Helping the planet and the poor?

Why shouldn't an OAP living on an estate in Ammanford will be able to sell off their share of unused carbon to a businessman from Pontcanna who wants to fly from Cardiff to Ynys Mon?

That would be one of the outcomes of a personal carbon trading scheme backed by MPs on the Commons Environmnetal Audit Select Committee today

A system of carbon rationing could have economic benefits for the poorest. After all it is not those on the lowest incomes who cause the greatest envionmental harm.

The cross-party report acknowledges that unless we act now to cap our emissions there will be an economic slump equivalent to both World Wars and the Great Depression all rolled into one.

As the Stern report pointed out it would cost much less to prevent runaway climate change than to seek to live with it.

But such long-term concerns threaten to be put aside as panic spreads about short-term economic worries. As the editorial in today's Guardian points out:
"Cutting emissions will not win back Labour's lost voters in Crewe. But it must be done. This is the moment for courage"

Will there be life after 60 for the NHS?

In a couple of months time the NHS will celebrate its 60th anniversary. The memory of Nye Bevan will evoked again and again as as the crowning achievement of the 1945 Government is celebrated.

But as I've found out over the last few months, the Health Service is in turmoil.

Like most people who consider themselves to be on the centre left I strongly believe in the founding principles of the NHS. When presented with anecdotal evidence of failings by the Health Service and its staff I have been amongst the first to make an excuse.

But my grim experience of the NHS maternity service in the last few months has left me pondering some very uncomfortable questions.

Perhaps I have been naive in not realising the depth of the difficulties facing the NHS (after all there have been no shortage of warnings), but I was deeply shocked by the resignation of the staff towards the sub-standard nature of the care that is all too often administered.

When I was a journalist I was wary of over using the word crisis, but I can think of no better way of describing the state of the NHS. Not simply in operational terms, but strategically.

In the face of an ever demanding consumer mindset, can the NHS adapt quickly enough to rising expectations to prevent middle class flight? That I think is one of the biggest challenges.

Those who can afford it (at a push) are routinely going elsewhere for care when they can.

For example, to avoid the prospect of an amniocentesis test for Down Syndrome, couples are increasingly prepared to pay £180 for the less invasive and more accurate nuchal scan at private health care centres. Once introduced to the world of private medicine many return to it in times of uncertainty when the NHS is found wanting. Meanwhile those who cannot afford it are effectively left with no choice.

It is not simply a matter of a gap in provision. I won't self-indulgently list my own gripes but I doubt very much the problems I encountered are restricted to Cardiff and Vale (clearly they are not), or indeed to maternity services. Some of the problems I encoutered were localised, others suggest there a deeper systemic malaise. In fact, a senior nurse in Wales' leading hospital told me recently that patients routinely 'slip through the net'.

The flow to private providers may only be a trickle now, but there's a danger that it will become a hemorrhage if the support of middle income groups for the NHS is eroded.

Let us not fall back into the familiar narrative here, it is not simply a matter of the rich having choice and the poor having none, many of the people turning the private sector have to borrow money but in desperation feel they have no choice.

It will become increasingly difficult to protect the services relied upon by the poorest if the allure of the Private Sector and the opportunism of the Right undermine the broad consensus which sustains the NHS.

As the NHS reaches its 60th birthday some unpalatable questions need addressing.

It is not just a matter of funding:

Doctors, nurses and midwives must ask themselves if they always give the best care that they can;

professional bodies and trade unions must examine whether their stranglehold on the
NHS is in the long-term interests of their members or the public;

politicians who enjoyed the easy kill of the internal market must show how in its absence the NHS can respond to patient demand;

and voters must confront the uncomfortable reality that if we want public services to meet our demands as modern consumers we cannot rely on solidarity alone to be sustain them.

I don't pretend to have the answers. But if the NHS is to be more than a fall back service for those who cannot afford to go private, the Welsh political elite must acknowledge the problem and engage with the search for solutions.

