Graham Wroe | Sheffield Green Party

A letter to the Sheffield Star

Dear Editor

I was very disappointed with your coverage of the Climate Justice march on Saturday November 12th . All you had to say was that the demonstrators briefly held up traffic as they crossed the road. All demonstrations that have ever taken place in Sheffield have held up the traffic! This was not the story!

You could have mentioned how an amazing coalition of groups came together to urge the Government to take emergency action on climate justice. Trade Unions, environmental groups, religious groups, school strikers, health workers, anti-poverty groups, solidarity groups, cyclists and political parties all united in what is now by far the most urgent campaign for survival on planet Earth.

You could have mentioned the amazing creativity: the energy and joy of the samba band, the humour of some of the banners (my favourite was “How many cops does it take to arrest climate change?”) the song written especially for the occasion, the street band entertaining the crowds.

You could have mentioned some of the accounts of how climate chaos is already killing people all over the world, but especially in the global south. For instance, the heart-wrenching story of the mother who witnessed her 3 children washed away in the floods in Pakistan or those currently facing starvation due to the drought in the horn of Africa.

You could have mentioned how corporations are continuing to destroy our natural world, such as the first-hand account from the Democratic Republic of Congo where tropical forests are threatened so that the oil and mineral reserves can be exploited.

You could have mentioned the mother with her 8-year son who explained to the crowd how terrified she was of the future. The 8 years her son has lived have been the hottest 8 years on record. She said we all have a responsibility to act and must all get involved with groups working to bring solutions.

This march was Sheffield’s response to some of the most urgent issues of our time, and coverage of it should reflect this. Videos of the march and speeches are on my blog, tellthetruthsheffield.org.

Graham Wroe

Sheffield Green Party

Letter to the Sheffield Star

David Fox asks “Why isn’t there a genuine party for the low-paid, homeless and those on benefits? “(Sheffield Star 9.11.22) I have got good news for him, there is! The Green Party.

We want the Government to provide everyone in the UK with a Basic Income. The Green’s plan would scrap Universal Credit and the cruel benefit sanctions regime, which push people further into poverty and destitution.

The plan would eliminate the cruelty of the current benefits system and liberate people from the anxiety of job insecurity. The Conservative Government has targeted and demonised people who face unemployment, disability and low incomes while making the rich even richer. The switch to Universal Credit and unfair benefit sanctions have caused huge suffering for so many people. A basic income would be available to everyone as a right and would not be removed when you get a job. There will be additional payments for groups of people who experience barriers to working, including disabled people, single parents and people of pension age.

The Greens support a £15 per hour minimum wage and are supporting Trade Unions in their struggles for fair pay increases at least in line with inflation.

The Greens want a new emergency tax package which will see both polluters and the richest pay their fair share to enable a nationwide insulation and renewable energy programme that will provide people with warmer, more comfortable homes, bring bills down permanently and reduce inequality.

The package includes a wealth tax on the richest 1% of households, raising at least £70 billion, alongside closing the loopholes in the Conservatives’ windfall tax on oil and gas companies and backdating it to January 2022. This ‘dirty profits tax’ would force the biggest polluters to pay for the damage they cause while protecting everyone else as we transition to a carbon-free future.

Ash Routh

Walkley Green Party

References

Basic Income Scheme

https://www.greenparty.org.uk/news/2019/11/15/green-party-announces-plan-for-fully-costed-universal-basic-income-for-everyone/

Wealth Tax

https://www.greenparty.org.uk/news/2022/09/30/tax-the-richest-1-to-pay-for-better,-warmer-homes,-say-greens/

Letter to the Sheffield Star

It seems Star letter writers Paul Birch and Howard Greaves are unaware of the significant changes that have been made at Sheffield Council this year. Thanks to the tremendous work of “It’s our City”, who secured a referendum to change how our city is governed, there is no longer a cabinet or a strong leader model in the Council. A committee system has replaced it. All councillors, from all parties, represented on the council, now take responsibility for decision-making as members of citywide Policy Committees. The Council is currently made up of 39 Labour, 29 Liberal Democrat, 14 Green, 1 Conservative and 1 Independent Councillor. Each committee is made up of Councillors in roughly the same proportion as the totals. As no party has more than half the seats, the Councillors need to work together to pass new policies.

So, much as Green Party Councillors would love to introduce Active Travel Schemes throughout the city, they are only able to with the support of other parties. Funding for these comes from central Government grants, so, it is not paid out of Council Tax. Active Travel Schemes are successful in encouraging more people to walk and cycle and leave their cars at home, reducing air pollution and emissions. The Council have declared a climate emergency and has committed to net zero by 2030. We have to get serious about this and Active Travel schemes are one tool the Council has to move things in the right direction.

Meanwhile, the Government’s austerity continues. Between 2010 and 2020 Government cuts have resulted in the Council’s spending being reduced by £211m (29%) representing a fall of £828 for every household in Sheffield. Very difficult decisions will have to be made again this year.

