Last Thursday evening I shared a platform with Lawrence Bloom, a leading light from the World Economic Forum, where I outlined my views about the forthcoming conference of the parties in Copenhagen for the post-Kyoto agreement on climate change.

First I expressed my concern that, whatever is agreed at Copenhagen, it is likely that the US will face difficulties in ratifying it, given the problems that are already occurring in the Senate with the Obama adminstration’s proposed cap-and-trade legislation. This indeed would be in line with what happened with the Kyoto agreement, where the US took the whole world down the yellow brick road of tradeable permits, only for Al Gore to be unable to get it ratified in the US. This time round it’s going to be a lot more difficult for the US to persuade the world to swallow market-based solutions anyway, given the paradigm shift away from the Washington consensus.

If there is to be a Plan B, l emphasised the importance of mega-cities like London working to limit the impact of climate change, as some 75 per cent of CO2 emissions comes from our cities and towns where over 50 per cent of humanity now resides. Nation states will meet in Copenhagen but there is a lot of scope for cities to collaborate and take their own initiatives, and even become a conference of parties themselves with international agreements at city level. There is a localised green economy effect possible, particularly in the transport and housing sectors, and with the right city level leadership it would help move us to a less carbonised world.

Finally l made a moral plea for some thinking beyond the box, in connection with climate refugees, because environmental degradation leaves the poor most vulnerable to natural disaster. Migration as an adaptative response to poverty, hunger and environmental disasters is a practice humankind has followed since the beginning when our species came out of Africa. Today’s environmental refugees should be acknowledged and assisted in the host countries by a similiar Geneva Convention to that for political refugees. Such a safety net is the least we in the developed world should offer, in recognition of our contribution to global environmental problems and our imposition of particular models of development on the developing world.

London Assembly Member, Murad Qureshi, has announced that he is withdrawing from the Standards Sub-Committee that is considering a complaint against the British National Party’s London Assembly Member, Richard Barnbrook.  

In a statement issued today, Murad said:

"I have agreed, with some reluctance, to withdraw from the Hearing Sub-Committee of the London Assembly Standards Committee that is considering a complaint against BNP London Assembly Member and Barking & Dagenham councillor Richard Barnbrook.

"This is the result of an objection to my membership of the Sub-Committee by Mr Barnbrook, on the grounds that I am ‘a consistent, forthright and bitter critic of the BNP’ and have attacked him personally on my blog. He implies that I am not able to hear the case without prejudging its outcome.

"The complaint against Mr Barnbrook does not however concern his membership of a fascist party or its racist politics, both of which I have publicly condemned. It arises from his statement in September 2008 that two people had been murdered on the streets of Barking & Dagenham, when this was not in fact true. I am of course capable of judging this case on its merits, regardless of his or my other views.

"However, I have received legal advice that because of comments I have previously made about Mr Barnbrook, there may be legal grounds for an appeal if the Sub-Committee were to uphold the complaint against Mr Barnbrook. For that reason I have decided to stand down from the Sub-Committee."

Boris is right to suggest that government ministers should get out of their cars (Daily Telegraph, 31 August 2009), certainly in central London. But he’ll have more trouble persuading his fellow Tories to use public transport than he cares to imagine.

While the quotation attributed to Margaret Thatcher that anyone who travelled by bus was a failure in life may be apocryphal, it accurately reflects the philosophy of Tory politicians, many of whom are hooked on their perks such as taxi expenses. Here at City Hall, Brian Coleman has become notorious for his use of taxis, both as London Assembly Member for Barnet & Camden and as Chair of the fire authority LFEPA. Indeed Boris’s own expenses claims for taxis last year didn’t look too good either.

Maybe Boris needs to get his own house in order before he starts telling colleagues in parliament how to go about travelling when carrying out their political responsibilities.

London Assembly Labour Group environment spokesman Murad Qureshi has today called for answers on the impact of the Olympic Games on ordinary Londoners, amid fears that roads on the Olympic Route Network (ORN) could face traffic increases of 25% and residents could find their parking bays suspended.

Murad is raising concerns over the lack of information available on how the ORN will actually be implemented; including what London Boroughs will be required to stump up for.

"I went to the Beijing Games", Murad explains, "and they had a number of specially dedicated IOC lanes. But Beijing’s roads feature a number of new motorways, and London’s roads simply aren’t large enough to emulate this type of scheme. The consultation document itself stated that traffic at certain times of day could increase by 25% – although it also asserts that 80% of journeys will be unaffected – something London Councils disputes."

