Haringey Labour Climate Action (HLCA)’s response

to Ed Miliband’s Green Recovery Consultation 27th June 2020.

Collated by Mrs Sydney Charles [email protected]
Dear Ed Miliband
Hornsey and Wood Green and Tottenham (ie Haringey) members are passionate about a green
recovery and are confident that Labour’s leadership will leave no stone unturned to
pressure/cajole/assist the Conservative Government into emerging from the pandemic with actions
that will reduce emissions and protect the environment.

We have submitted in previous Labour consultations on the importance of working across

departmental boundaries and having a clear overarching responsibility, eg Treasury, for every policy
to include every possible opportunity to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. A lead minister would be
responsible and could use the 17 UN Sustainability Goals as guidance for sound objectives, taking
priority over the current GDP only measure for UK’s wellbeing. Tools such as Project Drawdown’s
solutions lists and Climate Interactive’s En-Roads dashboard should be used to set the UK NDCs and
publicise progress If the shadow Cabinet could be organised this way it would emphasise the
importance to the Conservative Government.

HLCA have also commented on the (spectacularly unsuccessful) communications from Labour so far
on the Green New Deal. All voters need to grasp how imminent climate damage is, the causes,
including structural economic and the nature of money, and the many solutions that can be adopted
now. We struggled to get these messages through to voters at the Dec 2019 election, whilst the
Conservatives used state of the art communications techniques with tragic result. Unless Labour’s
effectively communicates its vision and rebuts slander and lies, the Conservatives will continue on
their destructive path.

Question: 1. What sectors do you believe are the priorities for investment from government, for a
green recovery programme to build a stronger, more resilient future economy? How can this
investment reduce regional inequalities as well as address the climate crisis and environmental
degradation? And what science and technologies do we need to invest in?
Many sectors for investment and support will reduce regional inequalities by providing UK wide jobs,
such as retrofit, small solar and wind, waste/recycling, public transport, improved caring and
greening the land. Some of the new/reoriented industries below will be centred in just a few parts of
the country, but will provide UK prosperity and leadership in a booming green economy.

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Building sector
• Retrofitting homes – subsidise to make affordable and remove VAT for low carbon
• Zero carbon new builds – subsidise to make fabric first affordable inc prefabrication and
(sustainable) timber use
• Massive investment in sustainable social housing.
• Renewable electricity generation and storage at premises – subsidise
• Quality education and Training in zero carbon principles and techniques – invest in massive
increase
Transport sector
• Electric Vehicles – help for owners of petrol/diesel car/van businesses to transition to
electric, with incentives to increase renewables at the same time
• EV fuel - transition from petrol/diesel fuel tax to road use per emission levels. Ensure
business cases work for ‘5 mins from homes’ charging
• Public Transport – ensure significant increase of regional and rural networks where
inadequate provision leads to car-dependence. Ensure increase in affordable low carbon
buses, trains etc is profitable
Energy sector
• Public money to redirect the electrical infrastructure to local microgrids rather than massive
power stations (this infrastructure investment to be from tax payers, not poor bill payers)
• Ensure that individuals, comm unities and small businesses can invest in renewables (at own
premises in financial instruments) and gain a reasonable return.
• Don’t invest in fossil fuel, biomass or Nuclear energy.
Circular economy sector
• Waste processing/recycling – targeted subsidies to make re-use, up-cycling and all ‘waste’
handling stages profitable
• Zero carbon industrial processes, eg steel and cement. Incentivise carbon and pollution
reductions
• Incinerator tax
• Plastic tax
Caring sector
• Caring roles – medical and ‘social’. Social investment is environmentally, economically and
socially beneficial as it is low-carbon, generates tax income, increases well- being, and
reduces peoples’ need for benefit support. Subsidise to ensure carers get real living wage.
Land and Agriculture
• Incentivise low carbon, low degradation use of land. Eg more plants less meat
• Rewilding and Forestation – support right tree right place

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 • Ensure local food production profitable

