Incredible: how many more people will die early from air pollution as politicians delay?
Incredible: how many more people will die early from air pollution as politicians delay?
Mayor Joe Anderson Chair at a meeting of the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority 21st April 2017
Air quality is an issue that affects everybody and is a cross-cutting theme that covers both the Combined Authority Mayoral election and the General Election.
The story so far is that the judiciary ruled that the government was not doing enough to combat air pollution. Air pollution was causing an estimated 40,000 early deaths a year.
The judgement published in November 2016 ([2016] EWHC 2740 (Admin)) pointed out that the 2015 Air Quality Plan had to be quashed and the government was required to come up with a new Air Quality Plan.
Despite having 5 months to come up with a new plan, now they want to delay matters by at least a further 2 months because of the General Election (followed by a consultation).
As a result of the court case, the government were required to publish a new Air Quality Plan by 4 pm yesterday (but didn’t), instead they have made an application to the court for an extension.
What are 6 powers the new Liverpool City Region Mayor will have?
What are 6 powers the new Liverpool City Region Mayor will have?
Mayor Joe Anderson (Chair) at a meeting of the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority 21st April 2017
As there is some interest in what a Metro Mayor (or Liverpool City Region Mayor) will do I thought, despite the fact that everyone registered to vote will have received a booklet (or should shortly receive one) I’d answer some questions.
There are however some errors in the booklet I’d like to point out here. The booklet also omits that the Mayor will end up being paid £77,500 a year (a decision made last Friday by Cllr Phil Davies, Mayor Joe Anderson and others).
In the booklet it states the City Region Mayor “will not be responsible for … setting Council Tax.”
(Another decision made on Friday was to hire a temporary Comms/Engagement person for 3-6 months).
First, I’d better describe the current arrangements. The executive arm of the Combined Authority (Merseytravel) levies each of the district councils (based on population) in addition to money it receives from other sources (such as Mersey Tunnel tolls).
I presume (if the Mayor decides to go down this route) it’ll be an extra line on everyone’s council tax bill like the lines for police (decided by the Police and Crime Commissioner and Police and Crime Panel) and fire (decided by the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority) at the moment.
So yes, the Combined Authority (although this will almost certainly go up next year) for example this year has a budget of £139.371 million of capital spending and £255.5 million of revenue. (Predictions are of a underspend in the revenue budget at year-end of £81.2 million (I feel obliged to point out that Labour councillors repeatedly state they’re not given enough money)).
The bit where there’s an answer to the question about whether the Liverpool City Region Mayor will made decisions over my local council/ the services they provide? is in my opinion also wrong. I’ve already written a detailed blog post about What are the new powers of the Metro Mayor to decide on planning applications?.
However, for a taste of one of the matters the new Mayor will be doing (chairing Liverpool City Region Combined Authority public meetings) you can watch my video below of the 15 minute meeting (there are about one of these a month).
So that’s 3-4 hours a year of work (probably more if the meetings are longer).
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Liverpool City Region Combined Authority 21st April 2017
Unlike in London, where there are 25 elected London Assembly Members to scrutinise the Mayor this won’t happen in the Liverpool City Region.
There will still be a Scrutiny Committee, but it’ll be made up of councillors nominated by the district councils as before. At the moment there are 14 councillors on that Committee (12 Labour, 1 Lib Dem and 1 Green).
On the opposition front, out of the last three Scrutiny Committee meetings in public, the Lib Dem councillor has sent her apologies for two of them, the Conservative councillor (from Wirral) resigned years ago and no-one else was appointed instead and the sole Green councillor (Liverpool would normally under proportionality rules nominate all Labour councillors but Liverpool decided they wanted at least some opposition) has been to the last three meetings. He’s also the Green Party candidate in the election.
There will be some decisions made solely* by the newly elected Mayor which I will summarise below:
a) matters devolved from the Homes and Communities Agency around land and infrastructure such as housing, regeneration, infrastructure, powers about burial grounds and consecrated land, powers in relation to statutory undertakers,
b) deciding on grants to the local councils in the LCR region,
c) reviewing the local transport plan (at least every five years),
*interestingly decisions on these planning applications will also require the consent of the member of the Combined Authority for the area the application for planning permission was made,
e) matters relating to the spatial development strategy and
f) matters to do with Mayoral development areas.
Originally I know the plan had been was for the Combined Authority to combine Merseyside-wide authorities such as the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority, Merseyside Recycling and Waste Authority to give two examples (similar to old Merseyside County Council).
Even when just talked about, these sorts of proposed changes caused so much resistance from certain existing Labour councillors (who angrily and vocally were against any such changes) that as far as I can tell such plans at the present time were dropped by the negotiating team and the government.
Polling day for over a million people in the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority area (Halton, Knowsley, Liverpool, St Helens, Sefton and Wirral) is on 4th May 2017 (although postal voters may receive their ballot paper before this date).
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MPs vote 522:13 in favour of an early general election on 8th June
Rt Hon Frank Field MP (Chair) left at a meeting of the Birkenhead Constituency Committee on the 8th October 2015
Yesterday in the House of Commons, the Prime Minister moved a motion for an early general election to be held on the 8th June.
The Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 required two-thirds of MPs (at least 434 MPs) to vote in favour of an early general election outside of the regular five-year cycle.
All four of Wirral’s MPs (Frank Field, Alison McGovern, Angela Eagle and Margaret Greenwood) voted in favour of an early general election. In total 522 MPs voted in favour of the motion and only 13 against.
Labour’s National Executive Committee ruled out local party members having a vote over who the Labour candidate in each constituency would be with the short timescale to select candidates given as the reason why.
Sitting Labour MPs have to decide by this evening whether to stand in the general election. If they decide not to, applications to become the Labour candidate in those seats can be made from tomorrow to Sunday.
High profile Mayor of Liverpool Joe Anderson has announced his intention to become the Labour candidate to become Walton’s next Member of Parliament.
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Why have Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service submitted a 2nd planning application for a Saughall Massie fire station?
Why have Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service submitted a 2nd planning application for a Saughall Massie fire station?
Cllr Dave Hanratty (on the right) and his posse 20th October 2015
A stranger rides in to Wirral Town in a thrilling Wild West tale about gold, greed, horses, the law and a land grab was the tale of how the pony club were turfed out of Moreton by Phil Davies and his gang. It was described as “this is not an appropriate action for a Local Authority landlord to take”, “accusation of dishonesty”, “gnawed at his professional conscience” and “unfortunate sequence of events” in an independent report (which has since mysteriously vanished) as to how the landlord had behaved.
However, Dave Hanratty and his posse were not taking no for an answer from Phil Davies’ gang this time!
The £300,000 for the land had been approved by Wirral Council councillors on the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority that were also on Wirral Council’s Planning Committee. The Planning Committee would decide which way the planning application was decided.
Of course, in the cosy world of politics, this was neither a conflict of interest that councillors had failed to make, nor a bribe, nor anything really that the public should know about as Dave Hanratty’s gang started going “Shhh!” whenever these matters were brought up.
In fact the public wouldn’t have known, except a brave and a squaw from the nearest reservation had made sure the public were told.
Had Dave Hanratty and his gang been foolish enough to not be diplomatic? Had lies been told to get the answers they wanted?
Dave Hanratty and his posse had had plenty of opportunity to turn back, but instead when the icebergs were spotted, he had given the order, “Full speed ahead!”.
Who will choose the lifeboats? Who will choose the violin? Keep watching over the next months to find out the thrilling end to this story!
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