Murad gives the example of the Marylebone Road: "If you isolate one lane for Olympic use, plus the existing bus lane, that only leaves one lane for ordinary traffic. This could have a huge and negative impact on road users in the area – including pedestrians and cyclists. The fear is that ordinary Londoners will be banned from using certain traffic lanes on the ORN and face hefty fines if they stray into one."

Concerns have also been raised over how refuse collections and street cleaning on the affected roads will continue, and whether boroughs will have to pay themselves for things like traffic signal upgrades on borough roads or the enforcement of parking contraventions on the route.

"It seems, as London Councils have stated, that very little information is available on how the scheme will be implemented in practical terms, who will pay for it and so on", added Murad.

"In January this year, the Assembly passed a motion calling for non-commercially sensitive sections of the technical manual on the ORN to be made public", he went on. "But all that happened was that the ODA allowed Assembly Members to see the manual on a strictly ‘need to know’ basis – provided they signed a pledge of confidentiality. I’m concerned that the implementation will be done behind closed doors with very little information about it being released until it is presented as a fait accompli with little scope for anyone to do anything about any issues. Given that some of those issues could be highly sensitive and affect traffic levels and issues like residents’ parking, this is worrying. I want the ODA to start explaining how they are going to deal with this properly and openly without delay. Personally I see no reason why the IOC officials can’t just use taxis in the normal bus lanes!"

Ends.

Notes

1. The ORN will need to carry this high number of people between the Olympic Park and other venues such as Greenwich Park, Horse Guards and Wimbledon, as well as between accommodation venues, training venues and Heathrow Airport.

2. A summary of London Councils concerns about the ORN’s implementation is reproduced here:

• It is difficult to assess the full impact of the ORN without knowing which measures will be applied to which roads

• We feel the ODA is being optimistic when they say that "80% of journeys will be unaffected"

• We do not accept that the ODA will be able to find additional parking availability to make up for any losses caused by temporary suspensions

• It is unclear who will pay for the civils works on borough roads’ traffic signals upgrades

• The ODA will need to consider the long-term impact of any permanent changes to borough roads, in terms of traffic management and streetscene

• Little mention has yet been made about who will foot the bill for enforcement of any temporary measures, particularly parking contraventions on the ORN

• We do not agree that Games sponsors should be included on the list of people eligible to use the ORN

• The ODA have not yet considered the impact on street management activities, like cleansing, refuse collection and routine maintenance, that the ORN will have

• The needs of all road users, including pedestrians, cyclists and public transport users, need to be considered alongside those of car drivers

Following the fire in Dean Street on July 10, I wrote to the Fire Commissioner Ron Dobson in my capacity as a London Assembly representative on the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority, asking for his comments on the concerns raised by constituents.

Press reports had indicated that the Soho fire station in Shaftsbury Avenue was unmanned when the fire broke out, with its appliances and firefighters away attending another fire. It had also been suggested that the computer system which calls in a standby fire engine from the nearest available station had been overridden, resulting in a delay in appliances arriving from the Euston and Knightsbridge fire stations.

The commissioner promptly wrote back to me with a detailed response to the points made. He confirms that the appliances from Soho fire station were attending two other incidents at the time the call was received to the fire at Dean Street – one at Covent Garden Underground station and another at the Carlton Club in St James’s Street.

As the commissioner points out, the situation can arise where the appliances and firefighters from a particular fire station are already attending a prior call at the time that a potentially more serious call comes in. However, because fire cover is provided strategically across London, rather than from the local station alone, when this is the case appliances are mobilised immediately from the nearest stations.

This is what happened in response to the Dean Street fire. Appliances from Knightsbridge and Euston were ordered to attend the fire as they were the closest available at the time. In addition one of Soho’s appliances did attend the fire at Dean Street later on when the incident commander requested additional resources.

The worrying claim that the mobilising computer at the Soho fire station was overridden have been investigated and the commissioner informs me that this was found not to be the case. The appliances from Knightsbridge and Euston were ordered to the Dean Street incident in the normal way without any delay.

I had been hoping to raise the Dean Street fire at the meeting of LFEPA on July 16.

However, quite understandably the Camberwell fire with its civilian fatalities dominated the proceedings. However, I hope that the concerns of residents and employees in the West End have been addressed.

The commissioner has assured me that in the Dean Street incident the first engine from Knightsbridge got there within six minutes and the second from Euston in less than eight.

I shall be asking LFEPA to examine the concentration of fire incidents in and around Dean Street.

Hopefully after investigation a safety plan can be drawn up that puts preventive measures in place, which hopefully will allow us to avoid the use of fire engines in the first place.

