Fresh evidence of links between the government and EDF Energy has led to concerns over the firm possibly receiving “preferential treatment” for its flagship nuclear project planned for Hinkley Point in Somerset.

Ten advisers and civil servants who worked at the now defunct Department for Energy Climate Change (DECC) in the last five years had ties to EDF, according to an analysis of online professional networking accounts by Energydesk.

This follows new Prime Minister Theresa May’s decision to hit the brakes on Hinkley, calling for a review of the project mere hours after the EDF board finally voted to approve it.

Under David Cameron’s premiership, however, Hinkley was a top priority for the government, with then Chancellor George Osborne determinedly putting together a deal involving both French and Chinese government investors.

Dearly departed DECC

Among the 10 EDF-linked government employees is a regulatory and licensing officer currently working for the French company – recently employed by DECC and previously an operating reactors programme manager at the Office for Nuclear Regulation.

There also features an EDF strategy manager, who has been working for the company since 2014 following a 13-month secondment to DECC’s commercial team (from October 2011) while at previous employer KPMG.

DECC’s commercial team played a crucial role in deciding to press ahead with the Hinkley project and NNB Generation Company Limited, an EDF subsidiary, submitted a proposal to the National Planning Inspectorate for a new nuclear power plant at Hinkley on October 31st 2011.

Centrica’s Sarwjit Sambhi told MPs on the Energy and Climate Change committee in June 2012: “On nuclear what is important is making progress on what’s termed the investment instrument or FID-enabling instruments and clearly the DECC commercial team is very much focused on arriving at an instrument that is investable.”

A communications worker currently employed at EDF was previously Senior Ministerial Visits Manager at DECC from the summer of 2013 until early this year. Energydesk also identified a policy adviser and analyst working at DECC who had recently held similar positions at EDF.

As of August 2015, the French energy giant had one member of staff seconded at the department. None of the other big six energy companies had staff seconded at the same time.

EDF’s ties to the UK government hit the headlines earlier this year when The Times revealed that former energy secretary Sir Edward Davey had taken up a job with a lobbying firm that lists it as a client.

Having struck the deal with the company to build the UK’s first new nuclear power station in a generation in 2013, Davey began a part-time job with MHP Communications shortly after leaving parliament.

‘One of the worst deals ever’ for UK consumers

The deal for Hinkley Point C has been heavily criticised on both sides of the political spectrum. George Osborne’s father-in-law, Lord Howell, dubbed the project “one of the worst deals ever“ for British consumers when speaking in the House of Lords last August.

Last month, the National Audit Office warned that Hinkley may cost UK taxpayers £30bn in top-up payments and suggested that pursuing renewable energy projects might prove to be the cheaper option.

Others have raised concerns about the construction materials and methods being used in Hinkley, while movements at the board room level at EDF have suggested disquiet about the project.

Caroline Lucas, the Green Party MP who has long been a critic of Hinkley and of the relationship between the government and big energy companies, told Energydesk: “Companies such as the big six energy firms do not lend their staff to government for nothing – they expect a certain degree of influence, insider knowledge and preferential treatment in return.

“At such a pivotal time in the UK’s energy and climate change policy, as ministers must get to grips with the realities of climate change, rising costs and energy insecurity, the strong presence of vested interests is a real cause for concern. Given the growing consensus across political divides that Hinkley C is a disastrous policy decision, these revelations add to the feeling that the democratic process may have been undermined.”

EDF: ‘valuable opportunities for career development’

In a statement, EDF defended its relationship with the UK government:

“From time to time Government invites applicants from industry to take on secondments to Government bodies, in order to ensure that Government has access to specialist knowledge, for example in the nuclear field.

“Wherever possible, we will respond positively to any invitations as this can provide valuable opportunities for career development and cross-fertilisation of ideas between the public and private sector.”

Energydesk asked the government for comment, but they failed to respond.

Joe Sandler-Clarke is a UK-based journalist specialising in investigative and public interest stories. His writing has been published in the Guardian, Independent, The Sunday Times, VICE and others, and he curently works at Greenpeace UK.

