[Metrobeans]

B461 - Green Bill, TSR Liberal Democrats

An Act designed to help protect our natural environment

BE IT ENACTED by The Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Commons in this present Parliament assembled, in accordance with the provisions of the Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949, and by the authority of the same, as follows:-

1. Recycling Spending
1.1 From the 1st April 2013 the UK Government shall invest £400 million per annum in the construction of ‘recycling facilities,’ until the 1st April 2016;
1.2 For the purposes of this Act, a ‘recycling facility’ is defined as any building which is specifically designed to facilitate the recycling of waste and reduce the amount of waste sent to landfill sites;
1.3 From the 1st April 2020 all county councils that fail to recycle at least 60% of the waste in their area shall be fined a fixed yearly sum of £50 per registered resident in that area;
1.4. The fine in section 1.3 shall be repeated every year that the county council fails to meet the 60% target;

2. Energy Investment
2.1 From the 1st April 2013 the UK Government shall invest £200 million per annum in the construction of biomass energy, until an extra 1000 MW of Biomass energy capacity has been built;
2.2 From the 1st April 2015 the UK Government shall invest £2 billion per annum over three years to construct five new thorium nuclear power plants, each to have an installed capacity of 1GW;
2.3 From the 1st April 2013 the UK government shall increase annual spending on feed in tariffs by £100 million;

3. Transport Spending
3.1. From the 1st of April 2013 the government shall provide an additional £40 million per annum for the 'Local Sustainable Transport Fund;'

4. Commencement, and extent
4.1 Over the period beginning 1st April 2015 and ending 1st April 2019 the government shall provide a total £5 million to plant one million new trees in the UK;
4.2 This is in addition to already existing proposals;

5. Commencement, and extent
5.1 This Act shall come into force on the 1st of April 2013;
5.2 This Act extends to England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Notes

Recycling

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According to one report (see here) increasing recycling could create some 50,000 jobs. Most UK councils currently have recycling targets of around 50%, though evidence suggests that up to 75% of waste could be recycled. There have been calls for increased spending on recycling infrastructure. According to this, the UK will need some £9 billion in investment in new incineration and treatment facilities to significantly cut landfill waste.

Energy

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According to this, up to 16% of UK energy could be generated by biomass. We are using an estimate of around £2000 per kw of biomass capacity (estimated range is $1500-$3000). This would mean that 100 Mw of capacity is built every year, so section 2.1 would apply for ten years (total cost over the period= 2 billion pounds). According to some estimates, a one gigawatt Throium nuclear plant would cost $1,100 million; we use that to estimate the cost of each plant at one billion pounds; accounting for inflation, etc we can give a rough estimate of £6 billion for the five plants. Construction would only start in 2015 to allow time for planning permits, etc. Feed in tariffs were cut by around 50% in the government spending review, so the £100 million is meant to neutralise the effect of RL cuts; seehttp://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...-cuts-industry for more

Transport Spending

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Information on the LSTF can be found here

Figures

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Recycling investment - £400 million per annum until 2016 (+ income from fines after 2020)
Biomass spending - £200 million per annum over ten years
Nuclear power - £6 billion total over three years, starting 2015
Feed in tarrifs - £100 million per annum
Transport Spending - £40 million per annum
Tree planting - Total of £5 million (2015-19)

Note: the Carbon Tax Act 2012 resulted in a surplus of £6.7 billion per annum, which we believe should be used to cover the costs of investments made in this Bill.

[internetguru]

What is this joke get it out of here. What is the local sustainable transport fund? A black hole for another £40million extra per year by the sounds of it. I disagree with simply just throwing public money at problems I suggest finding private investment for these.

[Birchington]

Not sure how legislation to enable increased protection of the environment can be described as a 'joke'. Please elaborate.

[internetguru]

(Original post by Birchington)
Constructive criticism please for once Internetguru.

It was constructive, tell me what this random £40million increased spending per year transport thing is and why the raise is necessary.

[Birchington]

The information is all in the notes section, but increasing funding to facilitate the expansion of alternative methods of transport will be beneficial for both the environment and the economy. Reducing our reliance on car transport and considering alternative modes will have long term benefits. We need to do more to improve our public transport and also to promote cycling with investment in better cycle facilities - our European neighbours offer a good example of how we could diversify a transport network that is currently heavily reliant on car travel.

I believe we should also do more to begin moving freight from the roads to rail, and the long term funding that this Bill will allocate can begin to facilitate this transition to a more efficient and greener method of freight transport - benefits both environmental and economic in nature that will massively benefit future generations.

