WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND

Interesting to see that the Friday edition of the Financial Tines carried a front page story about the attempts of the current Westminster Conservative government to reverse the privatisation of military housing ( under John Major ) back in 1996.  The MoD is exploring the possibility of using the “statutory leasehold enfranchisement rights” to by out the private interest - currently held by Terra Firma - Annington Homes ( which is owned by Guy Hands, the property billionaire ).

The former MoD housing, is on a 200 year lease, with the MoD paying some £183 million a year plus paying upkeep on the 38,000 remaining homes. The National Audit Office ( reported in 2018 ) that the original deal had lost the tax payer something like £4.2 billion pounds when the massive difference in the value of property was factored in. 

The original deal was concluded when Michael Portilo, was Minister of Defence. The MoD understandably has a great desire to avoid getting stung with costs on the remaining 174 years of the lease, and are using the property laws, with a test case, to see if it is possible to take back ownership of the property portfolio. 

Back in March 2010, I noted that it was worth noting that 57,600 homes ( in 1996 ) from the Ministry of Defence (MoD) were sold to City Financiers and they then rented them back to troops for a profit. The terms of the deal, made in 1996 meant that the MoD remained responsible for the properties' upkeep and claimed that the extra cash from the deal would provide badly needed funds to help refurbish them. However, it has since emerged that the Westminster Government diverted most of the money elsewhere.

The deal resulted in the payment of a tidy £1.67 billion to the Treasury for the homes, a profit share of £156m on the sale of surplus properties, yet many are dilapidated and unfit to live in. Back in March 2010  it was revealed that the MoD had spent as little as £4.4m a year on maintenance and refurbishment. The Sunday Times revealed details of just how little the government spent on the properties reporting that General Sir David Richards, the head of the army, was concerned that many troops felt undervalued because of cuts to housing and shortages in other areas.

By the mid-1990s, military housing around the country was in dire need of tens of millions of pounds worth of repairs. John Major's Conservative administration agreed to sell off the Military housing stock to the highest bidder, partly to raise funds for a refurbishment programme. 

The original deal was put together in November 1996 with the government being paid for the homes, which would then be rented to troops and their families at below market rates. Surplus properties would be sold off with a percentage of the profits going to the Treasury. The consortium that acquired the military housing stock made more than £479 million in profits from its investment vehicle (Annington Homes) and became one of the UK's largest owners of private residential property.

Now this was all fine in theory, as the soldiers and their families should have benefited from the deal with hundreds of millions of pounds pouring into the Treasury. However, the Sunday Times revealed that New Labour ministers ensured that only a fraction of that sums raised be spent on the housing stock that had generated the windfall. 

Annual expenditure revealed in a parliamentary answer) on maintenance and upgrade was revealed to have ranged from £4.4 million to £13.9 million between 2003 and 2008. New Labour Ministers insisted that they would produce extra funds to help improve the quality of the homes and have pointed out that more than £27 million was spent in the last financial year (2099) but oddly enough that never happened under New Labour, the Conservative - Liberal Democrat coalition government or successive wholly Conservative  governments.

So what we have now as a result of decisions made by the previous Conservative Government and by successive New Labour Governments is army families living in substandard military accommodation some of whose loved ones are serving overseas - so much for the military covenant. The poor maintenance record predated privatisation of the military housing stock well prior to 1996. 

The Conservative Government at the time washed its hands of a long standing problem, by selling off the military housing stock to the highest bidder in what can best be described a questionable deal which shifted responsibility onto someone else so that ministers who could not be held accountable and subsequent New Labour Governments failed miserably, to ensure that repair and maintenance was being carried out.

A bad situation was then made worse as successive New Labour government's failed to carry out basic repair and maintenance, they slashed the defence budget from which money for the maintenance of MOD property is provided. One wonders on what the £1.67 billion received was spent on and whether the then Chancellor Gordon Brown was ever aware of what was going on or even cared? 

Successive Conservative and New labour Governments treated our servicemen and their families with contempt, no wonder some people believe that it no longer matters which of the two larger party's is in government, as our servicemen will be treated with contempt, forced to buy their own kit and treated to a total lack of interest and yet time and time again it is our servicemen that will be called on to step in to pull the fat from the fire whether it is dealing with the consequences of strikes, disasters, the saving lives at sea, foot and mouth and almost everything else as an when necessary.