Science and Technologies for investment

We need as many Innovations as possible that will reduce carbon. Suggest an ‘Innovations Den’
looking for products and ideas that reduce carbon and pollution. This will uncover many valuable
‘made in GB’ winners, rather than civil servants thinking they can pick winners and then
commissioning a few innovations.
• Tidal, hydro and wave power
• Innovative solar eg transparent, part of building fabric
• Power from Hydrogen
• Large scale storage – Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES), liquid air batteries, pumped
storage eg using excess night time wind
• Small scale storage - batteries as part of local smart grids. Whole-life-lifecycle fair trade
batteries (labour conditions for rare earths and metals), lithium from salt plains (eg Bolivian
Andes). Reuse and recycling batteries. EVs as part of managing supply.
• Tyres that don’t shed – EV and all other vehicles
• Electrolyse hydrogen or to compress air into a liquid and store it.
• District Energy Networks – heat from ground, sewage, rivers, underground trains etc
• Air Source and Ground Source Heat Pumps – smaller, quieter, electricity from renewables
• Clean Green Aviation eg hybrid gas-turbine electric and fully electric power, ultra light and
mission adaptive materials, blended wing/body designs to greatly reduce drag
• Clean Green shipping (retrofit and new) eg hydrogen fuel cells to replace the combustion
engines, as per Rolls-Royce 100 Mega watt static fuel cell, modern sails, zero carbon fuels

2. How do we support people who have lost employment during this crisis to move into
environmental growth sectors? How can we ensure that such jobs are decently paid, with quality
training, and offer representation by trade unions? What lessons can be learned from past
programmes current support and international examples?

The main international example is Roosevelt’s New Deal. As well as its ambitious Infrastructure
Programme, that provided a basis for American prosperity, the New Deal paid people for work in the
Arts and Culture. It also took disaffected young men from inner cities and gave them work in the
countryside. An excellent example for today.

Another example, that would have succeeded with Government support, was the Lucas Plan of the
70s. As jobs were declining at Lucas factories the workers produced a list of products that they
suggested for diversification and job loss reduction, including heat pumps, solar cell technology,
wind turbines and fuel cell technology and kidney dialysis machines. Today workers in all high

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carbon sectors are best placed to suggest alternative low carbon work they would be proud to take
on. Educating workers in all sectors about high carbon, high pollution would tap into peoples pride
and ingenuity to suggest new avenues. (eg hairdressers may not even know about their pollution)

The education and training mentioned needs to match the aspirations of the unemployed. Many
will be from aviation, retail, entertainment and tourism and many others will be long term
unemployed or victims of unwanted Gig jobs. We will need millions of tradespeople to work on
retrofit, heat pumps, solar and zero carbon new builds, but first need the scarce professionals who
have knowledge of these technologies to impart it to teachers and set up courses.

The immediate response of Communities to the Covid lockdown problems is a good example of how
recovery schemes could harness the power of local people working together on local improvements
that will build back better – community energy, energy advice, befriending etc

The old Green Deal failed because:

• Many carbon reducing measures (eg wall insulation) don’t ‘cost in’. Government funds are
needed to enable Retrofit to be affordable
• It did not consider the ‘whole house’. Retrofit work needs to be mandated ‘when other
work is done’ eg if a block of flats has scaffolding up it should be required to have cavity
insulation unless contraindicated by an independent assessor. Underfloor insulation should
be the norm when floorboards are up, new conservatories to include solar roofs as standard
etc etc.
• Firms sprang up to take profits from chains of sub-contractors providing no value, rather
than providing quality - resulting in cavity wall insulation that made homes damp and
mouldy, whilst avoiding remediation and compensation. Applies to the Eco scheme too.
• Tradespeople were often untrained and poor quality with difficult recourse.
• Building owner freeholders who own ‘common parts’, walls and roofs frequently refused
permission for retrofit and for renewables. Legal fees and processes were a nightmare.
‘Permitted development’ must be legally in place as a default for retrofitting works.

The Feed In Tariff was not designed or implemented to attract maximum take up. (marketing by
bureaucrat maybe)
• It was unsuitable as an investment, as the term was too long (25yrs then 20yrs), there was
no payback for many years (about 7 originally but later 25yrs) often with poor payback, and
no way to recoup investment on selling premises.
• The FIT reduction to match solar price drops was designed to be sudden cliff edges resulting
in massive job losses and peaks and troughs of installation.

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 • Increases in business rates were introduced retrospectively.
• These was an artificial ‘budget’, supposedly an EU requirement, that constrained
deployment.
Typically only ‘trail blazer’ environmentally conscious people and companies took up FiTs and the
volume of deployment gives hope that more people would install renewables if the scheme was well
devised and supported.