Peter Gilbert

Ecclesall Green Party

Letter to the Star and Telegraph

I was greatly moved to see Paul Blomfield MP’s account of his father’s death. (Sheffield Star 8/11/22). Our society should not force people to take their own lives for fear of the pain and suffering that awaits them as inoperable conditions progress. I want to thank Paul for his courage in sharing his story in the hope that others will not have the same experience.

The Government should first greatly improve the palliative care available to those people with terminal illnesses. The amazing work done by our hospices such as St Luke’s to support terminally ill patients and their families should be available to everyone in need of it.

Secondly, the Green Party wants to make assisted dying legal. Anyone contemplating suicide because of their diagnosis should be able to freely talk about this with their loved ones, get the counselling and support they need, and when all things have been carefully considered, be supported to end their lives in dignity if this is their wish.

If you would like to read more about this please look up the Green Party’s Health Policy. (H808 deals with assisted dying)

Toby Mallinson

Hillsborough Green Party

Further reading

Article by Natalie Bennett and Jenny Jones

https://greenworld.org.uk/article/death-dignity

Video transcript

Hi. I’m Douglas Johnson. I’m one of the Green Party councilors in Sheffield, and this week at Full Council, I spoke about our proposal for a new renewable energy strategy for Sheffield.

If you look at householders, being able to put solar panels on their roofs. And people do that for a reason. It’s about reducing carbon emissions. It’s about investing to save money and making the world a better place.

We think the city and in particular, the council needs its own strategy for renewable energy. And that’s why we’ve proposed this motion to get officers to start planning

ahead on how we do that. The first thing is always to insulate homes and buildings. But once that’s out of the way, we need to look at how we generate new, renewable, clean energy that benefits us all. So by having Greens in the room in the council chamber, we were able to lay out this motion, calling for a renewable energy strategy and debating that in full council, asking for the support of the other parties. And we’re pleased to see that the Labour Councillors put forward their amendment, which added to what we were saying and had some useful parts in it, and with the support of all parties, those proposals were agreed. And that means that it can now go forward and officers will do the work now of assembling what can actually go into a renewable energy strategy that can be delivered and make a difference to us in Sheffield.

Douglas Johnson in Abbeyfield Park — Cllr Douglas Johnson

And that strategy can include things like using the council’s buildings and its estate to install solar panels so that we can be generating our power, making use of air source heat pumps, ground source heat pump technology, using battery storage, so we can store, distribute, and use that that will reduce the bills in the council. And we also look at extending out to looking at community-owned energy with support to organizations and the voluntary sector like Sheffield Renewables. They’ve got some great ideas about how they could use their expertise and ability, and their resources to work with the council if we’ll just give them that room to do some work. So this is all about distributing energy generation.

There’s a really important part to this as well, and that’s energy security. At the moment. If we buy gas and electricity, we’re beholden to big power distributors, generators, and, of course, foreign suppliers like Putin’s Russia. By building our own energy-generating facilities in Sheffield, it means that we use power in Sheffield that’s been generated in Sheffield, and it’s distributed across the city. And that means it can’t possibly be a target. It means the whole system is safer, more secure, and more resilient for the future. And that’s really important as we go into more turbulent weather events arising from climate change.

So now we pass over to officers who we rely on to do some of the detailed work around planning this whole strategy on power generation. And we look forward to when some fruits of that come back, and we’ll eventually come back to the policy committee that will look at it in more detail. And with all these strands of work that can be going on in parallel, we want to take every opportunity to increase the chances of getting more clean renewable power generated in Sheffield. And that’s got to be better for all of us. It’s an ongoing process, not pretending there aren’t challenges there.

There’s a lot to work through, and we need some determination. But the point is, we’re having greens in the room. We started off this process, and as long as we’ve got greens in the room, we’ll

be able to follow it up and do our best to make sure that this comes forward and makes everyone’s lives safer, better, and cheaper.

The full motion is on the Agenda here.

A webcast of the meeting is available here.

Press release

Last year the UK made a commitment as COP President to update its climate targets to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees.
Since then, the Government has done the opposite – introducing new oil and gas licences and rolling out road and airport expansion.

It will not even rule out the opening of a new coal mine in Cumbria.
Despite the stark evidence of climate breakdown and the catastrophic impact it is having on developing countries like Pakistan, the Government is failing to honour its own climate pledges.
It is shameful that at a time when people across the world are seeing their lives destroyed by climate change, the UK government could not live up to its commitments and set meaningful climate targets that would protect millions of people.
The Green Party has a vital role to play in putting pressure on Rishi Sunak to revisit the UK’s climate targets to curb carbon emissions and keep the global warming goal on track.
The UK must show climate leadership and put climate action and helping poorer countries most impacted by climate change at the top of the agenda.
Time is running out.
Help us hold the Government to account. March with us on the Climate Demonstration organised by the Climate Justice Coalition from City Hall at 12 noon on Saturday 12th November. Join the Green Party here.

Yours faithfully
Ash Routh
Walkley Green Party

Footnote

Videos from this event can be found here.

Cllr Douglas Johnson talks about the petition to save Rose Garden Café in Graves Park.