[internetguru]

(Original post by Birchington)
The information is all in the notes section, but increasing funding to facilitate the expansion of alternative methods of transport will be beneficial for both the environment and the economy. Reducing our reliance on car transport and considering alternative modes will have long term benefits. We need to do more to improve our public transport and also to promote cycling with investment in better cycle facilities - our European neighbours offer a good example of how we could diversify a transport network that is currently heavily reliant on car travel.

I believe we should also do more to begin moving freight from the roads to rail, and the long term funding that this Bill will allocate can begin to facilitate this transition to a more efficient and greener method of freight transport - benefits both environmental and economic in nature that will massively benefit future generations.

No it will damage the economy.

[Birchington]

(Original post by internetguru)
No it will damage the economy.

How? Various evidence and reports suggest investment in 'green' jobs and technology will be beneficial to our economy in the long term. this article may be of interest to you. It's too simplistic for you to say this bill will damage the economy without providing hard evidence.

[internetguru]

(Original post by Birchington)
How? Various evidence and reports suggest investment in 'green' jobs and technology will be beneficial to our economy in the long term. this article may be of interest to you. It's too simplistic for you to say this bill will damage the economy without providing hard evidence.

The article is wrong and the reports are wrong.

[Birchington]

(Original post by internetguru)
The article is wrong and the reports are wrong.

Any evidence to back your statement up?

[internetguru]

(Original post by Birchington)
Any evidence to back your statement up?

Yes I ran the tests on my economy simulator. I'll upload the screen shots.

[Birchington]

Ah, the official OECD study graph. Good find.

[JPKC]

Hmm. Green Bill? I'd vote for this if you remove the part advocating biomass energy.

I also don't like that you're eating away at the Carbon Tax Act's surplus. That was left in place for a reason - revenue from the tax will decrease over time. So I support the recyclin/nuclear provisions, but perhaps you could be a little less ambitious with the amount you spend on them.

[barnetlad]

(Original post by internetguru)
What is this joke get it out of here. What is the local sustainable transport fund? A black hole for another £40million extra per year by the sounds of it. I disagree with simply just throwing public money at problems I suggest finding private investment for these.

£40 million will not get everyone a cycle helmet or some tasteless Lycra shorts and so we'll still have disgusting sights such as Boris's dragon shorts. It won't even fund the disused railway lines policy I've advocated.

Supporting Wensleydale cheese instead of importing cheese from abroad would reduce the 'food miles' and not having strawberries from the southern hemisphere in January likewise. Another way to reduce the environmental impact of fuel would be to stop glory seeking Man U fans from travelling miles by car to Old Trafford.

[tehFrance]

Remove '3. Transport Spending' and the 'Plant new trees costing £5 million' and you will have an abstain... now way I am I voting yes for this black hole.

[stanlas]

(Original post by JPKC)
Hmm. Green Bill? I'd vote for this if you remove the part advocating biomass energy.

What is wrong with biomass energy? Its not the cleanest type of fuel, but it can be used in large quantities and is cleaner than gas or coal I believe. Plus a lot of the fuel is from 'waste,' which we would usually just throw away.

(Original post by JPKC)
I also don't like that you're eating away at the Carbon Tax Act's surplus. That was left in place for a reason - revenue from the tax will decrease over time. So I support the recyclin/nuclear provisions, but perhaps you could be a little less ambitious with the amount you spend on them.

Quite a lot of this spending is a one off (such as the £6 billion for nuclear plants); the per annum spending in later years from this Bill won't actually be that large, and should be covered by the surplus for a long time.

[stanlas]

(Original post by internetguru)
What is this joke get it out of here. What is the local sustainable transport fund? A black hole for another £40million extra per year by the sounds of it. I disagree with simply just throwing public money at problems I suggest finding private investment for these.

Its a relatively small scheme to implement sustainable local transport projects. Private sector investment is not an option here, as these are not meant to be profit making schemes; this is meant to be money spent directly on improving environmental cleanness by encouraging 'sustainable' transport, such as bicycles.

[TopHat]

Fining councils that don't meet the targets seems a strange thing to do. The most likely reason for not being able to achieve the targets is strained finances, by then making those finances worse, you're compounding the problem.

[stanlas]

(Original post by TopHat)
Fining councils that don't meet the targets seems a strange thing to do. The most likely reason for not being able to achieve the targets is strained finances, by then making those finances worse, you're compounding the problem.

We're allocating more financing for recycling, so they shouldn't have any financial problems in meeting the target.

[TopHat]

It doesn't specifically say you're directing that money towards local government, though.

[stanlas]

(Original post by TopHat)
It doesn't specifically say you're directing that money towards local government, though.

No, but it does specify recycling. If central government spends the money on waste facilities, then local government won't have to.