Your Monthly update from your LibDem Borough Councillors - covering April 2022
Dear friends, here is our update on local and "not-so-local-but-relevant" developments during April. Have a good long weekend !
29 Apr 2022
Wera Hobhouse MP urges government to incentivise solar power
29 Feb 2024
Helen Morgan MP joins call for a rural cost of living rescue package including heating oil price cap
Helen Morgan MP, has joined her colleagues in demanding a rural cost of living rescue package, including a cap on heating oil prices to help struggling families off the gas grid.
29 Apr 2022
When they chose Brexit was the plan NOT to have tariffs?
Jacob Rees-Mogg has decided not to implement controls on food imports from the EU as an attempt to mitigate the cost of living crisis. Cynics may observe that that is hardly Getting Brexit Done! Our own food producers, already worried about trade deals with Australia and others, now have even more concerns as they continue to have to obey strict rules on food production here. Nor are British Ports who had to make massive investment of extra infrastructure through which imports would have been processed.
29 Apr 2022
GP crisis worsens as Great Denham surgery requires improvement
Latest national figures show 6.2 million people, or one in four, waited over eight days to get a GP appointment in February
29 Apr 2022
Derbyshire Dales Lib Dems demand heating oil price cap in rural cost of living rescue package.
The Liberal Democrats have demanded a rural cost of living rescue package, including a cap on heating oil prices to help struggling families off the gas grid. The party warned that the Conservatives are leaving rural communities "out in the cold" by refusing to help with soaring bills. Rural communities are bearing the brunt of the cost of living crisis with soaring heating bills, petrol prices and food costs all hitting struggling families.
PD
29 Apr 2022
Let’s fight for a fairer Local Plan
Council leaders have refused to lobby for lower government house-building targets for Hertsmere borough.
29 Apr 2022
Wera Hobhouse, Liberal Democrat MP for Bath and spokesperson for Energy Security and Net Zero, called on the government to provide incentives for energy providers to develop solar power in the UK.
Mrs Hobhouse slammed the government for falling behind on meeting the UK’s renewable targets for solar energy capacity. The government plans to deploy 70 GW of solar power across the country by 2035. However, as of 2022, the UK had only installed 14.3 GW of solar pv.
Following a visit to a rooftop solar system installed by Bath & West Community Energy (BWCE) at Beechen Cliff School last year, Wera Hobhouse is keen to encourage the development of similar solar projects across Bath. The solar system is predicted to significantly cut the school’s fuel costs and reduce their carbon emissions by 52 tonnes a year.
In the House of Commons on the 27th February, the Bath MP noted that the UK is lagging behind the rest of the world in renewable energy investment, she urged the government to offer incentives to energy providers to improve solar capacity.
However, Andrew Bowie, Parliamentary Under Secretary for Energy Security and Net Zero, ignored Hobhouse’s proposals, failing to describe the ways in which the government could incentivise solar energy. Instead, Bowie said that the government’s Solar Taskforce would publish recommendations for solar power and reiterated the government’s target to deploy 70 GW by 2035.
Wera Hobhouse, Liberal Democrat MP for Bath and spokesperson for Energy Security and Net Zero, commented:
“The Conservatives are falling dangerously behind on meeting our targets for renewable energy production. It is no good the government setting an ambitious 70 GW solar target if they are nowhere near reaching it.
“It is clear that they have no plan to get us back on track to reach Net Zero. Evidently, they are more than happy to dismiss perfectly good proposals like incentivising solar power. That is why I am so proud that Bath is home to many community energy projects like the solar system at Beechen Cliff School, so that we can lead the way in renewables.”
“It is not just our climate targets harmed by the Conservatives’ delay. Families in Bath and across the country are struggling to pay soaring energy bills which investment in renewables could curb. That is why we Liberal Democrats would build significantly more renewable energy, aiming to generate 80% of our electricity from renewables by 2030.”
Peter Capener, Managing Director of Bath & West Community Energy said:
“Our work with schools is really demonstrating the value of community energy in both addressing the climate crisis and reducing fuel bills. Rooftop solar installed last year has already saved local schools a combined total of £134,209 and has reduced carbon emissions by 224.3 tonnes, which is equivalent to 12,173 journeys from Bath to Edinburgh by train!”