What do the local election results mean?

Anyone who spent a few minutes glancing at the local government election results in Saturday's papers couldn't help being struck by the remarkable divergence in results across Wales. There is no doubt that the results were awful for Labour, but even for Labour there were chinks of light in Neath Port Talbot and Bridgend. For every other party there were significant opportunities to celebrate but also the odd downside or two.

The question now is what kind of pattern of political control will we see emerge from the mish mash of results that was May 1st? I'd say the jury is very much out at the moment, and it is very much a case of watch and wait.

BUT, and I think this is a crucial point for the whole future of Welsh politics - political pluralism is here to stay. If these results prove anything they show that the once dominant force of Welsh politics, the Labour Party can lose anywhere. [Labour has also shown over the past 15 years in Wales that it can win anywhere]. For those who still think that coalition government in Cardiff Bay is an aberration, some rethinking is very much in order. Because, at a local level while Labour could reasonably aspire to play a leading role in a dozen or so authorities, if it adopts old ways of thinking in its approach to negotiations, it could end up in opposition in all but a few authorities.

These elections are not only a challenge to Labour, but will challenge all parties to think anew about patterns of political competition and cooperation; and that can only be healthy thing for the future of politics in Wales.

Women and Drink and Arrests

THE number of women arrested for being drunk and disorderly has increased nearly seven-fold over the past five years in Gwent.The UKs biggest rise in women arrested for the offence was in Gwent, where 190 women were arrested in the past year, compared to 29 between 2003 and 2004.New figures also showed the number of women arrested for being drunk and disorderly in Dyfed-Powys had increased from 65 five years ago to 120 last year – but there was no increase in South Wales.
According to the research by Channel Four News Online, Gwent showed the second biggest increase in the UK for women arrested for being drunk and disorderly. It was second only to the West Midlands, which reported a 12-fold hike from 59 arrests five years ago to 731 last year.
The statistics for 2007/08 only covered 11 months of the year, so the full picture is likely to show even higher increases.

What on earth is fueling this? Campaigners say pubs and clubs are deliberately targeting women with cheap drinks offers and free entry in a bid to encourage them to drink more. But prices are less in most parts of Europe and this is not the pattern. What circumstances or culture is different in Gwent . The whole culture of hard drinking among younger women and younger men is a trend that I feel needs some good rigorous research , we need to understand why getting "slammed" is an objective of more and more young women in particular. The health implications are serious , women 's bodies cannot deal with alcohol in the same way that their male counter parts can. May be this is an area WAG would like to commission Bevan to investigate.

Channel 4 News online asked all 52 police forces in the UK for details of the number of women that had been arrested for D&D offences in the past five years. Although 38 forces replied to the survey, only 21 were able to provide like-for-like figures over the five year period:Increase in arrests West Midlands: 1138 per cent Gwent: 578 per cent Leicestershire: 135 per cent. See their web site for more details.

Rethinking Regeneration in the valleys

In the last five years ago I have heard many derogatory things said about Merthyr - "it's like Beirut, the best have left, the problem is their attitude, why don't they get on the train to Cardiff" etc etc. I also have seen the Heads of the Valleys programme, announced nearly 4 years ago, full of good intent but with not enough money or action on the ground it has achieved little other than a mess in the town centre and the threat of a Status Quo concert in the park in the summer.

So, I have put pen to paper and written a pamphlet - Rethinking Regeneration: the Heads of the Valleys. I hope it will put to rest the insulting myths that swirl around the chattering classes of Cardiff and generate some real commitment to improving matters. It's being launched on 12th May at Merthyr College Theatre 4 p.m. - there will also be a 'question time' with local AMs and MPs. It's free too but you need to register in advance. The pamphlet will be available there or you will be able to download it from our website.

And, if you want more of this kind of thing, then you should JOIN the Bevan Foundation because that is the only way we can raise any money.