Au Revoir

I haven’t written anything here for eight months and therefore think I should officially label this blog abandoned. Although I have had ideas for posts and even begun the odd draft, nothing has materialised for a few reasons.

Firstly, the original impetus for this blog has gone. When I was working in the public sector and constantly horrified by the ill-considered and counterproductive policy changes the coalition was forcing through, I wanted an outlet. Whilst in a local government organisation, the work I produced had to be politically neutral and acceptable to local councillors. When I found this intellectually frustrating, the blog provided a space to say what I really thought. Since being made redundant nearly 14 months ago, I’ve been a postgraduate student and have had all the intellectual freedom I could want. That need for an outlet is no longer there.

Secondly, writing variations on, “I told you so,” would be tedious, as well as boring for you to read. The issues my colleagues and I raised with housing, economic, and planning policy changes are all manifesting, and being brushed aside by the government. (Keep up with this via The Guardian and Telegraph.) There seems no value in constantly repeating the same points when doing so will change nothing about the situation.

Thirdly, my focus is now on in-depth research of a specific area of environmental policy. Although I still try and keep up more broadly with planning, housing, and economic issues, the idea of the PhD is that I become an absolute bore about one very narrow area. Although I sometimes toy with the idea of blogging about that process, I think it would be very onerous to read and have only a tangential relationship to the Age of Austerity.

Lastly, I did begin a series of posts on climate change, but am disinclined to continue them mostly because contemplating carbon emissions at the moment is deeply depressing. Even today, PWC released a report reiterating how far we are from a relatively safe emissions trajectory. The frequently-quoted target of two degrees is now essentially impossible and we are heading instead for six. Human civilisation as we have come to know it wouldn’t survive that for long. I don’t think the blogosphere needs another person ranting angrily about how humanity is failing as a species and should probably save the more constructive comments for my studies.

I might pick up this blog again at some point, but it’s hard to say when. I am not the public sector worker I was when I started it and I both think and write differently as a result of being back in the academic world. For instance, I have a saved list of potential blog post topics, some of which I thought up years ago, such as state capitalism in China, what the fall of the USSR can tell us about the US, path dependency, what fairness means, and infrastructure in the UK. When I was a public servant I would have felt qualified to write something on such subjects, on the strength of having read one or two books about each, kept up with the Economist’s commentary, and thought a bit about them. Now my standards have changed, and from an academic perspective I don’t have anywhere near the background knowledge and depth of understanding to comment to a satisfactory standard. This doesn’t mean that I don’t have opinions, of course, they are just qualified with, “As far as I know”.

There is something I heard at an economics seminar recently and would like to share, though. It would seem that the macroeconomics establishment is currently trying to integrate banking into their models. Incredible as it may now seem, when I was taught macro the banking sector wasn’t considered worth making a variable in long term economic growth. Anyway, a professor demonstrated his new model, which was immensely complex and I didn’t follow all of. What struck me was in the Q&A at the end, when he commented that the growth prospects of the UK economy in the short and medium term depend on our current output gap. This is the currently unused capacity of the economy, which is just waiting to be used again when demand/confidence/both rise. Government economic forecasts rely on the existence of a significant output gap, which would allow economic growth to pick up rapidly. The interesting thing about the output gap as a variable in a complex macroeconomic model is where the data on it comes from; a qualitative survey of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI). That’s a lot flimsier than it initially appears from the seemingly authoritative graphs and tables.

This isn’t the final entry, however, as I’ve unearthed a silly thing called, ‘Alice in the Age of Austerity’ that I wrote years ago in honour of Lewis Carroll’s birthday. I will post that soon. Moreover, don’t expect me to shut up on twitter. Indeed, perhaps I’m just being lazy? 140 characters are far less effort than a detailed blogpost. But I am expected to be lazy now, being a student.

I hope that something I’ve written here has interested you at some point. Thank you for reading Welcome to the Age of Austerity.

What do we want? When do we want it?

The first set of questions that occurred to me when considering climate change concern the future. What sort of future do we expect? What do we want the future to be like? Do we value the future less or more than the present? How far into the future do we consider it worth planning? How much risk to our desired future are we willing to tolerate? To what extent do we consider events beyond our lifetime as beyond our influence or interest?

