Time to control our own resources

One of the themes of this weekend's Plaid Cymru conference was the economy. Wales's economy is in a poor state and not getting better despite billions of euro-cash.

With public sector cuts resulting in job losses and cuts to workers' wages hitting at the same time as big rises in the costs of living, allowing the Welsh economy to continue to decline is not an option.

As Dr Calvin Jones pointed out in a Stop Climate Chaos Cymru fringe meeting, Wales will need three nuclear power stations to replace oil, which is fast increasing in price as world reserves run out. Calvin presented a chilling picture of what can be expected: he asked how Mrs Jones living at the top of the valleys will be able to get to hospital when there are no buses, taxi's are unaffordable and the NHS can't afford to put fuel in its ambulances. This is the sort of consequence we can expect from peak oil, if we continue to live the way we do.

It's important to understand our history if we are to avoid making the same mistakes. One of the reasons that Wales's economy is in the state it is, is that we failed to control our own natural resources in the past. Those areas which produced the coal which fuelled the Britsh Empire should today be wealthy. Instead the land and the people of those areas were exploited, colonial-style, as the profits from coal lined the pockets of those elsewhere. It is those former coalfield areas, the valleys, which are among the most deprived part of Wales, the UK, even Europe - which is why we still qualify for EU structural funds. If Wales is to host another energy revolution, control over and the ability to realise the profits from those energy sources is going to be vital.

The valleys and parts of our coasts are due to see a vast expansion of wind power. Wind turbines being contructed already. Opposition continues, with one of the chief objections being that local communities will see little benefit. Electricity will not be cheaper and any benefits from compensatory 'wind-falls' to local councils are likely to be swallowed up by the cuts. In future, all renewable energy developments should have an element of community ownership and tangible benefits for the local communities before they are allowed to go ahead.

Decisions about large energy projects should be made in Wales, by devolving the power for energy consents for power generation of more than 50 MegaWatts. And the land owned by the Crown Estates in Wales should be owned by the people of Wales, with the profits being invested back into green infrastructure instead of into the coffers of the Windsors.

And there are more proposals in the Valleys Greenprint to make sure small communities in Wales see the benefits from controlling and owning the renewable energy we have to produce.

A green revolution has the potential to provide a vital boost to the Welsh economy. If we can make sure people have the right skills - green construction, co-operative and business skills and access to finance, co-operatively-based, where possible, and we can implementing some of the other proposals contained in the greenprint and those put forward in the conference fringe by Stop Climate Change Chaos and recently by Friends of the Earth Cymru, we have the potential to create thousand of jobs and prepare Wales for a future less reliant on carbon emitting fossil fuels AND save people money on their home energy bills. No brainer? What are we waiting for?

Greenprint

A PDF of the Greenprint for the Valleys - a green jobs creation plan can be found on the Plaid Cymru site.

There are more reports here and here. An introduction can be listened to here.

Copies of the Greenprint will be available tonight at a public meeting in Cwmaman Institute, Cynon Valley, 7pm. Another will be held in the Rhondda next Monday.

A Greenprint for the Valleys

Next Monday, I am launching 'A Greenprint for the Valleys'. The launch meeting will be held on 21st March at 7pm in Cwmaman Institute in the Cynon Valley, with Plaid Cymru’s Cynon Valley candidate, Dafydd Trystan Davies.

The Greenprint is an attempt to offer ideas which will provide solutions to the varied problems we face in the valleys from public sector cuts, high levels of unemployment, especially among young people, low skills levels as well as potential future problems like fuel and food price rises, benefit and pension cuts and the weather-related effects of climate change.

Proposals include establishing a Green Construction Skills College, implementing an integrated transport plan for the valleys, providing financial support for home energy efficiency measures and for the setting up of green co-operatives, as well as creating a land bank for renewable energy and food production and a programme to renovate heritage buildings.

Can we wake up the community spirit that was strong in the valleys during the 80s miners' strike? Can we recreate the ethos of our forefathers who built the miners’ welfare halls, the libraries, the hospitals and the workingmen's clubs in the days before the welfare state existed?

With the ConDem government in London intent upon tearing apart our hard-fought-for welfare safety-net, I hope that this consultation document will at least help to start a debate among people in the valleys about how we can use our own skills and resources to build protection against these attacks and to make sure the area has a future.

A second public meeting will be held at 7.30pm on Monday March 28th in the Soar Ffrwdamos Centre, Penygraig, Rhondda, with Plaid’s Assembly candidate Sêra Evans-Fear.

Copies of the Greenprint will be available at the public meetings and in the form of a PDF on the Plaid Cymru site from next Monday.

Looming Dangers to Our Public Services

It is often said that where America leads, the rest of the world follows. This statement is, sadly, particularly the case as far the United Kingdom is concerned and as far as foreign policy is concerned. However, while we keep a watchful eye on the soundings of the Obama administration on the so-called “axis of evil” and their next target, it is recent anti-trade union legislation that we also need to be mindful of.

In Wisconsin, the Republican governor Scott Walker has successfully passed a bill, despite the best efforts of 14 Democrat Senators, which restricts the collective bargaining rights of workers. The issue has caused a political storm and workers are rightly outraged at being punished in this unjust way. The powers-that-be are making the workers pick up the tab for the nation’s budget deficit, which of course, was not of their making. Sound familiar?

This issue was brought up during the Noam Chomsky talk in Cardiff. Chomsky spoke of the messages of support that had been sent by the labour movement in Egypt to Wisconsin workers who were reciprocating the goodwill they had received themselves from Wisconsin during the successful ousting of their crooked dictator Mubarak. The spirit of solidarity extends across the world during tough times.

It is clear we need to be on guard against the introduction of similar, anti-union laws being passed in the UK. We already have some of the most restrictive union laws in the Western world yet the appetite of the likes of David Cameron and Boris Johnson to crack down on hard-won workers’ rights seems to know no bounds. The Tories, aided by the Liberal Democrats, are lining up their ducks-in-a-row before pushing through the type of cuts that will devastate the livelihoods of tens of thousands of working people throughout the UK. We have already seen plenty of evidence that shows that here in Wales, we will be hit particularly hard by swingeing cuts because of the numbers of people working in the public sector.

The recent and resounding ‘Yes’ vote has crucially extended Wales's protection from the socially destructive policies of the Con/Dems but there are still limitations. I am very worried about the plans Cameron has announced for opening up public sector contracts to private firms. We will know the potential impact on Wales when the detail is revealed in a forthcoming White Paper.

This week I chaired a meeting of the cross-party Assembly PCS union group. A reoccurring theme of the meeting was that in all sectors, our public service workers are facing the type of attack not seen since the days of Thatcher. This is not just at the hands of the Westminster coalition in areas such as Companies House and the Driving Standards Agency but also at the Labour-controlled RCT council who have used ‘gunboat diplomacy’ to force through a 40% cut in wages for some of their lowest-paid workers. This was all achieved while the council sat on a £2 million surplus they told no-one about. It goes without saying that the Plaid Cymru group at the council has vehemently opposed these measures from the very outset.

Next Monday, I will unveil a discussion paper called ‘Greenprint for the Valleys’ that puts forward some proposals for the future of the former coalfield communities and encourage debate about what we need to do to secure our future. There will be public meetings on the ‘Greenprint for the Valleys’ at the Cwmaman Institute on the evening of March 21st and Soar in Penygraig on the evening of March 28th.

The viability of our valleys' communities are at stake and we need to act now if we are to ensure a future for our children. But we also need to protect what we have or our work will be severely undermined.