Green Party Octo­ber News­let­ter

Includ­ing: updates from Car­oline Lucas, Keith Taylor and Jean Lam­bert;
Mar­ine and Agri­cul­ture Policy News;
Young Greens Update;
Green Party Spring Con­fer­ence;
MEP nom­in­a­tions in South East;
Peti­tions: Against Animal Test­ing and Allow MPs to job share;
White Crane Draw results.

Dear all,

As the unseason­ably warm weather of late Septem­ber fades into memory, I am still reel­ing from the Chancellor’s state­ment at Con­ser­vat­ive Party con­fer­ence that the Gov­ern­ment is no longer inter­ested in tak­ing a lead on cli­mate change – and that he con­siders cut­ting car­bon emis­sions incom­pat­ible with build­ing a steady state economy.

How wrong he is.

Envir­on­mental issues were already vir­tu­ally nonex­ist­ent on this Government’s agenda, so as we approach the next UN Cli­mate Sum­mit in Durban and the Rio+20 con­fer­ence on sus­tain­able devel­op­ment it is up to us Greens to make the case for a new global vis­ion which puts people and our planet centre stage. I will be doing all I can in Par­lia­ment to argue for a green steady eco­nomy, so too, I know will elec­ted Greens in Europe, on the Lon­don Assembly, and on coun­cils across Eng­land and Wales. Each of you can play your part too and I hope you will.

Best wishes,

Car­oline

Update from Car­oline Lucas, MP

It’s been pretty much non­stop in my MPs office since MPs were recalled to Par­lia­ment over the sum­mer to debate the riots that affected some of our major towns and cit­ies. The Greens issued a response which you can read here:  http://www.greenparty.org.uk/news/19–08-2011-aftermath–riots.html

One of the main issues I have been work­ing on over the sum­mer and since is NHS reform. I sub­mit­ted over 40 amend­ments to the Government’s Health and Social Care Bill, includ­ing one call­ing for free dental care, pre­scrip­tions and eye tests. Sev­eral were debated but none passed. The Bill is now with the House of Lords and I con­tinue to be act­ively involved in the oppos­i­tion cam­paign call­ing for it to be scrapped entirely.

Last month the DSEI arms fair took place in Lon­don and I was invited, along with other MPs to attend. Inform­a­tion I received prior to attend­ing the arms fair led me to sus­pect that illegal cluster muni­tions were being openly pro­moted at the event. I imme­di­ately aler­ted the organ­isers and am pleased that a decision was taken to per­man­ently shut down the two exhib­it­ors, revoke their licences and pre­vent staff from re-entering DSEi. I have fol­lowed up with a let­ter to the Gov­ern­ment urging that they do not allow DSEI to take place in future if they can­not guar­an­tee its legality.

The Energy Bill received its final read­ing in Par­lia­ment in Septem­ber and I was able to fol­low up on the work I did as a mem­ber of the Com­mit­tee charged with scru­tin­ising the pro­pos­als. This was a fur­ther oppor­tun­ity to make the case for an energy effi­ciency pro­gramme that is fit for pur­pose. Sadly none of my amend­ments were adop­ted and we are saddled with a Bill that will not deliver much needed emis­sions reduc­tions or help tackle fuel poverty. You can fol­low the debate at: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmhansrd/cm110914/debtext/110914–0001.htm#11091475000002

Media wise I have been on News­night, ITV Meridian, BBC West­min­ster Hour since the last bul­letin and had cov­er­age from The Guard­ian, Fin­an­cial Times, Daily Mir­ror and The Tele­graph amongst other. I was delighted to be named Best All Rounder’ in the Total Polit­ics End of Year Awards 2011 and as Woman MP of the Year by Dods/Scottish Widows.

 

Update from Keith Taylor MEP

Keith recently gained sup­port from the European Par­lia­ment for 20mph speed lim­its in res­id­en­tial areas. As part of a report on road safety the par­lia­ment voted to recom­mend 20mph speed lim­its in urban areas. The report recom­mends ways to reduce EU road deaths by half by 2020 (from 38,000 in 2010), as well as redu­cing injuries.