Do we have a duty to future generations? I believe we do, as we should as species take responsibility for the problems that we've created. That's a grand statement, but translating it into policy is incredibly difficult. It's also easy to state that life is expected to improve as time passes, and that we should invest resources now to try and ensure this is the case. The counterargument generally raised to this is the current egregious state of inequality in the world. Billions still lack clean water, food, and basic bodily security. This is encompassed by the Millennium Development Goals, which are as follows: end poverty and hunger, universal education, gender equality, child health, maternal health, combat HIV/AIDS, environmental sustainability, and global partnership. Climate change isn't explicitly mentioned, even under the seventh goal. Is it more important to meet these goals first, before we contemplate emissions reductions? Should our lack of willingness to solve today's problems be an excuse to dismiss those of the future?

In my view, it is deeply unwise to separate climate change from other long term global problems. Clearly climate change is already impeding the achievement of the Millennium Development goals and will continue to do so. Notably, the countries worst effected by climate change are those who have contributed least to it. Subsistence farmers will starve before subsidised agribusinesses notice much of any change in productivity. It is a horrible irony that the United Kingdom, where the Industrial Revolution began, will likely remain attractively temperate whilst millions are displaced from Asian coasts and equatorial Africa. This raises the ethical question: when we contemplate an abstraction of the future, are we really considering the welfare of our whole species? Do we just care about our own children, or those of our own country?

If we in the Western world genuinely believe that reducing our greenhouse gas emissions today is too expensive and would involve sacrificing too much of the comfort and convenience to which we have become accustomed, then so be it. However it is not acceptable to presume this without considering the full ethical ramifications. If we put off reductions in emissions, we are tacitly assuming that the future will be more dangerous, that currently entrenched problems will become more difficult to solve, and that our own wellbeing is both more important than that of future generations in general and those of developing world in particular. If we are to be that selfish, we should at least be honest with ourselves about it.

In the UK we have the 2008 Climate Change Act, a piece of legislation that commits successive governments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80% from 1990 levels, before the year 2050. This is an extremely important thing, as it provides the first inkling of a vision for the future. Although it in no way ensures that the target will actually be met, setting out a framework for the future that is desired, expected, and planned for is a powerful step. The aim of the Act is to prevent each government from deferring action on climate change until the following term of office. If it can survive the current coalition intact, the Act will have started to do its job.

When the Climate Change Act was passed, it demanded consideration of what we expect the UK to be like 42 years in the future. Now 2050 is 38 years away. Consider how much has changed in the last 38, let alone 42, years. In 1974, society, technology, and politics were very different. The rate of change seems only to have accelerated since. Within the constraints of an 80% emissions cut, what do we want from 2050? Personally, I want greater equality, lower consumption, and a fundamental reassessment of economics. I want fossil fuels to be seen as quaint and outdated. I want understanding to be valued above ownership.

From a less idealistic angle, we could simply require security and prosperity in 2050. If ignored, climate change will diminish or even destroy both. A future of rapid warming and dramatic climate shifts is unlikely to be attractive to anyone. And yet approaching the future in this way, as something to be feared, seems to promote paralysis and short-termism. Climate change becomes something too terrifying to contemplate; might as well enjoy life and waste energy while we still can. It seems to me that getting to the point of meaningful action requires greater thought. Once you've accepted that the future will be different, it is vital to consider how you want it to be different. In the current trajectory of increasing emissions and floundering economics, I see a huge failure in imagination. Things won't stay the same. If we value the future at all, we have to consider how we want it to be. In the UK we at least have the Climate Change Act as a starting point.

What is climate change to you?

This term's lectures have got me thinking about climate change as an abstraction and about how we individually try to make sense of it (or not).

I've spent a fair amount of time reading and thinking about climate change, but have always had the sense that there is more I could investigate but choose not to. For instance, I haven't watched 'An Inconvenient Truth' as I assumed it was meant to convert doubters and so wouldn't be so relevant to me. Whether that's true or not is rather beside the point, it was a rationalisation I made as a result of thinking I knew enough about climate change. Essentially, I thought that knowing more would just depress me. I was being, perhaps rationally, a coward.

I get the impression I'm not the only one who has done something like this: avoided reading or hearing any more about climate change because it is just such a vast and terrifying concept to process. Individually, such avoidance seems rational as individually we can do relatively little to alter the scale of climate change, even if we can imagine it. But collectively humanity has caused a quantity of greenhouse gas emissions that are altering the climate. In theory we must, as a species, be able to deal with this. There are a vast array of obstacles preventing us from doing so, and the first is understanding what climate change is.