Published in the West End Extra, 21 August 2009

This morning l put in some hard labour with another 100-odd volunteers cleaning up the Thames foreshore immediately below Craven Cottage (Fulham FC’s football ground) along the side of Bishop’s Park on the north side of Putney Bridge.

It was good to see that Londoners care enough about their physical environment to give up some time during their annual holiday period to clean up the Thames, with the co-ordination and management of Thames 21 and the assistance of the Port of London Authority. This is further evidence that Londoners have been rediscovering the Thames in recent years.

And this is no bad thing, as at present there is no one authority that has responsibility for keeping our waterways clear of debris, unlike the situation onshore where it is clearly the local authority. Today I was able see at first hand the results of this situation, in particular the environmental damage that is being done by plastic bags.

Clearly legislation must be introduced to give a public body the appropriate responsibility, but in the meantime it is useful for such initiatives to take place and fill the gap.

With the recent publicity over the outstanding Congestion Charge payments due from embassies in London (see pdf document here), triggered by the arrival of the new US ambassador representing the Obama administration, once again we have to rehearse the arguments why the diplomats should shut up and pay up.

Firstly, and contrary to the claim by the US embassy, the Congestion Charge is clearly a user-charge – not a tax, from which diplomats are exempt under the Vienna Convention on consular relations. The Congestion Charge requires drivers to pay to use a small geographical area in central London during specific hours, and as such it is no different in principle from the charge made to drive along an American toll road, which British and other foreign diplomatic staff in the US are all required to pay.

And let’s not forget that the diplomats who refuse to pay the charge neverthless benefit from its results – not only from the freer movement of traffic in central London but also from the local and global environmental impact of the reduction in CO2, PM10 and NOx levels.

It should be remembered that the US embassy paid the congestion charge for more than two years following its introduction in February 2003. It was only in July 2005, after the charge increased from £5 to £8, that they announced they were not going to pay it any more. Quite how a £3 increase transformed a user-charge into a tax they did not explain.

The refusal of embassies to pay the charge means that Londoners are having to carry the burden of a total of £30 million of embassies’ debts on their shoulders during a recession – over £3 million of which is owed by the US embassy alone. If any of us behaved like that we would have had the bailiffs around a long time ago. l don’t think that’s acceptable at all, and it stretches our hospitality too far.

The US embassy’s refusal to pay the Congestion Charge was exactly the sort of regressive political decision we had come expect under the presidency of George Bush. Now that we have a new administration, which has emphasised its green credentials, particularly in the build-up to the Copenhagen climate change negotiations in December, we expect something different. Hence my letter to President Obama (pdf here) urging him to reverse the decision made under his predecessor.

Everyone in the UK with progressive politics, myself included, greeted the election of President Obama with enthusiasm, hoping that it represented a change in direction for the US. One straightforward way the President can demonstrate to Londoners that his administration has indeed broken with the politics of the Bush period is to instruct the US embassy to start paying the Congestion Charge and clear its outstanding debts to Transport for London. Otherwise this one is not going to go away and will be a continuing source of political embarrassment to the US government. It’s not as though the richest country on the earth can’t afford to pay up.

So President Obama, YES YOU CAN!

Watch BBC London News report here (from 9:52)

Last week I had an opportunity to pedal for the future when Oxfam held a screening of The Age of Stupid at the Laban Centre off Deptford Road, as our cycling was used to generate power for the film.

The evening kicked off with a short speech by the local MP and Minister of State for Energy and Climate Change, Joan Ruddock, followed immediately by the film itself. This was the second time I have seen the movie, and I was still struck by its opening imagery of central London flooded. Its clear message is that we can collectively do something about climate change, not dissimilar to the campaigns in the last century to win suffrage for women and working men and the ending of apartheid in South Africa. So, while looking at what lies in store for us if we continue with our present way of life, the film does leave you with a sense of hope.

The Q&A session that followed the movie was the first I’ve done after 10 o’clock in the evening! And I was pleasantly surprised at the numbers willing to stay to discuss both the movie itself and climate change issues. The other panellists were Martin Kirk, Head of UK Campaigns at Oxfam International, and Daniel Vockins, Campaign Coordinator of The Age of Stupid, and the session was chaired by Lucy Aitken-Read from Oxfam. We had a number of very informed questions from the floor, which got us all thinking.

On returning from a very wet Lewisham that night I could see a new social trend beginning, where we go to the cinema and have some of the audience pedalling to power the showing of the film. Who says we can’t do some hard labour in today’s comfortable society, in order to reduce our carbon footprint?

