Rhondda to Brussels by train

Today is one of my “one in four” train journey days from the Rhondda to Brussels. I left Llwynypia Station at 9am. for Cardiff. I usually catch the train at Ystrad so I was quite shocked to see how overgrown and littered the track is at Llwynypia. Waiting there is not a very pleasant experience. But the train was on time and I got a seat. I’d been listening to Radio Wales this morning about the signalling delays between Newport and Cardiff yesterday, with the football fans missing the start of the Carling Cup final. But there was nothing on about how things were looking today. I decided to complain to BBC Wales that their travel news only covers roads. It’s no good encouraging more people to use public transport when morning “travel” news is only about cars.

9.50 arrive in Cardiff only to find that the 9.55 train to London has been cancelled. The next train is at 10.25. It eventually arrives at 10.40. By this time the station is packed with passengers for the two trains plus passengers for Portsmouth who have been told to take this train and change in Bristol because their train was cancelled as well. When the train arrives there is a scrum to get on.

It takes us half an hour to get to Newport (instead of 15 minutes) because, incredibly, the delays are still going on.

While all this is frustrating, the great thing about train travel is the chance to catch up on reading and do some work. I read a very interesting article in the Independent about recyclable cardboard tents which are being piloted at the Glastonbury Festival. They would have been really useful for the Nantygwyddon protests - and good for the environment!

Should arrive in London at 12.25. Instead at 12.25 we are just pulling into Reading station. Good job I’ve left plenty of time to get across London to Waterloo.

Arrive in Paddington at 1pm. Got to Waterloo on the Tube by 1.35 and was just in time to check in. From here the journey is straightforward - direct to Brussels and to my office.

So what difference does this really make to my carbon footprint? To find that out I am going to make a comparison of the two jourmeys (air and rail) in terms of carbon emissions, travel time, comfort and price to see not only how environmentally friendly but also how practical it is to travel by train. Watch this space!

Objective One report a disaster for Labour

The Report on EU Objective One funding commissioned by the BBC, and undertaken by Cardiff University, which was published Thursday 22nd February, is an absolute disaster for the Labour government of Wales.

The report claims that 43,500 new jobs have already been created in the Valleys and West Wales. Yet it simultaneously acknowledges that the GVA per capita in this part of Wales has actually dropped from 66% to 65% of the UK average over the five-year period of Objective One, for which figures are available.

If 43,500 new jobs had actually been created, then this should work through into the GVA figures as an increase of 3% to 4%, as has actually happened in Cornwall, which got Objective One at the same time as Wales. That GVA relative increase has not occurred in the Valleys and West Wales. The only possible conclusions are either that the 43,500 new jobs is a total myth, and that they have not come into existence; or that they have been created, but have displaced existing jobs - hence the standstill in GVA levels.

Whichever is the case, it has blown apart Rhodri Morgan’s claim to have used European structural funds effectively. This will be a major issue over the period leading to the elections on 3rd May, and he deserves to be punished in the ballot box by the people of this deprived part of Wales, who have so badly been let down.

Council needs to act on empty properties!

Last Thursday I visited residents in Aberhondda Road, Porth, to discuss Rhondda Cynon Taf Council’s inability to deal effectively with empty properties in the area. 9 and 10 Aberhondda Road have been empty for several years and have become the target for vandals. Stones are regularly thrown at them and rubbish is accumulating there. They are now in a very dilapidated condition and have become an eyesore which are causing problems and distress for neighbours.

The neighbours’ lives have been made a misery by having to live next door to what has become a dumping ground for rubbish and a target for vandals. The windows have been smashed and stones are regularly thrown onto the roof. Until recently youths were getting inside the empty properties. They have also suffered from rats in their attic. The Council needs to do everything it can to sort out this problem permanently.

Photo: Myself (left) and Porth Plaid Councillor Julie Williams outside 10 Aberhondda Road.

Council auction scandal

Following Monday’s auction, when our local council sneaked off to London to sell Rhondda land, I’ve called for local people to benefit from the £3.7 million windfall they’ve received.

Much of the land auctioned lies in some of the most deprived communities in Europe. I want local projects to directly benefit from this sale. The money mustn’t be hidden in the council’s coffers. The auction was done behind peoples’ backs: now, local people must be brought into the development process through Communities First and suchlike.

Already, young people in RCT are priced out the housing market. I’ve asked the council to put some of this extra cash into new low cost housing schemes for local first-time buyers.

I also want the council to look at how, in future, they can be fairer to local people who were outbid by London speculators. They’ve got genuine roots in the community but will always be frozen out by outsiders with more money.

No To Trident

CND Rally, Queen Street, Cardiff, Saturday 17th February 2007.

Photo: Addressing the rally at the Aneurin Bevan statue, Queen Street, Cardiff.

Last Saturday CND Cymru organised a march in Cardiff against the government plans to upgrade its Trident nuclear weapons system. There are now four Trident submarines based in Faslane, Scotland, which together have the destructive power of nearly 400 Hiroshima bombs. The nuclear bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945 killed over 100,000 people. Nuclear weapons are immoral.

The Labour government are now planning to replace the Trident submarines with new weapons. This is against the international agreement (the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty) signed over 30 years ago which commits Britain to disarming its nuclear weapons and breaks international law. How hypocritical of Tony Blair to lecture other countries about how dangerous nuclear weapons would be in their hands while at the same time planning more of his own.

Recent estimates of the cost of replacing Trident put the figure at £76 billion over 30 years. Just think of all the positive ways that kind of money could be spent to protect us against climate change that really threatens us and to fight the poverty and injustice in many parts of the world that make peace impossible.