I do not mean the science. (If you want a crash course on that, try here.) I mean the translation of that science into understanding, into policy, politics, culture, and everyday life. Climate change is a process, it has no fixed beginning or end. It is not directly priced, it has uncertain timescales, and it forces us to confront many difficult questions outside the objective sphere of science, about the future of our species, how we live, and what we value. It is intangible and locationally unspecific. It can be seen as a controversy, as a justification for specific policies, as an inspiration for the reinvigoration of civic society, or as a threat to security. Analogies can be drawn with terrorism or the hole in the ozone layer. Commentators from scientific, policy, economic, legal, and ecological fields interpret it very differently. Different sections of the media frame it in a variety of ways, to fit their particular agendas and narratives.

I am trying to overcome my previous complacency and come to my own understanding of what climate change means. What is certain in that humanity is emitting greenhouse gases at an accelerating rate. We are changing the composition of the atmosphere, and our climate scientists agree that this is changing the climate. Our current economies, lifestyles, and cultures are dependent on such emissions. If we are to reduce our emissions as radically as science tells us we need to, then the process of change in the climate will need to be mirrored by a process of transformative change in humanity.

There is as yet no popular narrative, no story or metaphor, that adequately explains this. Indeed, our popular culture and zeitgeist seem averse to any change that isn't technological. The developed world seems to expect that the current economic, political, and social rut will continue, except with better iPads. Perhaps the first step to confronting climate change is accepting change, full stop. The future needs to be different to the present, very different. I wonder to what extent the denial of climate change and attacks on climate science are provoked by a fear of any change.

I intend this to be the first in a series of posts discussing difficult questions about climate change, to try and clarify my own thoughts as much as anything. Here is the point from which I start, which will doubtless colour everything else I might say on the subject: I believe that anthropogenic climate change is the greatest challenge faced by humanity. We are collectively capable of summoning the intelligence, vision, and resources to confront it, but are equally capable of not doing so. And I agree with George Monbiot that, 'If we fail in this task, we fail in everything else.'

Much Ado About Windfarms

Now that I've been made redundant, I've decided to become an armchair auditor. As an employee of a local council, I was under an obligation not to allow my personal opinions to interfere with the execution of local councillors' wishes. Such is the democratic operation of local government. This can at times be acutely frustrating, as local councillors sometimes made decisions that were very difficult to justify, and which I personally disagreed with entirely. To begin, an issue of particular interest to me: renewable energy.

South Cambridgeshire District Council covers the doughnut of attractive villages and farmland around Cambridge. It has no major population centres and a lot of picturesque and very expensive rural housing. The council has a rather two-faced approach to renewables; they love solar panels but hate wind farms.

This August their Climate Change Working Group were updated on a project to install solar panels on South Cambridgeshire Hall, the council's office in Cambourne. Which I believe is already quite an energy efficient building, as it would built quite recently. At a full council meeting in July it was also resolved to review its policies in order to encourage the installation of solar panels on listed buildings. Moreover, it is encouraging that South Cambs have kept up their local councillor Climate Change Working Group, as too many Conservative councils ditched any such thing as soon as Pickles lumbered into CLG.

However, their seemingly enlightened approach is rather undermined by Motion 90B:

It was RESOLVED that this Council supports seeking energy from renewable resources. However, applications for wind farms (2 turbines or more) cause deep concerns to our residents by nature of their size, scale and noise. This Council believes that a minimum distance of 2 kilometres between a dwelling and a turbine should be set to protect residents from disturbance and visual impact. If the applicant can prove that this is not the case a shorter distance would be considered. This will be addressed during the review of the Local Development Framework.

Notice the absence of any evidence whatsoever to support the figure of 2 km. It was apparently arbitrarily chosen to ensure that wind farm development would be considered unacceptable throughout South Cambridgeshire, as one local councillor commented that nowhere in the district is less than 2 miles (note different metric) from a dwelling. As far as I am aware, there is no map available to show what, if any, area in the district would be acceptable for wind turbine development under this edict. For reference, the government standard for a buffer zone between a wind turbine and a built-up area is 600 metres.