This article was originally published on Greenpeace Energydesk.

Fresh evidence of links between the government and EDF Energy has led to concerns over the firm possibly receiving “preferential treatment” for its flagship nuclear project planned for Hinkley Point in Somerset.

Ten advisers and civil servants who worked at the now defunct Department for Energy Climate Change (DECC) in the last five years had ties to EDF, according to an analysis of online professional networking accounts by Energydesk.

This follows new Prime Minister Theresa May’s decision to hit the brakes on Hinkley, calling for a review of the project mere hours after the EDF board finally voted to approve it.

Under David Cameron’s premiership, however, Hinkley was a top priority for the government, with then Chancellor George Osborne determinedly putting together a deal involving both French and Chinese government investors.

Dearly departed DECC

Among the 10 EDF-linked government employees is a regulatory and licensing officer currently working for the French company – recently employed by DECC and previously an operating reactors programme manager at the Office for Nuclear Regulation.

There also features an EDF strategy manager, who has been working for the company since 2014 following a 13-month secondment to DECC’s commercial team (from October 2011) while at previous employer KPMG.

DECC’s commercial team played a crucial role in deciding to press ahead with the Hinkley project and NNB Generation Company Limited, an EDF subsidiary, submitted a proposal to the National Planning Inspectorate for a new nuclear power plant at Hinkley on October 31st 2011.

Centrica’s Sarwjit Sambhi told MPs on the Energy and Climate Change committee in June 2012: “On nuclear what is important is making progress on what’s termed the investment instrument or FID-enabling instruments and clearly the DECC commercial team is very much focused on arriving at an instrument that is investable.”

A communications worker currently employed at EDF was previously Senior Ministerial Visits Manager at DECC from the summer of 2013 until early this year. Energydesk also identified a policy adviser and analyst working at DECC who had recently held similar positions at EDF.

As of August 2015, the French energy giant had one member of staff seconded at the department. None of the other big six energy companies had staff seconded at the same time.

EDF’s ties to the UK government hit the headlines earlier this year when The Times revealed that former energy secretary Sir Edward Davey had taken up a job with a lobbying firm that lists it as a client.

Having struck the deal with the company to build the UK’s first new nuclear power station in a generation in 2013, Davey began a part-time job with MHP Communications shortly after leaving parliament.

‘One of the worst deals ever’ for UK consumers

The deal for Hinkley Point C has been heavily criticised on both sides of the political spectrum. George Osborne’s father-in-law, Lord Howell, dubbed the project “one of the worst deals ever“ for British consumers when speaking in the House of Lords last August.

Last month, the National Audit Office warned that Hinkley may cost UK taxpayers £30bn in top-up payments and suggested that pursuing renewable energy projects might prove to be the cheaper option.

Others have raised concerns about the construction materials and methods being used in Hinkley, while movements at the board room level at EDF have suggested disquiet about the project.

Caroline Lucas, the Green Party MP who has long been a critic of Hinkley and of the relationship between the government and big energy companies, told Energydesk: “Companies such as the big six energy firms do not lend their staff to government for nothing – they expect a certain degree of influence, insider knowledge and preferential treatment in return.

“At such a pivotal time in the UK’s energy and climate change policy, as ministers must get to grips with the realities of climate change, rising costs and energy insecurity, the strong presence of vested interests is a real cause for concern. Given the growing consensus across political divides that Hinkley C is a disastrous policy decision, these revelations add to the feeling that the democratic process may have been undermined.”

EDF: ‘valuable opportunities for career development’

In a statement, EDF defended its relationship with the UK government:

“From time to time Government invites applicants from industry to take on secondments to Government bodies, in order to ensure that Government has access to specialist knowledge, for example in the nuclear field.

“Wherever possible, we will respond positively to any invitations as this can provide valuable opportunities for career development and cross-fertilisation of ideas between the public and private sector.”

Energydesk asked the government for comment, but they failed to respond.

Joe Sandler-Clarke is a UK-based journalist specialising in investigative and public interest stories. His writing has been published in the Guardian, Independent, The Sunday Times, VICE and others, and he curently works at Greenpeace UK.

