In today's Western Mail

From today's Mail:

'Wales should get a windfall if the Government has to provide extra funding to English PFI projects, a Plaid AM has claimed.'

'Plaid Cymru AM Leanne Wood yesterday said private finance initiatives had “clearly failed”. Her criticism of the use of private sector finance comes as speculation mounts that the Westminster Government may have to provide £4bn in loans to rescue contractors which can no longer raise money from the markets.The Treasury yesterday confirmed it will be coming forward with a set of proposals on PFI in the coming days.'

'The Labour-Plaid Cymru coalition pact commits the Assembly Government to eliminating the use of private hospitals by the NHS by 2011 and use of PFIs by the health service is banned.Ms Wood said: “One good thing coming out of Wales’ very limited use of PFI in the past is that we will not have chunks of our budget tied to PFI repayments over the coming decades.” '

'Conservative AM David Melding said: “PFI...remains a very robust option for capital projects but it’s also a model much more likely to be popular during times of robust economic growth.”The present shortage of funds was not due to errors by the contractors, but due to actions by banks, he said.A Welsh Assembly Government spokesperson said: “We are in regular dialogue with the Treasury to ensure that the Welsh Assembly Government receives funding in accordance with the operation of the Barnett formula.” '

Wales - 13th Worst Carbon Dioxide Emitting Country in the World

Leaving aside that the "report" is one of a series of regular research briefings prepared by the Assembly's Research Unit to update AMs on the latest available data on climate change, this article makes some serious points.

Climate change is fast turning into a climate crisis. We are already witnessing melting ice caps, rising sea levels, more natural disasters such as floods, droughts and storms, unreliable and shifting agricultural patterns, the loss of wildlife and species extinction and the destruction of sea life habitats. Today we are watching the tragic consequences unfold from the fires in Australia. Very few serious people are now denying what professor Sir David King, Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Government called back in 2004 "the biggest problem facing us globally this century. There is no bigger problem. The threat is quite simple; it's a threat to our civilisation."

Gordon James from Friends of the Earth is right when he says “The abundant political rhetoric we have had on the subject must be replaced by courageous action that will bring about big reductions in emissions in the very near future. Last week’s decision to give the go-ahead to a large power station at Pembroke instead of the far more efficient combined heat and power systems just shows how politicians are still delivering business as usual responses rather than the radical policy changes that are now essential.”

The story is taken up in the Western Mail editorial which says "Decisions like approving a huge opencast mine at Merthyr Tydfil and a gas-fired power station at Pembroke, which does not conform to the highest possible environmental standards, suggest the political commitment to combating climate change is no more than skin deep. It is no wonder that members of the public are confused by the very apparent mixed messages they are being fed."

The Assembly had no say over the LNG power station in Pembrokeshire. Recognising this lack of power as a major barrier to progress on cutting Welsh carbon dioxide emissions, the editorial goes on to argue for the Assembly to "have planning control over the biggest power station applications – the very plants that have the greatest impact on climate change." Of course, I agree that this would be a good step, but we've still got a long way to go before we resolve the jobs versus environment arguement in a way which doesn't involve building more and more massive polluters.

New survey on children is madness

This week, the First Minister Rhodri Morgan has offered some welcome criticism of Gordon Brown's 'Britishness' agenda. The Western Mail reported that Rhodri Morgan opposes the "criminalisation of the nation’s youth and a “fortress-like” attitude to asylum seekers". In my criminal justice report which I launched earlier this year, I referenced some of the First Minister's previous comments on youth justice which have been far more progressive than what we can expect from New Labour. I also quoted Rod Morgan (no relation to Rhodri!), who is a former head of the Youth Justice Board. Professor Morgan holds the view that the policies of the UK government criminalise children to a greater extent than any other country in Europe.

Both Rod and Rhodri are right, and a survey highlighted by the BBC this week seems to show that the UK government's victimisation of children is having a negative effect on general attitudes. The YouGov poll interviewed 2,021 UK adults, and over half believed that children are feral, behave like animals and present a danger to adults. So this is the perception. The facts are that most crime in the UK is caused by adults and the majority of victims of anti-social behaviour are children.