I was pleased to see that a member of the public responded back to this with a very sensible question:

In what way exactly would a wind turbine be judged differently to another structure of a similar size such as a manufacturing plant, water tower, crane or communications mast etc. as regards visual impact or noise? Does the motion mean that a planning application for a wind turbine might be rejected whereas an application for some other development of equivalent size, noise etc. would be considered for approval?

The councillor's answer shows how hollow the motion was - all planning applications must be considered on their merits, and refusals on the basis of, 'I just don't like wind turbines, so there' will be overturned at appeal anyway. Without evidence that a wind turbine within 2 km of a house will have a significantly detrimental effect, the whole thing is pointless posturing.

This stance would be more defensible were wind and solar capacity in the area comparable. The East of England Renewable Energy Capacity Study looked at the technical potential for renewable energy just last year. The whole report can be found here. It doesn't disaggregate to district level, but the whole of Cambridgeshire has the technical potential to produce 45,536.8 Gigawatt Hours of electricity from wind. The figure for solar is 230 GwH. South Cambridgeshire has a lot of agricultural land, ideal for wind farms, but lacks roofs to put solar panels on so the contrast in potential is likely to be even more stark.

I reserve most of my rancor for Cambridgeshire County Council, though. The County owns quite a bit of agricultural land, which it has been trying to use more effectively to bring in money. One plan was to site wind turbines on some of this land. Councillors agreed to this and a considerable amount of feasibility work was done. This was the plan:

Should all of the 4 sites proceed as outlined, based on current values the Council's income could peak at an annual rent of more than £700,000. The corresponding agricultural rent for the land lost would be less than £1,000

Plus, of course, more renewable energy and lower emissions. Local news coverage was positive and a considerable amount of consultation took place in the identified sites.

Then Councillor Nick Clarke became leader of Cambridgeshire County Council. A report went to the County Council Cabinet on the 6th September seeking to defer and basically kill the project.

It's worth reading that report, in order to confirm that there is no justification provided for the decision. Officers couldn't come up with any reasons for it in their report, but politicians did it anyway. Putting aside the environmental implications, £10,000 has already been spent on developing the project, and thus wasted if it stops. These two sections of the report (which, please note, is supposed to set out why this project isn't happening) are worth quoting:

[...] if wind farm development proceeded on all four sites over the twenty-five year life of the leases the Council’s income would peak at close to £900,000 per annum, unadjusted for rent reviews or inflation. In addition there would be direct payments by developers into local community funds of about £80,000 per annum. There are also Government proposals to allow local authorities to retain all of the business rates from wind farm sites in their area.

[...] Several tenants, with the Council’s encouragement, have been investigating the potential for small scale wind turbines on their holdings. One tenant was looking at a 100m tall but most were looking at 20m turbines which are smaller than a telecommunications mast. These capitalise on Feed in Tariffs which are expected to change in April 2012 and are considered by many to be an excellent business opportunity and are mostly receiving planning consents from District Councils.

It is also proposed that these developments are halted too. These have less of a visual impact than full size wind turbines and produce good financial returns for both the tenants and the Council. It is proposed to reimburse one tenant’s abortive costs for feasibility work which will be in the region of £5,000.

So Cambridgeshire County Council is forgoing a considerable amount of money, losing several thousand through contract breaking and abortive work, all because 'Fenland has too many wind farms already'. As the report notes, that is a purely anecdotal view; the people consulted in detail about the projects had much less negative, simplistic opinions.

You might ask why I blame this decision, which I believe is nothing short of moronic short-sighted NIMBYism, on Councillor Nick Clarke. Well, he boasts about it on his blog. His comment about putting people before profit is priceless. His inaugural speech as leader began with the phrase 'open for business'. He believes Cambridgeshire County Council should above all support and involve businesses, although apparently not those that develop wind farms. Choosing to 'put people first' in this context is a bit rich when you consider the cuts to transport, schools, and social care which merited no such consideration. Indeed, some of those cuts need not have happened if the council had, say, uncovered a large and steady source of annual income from its farmland.

Despite Councillor Clarke clearly thinking this decision was a crowd-pleaser, local media coverage was at best ambivalent. But this wasn't the end of the story, as not every County Councillor agreed with Clarke. The Enterprise, Growth, and Community Infrastructure Overview and Scrutiny Committee called in the decision. Although they didn't have the authority to overturn it, they have kicked it back to Cabinet, with a request to give reasons this time.