This article was originally published on Greenpeace Energydesk.

Fresh evidence of links between the government and EDF Energy has led to concerns over the firm possibly receiving “preferential treatment” for its flagship nuclear project planned for Hinkley Point in Somerset.

Ten advisers and civil servants who worked at the now defunct Department for Energy Climate Change (DECC) in the last five years had ties to EDF, according to an analysis of online professional networking accounts by Energydesk.

This follows new Prime Minister Theresa May’s decision to hit the brakes on Hinkley, calling for a review of the project mere hours after the EDF board finally voted to approve it.

Under David Cameron’s premiership, however, Hinkley was a top priority for the government, with then Chancellor George Osborne determinedly putting together a deal involving both French and Chinese government investors.

Dearly departed DECC

Among the 10 EDF-linked government employees is a regulatory and licensing officer currently working for the French company – recently employed by DECC and previously an operating reactors programme manager at the Office for Nuclear Regulation.

There also features an EDF strategy manager, who has been working for the company since 2014 following a 13-month secondment to DECC’s commercial team (from October 2011) while at previous employer KPMG.

DECC’s commercial team played a crucial role in deciding to press ahead with the Hinkley project and NNB Generation Company Limited, an EDF subsidiary, submitted a proposal to the National Planning Inspectorate for a new nuclear power plant at Hinkley on October 31st 2011.

Centrica’s Sarwjit Sambhi told MPs on the Energy and Climate Change committee in June 2012: “On nuclear what is important is making progress on what’s termed the investment instrument or FID-enabling instruments and clearly the DECC commercial team is very much focused on arriving at an instrument that is investable.”

A communications worker currently employed at EDF was previously Senior Ministerial Visits Manager at DECC from the summer of 2013 until early this year. Energydesk also identified a policy adviser and analyst working at DECC who had recently held similar positions at EDF.

As of August 2015, the French energy giant had one member of staff seconded at the department. None of the other big six energy companies had staff seconded at the same time.

EDF’s ties to the UK government hit the headlines earlier this year when The Times revealed that former energy secretary Sir Edward Davey had taken up a job with a lobbying firm that lists it as a client.

Having struck the deal with the company to build the UK’s first new nuclear power station in a generation in 2013, Davey began a part-time job with MHP Communications shortly after leaving parliament.

‘One of the worst deals ever’ for UK consumers

The deal for Hinkley Point C has been heavily criticised on both sides of the political spectrum. George Osborne’s father-in-law, Lord Howell, dubbed the project “one of the worst deals ever“ for British consumers when speaking in the House of Lords last August.

Last month, the National Audit Office warned that Hinkley may cost UK taxpayers £30bn in top-up payments and suggested that pursuing renewable energy projects might prove to be the cheaper option.

Others have raised concerns about the construction materials and methods being used in Hinkley, while movements at the board room level at EDF have suggested disquiet about the project.

Caroline Lucas, the Green Party MP who has long been a critic of Hinkley and of the relationship between the government and big energy companies, told Energydesk: “Companies such as the big six energy firms do not lend their staff to government for nothing – they expect a certain degree of influence, insider knowledge and preferential treatment in return.

“At such a pivotal time in the UK’s energy and climate change policy, as ministers must get to grips with the realities of climate change, rising costs and energy insecurity, the strong presence of vested interests is a real cause for concern. Given the growing consensus across political divides that Hinkley C is a disastrous policy decision, these revelations add to the feeling that the democratic process may have been undermined.”

EDF: ‘valuable opportunities for career development’

In a statement, EDF defended its relationship with the UK government:

“From time to time Government invites applicants from industry to take on secondments to Government bodies, in order to ensure that Government has access to specialist knowledge, for example in the nuclear field.

“Wherever possible, we will respond positively to any invitations as this can provide valuable opportunities for career development and cross-fertilisation of ideas between the public and private sector.”

Energydesk asked the government for comment, but they failed to respond.