Empower Trades Unions to represent workers and ensure fair wages and safe conditions. For
instance tradespeople have been forced to continue with no social distancing or masks on building
sites. Where tradespeople do not want to belong to a Trades Union eg genuinely self employed,
contract law should protect them from unfair clients and clients from shoddy workmanship. Self
employed people should be encouraged to join a co-operative, such as Retrofit Works that provide
mutual help and support.

3. How should sector-specific support for business during this crisis be used to both protect and
promote employment and to pursue our climate and nature objectives?
Building and Construction Sector
• Zero Carbon for retrofit and new build should be based on the work of the London Energy
Transformation Initiative (LETI). Support for retrofit will create a huge market for building
work. One calculation is that we need to retrofit 43m homes over 20 years!
• Quality for retrofit and new build needs to be underwritten by the Government to provide
confidence to potential customers that there will be no shoddy jobs or too high profit taking.
• VAT should be zero percent on all products and services that deliver carbon reductions,
which will also boost the window replacement and heat pump businesses.
• The Government will need to step up support to set up and pay for training for millions of
tradespeople very quickly – as promised by the Conservatives in the election and their Green
Industrial Revolution. Many professional people will also be needed to fulfil the roles under
PAS 2035/2019 to co-ordinate and champion retrofit.

Transport Sector
• Car salesrooms, forecourts and repair shops need support to transition to the new business
model of electric vehicles, with a road mile tax to replace fuel tax
• Bus and coach businesses need support to transition to electric and hydrogen buses and
trams. They also need support to provide more local sustainable transport routes to move
people from their cars.
• Delivery businesses need legislation to require the last mile to be low carbon transport

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 • Rail businesses need subsidies targeted at increasing freight by train and making the train
cheaper than flying
• Affordable, reliable broadband needs to be subsidised to minimise unnecessary business
travel and enable all students to have access to learning
• Aviation businesses only need subsidies targeted on ‘necessary’ routes for far flung
communities and compelling business need, with environmental conditions attached.
Luxury/unnecessary travel to be discouraged with a frequent flyer tax for more than one
flight a year.
• Merchant and Cruise shipping to be incentivised for using UK labour and penalised for
docking using high carbon fuel

Circular Economy Sector

• Waste needs central planning and subsidies to ensure that maximum types of upcycling and
recycling get processed (in the UK). Will boost unskilled jobs.

Agriculture and Food Sector

• Farming needs Government focus to enable UK workers to work on the farms – which
should be enabled to enlarge to cut down on food miles, as we leave the EU trade
agreements.

• Support tree planting & maintenance businesses and community action - schemes like the
Urban Tree Planting Fund - and urban horticulture, encouraging community groups to grow
their own food.
• Support biodiversity conditions for large solar farms (eg SPIES)
• Create a Nature Service to implement (many shovel ready) projects

Care and Community Sector

These businesses need support to provide the large number of jobs are needed to ensure that
healthy, satisfying lives are valued, rather than just GDP. Training and support in community
development will be needed
• Sufficient care employees on genuine living wages
• The power of the community to be harnessed eg supporting local food groups, supporting
community energy groups.

4. What is the scope for redeploying people from industries which are facing crisis? What are the
models of retraining and support which should be examined? Do you know of examples of
programmes which have been effective in enabling redeployment; and what can we learn from
programmes that have not been effective?

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Effective examples
• Cold Homes Energy Efficiency Survey Experts (C.H.E.E.S.E.) trains and accredits ‘green’
tradespeople https://cheeseproject.co.uk/
• Retrofit Works co-operative https://retrofitworks.co.uk/
• Zero Carbon Revolution proposes a virtual circle with growing timber, using timber and
protecting peatlands https://climateseries.com/home-blog/52-ccls2020-jeremy-leggett
Non-effective examples
• The ‘NHS’ Trace and Test programme has been terrible in using commercial (non health
related) companies to cobble together a supposed training programme. Knowledgeable
people/organisations who are knowledgeable in their field are needed to be effective.
• Destruction of the mining industry. Although coal is now understood to damage the planet
the programme to close down pits with no alternative employment was unnecessarily
damaging to the communities and economy.
Typically ‘jobs’ has been used as an excuse to continue industries that Government pressure
groups favour eg aviation, internal combustion engine production, nuclear power stations, whilst
jobs are slashed as in solar jobs when FiTs were ‘cliff edged’ or ignored as per Swansea Bay
opportunity.