Quote from the minutes:

In discussion, Committee Members raised the following issues:

Wind farm development was supported and promoted by both local and national policies, and was also the policy of the Administration’s party. There was no rationality, either through evidence or policy basis, in the Cabinet decision;

Pointed out that there was a natural limit to the number of wind turbines that could be constructed. The Cabinet decision would not stop wind turbines being developed, it would merely stop the County Council and County Council tenants receiving any benefits from wind farm development;

A number of Committee Members indicated that they had been consulted prior to this Cabinet decision and had indicated that whilst some of them were not opposed to windfarms in principle, they were opposed to further wind farm development on the basis of the feedback received from their residents. It was also pointed out that the subsidies offered to develop wind farms ultimately came from tax payers’ pockets;

Suggested that the blanket ban approach needed to reconsidered, possibly to include permitting small applications below a certain height, or on a case-by-case basis;

Stressed the Council’s responsibility for its tenant farmers, and the need to reconsider this decision very carefully on the basis of evidence, and in consultation with a wide range of stakeholders; [...]

Cabinet will discuss this again on the 25th October, with a recommendation to at least lift the blanket ban on wind turbines. Cabinet meetings are open to the public, but unfortunately I have lectures that clash so can't attend. No doubt it will be enlightening.

Here is a further insight into the County Council Leader's views on wind farms:

I recognise that there are an extreme range of opinions from eco warriors who want to save the world and think that emitting less carbon in Cambridgeshire is the answer to those who just don’t like them towering over the landscape.

The trouble is if you mix in some political mantra, a Liberal Democrat opposition party who have lost their way and finding it very difficult to make any traction politically and a ruling group who want to make a positive difference for the people of Cambridgeshire a fuss is bound to happen.

(That is a direct copy and paste; I have resisted the urge to correct the punctuation and grammar.)

This should not be a party political issue. The wind turbines were proposed by a Conservative County Council administration and are now being ditched by another Conservative County Council administration. Moreover, Councillor Clarke admits that there hasn't been a proper consultation, just a few people from Fenland saying they don't like wind turbines. When this much money is at stake, that's just not good enough.

Now that I'm no longer working for a local council, I, like Nick Clarke, can 'tell it as it is'. In this case, a huge pile of bullshit. Putting people before profits, huh? People were not given the choice between a few wind turbines and local services cut being because the council ignored a £900,000/year source of income!

Properly designed wind farms, sited with local consultation, do not blight people's lives. Rolling blackouts might, and that is what we will have in 2018 if we do not invest in ALL methods of energy generation, as well as energy efficiency. There isn't a choice between wind farms and business as usual, there's a choice between wind farms and blackouts. Councillors claim that their electorates wouldn't tolerate wind farms, because they are happy to listen to small but very vocal campaign groups. Turbines aren't appropriate everywhere, but councillors wilfully ignore empirical evidence, which they seem to see as threatening. By promoting a needlessly adversarial approach to planning wind farms, councillors are preventing communities from sharing in their financial benefits. Neither is it true that everyone in Cambridgeshire hates them on principle. In Gamlingay the community are installing one of their own.

However, there are reasons to be cheerful. I comfort myself that Councillor Clarke can huff and puff against wind farms all he likes, but it'll do him little good. Although it can impede wind development on its own land, the County Council has no planning powers to prevent it elsewhere; these lie with the districts. Moreover, the anti-wind districts will find that the presumption in favour of sustainable development overturns every refusal of permission on appeal.

I've largely lost faith in the ability of local government to tackle climate change, at least in its current form. The government is wilfully ignoring the incongruence between the binding targets of the Climate Change Act and Carbon Budgets and the fact that many Conservative local councillors won't even listen to the phrase 'climate change'. There is no leadership on environmental issues to be found in most local council chambers, just apathy and cowardice disguised as 'reflecting the concerns of the electorate'. Their electorate includes young people like me, and our voices are not being heard.

This is not the case throughout Cambridgeshire, though. Cambridge City Council deserves much wider recognition for its efforts to tackle climate change. There is also a project trying to approach planning for renewable energy in a constructive, positive manner: the Cambridgeshire Renewables Infrastructure Framework. It is well worth getting involved with, as it brings individuals, businesses, and politicians together to discuss renewable energy reasonably, like adults. Such informed dialogue is badly needed to redress the balance. Local councillors are making retrogressive and short-sighted decisions; their electorates must hold them to account.