“This week in Council we had campaigners for the Rose Garden Cafe in Graves Park bring their petition of over 11,000 signatures to the Council and they are asking for a restoration of the cafe which was suddenly closed in the summer due to building defects that are said to make it unsafe. It’s a really difficult situation, closing that popular cafe right at the beginning of the school holidays. Not a good look for the Council to be fair. And of course, this all stems from a mistake in 2009 under a previous administration when they outsourced the Council service to a private company and they set up the building with no provision for repairs. Literally, the Council should have done the repairs but there was no plan for it, so we have now got a building defect which means the building can’t be used. There’s a big question as to what happens to the cafe building next. And in response to the campaigners it’s really difficult because we would just love to say, yes, that’s a priority, we’ll put the money in there. But the reality is the Council is really, really stuck for money at the moment and putting money into one park means that we have to take it away from other parks, like Abbeyfield Park in Pitsmoor which really needs the investment as well. So for me as a Green, the really important thing is to work with campaigners and think about how they can work alongside our staff in the Parks Department and try and make a better park for everyone given all the restraints on resources and time available to us. There’s a great community there. They could do fundraising, they could get the word out, support designs for how they want to see the cafe work and run well into the future and make it fit for another hundred years to add to the hundred years it has already been going.”

Councillor Christine Gilligan Kubo appeared on Channel 4 News to speak about the impending closure Doncaster Sheffield Airport by operator Peel Group.

She said

“Sheffield City Council signed up to Net Zero by 2030 and we have to start reducing our emissions. Airlines don’t even pay duty on airline fuel.”

“If there is going to be any more government money put into supporting the airport, this money would be better spent on improving local transport links in South Yorkshire. That would provide jobs and will help businesses far more than continuing to subsidise a failing airport.”

Douglas Johnson, leader of the Green Councillor Group commented “What a government of chaos, as the dominos tumble! This would be funny had the Conservatives not managed to wreck the economy, leaving many people struggling with much higher food, fuel and housing costs.

“The only way anyone can have the mandate to govern the country now is with a general election and let the people decide, not a small number of Conservative Party MPs.

“Meanwhile, Green councillors in Sheffield and across the country will continue to do what we can to stand up for our communities, tackle the climate emergency and work hard for a better future for us all.”

Umberto Albarella, Chair of Sheffield Green Party said “I completely agree with Caroline Lucas, who said anything other than a General Election is undemocratic. The Tory Party has spent its time in government to wreck the country for the interest of the few. They have substantially eroded our liberty, compromised environment and economy, and brought our country into disrepute. While people starve and struggle we cannot possibly afford to have another incompetent Tory Prime Minister in charge. Enough is enough” ”

Sheffield Central Green Party Candidate, Alison Teal said “The Tories have no electoral mandate to impose Austerity 2. Our Council and the people of Sheffield can not afford more cuts to vital services. We must have a General Election now.”

Nether Edge and Sharrow member Bev Bennett writes to the Sheffield Star about Ella’s Law, which could make clean air a human right.

Bev Bennett sitting on Lord Mayor's special chair. — Bev Bennett

Well done for highlighting the appalling situation concerning air pollution near schools. (Star 10/10/22) This is something that needs to be tackled urgently.

Ella Roberta Adoo-Kissi-Debrah died, aged 9, due to asthma caused and made worse by breathing polluted air in London. Every year, tens of thousands of people around the UK are killed by air pollution. It’s time to clean up the air in our towns and cities.

The Clean Air (Human Rights) Bill, introduced to Parliament by Green Peer Baroness Jenny Jones, would enshrine the human right to breathe clean air precisely and explicitly in law. Air pollution would have to be considered in every decision by every public authority in the same way equalities are considered.

The Royal College of Physicians estimates that 40,000 deaths a year in the UK are attributable to air pollution. Many homes and schools in Sheffield are in high-pollution areas. You can check the air quality around your home at addresspollution.org.

Ella’s Law would

*Make clean air a human right.

*Require Local Authorities to bring air quality up to minimum World Health Organisation standards within 5 years

*Require the national government to give local authorities the support they need to do this.

*Require the Environment Agency and the Committee on Climate Change to review pollutants and limits annually and advise the Secretary of State if they need tightening.

You can find out more about Ella’s Law at www.ellaslaw.uk. Please write to your MP and ask them to support it.

Clean Air Sheffield does a brilliant job monitoring the air quality in all the different areas of Sheffield and informing others about the sources and health impacts of pollutants.

Yours faithfully

Bev Bennett

Nether Edge and Sharrow Green Party

Author: Graham Wroe

The March for Climate Justice

A genuine party for the low paid.

Sheffield City Council no longer have a cabinet!

Legalise Assisted Dying

Douglas Johnson explains Sheffield City Council’s new Renewable Energy Strategy

March with us for Climate Justice on Saturday 12th November

Councillor Douglas Johnson speaks out about the closure of the Rose Garden Cafe in Graves Park.

Cllr Christine Gilligan Kubo speaks as Doncaster Sheffield Airport prepares to close.

Sheffield Green Party call for General Election as Liz Truss resigns.

Ella’s Law needed to tackle air pollution.