In January I took part in the peaceful blockade of the submarine base in Faslane and many thanks to everyone for the messages of support I received. The strength of feeling against these illegal, immoral and unbelievably expensive weapons can be seen in the fact that over 400 people have now been arrested – several from Wales and many young people. What clearer message to the government than that!

This coming Saturday there is a big anti-Trident demonstration in London. (For more information on buses from Wales please contact 07940 108146 or 01495 773180). I will be speaking there together with many others to underline that message.

Need a passport? Apply now

The new Identity Cards Act 2006 became law at the end of March last year, giving the Government the power to introduce the National Identity Register and ID cards in stages.

This means a voluntary ID card scheme will be introduced in 2008, and while people applying for a new passport can opt out of having an ID card, they cannot opt out of having their details recorded onto the new database. From 2010 it will be compulsory for people applying for a poassport to be issued with an ID card.

The new passports will use a small microchip that’ll record the person’s biometric data including their fingerprints and a scan of their iris. Also included, will be the person’s name, address, sex and date of birth.

The new identity database will contain details of addresses where that person has lived in the past. It will also record other details such as National insurance and NHS numbers.

Applying for a new passport will mean having to attend an interview at the Passport Office.

The cost of the new passports is expected to be £93 (the official government estimate) although the real cost is unpredictable.

The Home Office estimates that the scheme will cost £5.8bn to set up and run over the next 10 years. Findings for the London School of Economics dispute the figure, and put the total cost of the scheme nearer to £19bn. Regardless of what the figure will be in the end, it is the taxpayer who will fund the scheme.

The National Identity Register is expected to hold the details of everyone currently living in the UK as well as foreign residents.

However, many large IT projects undertaken in the past have been marred by problems. The Tax Credit System, malfunctioned when some people were given the wrong amount of benefit, resulting in some unfortunate families having to repay the money at a later date.

Another example is the Department of Work and Pensions, whose employees’ payroll details were stolen in order for the thieves to claim tax credits in those employees’ names.

When the UK passports system was introduced in 1999, poor planning led to a backlog of half a million passport applications. Queues at passport offices appeared, as holidaymakers waited to get their passports.

You can visit www.renewforfreedom.org for more information. The site explains that after the end of April this year, the ‘interview’ process of the application procedure works like so:

“When you apply for a passport you will be asked to give lots of information about yourself: official numbers, addresses for the last few years, your educational institutions, that sort of thing. And you’ll sign to declare that it’s the truth.

That information will be used to look up everything that can be found out about you on all the government and private sector databases they can lay their hands on: school records, social services, police, credit checking, perhaps family details… to build a single dossier on you containing personal information. “Data-rape”, some people call it.

First a few people, then every new applicant, will be called in to their nearest interrogation centre. There you will be fingerprinted and photographed (once they have installed the equipment), and put through an “intrusive interview” - the government’s own words - to check that you can give answers about private details of your life that agree with the official ones. If you can, you’ll get your passport. If not… it is not clear, but trying to get a passport under ‘false pretenses’ - if the computer says “no” - could be quite serious. If nothing else, it will mean delay and more intrusion.

In fact, the government has already estimated that 1 in 4 people who apply under this new procedure will have to cancel their trip because they don’t get their passport in time.

The government’s plan is that all passports will be issued like this eventually. But you can take simple action now to keep off the database for ten years. And ALL opposition parties have now promised to abolish the ID scheme - so if you escape for 10 years, you may escape for ever.

If you haven’t got one already, get yourself a full ten-year passport now. As long as you apply before many interrogation centres are open, and the system is fully operational, your chances of avoiding data-rape are good. And by doing so you help to stop the same thing happening to everyone else by telling Tony Blair and his bullying government to “Take a hike”.

For more information on the progress of passport procedures, check out www.renewforfreedom.org - the Identity and Passport Service website currently tells you very little.

Get a passport NOW. And tell your friends, if you think their private lives should be their own.”

Remember Valentine’s Day a year ago?

I remember Valentine’s Day a year ago today. I went to the Assembly with parents from Blaenclydach Infants School to present a Valentine’s card to the First Minister asking him to overturn the RCT Council decision to close the school. He wouldn’t even come out and speak to the parents. Despite a fantastic campaign, the school closed in July last year. It is no suprise to me that next week the school building is being sold at a London auction (guide price £100,000), together with a lot of other Rhondda land. It was all about money and not about the children or the community. This is what Labour is doing in the Rhondda. It’s what they’ve always done.

One in four by train

Being a Euro MP inevitably means lots of travel, and in particular, air travel. So this year I decided to make a contribution in trying to reduce my carbon emissions, by vowing to make one journey in four from Brussels to Wales by train.

Thankfully I’m not the only person trying to reduce my carbon footprint as this recent article in the Independent explains.

Back in Strasbourg

This week the Parliament is back in Strasbourg. The main issue for me this week is the new waste laws we are voting on on Tuesday. Having lived next to Nantygwyddon Landfill site for many years, I have experienced the worst consequences of bad waste policies. Thanks to the Plaid Council the tip was shut and doorstep recycling brought in. But when Labour took over the tip wasn’t treated (”bio-remediated”) as originally planned and it’s still causing health concerns. Labour have also stopped the air quality monitoring. I have taken these issues up with the Assembly and am waiting for a reply.

The new European laws could be an opportunity to force governments to do more than just talk about the environment. I think what we will probably get is a weak law. The British government, as usual, is against setting targets for reducing the amount of waste we produce or for recycling. On the other hand they are in favour of greenwashing incineration by calling it “energy recovery” instead.

I have been working closely with Friends of the Earth to get MEPs to support as strong laws as possible. Today FoE have given out Valentine cards asking MEPs to vote for the environment. I hope they reached some hearts!