Titans Will Clash

Hostilities have erupted between The Telegraph and the Department of Communities and Local Government. The former has launched a campaign against planning reforms in general and the draft National Planning Policy Framework in particular, called Hands Off Our Land. Or as I like to call it Not In Our Back Yard. CLG seem to feel the need to respond in terse, aggressive fashion to their every article here, here, here, here, and here. I pity the poor civil servant required to write those.

Frankly, this is a war I hope they both lose. Each side is as prone as the other to making sweeping, alarmist statements without such fripperies as evidence, for example:

75,000 HOMES TO BE BUILT ON ENGLAND'S GREEN BELT!

PLANNING DELAYS COST THE ECONOMY £3 BILLION A YEAR!

At the heart of this acrimonious dispute lies the paradox of modern Tory conservatism: free markets versus nostalgic protectionism. At the moment it appears that the government favours the former and local government the latter. This of course reduces a complex and nuanced issue to black and white, but such is the current tone of the debate.

Pickles and co have been insisting that localism will cause all areas to embrace development, against experience on their doorsteps. The Telegraph has spotted the disjunct here and pounced. Notice the obvious subtext here, that people want localism in order to prevent development.

The draft National Planning Policy Framework has caused this storm. Apparently the fact that the Localism Bill isn't actually that localist wasn't widely noted, but the presumption in favour of sustainable development is pretty unequivocal. George Monbiot is outraged about it; he doesn't often agree with the Torygraph.

I continue to think that both sides are partially right but mostly wrong. The planning system is too complicated and does need simplification. However the Localism Bill makes it more complicated, and ignores the fact that most people will only get involved with it if there is a specific proposal nearby that they want to prevent. And that is perfectly rational! In these austere times, few want to spend ages debating community projects unless there is some hope of them happening. People should be encouraged to get involved in planning, but not obliged to.

Without doubt, the draft Planning Policy Framework doesn't give a clear enough definition of sustainable development and puts far too much emphasis on economic growth. The presumption in favour of sustainable development is hugely risky. Outside greenbelt land, it will become extremely difficult for local authorities to refuse planning permission. If they do, appeals are likely to be granted. However, I don't think most people are staunchly pro- or anti-development; it is the job of the planning system to determine which development is right within limited available space. Importantly, the draft framework should make it much easier to get planning permission for wind turbines, something that fills The Telegraph with dread and me with delight. Meanwhile Yougov polling suggests that, if anything, the electorate in general are confused and apathetic about the whole thing (pdf).

I noted in July that the draft planning policy framework had not got very much media coverage. That has definitely changed. Neither Team Pickles (and their allies the British Property Federation et al) nor Team Telegraph (and their allies the National trust et al) seem open to compromise. With engaging hyperbole, the planning reforms have recently been described as political suicide and even a recipe for civil war. The fight can only get dirtier and, hopefully, more entertaining. For once local government isn't directly in the firing line, so excuse us whilst we sit on the sidelines and have a little schadenfreude party.

Greenpieces

The constant stream of demagoguery coming out of the Department of Communities and Local Government has been getting me down; slogan of the day is 'Accountability to the people not the Government machine'. I therefore decided to take a look at what the Department of Energy and Climate Change was up to.

This, you might recall, is headed by Chris Huhne, a Liberal Democrat who was a candidate for the leadership of the party back in the day. The tone coming from his department, DECC, is refreshingly sensible and un-clichéd. Policy announcements so far are a mixed bag, though.

A scheme will be launched to insulate 3.5 million homes from 2012. It seems to be sensibly structured - the energy company pays the up-front cost of insulation then recoups it through the household's subsequent bills. As the household will be using less energy as a result of the insulation, they shouldn't really notice this. It would be even more effective if energy was priced more sensibly, so that the more you use the higher the unit price, but still.

The development of a new North Sea oil and gas field has been given the go ahead. They got the Conservative Energy Minister to announce this one, I notice. I'm deeply unimpressed. Talk of energy security is all very well, but the level of renewables in the UK is disgracefully low, the lowest in Europe. Prioritising North Sea oil and gas isn't going to change that.

On the other hand, the law that prevents local councils from selling renewable energy to the grid is being axed. Maybe the rule somehow made sense in 1975? Hopefully this will encourage more neighbourhood-scale renewable energy projects.

