Scotland light years ahead of Maidstone

Well done MSPs! Maidstone Borough Council could do similar with its reserves, but there is a lack of political will on the council. They downgraded CO2 reduction as a target a couple of months ago. The need to get Greens on MBC grows ever stronger.

This is from the Scottish Green Party today:

SCOTTISH GREENS WIN SIGNIFICANT BUDGET COMMITMENTS ON INSULATION

In October 2008 the Scottish Green Party launched a campaign for an
additional £100m per annum to be spent to insulate Scotland's homes. (1) The
party is calling for a free loft and cavity wall insulation programme,
delivered area-by-area and door-to-door across the country, in line with the
successful scheme delivered by Green Councillors in Kirklees.  (2) Greens
also want Scottish Ministers to adopt the so-called RE:Charge scheme, again
as demonstrated in Kirklees, to fund appropriate domestic renewables and
more substantial insulation measures through loans which are only repaid
when the property is sold.

In today's debate on the Scottish Government's Budget, the Finance Secretary
John Swinney committed to implementation of a properly-funded area-based
scheme of this sort, delivering insulation measures across the whole of
Scotland over an "ambitious timescale".

Patrick Harvie MSP said:

"Our proposals to insulate all of Scotland's homes have been warmly welcomed
by business groups, environmental charities, fuel poverty activists and many
others. Energy efficiency is widely accepted as one of the most
cost-effective ways to tackle climate change and fuel poverty, and the Green
proposals are also designed to give a much-needed boost to jobs in to the
building sector and put money back into the pockets of every household in
Scotland.

"John Swinney's announcements today show a willingness by the Scottish
Government to deliver this kind of nation-wide transformation on energy
efficiency. We have as a result voted with the SNP today, but there is still
much more work to be done on the implementation of our proposals ahead of
the final vote in two weeks' time."

Notes

1. See: http://warmscotland.org

2. See:
http://www.kirklees.gov.uk/community/environment/energyconservation/warmzone
/warmzonefaq.shtml

Brown restores power to energy companies

Brown's deal with energy companies to roll out energy efficiency to home owners could be cost neutral for them and the government, but not for consumers. Brown has ruled out the ideas of a windfall tax to support struggling people, that would be far too, er... socialist? Surely a windfall tax is the way to pay for this otherwise excellent scheme (as championed by Green councillor Andy Cooper in Kirklees no less).

Perhaps this is a way of balancing the hegemony after it was upset by the Kingsnorth decree this week. The Kingsnorth Six were found not guilty of criminal damage as they had just cause: saving the world for our children's future. Clearly Golden Brown was worried by this appalling affront on big business and has handed them a new money making scheme which allows them to pass even higher bills on the the working classes.

In an equally right lurching move, it looks like the LibDems are vowing to decrease taxes. Personally I'd like to decrease taxation, but only on the poorer people in society and balancing this with more taxation for the rich and for big business.