I fully support Barnardo's UK-wide advertising campaign which aims to highlight and challenge these negative perceptions of children. Children do not deserve to be scapegoated and blamed for all of society's problems. Finland is a country not that much bigger than Wales, but it is a country which treats its children and young people consistently better than we do, and perceptions are different as a result. Finland's youth crime rate that is almost non-existent. Isn't that the kind of system we should be aiming for?

My Statement of Opinion on cancer and its link to fuel poverty

On Monday, the Western Mail ran a survey, which revealed that two thirds of cancer patients struggle to pay their fuel bills and that they say it’s their biggest money worry.

The research also found that people living with cancer already suffer financial hardship, with 7 out of 10 people losing an average of 50% of their income.

Cancer patients spend longer periods of time at home to recuperate during treatment, they find it difficult to keep active and there is evidence to suggest they feel the cold more. All of this means they have to spend more on heating at a time when they have plenty of other worries.

This week, I raised a Statement of Opinion in the Assembly. Hopefully, this statement will attract widespread support in the Assembly and will result in some justice for cancer patients. Here is the text of the Statement:

The National Assembly for Wales notes:

• The additional heating needs of cancer patients.

• That cancer patients of working age lose on average 50% of their income and that 4 in 10 working age patients do not return to work after treatment.


The National Assembly for Wales will ensure:

• that cancer patients should be eligible for the HEES programme.

• That cancer patients are given information to avoid fuel poverty and maximise their revenue.
• That energy companies provide help for all vulnerable groups and that cancer patients are included within their social tariff schemes.

Blaming the Victims

I was disappointed with this article in today's Western Mail. It quotes Patrick Minford, Professor of Applied Economics at Cardiff Business School, blaming the unemployed for unemployment. “A lot of this has to do with the fact that they are in receipt of benefits so there is no pressure to look for work." It sounds too much like Norman Tebbit's "get-on-your-bike" to me.

This is characteristic of current thinking. I recently blogged on new proposals to force people to work for their incapacity benefits, proposals which have been described by Mark Serwotka as ‘regressive and draconian, going further than even Thatcher dared in the 1980s. Picking up litter to receive benefits will stigmatise people and do nothing to get people back into long-term sustainable employment.’ TUC General Secretary Barber has said: ‘People who lose their jobs want help in getting new skills and new paying jobs, not make-work schemes that provide no pay, no prospects and not even any time to search for a new job. Workfare policies do nothing to benefit wider society. And workers in low paid jobs could well be replaced by workfare claimants leading them to lose their jobs in turn.’

Does Professor Minford think that benefit levels are too high? Does he really think that people live the life of Reilly on benefits? Benefits are set at levels which only just enable people to avoid poverty. No more. Living on benefits is hard - everything has to be rationed - food, fuel, stuff for the kids. Of course people would be better off in well-paid work. But people are not stupid. We all make rational economic decisions. If the only jobs on offer are part time and/or poorly paid, then there's a good chance you'll be worse off working. What sensible, rational being would do that?

The answer is not to reduce benefits levels, or to force ill people to work. The answer is to raise wages. With New Labour ministers blaming immigrants, and now this attack on the unemployed, we can expect a lot more victim-blaming as the recession bites.

Minimum wage not enforced by UK government

Almost 800 businesses in Wales have been caught paying workers below the minimum wage, but not a single one has been prosecuted.

Not only that, there are only 8 minimum wage enforcement officers employed to cover the whole of Wales, and they are all based in Cardiff.

New Labour are focussing their attention on benefit fraud while revenue and customs offices are seeing staff cuts and centralisation.

Overworked tax and minimum wage compliance officers can not keep up - so businesses and individuals are getting away with breaking the law.

Its time more effort was concentrated on the big money - the tax fraudsters and minimum wage law breakers. Is there any point of having rules if they aren't being enforced?