Londonwide Assembly Member Murad Qureshi has written to President Obama requesting a Presidential Decree to ensure the US Embassy in London pays its backlog of congestion charge fines.

Transport for London have given up trying to recover parking and congestion charge fines from foreign embassies and have passed the problem to the Foreign Office to sort out.

Foreign Embassies now owe a total of £28 million in unpaid fines and the US Embassy is by far the worst offender, with over £3 million pounds owing in congestion charge fines alone.

Murad Qureshi said: "At a time when Londoners are having to tighten their belts it is very unfair that foreign diplomats are simply refusing to pay their way.  Transport for London has a funding gap yet the US Embassy owes London millions in unpaid fines."

Murad said: "Diplomats the world over are granted many special privileges in their host country, but these charges and fines are not covered under any such arrangement. The US Embassy should set an example by acting responsibly and coughing up like everyone else."

Ends.

Notes

1. Murad Qureshi AM is a Londonwide Assembly Member. He is Labour’s spokesperson on the environment.

2. The Foreign Office has taken over the collection of unpaid congestion charges and parking fines by overseas embassies in London which now stand at £28 million.

3. The American embassy owes £3 million in outstanding fines, followed by the Russian at £2.6 million, the Japanese owe £2.3 million, and the Germans, £2.12 million.

4. The total has more than doubled from £12 million in the last 12 months according to figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

5. None of the embassies are entitled to exemptions from the congestion charges or parking fines although the American embassy has consistently objected to the requirement.

6. Murad has previously asked formal questions of the Mayor on this:
http://www.london.gov.uk/mqt/public/question.do?id=26632

7. Murad Qureshi wrote to President Obama on 7th July 2009 thus:

Dear President Obama

US Embassy’s non-payment of Congestion Charge in London

I feel it is only right to bring to your attention a matter which has cast an unnecessary shadow over relations between the US Embassy to Britain and the people of London since 2003, in the hope that you will reverse a mean-spirited decision taken under your predecessor’s administration by the former US Ambassador to the UK, not to honour the Embassy’s financial obligations to their host city with regard to the cost of driving in central London.

In response to rising pollution levels and near-gridlock levels of congestion in Central London, the previous Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, bravely introduced a radical, controversial and highly successful daily congestion charge for cars entering a specified Central London zone.  The Mayor did not seek to bar cars from London, merely to discourage their use in the most congested and most polluted area of the city.  This charge was set initially at £5 per vehicle per day and was later increased to £8 in order to maintain its deterrent effect. 

Thanks to our good public transport system, many Londoners choose not to own a car, and indeed for many there is simply no need – especially for those whose main journey is a commute from the suburbs into central London.

Mr Tuttle steadfastly refused to pay London’s congestion charge, wrongly claiming it to be a tax from which foreign diplomats are exempt.  Many here feel this was an ignoble attitude from the Ambassador of the wealthiest country on earth, and one which has set an unfortunate tone, and a poor example for other Embassies to follow.

As at 3rd June 2009, the US Embassy owes the Mayor’s transport department, Transport for London,  £3,478,200 in unpaid charges and late payment fines, and is by far the worst offender for non-payment.  This sum is considerably higher than the amounts other Embassies of far lower status than the USA owe to Londoners.

I know you are seeking to introduce new era of international relations with your Presidency, one based on decency and mutual respect, and in that spirit I respectfully ask you to advise the new Ambassador to London of the longer benefits of adopting a more honourable stance with regard to complying with local expectations.  Please issue a Presidential decree that the new Ambassador should reverse Mr Tuttle’s decision and ensure that the US Embassy in London pays the congestion charge in future, and repays the outstanding charges to make good the errors of the past.

Yours sincerely

Murad Qureshi AM
LONDON ASSEMBLY MEMBER

London Assembly Member, Murad Qureshi, has criticised the Mayor’s latest move to win over the green lobby by offering a £4 million fund supposed to kick-start innovative energy efficiency measures. 

Murad said: "Last year the Mayor’s London Development Agency underspent by £12.9 million on its climate change programmes yet now he puts up less than a third of that amount and expects to sort out the economy and solve climate change – a pretty tall order.

"Boris has repeatedly said he doesn’t want to back winners as he wants the market to decide them, and yet by setting up this fund he’s acknowledging it’s both necessary and legitimate to give certain projects a helping hand to protect the environment."

Murad continued: "The LDA should be talking with other parts of the Mayor’s group to fund these projects.  When you consider that the Mayor’s Waste Board – that he chairs – has a budget of £84 million for just this sort of thing and the LDA has a budget of nearly half a billion, you can see just what a paltry gesture this is."