Fast forward to 2022 and it looks like if the test cases are successfully that an independent tribunal will determine the cost of taking the properties back into public ownership, using market values. The current property owner, who have been raking it in, has understandably kicked off big time as a serious little earner could vanish if the former military housing stock end up being brought back under rate control, of the state from the private sector.

HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL DAY

Thursday (27th January 2022) is Holocaust Memorial Day, which is commemorated each year on the 27^th January because this is the day when the Red Army liberated Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi death camp.  

Perhaps now, more than ever, we need to take time to remember the millions of people who have been murdered or whose lives have been changed beyond recognition during the Holocaust, Nazi Persecution and in other subsequent horrors which have followed in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Darfur and more recently are in Syria.

 

We should also forever remember the earlier genocides that inflicted on the Armenians and the Ukrainians.

 

It is only right and proper that we honour the survivors and continue to challenge ourselves to use the lessons of their experience to inform our lives today.

 

By the end of the Holocaust, six million Jewish men, women and children had perished in ghettos, mass-shootings, in concentration camps and extermination camps. 

 

As Allied troops made progress across Nazi-occupied Europe, they began to uncover concentration and extermination camps and the remains of camps. 

 

The camp of Majdanek in Poland was the first to be liberated, in summer 1944.

 

Faced with defeat and advancing Allied armies Nazi forces burnt the crematoria and the mass graves in attempts to hide the crimes that they had committed. 

 

The Operation Reinhardt camps of Sobibor, Belzec, and Treblinka were dismantled by the Nazis from 1943, and Auschwitz itself was evacuated in late 1944. 

 

The surviving prisoners, weak from starvation and ill-treatment, and poorly clothed against elements were forced to walk into the interior of Germany, away from the Allied armies, many thousands died on the enforced ‘death marches’. 

 

Soviet soldiers liberated Auschwitz-Birkenau on 27^th January 1945,  they found several thousand emaciated survivors, and the smouldering remains of the gas chambers and crematoria. 

 

In the following months, the Soviets liberated Stutthof, Sachsenhausen and Ravensbruck.

 

In the west, US troops liberated Buchenwald in April 1945, followed by Flossenburg, Dachau and Mauthausen. British Troops liberated Bergen-Belsen on 15^th April 1945. 

 

It is estimated there were over 60,000 prisoners in Belsen by April 1945. Approximately 35,000 prisoners died of typhus, malnutrition and starvation in the first few months of 1945.

 

Back in 1999, Jewish leaders, were once asked  Tony Blair (the then UK prime minister) whether we needed Holocaust Memorial Day in Britain? 

Jonathan Sacks (former Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth for 22 years, until 2013) noted that that, when it was proposed that the UK have a Holocaust Memorial Day, Blair wanted the opinion of British Jewish leaders. 

 

They explained that they did not need a specific day to remember as Jews.

 

When it comes to remembrance Jewish people already had Yom ha-Shoa, their own memorial day, which falls soon after Passover in the Jewish calendar. 

 

Every Jew literally (or figuratively) lost family in the Holocaust. For Jews, Yom ha-Shoa is a grief observed. 

 

The Jewish leaders said that the Holocaust was not just a crime against Jews and other victims – Roma, Sinti, homosexuals, the handicapped, Jehovah’s Witnesses and political opponents of the Nazi’s among them; it was an assault on all of humanity.  

 

As has been said previously by a survivor perhaps we need is an additional eleventh commandment along the lines of – Don’t be bystander!  

THE ART OF THE POSSIBLE

A number of thoughts crossed my mind in relation to the proposed Co-operation Agreement between Plaid Cymru and the Welsh Labour Government which emerged on Monday. Politics my old man periodically said, sometimes when I was listening, is about the art of the possible, and along with that thought, Harry S Truman said that it was amazing what you can achieve if you don’t care about who gets the credit. 

While the devil obviously lies very much in the detail it also lies very much in the actual delivery. That said the proposed Co-operation Agreement between Plaid Cymru and the Welsh Labour Government offers real opportunities to get things done and to change peoples lives for the better as well as to boost our nations economy and infrastructure. 

