Women's Views on News |
| UK Treasury’s green failings costly Posted: 18 Nov 2016 02:26 PM PST
The Environmental Audit Committee has called for the Treasury to “green-check” all its decisions after a major investigation into its approach found that it puts short term priorities over long term sustainability – potentially increasing costs to the economy in the future, and harming investor confidence. The Treasury, through its control over government spending, taxation policy and regulation is arguably the most important department for ensuring the UK meets its environmental obligations. However, the Treasury is failing adequately to factor in long-term environmental risks into its decisions and is not doing enough to encourage departments to work together on environmental issues – such as air quality, decarbonisation, energy and resource efficiency. If the Treasury is going to improve its performance and provide greater leadership on environmental sustainability it must: Ensure Spending Reviews provide strong incentives for collaboration between departments on environmental matters; Incorporate new evidence on long-term environmental risks and benefits into its frameworks for assessing the value for money of government interventions; Increase transparency and accountability by providing publically available justifications for its decisions; and Work with other departments whose policies affect the environment to ensure the government's new industrial strategies promote sustainability. This can be seen in two case studies. The Treasury's decision to cancel carbon capture and storage funding without notice Carbon capture and storage (CCA) is an essential technology because it has the potential to help decarbonise a range of sectors including power, transport and heavy industry. Before the Treasury cancelled a long running CCS ‘competition’ to award financial support to pilot projects, the government did not quantify all the costs and benefits of delaying CCS deployment. This meant that the full risks of cancelling the competition were not factored into the decision. The Treasury’s decision will delay the roll out of CCS in the UK and will increase the cost of deploying it in the future. Without CCS, the inquiry found that it could cost an additional £30 billion to meet the 2050 carbon targets. The way the Treasury communicated its decision to industry left businesses in 'shock’, and was described as 'devastating’, potentially undermining the government’s efforts to deploy CCS in the future. It is vital the government produces a new strategy for CCS this year. The Treasury should work with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) to ensure the new strategy is published as part of the carbon reduction plan by the end of the year. Failing to do so will make it more expensive to meet our long-term, legally binding climate change targets. The other is the Treasury's decision to scrap zero carbon homes policy. In 2015 the Treasury abolished the zero carbon homes policy. The decision surprised and in some cases angered many in the construction industry – because it had been working towards implementing the policy for over a decade. There is a risk that costs to the economy and householders will increase in the long-term as a result. New homes will need to be retrofitted to improve their energy efficiency and contribute towards meeting the UK’s 2050 carbon targets. The decision harms the development of new markets for innovative energy-saving products, and wastes years of the industry’s sunk costs. It is vital the government produces a new strategy for CCS this year. The Treasury should work with BEIS to ensure the new strategy is published as part of the carbon reduction plan by the end of the year. Failing to do so will make it more expensive to meet our long-term, legally binding climate change targets. The Committee's chair Mary Creagh MP, said: “The Treasury is highly influential and uniquely placed to ensure the whole of government works to promote sustainability. But we have seen considerable evidence that it fails to do this. "The Treasury tends not to take full account of the long term environmental costs and benefits of decisions which would reduce costs for taxpayers and consumers in the long run. "On the carbon capture and storage competition and zero carbon homes we saw the Treasury riding roughshod over departments, cancelling long-established environmental programmes at short notice with no consultation, costing businesses and the taxpayer tens of millions of pounds. "With a week to go until the next Autumn Statement, we hope our inquiry will be a wake-up call to the Treasury.” To read the summary of the Committee’s report, ‘Sustainability and HM Treasury’, click here; to read the report’s conclusions and recommendations click here. To read the full report, click here.  |
| UN report of violation of rights ignored Posted: 18 Nov 2016 01:44 PM PST
The UK government has been found guilty of 'grave and systematic violations of the rights of disabled people as a direct result of austerity policies introduced into welfare and social care' after being investigated by a United Nations committee for not fulfilling the terms of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD). The UN’s report on this matter says a range of measures including controversial cuts to disability benefits, social care budgets and the introduction of the bedroom tax, have disproportionately and adversely affected the rights of disabled people to live independently, to work and achieve an adequate standard of living. It makes 11 recommendations, including calling on the government to carry out a study of the cumulative impact of all spending cuts on the disabled and to ensure human rights of disabled people are upheld. The invesitating committee recommends that’ the State party’ (the UK government): (1) Conduct a cumulative impact assessment of the measures adopted since 2010, referred to in the present report, on the rights to independent living and to be included in the community, social protection and employment of persons with disabilities. The State party should ensure that such assessment is rights-based and meaningfully involves persons with disabilities and their representative