Philip Pearson

There were two distinct responses to the Government’s consultation on carbon capture for coal-fired power stations. From the ‘green lobby’ that the framework is not tough enough, whilst generators are stating it is too tough and there is a real danger that nothing will be built.

Well, we now have our answer, from E.ON at least: Kingsnorth postponed, seen as “good news” by some. The economic downturn had “pushed back the need for a new plant in the UK to around 2016 because of the reduction in demand for electricity” But E.ON remains “committed to the development of cleaner coal and carbon capture and storage (CCS), which we believe have a key role to play in tackling the global threat of climate change, while ensuring affordability and security of energy supplies.”

This announcement will accelerate gas dependency, despite the recession. It will also delay the UK’s carbon capture technology platform.

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• The paradoxical State, by Colin Talbot – Public Finance Opinion
  Professor Talbot points out the paradox of the state massively expanding it reach in financial services while calls grow to shrink it elsewhere.

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Philip Pearson

The Government has acknowledged today that employees have a key role to play in saving energy in their workplace, and that this is integral to achieving emissions reductions in the public and private service sectors. Carbon pricing kicks off in April 2010 for 5,000 of our largest service sector employers, when the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC), takes effect. The CRC will put a price on every tonne of CO2 consumed in the service industries, with incentives to cut consumption. It aims to save around a million tonnes of CO2 a year when fully operational.

It’s great news for the TUC and our affiliates and reflects well on the hard work and dedication of green reps. Their work will now be recognised in a CRC performance “league table”, which requires employers to tick an “employee engagement” box if they meet one of the following criteria:

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Nigel Stanley

The TUC made the headlines with our analysis of the cost of higher rate tax relief on pensions.

Now insurance company Aviva have called for the abolition of higher rate tax relief with the money saved to provide tax relief of 30% for all pensions savings.

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Nigel Stanley

Yesterday George Osborne said:

“The Government should find ways to cap the biggest government pensions, including those for senior civil servants, local council executives and Quango managers. This cap should prevent any taxpayer-funded increase in senior government pensions already worth over £50,000 a year, and stop all taxpayer-funded pensions for these groups in future exceeding £50,000 a year. This would reduce the growth of public sector pension liabilities by hundreds of millions of pounds over the next decade.”

But the Daily Telegraph makes clear in an explanatory box that I can’t find online that this will only apply to what pension anoraks call future accruals.

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Nigel Stanley

At least in what he says here:

“We must avoid British arrogance in going along and saying to the French and Germans that we are the only people who understand about the regulation of financial markets.

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• Tory rise in state pension age – do the sums add up?
  Lib Dem spokesperson Steve Webb takes the Tory pension age increase to pieces. Read the comments too!

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Nigel Stanley

There seems to be some confusion about Conservative plans to raise the state pension age to 66 in 2016. It is beginning to look like they forgot about women when formulating this proposal.

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Nicola Smith

In an fairly depressing development the Government has responded to yesterday’s Conservative welfare plans by announcing its own commitment to introduce mandatory work for benefits for people who have been unemployed for six months or over. ‘Work for your benefits‘ pilots are still proposed from October 2010 (requiring people who have been out of work for two years to undertake six months of enforced work experience), but it now appears that further plans are underway to require those who have spent six months out of work to participate in unpaid work. The Government have stated that:

In trial areas from next year, where jobseekers have been out of work for more than six months but have turned down work experience, support or training that could help them get jobs, advisors will be able to require them to take up a work trial or work experience placement as a condition of continuing to receive benefit.

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Owen Tudor

The Irish referendum result couldn’t have been timed better to re-open Conservative wounds over Europe, just as their final conference before the election opened. Trade unions are, of course, principally concerned about Conservative policy on European social issues – workers; rights, employment policy, equality, pensions and so on. And the Conservative policy on this seems to be evolving, but it isn’t becoming clearer.

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