The proposals that have been outlined include:

National construction company – Establish Unnos, a national construction company, to support councils and social landlords to improve the supply of social and affordable housing.

Net zero energy company – Work towards the creation of Ynni Cymru, a publicly-owned energy company for Wales, over the next two years, to expand community-owned renewable energy generation.

Procurement – Explore how to set meaningful targets to increase Welsh public sector procurement from the current 52%. As a first step, we will carry out a detailed analysis of the public sector supply chains and promote the purchasing of made-in-Wales products and services.

Local tourism levies – Introduce local tourism levies using local government finance reform legislation.

Building safety – Significantly reform the current system of building safety, which has allowed a culture of cutting corners to the detriment of public safety. We will introduce a second phase of the Welsh Building Safety Fund.

Property and Fair Rents – Publish a White Paper to include proposals for a right to adequate housing, the role a system of fair rents(rent control) could have in making the private rental market affordable for local people on local incomes and new approaches to making homes affordable.

Second homes – Take immediate and radical action to address the proliferation of second homes and unaffordable housing, using the planning, property and taxation systems. 

• Actions being planned include a cap on the number of second and holiday homes; 

• Measures to bring more homes into common ownership, a statutory licensing scheme for holiday lets;

• Greater powers for local authorities to charge council tax premiums and increasing taxes on second homes. We will explore local authority mortgages.

Childcare – Expand free childcare to all two year-olds with a particular focus on providing and strengthening Welsh-medium childcare.

Public transport – Ask Transport for Wales(TfW) to explore the development of transport links between North and South Wales, including how to protect potential travel corridors on the west coast of Wales. We will continue to press ahead with Metro developments to improve connectivity and encourage people to switch to public transport. We will ask TfW to work with local authorities in North West Wales and the Welsh Government to develop plans for an integrated transport system.

Media financial support – Fund existing and new enterprises to improve Welsh-based journalism to tackle the information deficit.

All good stuff, it think that it would be well to remember that this is in no way a coalition; Plaid Members won’t be part of the Welsh Government. As the agreement states Plaid will appoint a designated lead member for the agreement and committees made up of Welsh Ministers and designated Plaid members to reach agreement on issues covered by the Co-operation Agreement.

I do sometimes wonder, even with the slow steady growth of devolved powers even within our deeply flawed devolutionary settlement, just exactly what the elected representatives of Labour in Wales have been doing since 1999? And why they appear to be so bereft of ideas that they need ours… 

Mind, as they say imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, so in the short term I can live with Labour in Wales masquerading as Plaid lite, as long as the above actually gets done. 

REMEMBERANCE 2021

Another remembrance Sunday approaches,  if somewhat muted to Covid. Today, however, is the 11^th November, at 11am it will be one hundred and three years to the moment when the Great War - at least on the Western Front , ended - with the armistice. There are no more living veterans from the First World War, yet people will pause to publically and privately remember the veterans and survivors of more historic and more recent conflicts and particularly those who never came back. 

The 947,023 military casualties (with 744,702 of them from these islands) between 1914 and 1918 (by way of comparison with the 264,000 military dead from 1939 - 1945) should still shock us even now.  My family like far too many others in Wales (and elsewhere on these islands) had relatives who served and survived and also relatives who lost their lives in the First and Second World Wars and other conflicts. 

My lost relatives (and their missing descendants) play on my mind at times like this - one of my maternal grandmother’s lost two brothers in the First World War and its aftermath. Her elder brother was a regular soldier, who wrote home and told them not to allow his younger brother to join up and to come out to France. It was, however, too late as the younger brother had already joined up was killed in action in 1918 and buried near Amiens. My paternal great grandfather (and my grandfather) both served in the First World War and survived but came back as deeply changed men (as did many).

Coming from a relatively large extended close family, I am of the age, that I grew up with a generation of older relatives a number of whom had seen active service in the second world war in the Navy, Army, Air Force and the merchant navy. They like many from those generations rarely talked about their actual experiences of the war, and then perhaps save only occasionally to those whom they had served with, who would have understood, because they had survived similar experiences. Younger relatives have also served in more recent more modern conflicts around the world and fortunately have come back. 

