Dawn's article for Pigeon Magazine November 2013
Posted by Dawn Primarolo, MP for Bristol South, at 13:04, Thu 31 October 2013:
Bristol City FC
In a couple of weeks time councillors in Bristol will meet to discuss Bristol City Football Club’s plans to redevelop Ashton Gate. The Club have decided to pursue this option following years of complex legal wrangles over the proposed brand new stadium in Ashton Vale. I am on record as supporting that new stadium and I firmly believe that it would provide the best opportunity to bring jobs and investment to Bristol South.
However I fully understand the Clubs desire to press ahead with the alternative and I have written to planners at the Council in support of the redevelopment option.
It is my hope that we can now see progress on this issue and Bristol City can have the 21st Century facilities they need.
It is also my hope that there will be no more expensive legal challenges to any lawful decision taken by local Councillors.
Energy Prices
With yet more price hikes announced by big energy companies it has never been more expensive to heat and power our homes. I welcome Ed Miliband’s recent proposal to freeze prices until 2017 as a simple practical step which would help us all.
However the entire energy market needs fixing, which is why during the price freeze a Labour Government would break up the “Big Six”, splitting energy generators from suppliers. At present most of the energy we use is bought by one part of a “Big Six” company from another, with no transparency in pricing or profits. This will change.
Government can take responsibility for ensuring a fair energy market, but we all also have a responsibility to use less energy, simple steps like not using the standby button which we all know but somehow often forget. More than a third of all homes in Bristol do not have sufficient insulation and I welcome the present Government’s decision to ensure that all privately rented homes meet minimum insulation standards, but it is very disappointing that tenants will have to wait until 2018 for this to come into force.
Housing
Last month in the Pigeon I wrote about the Bristol Housing Crisis and so I was dismayed to hear the Mayor of Bristol give up on his modest plans to build 1000 affordable homes a year by 2016. This must have come as devastating news to young couples seeking to buy their first home or anyone wanting an affordable home to rent.
I have called on the Mayor to be more ambitious for Bristol and asked that he join me in lobbying Ministers to change the rules so we can build many more council homes.
Dawn Primarolo Nov 2013
Comments
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Posted by Colin Noakes, 17:12, Sun 3 November 2013: (Is this post abusive?) #
I am pleased to see that we are taking steps to review and take action on importanr issues to a) provide recreational facilities to the public and create jobs with the new Bristol City FC stadium, b) help reduce and manager the cost of living for individuals by addressing energy pricing and energy consumtion reduction techniques, and c) looking at the housing issue.
I have strong views of my own here.
1. With regard the new Bristol City FC stadium, now I am not against this but we also need to look at all the other sports and events across the city. making the stadium multi-functional would be a very good step towards this.
2. With regard energy, we need to take the Bristol Switch & Save Scheme a whole step further, and have a centrally managed energy board with fairer and affordable pricing (apologies if I appear to be repeating what you say there).
3. Housing - we also need to look at scheme to get the homeless into homes and into work in the most efficient manner.
Posted by Terry davies, 10:33, Mon 4 November 2013: (Is this post abusive?) #
I have a strong view with regard to energy prices and the labour party endeavours. whilst I'm sure most people will welcome Ed Millibands proposals you outline, its necessary to face the truth about privatisation of public utilities. Privatisation is not suitable for these as the whole priniciple of supply and demand is skewed to advantage the energy companies. lack of transparency in pricing for purchasing energy is a contributory factor, however the public and especially those who pay the bills lack trust in privatisation concepts.
There are many reasons why people dont switch their energy company. I wont switch as I want to see renationalisation of public utilities and I'm sure I am not the only voter having this viewpoint.
Why cant the government admit that privatisation of public utilities incentivises private companies to establish monopolies? This results in a free for all in which those who manage the companies line their own pockets from unfair pricing culminating from the lack of government control.
More importantly there arises lack of transparency, lack of accountability, lack of safety in the long term as its unlikely the energy companies will be accountable for the safety of metering when they can avoid culpability.
Lets admit privatisation is stupidity and should not continue without strategies adopted to renationalise the public utilities fairly but in a realistic manner.
Posted by Colin Noakes, 21:47, Thu 7 November 2013: (Is this post abusive?) #
Terry, agreed. It would be much easier to centrally manage energy companies if they were renationalised and put under the public services. However, I can also foresee a stealth tax there, where we the taxpayer pay our taxes to pay for the energy, then you also get your electric bill so you effectively get taxed twice. To solve this, you could have an energy tax which is solely for funding the energy supply line. Taking this further, we could radically streamline the tax system, e.g.
Personal Tax (i.e. income tax a & NI), set at 30% of net income. Business Tax (i.e. VAT), set at 20% of total sale price. Property Tax (i.e. council tax), set at 0.5% of purchase value per annum). Vehicle Tax (i.e. vehicle excise duty), set at 1% of car purchase value per annum. then we will have Energy Tax, not sure what percentage to place on that yet.
Now, I appreciate it will take some time before we are in a stable position to make these changes, but I think it worth bearing in mind.
Moving on to Bristol City FC, I have been reading about a dispute about Bristol Rovers move to a new ground (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-24833282). As I previously said, I believe we need to be fair to the whole city with the provision of recreational facilities, so if you are supporting Bristol City FC what about Rovers (it is still Bristol!). Besides, any delay (and associated cost of that delay) is only going to get fed back to us, the citizens, soemhow. Perhaps, we can just look at scaling down the redevelopment of the memorial ground once Rovers move, think about it please!