In his role as a mem­ber of the parliament’s del­eg­a­tion to Palestine Keith vis­ited Gaza in the sum­mer. On his return he spoke in par­lia­ment to sup­port the EU-Palestine Interim Asso­ci­ation Trade Agree­ment. The agree­ment was designed to help the devel­op­ment of the Palestinian eco­nomy through duty-free (and some­times quota-free) access of Palestinian imports of agri­cul­tural products, pro­cessed agri­cul­tural products and fish and fish­ery products into the EU. Keith wit­nessed firsthand the poverty and hard­ship res­ult­ing from the Israeli block­ade of Gaza and is hope­ful that increased trade with the EU will help boost the Palestinian eco­nomy. You can see a film of Keith’s speech on this issue in the European Par­lia­ment at www.bit.ly/pKbluk

In the con­stitu­ency Keith vis­ited Milton Keynes to meet with Green Party mem­bers, trans­port cam­paign­ers, wor­ship­pers at the local mosque, a men­tal health char­ity and a com­munity centre.

Con­stitu­ents in Kent have been con­tact­ing Keith recently about wel­fare con­di­tions of anim­als being expor­ted from Rams­gate port in Kent. Keith has writ­ten to DEFRA ask­ing them how they are ensur­ing EU animal wel­fare stand­ards are being enforced at the port. Keith has also been lob­by­ing the European Com­mis­sion about his con­cerns that the EU min­imum require­ments for animal trans­port­a­tion do not go far enough and are not being prop­erly enforced. Keith is urging the European Com­mis­sion to ensure bet­ter enforce­ment of cur­rent EU stand­ards and to take up animal wel­fare organ­isa­tions’ calls for an 8 hour max­imum jour­ney limit for animal trans­port­a­tion, as a step towards end­ing all live exports.  

 

Update from Jean Lam­bert MEP

It is estim­ated that there are some 3.5 mil­lion people in the UK over the age of 22 earn­ing less than £7 an hour.  In stark con­trast, Britain’s largest lis­ted com­pan­ies are con­tinu­ing to post healthy profits.  As a follow-on from the Liv­ing Wage “Just Pay!” con­fer­ence fringe, Jean  Lam­bert MEP , wrote to the UK’s FTSE 100 com­pan­ies urging them to com­mit to pay­ing a Liv­ing Wage to all employ­ees, a move which could poten­tially lift hun­dreds of thou­sands of low paid staff out of work­ing poverty.  Jean’s appeal coin­cided with the annual upgrad­ing of the National Min­imum Wage, which takes place on the 1^st of Octo­ber.  At just £6.08, the NMW remains well below what an indi­vidual needs for an accept­able stand­ard of living.   

In Brus­sels, as a mem­ber of the European Par­lia­ment Employ­ment and Social Affairs Com­mit­tee, Jean has called on the UK Gov­ern­ment to rethink its pos­i­tion on the ILO Con­ven­tion for migrant domestic work­ers, a pack­age of meas­ures that would provide con­crete pro­tec­tion for some of the UK’s most vul­ner­able workers. Around 15,000 migrant domestic work­ers come to the UK each year and are often excluded from gen­eral labour laws and social protection. Jean has asked the Gov­ern­ment to improve the work­ing and liv­ing con­di­tions of these work­ers by sign­ing up to the Con­ven­tion without delay. The UK is one of only two EU Mem­ber States that abstained in the ILK vote.

To find out more about Jean’s work in the European Par­lia­ment and Lon­don you can sign up to receive a bi-monthly news­let­ter. Please email jeanlambert@greenmeps.org.uk using INFO as the sub­ject heading.

 

Do you live beside the sea­side? Policy Com­mit­tee needs your input

The Party is draft­ing a new Mar­ine and Coastal Policy to replace our out of date policies on Fish­er­ies and Mar­ine Industry. A draft of this new policy went to Autumn con­fer­ence and we are now pre­par­ing the final policy for vot­ing at Spring con­fer­ence. If you have not yet seen the policy and would like to please email ejwhitebread@yahoo.co.uk. They would be espe­cially keen to hear from those with a par­tic­u­lar area of know­ledge relat­ing to mar­ine issues, and also from local parties in coastal communities.

Food and Agri­cul­ture Policy

The final vot­ing paper on Food and Agri­cul­ture is under­go­ing the final review and rewrite pro­cess in order to be ready for Spring conference. Many thanks to all of those who have con­trib­uted already. If you haven’t yet seen the policy (draft went to Autumn con­fer­ence) but would like to con­trib­ute please email carolinen1vet@hotmail.com with the sub­ject line ‘GP Food and Agri­cul­ture’ and spe­cify­ing if you would like a word doc of the draft or to join the Agri­cul­ture and/ or Food e-lists. Please note these lists have high email volumes at times.