As I have said previously I have absolutely no problem remembering those who lost their lives and the courage, comradeship and their endurance of those who served in the First World War and other more modern conflicts (and not necessarily those who served in the armed forces). What I have no time whatsoever is rose tinted sentimental nostalgic flag waving foot-tapping pap. As has been said elsewhere, soldiers don’t go into conflict aiming to die - not for the politicians, for patriotism or even us - but they often can end up dying with their friends and comrades with whom they served. 

The first world war was the first conflict when real concerted efforts were made to remember and record all of those who had fallen - particularly because of the decision (taken for a variety of reasons) not to bring the fallen home for burial. One consequence is that far too many literally still lie in corners of foreign fields, are names on war memorials, faded photographs, faded memories or too many literally have no grave at all. 

Speaking of another bloody conflict across the Atlantic, the, US President Abraham Lincoln noted at Gettysburg the fallen had given their last full measure of devotion. And that what we do or say does not really matter in comparison with what the fallen (and those who survived) had done. It may be more true today that the world will little note the current crop of political leader’s lyrical wittering on conflict (both recent or older) or long remember them. 

What we should never forget what the former soldiers and veterans did and what they went through. We should not just cherish their memory but should ensure that after their military service they remain fully honoured as should be the military covenant. Never again should it be found that dead heroes are cheaper to honour  than live ones. 

Crown Estate (Devolution to Wales) Bill

That this House welcomes the presentation of the Crown Estate (Devolution to Wales) Bill, laid on 21 June 2021, that would devolve management of the Crown Estate and its assets in Wales to the Welsh Government; recognises that since 2017, management of the Crown Estate and its assets in Scotland have been devolved to the Scottish Government; further recognises that the First Minister of Wales, Mark Drakeford, has outlined the potential benefits of gaining control of the Crown Estate, describing it as a direct tool the Scottish Government are able to deploy in their efforts to tackle the climate emergency; notes that the value of the Crown Estate’s renewable assets in Wales grew from £49.2m in 2020 to £549.1m in 2021; believes that Wales’ offshore renewable energy assets offer a historic opportunity for the Welsh economy and that devolving management of the Crown Estate would ensure that the people of Wales benefit directly from the green transition; further believes that devolving these powers would be consistent with existing Welsh Government responsibilities including achieving net-zero and overall economic development; and therefore calls on the Government to support the Crown Estate (Devolution to Wales) Bill.

A SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP

The latest Afghan debacle has perhaps once again shown how an over dependence on US fire power alone is one thing. When combined with an over reliance on changeable political commitment and changeable political will it is a very unstable base for a relationship, special or otherwise. 

The origins of the Afghan disaster pre date the Donald J Trump Presidency, dating back to the point when the US (and her Allies led by Tony Blair, effectively a cheerleader for the invasion of Iraq) decided to invade Iraq leaving the non nation building mission in Afghanistan unfinished and the Afghan people at the start of a slippery slope to the Taliban being back in charge. All the rest as they say is history. 

Despite the impression given by the Anglo Brit Atlanticist elite, the USA’s oldest ally is actually France, not the UK, they backed (for their own reasons the USA in its struggle with the Brits. The Westminster elite from time to time display's an almost desperate desire to retain a publicly perceptible closeness to US interests something that is barely concealed beneath the ever so thin veneer of so called 'special relationship '. 

This special relationship is worth exploring as it explains many of the decisions (and the consequences of decisions) taken over the last 60 years and much hangs on it for good or for ill post Suez and post BREXIT. This relationship in its current form largely exists in as a direct result of the British defeat at Suez and it’s consequences. Thwarted by the USA, the Franco-British-Israeli alliance of convenience broke up with a degree of bitterness - which fed the historic French distrust of perfidious Albion. 

After a brief sulk - the Brits and the French then made two very different decisions, the French decided to pursue and independent foreign policy (and an independent nuclear deterrent), if from time to time French and US interests were the same, all well and good, if not then tough - French interests would always prevail even if they put France at odds with the USA. So ever since the French are from time to time sometimes standing with the USA, and sometimes not.

