaign of pay restoration – not just because our members would like more money, but because it is needed.

Pay in much of the public sector is lower today than it was in 2010 – and that is also harming recruitment and retention, and resulting in backlogs and delays.

I welcome Labour’s manifesto commitment to “sectoral collective bargaining”. We need that to be restored in the civil service – where we have the absurdity and waste of 200 sets of delegated pay negotiations, when there should be just one.

Earlier this year PCS commissioned academic research on the economic effects of increasing civil service pay, and the results show that boosting civil service wages more than pays for itself through the benefits it would generate in the wider economy.

It was disappointing to hear Keir Starmer say at the TUC Congress, “with tough decisions on the horizon, pay will inevitably be shaped by that”.

Our members cannot keep paying the price for political failure. Without boosting the incomes of working people, there will not be a stronger economy – let alone the highest sustained growth in the G7 that is Labour’s mission.

A strong economy is not possible without a strong public sector – and we’re here at Labour Party conference to remind Keir Starmer of that.

Fran Heathcote is general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union

PCS’ fringe at Labour Party conference on the case for a 4-day week is taking place on Monday 23 September at 5pm in Arena Room 5, ACC.

This article is sponsored by PCS.