5. Given the regional and area-based impacts of this crisis, what role can a green recovery play in
mitigating these impacts? What are the lessons of past environmental interventions in terms of
local and regional impacts?
• The EU subsidies to land owners, regardless of their use of the land to protect the
environment and climate, have been catastrophic in terms of money for the rich,
degradation of land and increase in flooding.
• Targets for air quality improvements have been imposed on local authorities with
insufficient levers or funding to be effective.
• Metropolitan and Local Authorities should be given achievable targets and sufficient powers
and resources to deliver zero carbon plans.
• Green Belt land could be managed with an aim to improve bio-diversity and carbon
sequestration
• Allowing big supermarkets and chemical companies, such as Monsanto to dictate food and
agriculture practices has damaged soil quality
• Supporting other EU countries in allowing farming chemicals to drift over the UK (including
from UK farms) allowed London to regularly suffer from bad air pollution

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6. How can we help existing businesses, including SMEs, to adapt as a result of the crisis, including
through measures for a green recovery? How can these measures be allied to the improvement of
productivity and viability for these companies?
• SMEs have had no incentive or information about reducing their carbon footprint. But the
sudden emergence of Covid aware practices has shown that they can move quickly with
good leadership.
• Ensure that businesses can benefit from investing in solar PV or thermal. Currently they can
access low tariff electricity bills, making it difficult to justify the cost.
• Where businesses did invest in solar they were retrospectively saddled with extra business
rates and may also pay higher prices per kWh during peak times to compensate DNOs for
using less grid electricity!
• SMEs also have problems with requiring permission from landlords, and not being sure if
they will still be there if the payback for low carbon measures is long.
• SMEs are often unaware of the massive savings in £ and carbon of throwing away their high
energy lighting and replacing with LEDs
• SMEs with parking could be encouraged to provide EV charging at non profit rates,
increasing ‘within 5 mins’ provision for those without drives.

7. How can measures you are proposing in this recovery and renewal period improve quality of
life—for example around walking, cycling and public transport, and improving access to nature?
What habitats are you especially concerned about and want to see more support for and focus on?
Boosting Walking and Cycling
• Local Authorities should be encouraged to copy ‘mini Hollands’ and ‘Living streets’
Boosting use of Public Transport
• Residents in PTALs with low public transport should be involved in asking for the routes that
would encourage them to ditch the car
• Parking restrictions and charges should be planned in tandem with better public transport
• ULEZ programmes should be planned in tandem with better public transport
Habitats giving concern
The value of Natural Capital should be considered in all Government decisions
• Oceans and waterways – thorough mapping of the paths from use to destination is needed
+ a tax on plastic that depends on good disposal arrangements. Particles from tyres move from
road to waterway to sea. (see suggestion for research at Q1)
• Peatlands under threat and need expert attention
• Grouse Moors reduce sequestration and also need attention
• Parks are being over-maintained to the disadvantage of birds and small mammals
• Urban gardens are being laid with artificial grass and/or paved over (not allowing drainage)

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 • Street trees are being neglected, destroyed or sprayed with dangerous substances
• Green Belt has a role in adapting to and mitigating climate change and increasing
biodiversity and outdoor recreation. These habitats provide continuous wildlife corridors,
clean and cool our air, protect our communities from floods and storm surges, store excess
water and recharge our aquifers. Critically, they absorb and store carbon from the
atmosphere and are one of the key tools in mitigating climate change.
Labour’s “A Plan for Nature” has a section on reframing the green belt “underpinned by a new
measurement of the economic and environmental benefits of the vital natural capital and
ecosystem support”. The Green Belt natural capital must be reframed in terms of increased
tree cover, wildlife habitats, flood protection, biodiversity and local food production.