I also rather like Chris Huhne's speech to the Local Government Association. It couldn't be more different to Eric Pickles' mishmash of references to Tom Cruise films, the Cold War, and the World Cup, garnished with bureaucrat-bashing.

Sample of Huhne's speech:

But at the same time everyone here understands the over-riding urgency of tackling climate change. We have, through the Climate Change Act, a legally binding requirement to reduce the UK’s carbon emissions by 80 per cent by 2050. What we need to do now is to construct a new partnership between local and central government, which enables us to meet these goals in the fastest and most cost-effective manner possible.

Simple as that. The previous government passed the Climate Change Act, then ignored the urgency of actually doing anything to make that 80% cut.

One major environmental opportunity seems to have been missed by the coalition. I was disappointed not to see a carbon tax in the budget, which could have gradually replaced Value Added Tax (a very blunt instrument for taxing consumption). As well as raising much-needed revenue and not being as intrinsically regressive as VAT, this would have boosted the low carbon economy. Which a new report tells us is one of the few sectors of the economy growing and creating jobs during the economic doldrums. Of course, the decision to reform VAT in this way would have to come from the Treasury, which has no remit or apparent interest in the environment.

Sadly, I also suspect that a carbon tax could fall foul of the World Trade Organisation's paranoia about protectionist trade barriers. Horrifying but true, the WTO does not accept that countries should be able to set their own environmental standards.

To digress a bit, I have long thought that environmental policy is dealt with oddly in the current central government departmental structure. On the one hand, environmental impact and in particular climate change should be consistently embedded in policy across all departments - especially you, Department for Transport. On the other, policies specifically to mitigate and adapt to climate change should really be concentrated in one department, to avoid duplication. I think DECC is intended to do this, but its remit overlaps somewhat with DEFRA (the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which includes the Environment Agency), CLG (Communities and Local Government) and BIS (Business, Innovation and Skills).

Shorter post today as its Friday and so hot that my brain has slowed right down. Have good weekend. Coming up next week... Social housing! The Big Society! Transport policy! And so much more.

No place like it

The extent to which the new regime fails to understand the UK housing crisis is mind-blowing.

Crisis is not too strong a word. The UK housing market is extremely dysfunctional, and has been for a long time. It doesn't really deserve to be called a market, as supply and demand divorced quite some time ago. The roots of this are multifarious and deep, going all the way back to the feudal system. The royal family still own a ridiculous amount of land on this island.

I have a strong interest in housing, and have been made increasingly despondent by the coalition's pronouncements and lack of actual policy on the subject. Fundamentally, the new government does not consider housing to be any kind of priority. I keep an eye on the department responsible for housing, planning and local government, Communities and Local Government (CLG). First of all, the housing minister, Grant Shapps, is not a member of the cabinet, as previously was the case under Labour. Secondly, CLG has shouldered a disproportionate share of thus year's (2010/11) budget cuts - £1.2bn of the £7bn total. It will undoubtedly face much greater cuts in the coming years.

Thirdly, CLG has put out the following ground-breaking press releases in the past month, under the leadership of Eric Pickles MP:

Eric Pickles to stop 'propaganda on the rates' killing off local newspapers

Call to arms in battle against red tape (Critiqued very effectively here )

Councils pledge to raise bar on procurement, which includes this classic:

The National Audit Office found that in some cases there are huge differences in the prices parts of the public sector, including councils, are paying for goods and services. The cost of envelopes varied between £2.04 and £9.13, and paper costs varied across councils from £6.84 to £14.79.

Pickles calls time on town hall quango forcing councils into bin cuts

Bin collection, envelopes, and council newsletters. Does this strike you as a department that has got to grip with the vital areas of policy that it covers: housing, planning, local government, and regeneration? Or does it seem to be adrift, unsure of its purpose, and run by ministers oblivious to the bigger picture?

Here is my attempt at the bigger picture of housing.

There are massive economic, social, environmental & quality of life interdependencies with housing, and shortages thereof.

• Economic.
  

  
  High housing costs lead to reduced competitiveness, more difficulty in companies attracting new employees, upward pressure on wages, across-the-board inflation, congestion & associated spillover effects, time-wastage due to commuting, reduced labour market flexibility. Lest we forget, the popping of the last house price bubble was enough to throw most of the world into recession. In the more economically successful South of the UK, house prices are now recovering. The areas of lowest supply and highest demand, notably central London & Cambridge, have already exceeded their pre-recession price peak.
  