organizations; (2) Ensure that any intended measure of the welfare reform is rights-based, upholds the human rights model of disability and does not disproportionately and/or adversely affect the rights of persons with disabilities to independent living, an adequate standard of living and employment. To prevent adverse consequences, the State party should carry out human rights-based cumulative impact assessments of the whole range of intended measures that would have an impact on the rights of persons with disabilities; (3) Ensure that: any intended legislation and/or policy measure respects the core elements of the rights analysed in the present report; persons with disabilities retain their autonomy, choice and control over their place of residence and with whom they live; they receive appropriate and individualized support, including through personal assistance, and have access to community-based services on an equal basis with others; they have access to security social schemes that ensure income protection, including in relation to the extra cost of disability, that is compatible with an adequate standard of living and ensure their full inclusion and participation in society; and they have access and are supported in gaining employment in the open labour market on an equal basis with others; (4) Ensure that public budgets take into account the rights of persons with disabilities, that sufficient budget allocations are made available to cover extra costs associated with living with a disability and that appropriate mitigation measures, with appropriate budget allocations, are in place for persons with disabilities affected by austerity measures; (5) Introduce all adjustments necessary to make all information, communications, administrative and legal procedures in relation to social security entitlements, independent living schemes and employment/unemployment-related support services fully accessible to all persons with disabilities; (6) Ensure access to justice, by providing appropriate legal advice and support, including through reasonable and procedural accommodation for persons with disabilities seeking redress and reparation for the alleged violation of their rights, as covered in the present report; (7) Actively consult and engage with persons with disabilities through their representative organizations and give due consideration to their views in the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of any legislation, policy or programme action related to the rights addressed in the present report; (8) Take appropriate measures to combat any negative and discriminatory stereotypes or prejudice against persons with disabilities in public and the media, including that dependency on benefits is in itself a disincentive of employment; implement broad mass media campaigns, in consultation with organizations representing persons with disabilities, particularly those affected by the welfare reform, to promote them as full rights holders, in accordance with the Convention; and adopt measures to address complaints of harassment and hate crime by persons with disabilities, promptly investigate those allegations, hold the perpetrators accountable and provide fair and appropriate compensation to victims; (9) Ensure that, in the implementation of legislation, policies and programmes, special attention is paid to persons with disabilities living with a low income or in poverty and persons with disabilities at higher risk of exclusion, such as persons with intellectual, psychosocial or multiple disabilities and women, children and older persons with disabilities. Those measures should be put in place within contributive and non-contributive regimes; (10) Set up a mechanism and a system of human rights-based indicators to permanently monitor the impact of the different policies and programmes relating to the access and enjoyment by persons with disabilities of the right to social protection and an adequate standard of living, the right to live independently and be included in the community and the right to work, in close consultation with persons with disabilities and their representative organizations in all regions and countries that constitute the State party; (11) Respond to the present report within the time limit prescribed under the Optional Protocol, widely disseminate the Committee's findings and recommendations and provide appropriate follow-up to the recommendations of the present report, including during the consideration of the State party's initial report before the Committee. Since the ground-breaking report was published, the government – the first to be investigated by the UN over such allegations – has refused to make a statement to MPs, although in its response to the UN it dismissed all 11 of the report's recommendations. Asked by DNS why there had been no debate in parliament on the report, and why work and pensions secretary Damian Green had failed to issue a written statement, a Department for Work and Pensions spokeswoman said: "It is for Parliament to determine the daily business of the House and the Commons." Labour's shadow chancellor John McDonnell, when asked why the UN report had not yet been debated in parliament said MPs had referred to it in speeches earlier that day when debating a motion he moved that called on the government to abandon its planned cuts of £30 a week for new ESA WRAG claimants from April next year. But he promised that Labour would force a debate on the report. Speaking to DNS at a protest organised by Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) to mark the death last week of its co-founder Debbie Jolly, to call for an end to the government's welfare reforms, and to highlight its "outrageous" refusal to accept any of the UN report's 11 recommendations, McDonnell said: "Whether we do it on opposition day or backbench day we will choose a time to do that. "It's just a matter of finding the parliamentary time to do it, but we will find the time to do it, because we need to hold the minister to account on it." In the meantime, please sign this petition. You can read the full UN report here. Thank you.  |
| You are subscribed to email updates from Women's Views on News. To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, United States | |