8. In providing responses to 1-7, please can you indicate to us what considerations of cost-benefit
analysis are relevant (and, if such analysis has not been undertaken, what sources of information
would be necessary to understand costs and benefits); and which institutions would be required to
enable effective delivery? In particular what is the role of public and private investment and
different ownership models?
• All businesses operating in the UK should be required to abide by the Task Force in Climate
Related Finance Disclosure (TCFD) principles.
• Cost benefit of investing in green programmes should be modelled for individual citizens,
SMEs, large businesses, community bodies, public bodies and also International finance
providers. They all have a role to play and each segment need to be able to make a suitable
return for investing. Investors should get SEIS tax relief, as per other ‘innovation’
investment.
• Advocacy organisations eg Solar Trade Association should be part of the process to plan
(rapid) emergence from Covid
• The Treasury should have an objective to enable the flow of money from sources of funds
through to carbon reducing schemes – in the UK and abroad.
• The Treasury should have an overarching objective to require every Government
department to reduce carbon emissions and count Natural Capital within their brief and to
ensure that this is being done. Any civil servant or Minister recommending actions that
increase fossil fuel and carbon emissions should lose their job.
• All subsidies from the UK Government that support fossil fuel should cease.
• All banks operating in the UK should be banned from supporting fossil fuel investments and
businesses in any way.
• Government owned banks should be used to actively supporting ‘green investments’. The
public should be given the opportunity to invest in green-only bonds (eg alliacc).

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 • Investment models should be for a maximum of 10 years, but be designed to suit different
investor segments.
• Industries that demand subsidies and relief should give up part ownership to the State, as
well as committing to green measures.
• Fair tax increases for those that can afford more and are not ‘key workers’ would be
accepted if well positioned
• Venture capital funds such as CGF that invests in innovations that deliver clean growth
across the power, transport, industry, buildings, waste and water sectors should be
encouraged
• Work with Mission Innovation to fund initiatives to decarbonise

9. What are the key institutions including business, local government, trade unions who should
play a role in delivering a green recovery? Are there particular lessons that should be learnt about
effective delivery? Local people know their communities better than Westminster. What steps do
we need to introduce to empower local communities to be able to tailor the provision to suit their
needs?
The UK Government owns banks that could be repositioned to support green schemes, with
subsidies where schemes reduce carbon but cannot offer a return. Eg external wall insulation, small
scale solar where electricity prices cannot be undercut.
Funds need to flow down to Local Authorities to distribute to communities that are able to tap into
local action (as demonstrated by Covid help groups).
Trades Unions and Community groups can harness the power, knowledge, ingenuity and funds from
the UK public.
Policy and funding should be determined by collective engagement and consultation between all
these institutions.

10. What other issues/points do you think are important? What are the Covid-19 challenges of
delivering such a programme and how might they be overcome?
• UK citizens need more consensus on what constitutes a satisfying life eg health, time with
loved ones, leisure, self fulfilment etc and prioritise measuring them rather than just GDP.
GDP is being relied on to increase state revenue without raising taxes, but to live within our
financial and carbon budget means will require the majority to accept paying according to
their means.
• It is important for UK citizens to understand the ephemeral nature of finance and the
significance of the $ as the International currency of settlement. Difficult to instil this, but
key to understanding that the current financial system is not working for the greater good
and how it can be adjusted.

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 • International co-operation is also key. Whilst there will always be some ‘bad apples’, there
are ways to get sufficient consensus and one upmanship to focus on protecting the planet.
• The UK Government is uniquely placed in 2020 to inspire every signatory of the Paris
Agreement to strengthen their Nationally Determined Contrabution (still due by end Dec
2020) and to further up ambition by the COP26 in Nov 2021.
• Greening aviation and the merchant marine needs a legally binding set of international
regulations and standards. The UK could be influential in these at International level.
• Carbon should be counted at consumption, not at origin and taxed at borders, to avoid
misleading UK greening claims
• Personal transport should be taxed per mile per CO2 and NOx (vehicles and flying) rather
than at pumps. Encourage eBikes.
• Home surveys, construction work etc are temporarily reduced due to Covid, but should be
ramped up as soon as safe.
• International trade has been disrupted temporarily (though Brexit will be more of a problem
for that)

It is easy to list many of the actions that are vital to building back a better UK, but the challenge for
Labour is to bring pressure to the Conservatives to do this. The Conservatives had quite a few
environmental promises in their 2019 manifesto and are ‘talking the talk’ on being global leaders as
president of COP26. It is vital for Labour to be closely tracking their intentions in public statements
and consultations eg Post-Pandemic Economic Growth super-inquiry for ideas by 15th July on “the
options available to Government to secure our economic recovery from the impact of Covid-19”, and
Bim Afolami’s ‘Unlocking Britain’.

Supporting positive initiatives (if there are any) and relentlessly publicising negative initiatives is the
only way we can achieve a Green Recovery now.

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