This side of La Manche, the Brits made a very different decision, British and US interests it was decided would remain forever intrinsically linked - where the US went so would the Brits regardless. This was despite (in not because) of the threat of economic dislocation used by the US to effectively engineer the removal of Anthony Eden. The USA had far financial leverage with the Brits and made good use of it, All the rest is spin. 

In the late 1960's Harold Wilson, publicly (and privately) refused to commit Brit military assets to the on-going war in Vietnam. This reality was that this decision was carefully cleared in advance by Wilson with Washington (who cut the PM some slack) and was taken purely and simply for domestic political reasons rather than being a matter of high moral principal. All the rest is spin.

When Edward Heath was PM, and President Nixon was in the White House, Anglo-US relations cooled significantly - it was during this period that the UK entered the EEC - such perhaps was the PM’s rumoured  indifference to the special relationship that drove this change, along with political expediency and economic necessity. He was the only PM not to actively pursue the White House lawn photo with the incumbent President, every other PM has sought their moment in the media spotlight in Washington DC.

The post war so-called special relationship was originally founded from combination of desperation, expediency, misunderstanding, and post war debt management. At the heart of the relationship there lies a fundamental misunderstanding of US history and society which remains to this day. 

It's based from the start on a simple but fundamental misunderstanding about the nature of America. In the 19th and 20th centuries the Brit elite imagined that the Americans were basically trans Atlantic English people ( Personified as 'Brother Jonathan' so beloved by 19th century Brit cartoonists especially in Punch magazine ).

While this may have been partially true to a degree in Mid to late 18th century but with the opening up of the frontier to settlement (something the Brits had resisted when running their colonies in the New World) after the American revolution there was a resultant surge of European immigrants seeking a better life in the USA.

They were joined by Poles, Germans, Ukrainians, Russians, Swedes, Mexicans, Irish and many others who flooded into America. The retention of the American form of English as a language of communication had little to do with trans Atlantic kinship with England and more to do with simple practicality and the influence of the US elite, although German was briefly in the running apparently.

The Brits, were at the end of the 19th century genuinely alarmed at US hostility towards Britain during the border dispute with Venezuela. The Brits had forgotten or perhaps failed to grasp that support from Britain for the Confederacy during the civil war, with military supplies, the supply and construction of blockade runners and naval vessels was freshly and angrily remembered by the generations of US politicians that held power from the civil war until the start of the 20th century and many Americans. 

The USA buoyed up by manifest destiny within the continent, and the Monrow doctrine - a  policy of preventing external inference in both north and South America set out from the 1890's onwards to thwart, undermine and destroy the British Empire - and by and large they succeeded - partially as a result of the First and Second World wars and partially because that was the real price (aside from the hard cash, gold reserves, financial bonds and the sell off cheaply of UK assets within America) to pay for lead lease.

Despite the best efforts of Brit leaders to persuade people within the UK to the contrary the USA's oldest ally is actually France. The French supported the insurgent United States against their former imperial overlords.  The USA is the end result of a vast melting pot of peoples from across and around the globe - a number of whom had little love for Britain. 

Labour in power in 1945 perhaps hoped that by withdrawing from India - they might yet retain the potentially mineral rich in perial territories in Africa. This would help pay off the war debt and lessen the financial consequences of the loss of India. Attlee (and Churchill) hoped that post war that the special wartime relationship would continue - the Americans who were keen to see ‘Empire’ disappear had other ideas. 

Winston Churchill back in as PM in 1951, hoped to rekindle the special relationship - once again - despite the public pronouncements - once again the Americans had different ideas. It is interesting to note that Eisenhower as incumbent President elect was annoyed by the Brits obsession with ‘the special relationship’ and their imperial inheritance. As blind to the truth as Churchill was about geopolitical realities post war, he did recognise that actually that many US republicans actually distrusted the Brits more than they distrusted the US Democrats. 

Foster Dulles privately thought that the ‘Brits’ were something of a menace, ‘a rapidly declining power’ whose ‘clumsy and inept’ behaviour actually encouraged nationalists like Mosaddeq, and caused tensions that the communists might make use of. His staff observed that the new Secretary of State felt that ‘you simply could not count in the British to carry on in any responsible way’ and ‘he had no admiration or them’ and he dismissed Eden (then foreign secretary) as a dandy.