  
  

• Social.
  

  
  Housing shortages lead to overcrowding, pressure on household budgets, unemployment ghettos, and insecurity of tenure. Housing and poverty are have always been related, and this self-perpetuates. Whereas historically food & energy took up the largest proportion of household outgoings, housing costs have overtaken them. 21% of household income goes on housing costs (median percentage, 2007/8 figures). For private renters this is 30% and mortgagees 29%. This also puts pressure on Local Authorities, who have a duty to house the homeless, and central government, which pays Housing Benefit.
  

  
  

• Environmental.
  

  
  The UK housing stock is hugely energy inefficient. Much of it dates to a time when building standards were minimal or non-existent and 'energy efficiency' was just two words that contain many instances of the letter e. To date, efforts to deal with this have largely focussed on social housing, which has to adhere to much higher quality standards than private. However funding for these refits is drying up with CLG cuts. Weak incentives have also been provided for owner-occupiers, but require benefit receipt and have not been well publicised or widely taken up. Private rental property has been totally ignored, as ever. Beyond energy, most housing can't cope with the weather extremes that climate change will bring. Plenty of it is situated in flood plains and most has poor water efficiency. Standards for new housing are ambitious; zero carbon by 2016, if a decision is made on what that means. But new stock is a tiny percentage of total housing, as we're building so little of it.
  

  
  

• Health & quality of life.
  

  
  Poor quality housing leads to illness. I experienced this a month ago; having a badly bodged shower leaking into your bedroom causes persistent colds, funnily enough. Underplanned communities entrench unhealthy habits, particularly when car travel is assumed and healthy food practically impossible to find (the picturesquely named 'food deserts'). Lack of space & privacy are also terrible for quality of life, as is worry about unaffordable housing costs, be it rent or mortgage, and/or insecurity due to risk of eviction.

A simplified model of how housing gets built in this country would look like this:

Planners vs Developers

Overly complex, incoherent and obfuscating layers of bureaucracy
vs
Oligopoly of entirely profit-motivated human sharks

Land ownership in the UK is highly concentrated and even England isn't particularly urbanised. The majority of non-urban land is protected from housing development and has been for decades, despite hysterical media stories about concreting the countryside. 13% of UK land is green belt, for instance, and the majority still agricultural.

It is very very (very) slow to get planning permission and build housing in the UK. Whilst this has it upsides, as planners take many important factors into account when assessing whether to grant permission, it's also expensive, in money and time. I think it can and should be streamlined, and quality could be increased in the process.

But the slow pace of new housing isn't just red tape, one of the coalition's favourite buzzphrases. I went on a work visit to a new community in the Netherlands a couple of years ago, and discovered that over there they build at twice the rate we do. That's two new houses completed in the time it takes us to build one, consistently. Why? Because in the Netherlands house-builders compete with each other to come up with innovative new building methods and designs. In the UK, construction companies are few, very large and deeply conservative. They still build in much the same style as a century ago. Because its what they're used to, and trying new methods could potentially be expensive and risky, especially in a dodgy market with scarce credit. I don't know whether you've noticed this, but large conservative (note the small c) organisations resist change.

Although that's an overview of the most serious problems as I see them, each tenure - owner-occupied, private rental and social rental - has its own particular issues. I'll go through each in subsequent posts, covering the coalition's policy impact on them so far. CLG has issued the odd housing related pronouncement; unfortunately they've made relatively little sense. I'll start with private rental, which I have the most (bitter) personal experience of.

To conclude, here are some statements of the obvious.

Supply Rise Fails To Cut House Prices. Because the suppliers are setting the prices and huge unmet demand keeping them high.

House Prices Are Recovering in South East Despite Economic Downturn. Because of the lack of supply and pressure of demand.

We Are Building Fewer Houses Than We Need. And this has been the case for decades.

Affordability Is More Than Just A Housing Problem. This document is from the CLG website, produced by a unit that the coalition are scrapping. If you don't click any other links in this post, I recommend reading this. It presents an excellent and succinct snapshot of housing affordability problems right now.

When you consider that CLG is shutting down this area of research, it is pretty clear how much importance the government attaches to housing as a subject.