 

Young Greens

Magazines now available

Young Greens magazine no 9 has arrived and is avail­able for stu­dent soci­et­ies and local parties. If your local party would like cop­ies of this glossy 12 page pub­lic­a­tion (great for recruit­ment!) please con­tact Larissa on admin@younggreens.org.uk.

Young Greens Convention

Each year, the Young Greens of Eng­land and Wales organ­ise their own weekend-long con­ven­tion, full of Green related fringes, dis­cus­sions and events. Adrian Ram­say, Deputy Leader of the Green Party will be speak­ing. Other ses­sions include a fringe with Com­pass Youth.

This year they will be in Leam­ing­ton Spa, and as well as dis­cuss­ing cam­paigns, how to run soci­et­ies being a Coun­cil­lor and more, they will be mak­ing import­ant decisions about shap­ing the future of the organisation.

It runs from 28^th-30^th Octo­ber. Attend­ance is free and crash accom­mod­a­tion is provided, you need only turn up with a sleep­ing bag. To book and for more inform­a­tion go to http://younggreens.greenparty.org.uk/events

 

Green Party Spring Con­fer­ence 2012: 24^th-27^th Feb­ru­ary, Adelphi Hotel, Liverpool.

Join Green Party mem­bers from all over the UK for a full pro­gramme of:
• Train­ing for local parties and act­iv­ists
• Policy dis­cus­sion and amend­ment
• Fringe and panel ses­sions on top­ical sub­jects
• Even­ing entertainment 

Want to sub­mit a policy amend­ment motion to con­fer­ence? (See the web­site for more inform­a­tion on how this works www.greenparty.org.uk/con­fer­ence.)
Sub­mis­sions to soc@greenparty.org.uk
Pre-Agenda dead­line 14^th Novem­ber, First Agenda dead­line 30^th Novem­ber
See the web­site for more inform­a­tion www.greenparty.org.uk/con­fer­ence

 

South-East Region Green Party’s European Par­lia­ment­ary Can­did­ates’ List

Would you like to be on the South-East Region Green Party’s European Par­lia­ment­ary Can­did­ates’ List for the 2014 European Par­lia­ment­ary Elections?

Do you think you could rep­res­ent your Party in the most suc­cess­ful Region in the UK, in Europe?

Will you have been a mem­ber of the Green Party for a year by Decem­ber 2011?

If so, email Leo Littman, the Confederation’s Elect­oral Return­ing Officer, at leo@headweb.co.uk and he will send you a nom­in­a­tion and applic­a­tion form. Com­pleted applic­a­tions must be returned by 16^th of Decem­ber 2011.

 

Animal Exper­i­ments

The European Union is due to end the import of all cos­met­ics tested on anim­als in 2013. How­ever, the European Com­mis­sion, under pres­sure from the cos­met­ics industry, is con­sid­er­ing water­ing down the ban. The BUAV, the lead­ing cam­paign against animal exper­i­ments, has a peti­tion urging the EU to stand firm. If you would like to sup­port this, please click on http://www.nocruelcosmetics.org/ and add your name to the more than 100,000 people already sup­port­ing this campaign.

 

Allow MPs to serve on a job share basis

For many people, espe­cially the dis­abled, a main bar­rier to being able to par­ti­cip­ate in pub­lic and polit­ical life is that it is not cur­rently pos­sible to job share as a Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment. The WI, with the sup­port of the Green Party. is ask­ing that the law be changed to allow MPs to serve on a job share basis. If you would like to sign this peti­tion go to:  http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/17076

 

White Crane Monthly Draw
Septem­ber 2011

1^st        034     L Coyne         £100
2^nd      178      P&K Lack        £50
3^rd       180      D Wal­lace      £18
4^th       085      R Ford           £18
5^th       161      R Adams £18

Dona­tion to Green Party from pro­ceeds: £204

 

	Car­oline Lucas MP holds reg­u­lar sur­ger­ies across the con­stitu­ency. If you want to book an appoint­ment at a forth­com­ing sur­gery please call Liz Col­lis on 01273 201130. She coordin­ates my con­stitu­ency office and is able to help with most local enquiries.