Any illusions that the Anglo-Brits had about preserving and exploiting their African colonies to pay off their wartime debt to the USA disappeared pretty rapidly after Suez. Barely four years after The Suez debacle the Winds of Change speech (delivered by MacMillan to the Parliament of South Africa (in Cape Town) on February 3rd 1960 effectively called down the curtain on the Empire in Africa. 

Somewhat ironically this was the second time that the Winds of Change speech had been delivered, it was first delivered in Accra, in Ghana on January 10th 1960 but no one noticed. The hasty withdrawal from Africa that followed was a direct consequence of economic and political impotence following Suez and the threat of the financial rug being pulled out from under by the USA. 

This side of the pond, the Anglo Brit elite over the last 50 years despite generating a lot of rhetoric to the contrary have consistently wound down the UK defence establishment to the point where it as shrunk to insignificance and moved the UK from potentially useful Ally to potential liability. 

The Conservatives have spun the illusion that they are good for defence - the reality is quite different - elected in 1979 with a manifesto pledge to retain 90 surface vessels in the Royal Navy. The surface fleet was down to 46 surface vessels by April 1982 - with both aircraft carriers sold to India and Australia - before any replacement had even been fitted out. 

The over reliance on US defence equipment, some of dubious worth in some cases has become self fulfilling as the aerospace and armaments industrial sector had been run down and weakened to the point of destruction. The production of 2 aircraft carriers (which will have no aircraft for the foreseeable future) save what the US sells them) is merely a blatant example of chronically poor decision making coming home to roost. 

The consequences of 5 or 6 defence reviews (since the late 1950's) rather than cutting ones cloth to match realities have merely run the defence sector into the ground and cutting the armed forces to the very edge of impotence. The thousands of jobs in Westland in Yeovil and aerospace in Bristol (and many dependent jobs in the extended supply chain) were openly sacrificed in plain sight not by stealth along with the coal and steel jobs in Wales and elsewhere. 

The UK has moved from being the old reliable unsinkable aircraft carrier and potentially useful ally to a modern day version of Austria-Hungary - overblown with pomp and circumstance, politically unstable, unreliable and ill-equipped - all in less than 25 years. The decline - economic and strategic - is no doubt perceived as quite shocking in most of Europe's chancelleries,  Washington DC and elsewhere, but, perhaps with quiet glee if not anticipation in the Kremlin. 

As Abraham Lincoln once said of the armies of the republic, the bottom is out of the tubb. Defence cuts have followed defence cuts, and the military power of these islands has been diminished rapidly. The UK's last 6 sea harriers were literally retrieved from storage to bomb Ghadafis Libya. Over Christmas and the New Year (two yeas ago) all the Royal Navy's 15 surface ships were in home ports - something that had probably not happened since the days of King Alfred. 

The Anglo-Brit elite, currently ruling over the majority of the inhabitants of these islands, have always lived on the edge of Europe’s wet and windy Atlantic coast, will have next to little influence with the EU having burned any bridges with the EU and also having irritated the US elite by ceasing to be their boy inside the EU tent. Blair and Bush's much trumpeted New World Order, envisaged somewhat triumphantly when the USSR disintegrated has crumbled rather rapidly into the sands of a New World Disorder particularly in Iraq and more recently in Afghanistan. 

Despite the tabloid and broadsheet headlines / delusions Empire 2.0 is actually not going to coming riding to the rescue. That ship rather than sailing away was quietly scuttled or abandoned in the early 1970's when the UK joined the then EEC - leaving potential commonwealth partners to sink or swim. The Anglo-Brit elite may well find itself even more dependent on the so called special relationship with the US largely because they have not got anyone else to turn too. 

What will not happen, as far as I can perceive it, is an honest reassessment of the so-called special relationship in the wake of the Afghan and Iraqi debacle(s) - this will not happen. It never happened after Suez, or when Empire ended in the mid to late 1960’s, nor did it happen when the Cold War ended, and based on past observations it’s not going to happen now the delusion is too embedded within the UK state. Global Britain is simply more of a delusion than a reality. 

ACHIEVING ENERGY INDEPENDENCE?

The Westminster government is to hold urgent talks (Saturday 18th September) with the energy industry amid growing concern about a spike in wholesale gas prices. Kwasi Kwarteng ( the Business Secretary ) will talk to gas suppliers and others on Saturday to hear how wide-reaching the impact of the surge in prices could be. The combination of high global demand, maintenance issues at some gas sites and lower solar and wind output are blamed for the rise. 

A knock on effect of the price rises is that two large UK fertiliser plants to close. The Westminster Government sources have stated there is no threat to UK gas supplies and the impacts on small energy companies that might be the most exposed are being monitored. Westminster government officials are looking at whether products that could end up being in short supply, such as fertiliser, could be imported from abroad.

Natural gas prices are at currently at record highs as economies around the world begin to recover from the Covid crisis. In the UK, lower winds have meant less renewable energy is generated. There have also been outages at some nuclear stations and lower flows into the UK of natural gas from Norway, pushing up the price of natural gas. Another thing to consider is that at some point there will be a significant rise in domestic energy bills. 

Saturday’s discussions with senior figures from the UK's energy sector were requested urgently with the chief executives from gas producers, the National Grid, suppliers including Scottish Power, EON and EDF and the regulator Ofgem to hear how far-reaching the impact of the surge in prices is likely to be.

The high prices have led to fertiliser plants in Teesside and in Cheshire to close, leading to a major drop in supplies of carbon dioxide gas - a by-product of fertiliser production - which is used across many industries. Meat processors are also in talks with the government over this carbon dioxide shortage because of its use in the meat production process. The gas is used to stun pigs and chickens prior to slaughtering and also in the packaging and preserving process.

There is is still an opportunity to develop a different vision for energy and the environment for a Wales that reduces its carbon emissions, harnesses its natural resources sustainably, and seizes opportunities in the low-carbon and circular economies. The link between energy and climate change is clear. A number of actions could fall into the remit of Ynni Cymru, including: reducing the cost per unit of energy to homes and businesses in Wales, reducing the consumption of energy in homes and businesses and helping consumers to make informed decisions based on smart metering technology.

Ynni Cymru should be tasked with funding the mass installation, outsourced to local companies, of solar panels on the roofs of households, business premises and lampposts in Wales, beginning with public buildings and social housing. The company would coordinate and facilitate the use of publicly owned land for renewable energy purposes. 

The company could finance the acquisition and development of new large-scale generating and storage capacity, ensuring Wales becomes self-sufficient in renewable energy and becomes a renewable energy exporter. It could boost our energy market by ensuring the development of a national producer cooperative among community energy organisations.

The problem we face is that our energy production and distribution model has been effectively restructured to primarily benefit the big 6 energy cartel members, their interests and their (City) profits. From the perspective of energy consumers and smaller scale energy producers, or anyone who wants things to change the problem is that all the Westminster focused political parties have happily bought into this cartel dominated model of energy production and ownership (or perhaps more truthfully were quietly bought).

The energy sector is quite simply warped to favour the larger providers - it is very difficult to break into a sector that is dominated by large companies that are favoured by the Westminster government,  At the beginning of 2021 there were 70 energy suppliers in the UK. Industry sources have said that there may be as few as 10 left by the end of this year.  The reality is that the UK’s cartel dominated model for energy production and distribution is not necessarily the norm everywhere in Europe or around the world. 

Now contrary to what you might think, and tend hear from Westminster and much of the UK media; realistic alternatives exist and actually prosper, a particularly good example of a balanced and healthy energy mix can be found in Germany. Small may very well be beautiful, even with a geographically sizeable state, especially in relation to energy, in 2012 some 22% of the countries energy came from small scale green entrepreneurs, by 2019 it was 46%.

Community based co-operatives (both urban and rural), farmers and homeowners are part of the 1.3 million renewable energy producers and part of the energy mix. In Germany, citizens’, cooperatives, and communities own more than half of German renewable capacity. Small-scale electricity generation is having a knock on effect encouraging change throughout the energy system.

Citizens’ owned energy in Germany involves:  

• Private individuals or farmers (jointly or individually) invest in energy facilities
• The investment is made with the citizens own capital, which gives a certain level of control over the project
• Citizens own at least 50 percent of voting shares
• Citizens have a connection to the region where the facility is operated

In Berlin, a cooperative (Burger Energie Berlin – literally Berlin Citizens Energy) continues to strive to take control of the capital's electricity grid with some 35,000km of underground cables. The cooperative is a free, cross-party coalition of citizens who are committed to a sustainable, sustainable and democratic energy policy in Berlin. Members have one vote regardless of the amount their deposit and anyone who wants the power network to be in civil hand, is welcome.

Ordinary Berliners have invested their cash in the venture with the intention of producing a reliable 100 per cent renewable energy supply. The aim is to promote the integration of renewable energy into the grid and to invest a portion of the profits from this directly into the transition to renewable energy. After some serious campaigning, on the 5th March 2019 the Berlin electricity grid was awarded to Energie Berlin. 

This is grass roots energy generation that has potentially the power to change the nature of the energy supply system (in Germany and elsewhere). The aim to build an energy grid that is better handle the rise of green power and allows local use of locally produced energy. This may well be a case of small being both beautiful and perhaps deeply disturbing from the perspective of Westminster and Cardiff Bay something that can be both community beneficial and community owned. 

There is no practical reason beyond ‘thats not the way its done here’ why people living here and Wales could not benefit from membership of citizen owned energy co-operatives. In Germany, there is a deliberate promoted policy of energy transition (or ‘Energiewende’) – this is a very different approach to what is practised in these islands (at least south of the Scottish border). For a start the ‘Energiewende’ is driven by a desire to reduce and eliminate any dependency on nuclear energy.

The introduction of the Feed-in-tariff (EEG) in 2008 was an important part of this process, along with (post Fukushima) the almost unanimous across the board political commitment to a wide range of targets (in 2011) which included a commitment to reduce energy demand (with a 50% reduction in primary energy use by 2050) and the achievement of an 80% renewable electricity share of total consumption (by 2050). This has resulted in a significant uptake of renewables in Germany.

The real striking difference is that the operation of the grid in Germany means that generated renewable electricity is used first and that distribution network operators (DNOs) are also seeking to reduce demand. This is so radically different from the way the energy is generated, distributed, exported and used here in our country that it no doubt, at least from their limited perspective, quite understandably frightens Westminster focused politicians, the civil shrive and the city.

A significant difference, aside from the scale and pattern of investment (in Germany), is that small businesses, co-operatives, individual households and local authorities benefit from investment distributed by a network of local banks (again something we pretty much entirely lack here in Wales). The whole thing has been supported by the KfW (state investment bank) to the tune of 23.3 billion euro in the area of environment and climate protection.

These developments are a million miles away from the so-called ‘Free market’ for energy that exists in the UK, which is pretty dominated by the ‘Big 6’ energy cartel members. The fact that some former politicians have found rather rewarding post political career employment within the energy sector may be co-incidental but suggests that there is little desire for improvement within Westminster and perhaps a complete lack of understanding of the concept from any Labour in Wales government(s) be they previous, current or future. 

The way the current set up works, it is difficult to imagine ‘a Government’ at most levels (at least outside of Scotland in the UK grasping the concept, the practicalities and real possibilities of genuine community owned beneficial energy generation projects. Pending some real change in the way energy policy works we are all pretty much trapped with a real lack of meaningful choice or realistic alternatives when it comes to customers securing domestic energy from the big 6 cartel members.

What we have had over the years has been visionless New Labour, Conservative-Lib DeM and then Conservative governments in Westminster, which have remained hand in glove with despotic oil and gas-producing regimes in the Middle East ( aside from the vassal like relationship between the UK and Saudi Arabia ) who have had has little real interest in renewables. 

The relationship between the energy cartel members and the Westminster government’s is close to being corrupt. Teresa May’s wobbly and unstable Brexit fixated Westminster government, was followed by Boris Johnson’s majority Conservative government which continues to actively work to pull the rug out from under the renewables sector something that has cost highly skilled jobs here in Wales. 

Things need to change as the exceptionally comfortable lucrative relationship between the Westminster focused political partisans the big 6 Cartel members has done all of us no favours over the last twenty years. It has also despite some progress failed to deliver energy independence for these islands, which are still far to dependent of hydrocarbons from unstable regions of our planet and some very questionable despotic regimes, with whom Westminster is quite happy to deal with.