Joe Sandler-Clarke is a UK-based journalist specialising in investigative and public interest stories. His writing has been published in the Guardian, Independent, The Sunday Times, VICE and others, and he curently works at Greenpeace UK.

This article was originally published on Greenpeace Energydesk.

Fresh evidence of links between the government and EDF Energy has led to concerns over the firm possibly receiving “preferential treatment” for its flagship nuclear project planned for Hinkley Point in Somerset.

Ten advisers and civil servants who worked at the now defunct Department for Energy Climate Change (DECC) in the last five years had ties to EDF, according to an analysis of online professional networking accounts by Energydesk.

This follows new Prime Minister Theresa May’s decision to hit the brakes on Hinkley, calling for a review of the project mere hours after the EDF board finally voted to approve it.

Under David Cameron’s premiership, however, Hinkley was a top priority for the government, with then Chancellor George Osborne determinedly putting together a deal involving both French and Chinese government investors.

Dearly departed DECC

Among the 10 EDF-linked government employees is a regulatory and licensing officer currently working for the French company – recently employed by DECC and previously an operating reactors programme manager at the Office for Nuclear Regulation.

There also features an EDF strategy manager, who has been working for the company since 2014 following a 13-month secondment to DECC’s commercial team (from October 2011) while at previous employer KPMG.

DECC’s commercial team played a crucial role in deciding to press ahead with the Hinkley project and NNB Generation Company Limited, an EDF subsidiary, submitted a proposal to the National Planning Inspectorate for a new nuclear power plant at Hinkley on October 31st 2011.

Centrica’s Sarwjit Sambhi told MPs on the Energy and Climate Change committee in June 2012: “On nuclear what is important is making progress on what’s termed the investment instrument or FID-enabling instruments and clearly the DECC commercial team is very much focused on arriving at an instrument that is investable.”

A communications worker currently employed at EDF was previously Senior Ministerial Visits Manager at DECC from the summer of 2013 until early this year. Energydesk also identified a policy adviser and analyst working at DECC who had recently held similar positions at EDF.

As of August 2015, the French energy giant had one member of staff seconded at the department. None of the other big six energy companies had staff seconded at the same time.

EDF’s ties to the UK government hit the headlines earlier this year when The Times revealed that former energy secretary Sir Edward Davey had taken up a job with a lobbying firm that lists it as a client.

Having struck the deal with the company to build the UK’s first new nuclear power station in a generation in 2013, Davey began a part-time job with MHP Communications shortly after leaving parliament.

‘One of the worst deals ever’ for UK consumers

The deal for Hinkley Point C has been heavily criticised on both sides of the political spectrum. George Osborne’s father-in-law, Lord Howell, dubbed the project “one of the worst deals ever“ for British consumers when speaking in the House of Lords last August.

Last month, the National Audit Office warned that Hinkley may cost UK taxpayers £30bn in top-up payments and suggested that pursuing renewable energy projects might prove to be the cheaper option.

Others have raised concerns about the construction materials and methods being used in Hinkley, while movements at the board room level at EDF have suggested disquiet about the project.

Caroline Lucas, the Green Party MP who has long been a critic of Hinkley and of the relationship between the government and big energy companies, told Energydesk: “Companies such as the big six energy firms do not lend their staff to government for nothing – they expect a certain degree of influence, insider knowledge and preferential treatment in return.

“At such a pivotal time in the UK’s energy and climate change policy, as ministers must get to grips with the realities of climate change, rising costs and energy insecurity, the strong presence of vested interests is a real cause for concern. Given the growing consensus across political divides that Hinkley C is a disastrous policy decision, these revelations add to the feeling that the democratic process may have been undermined.”

EDF: ‘valuable opportunities for career development’

In a statement, EDF defended its relationship with the UK government:

“From time to time Government invites applicants from industry to take on secondments to Government bodies, in order to ensure that Government has access to specialist knowledge, for example in the nuclear field.

“Wherever possible, we will respond positively to any invitations as this can provide valuable opportunities for career development and cross-fertilisation of ideas between the public and private sector.”

Energydesk asked the government for comment, but they failed to respond.

Joe Sandler-Clarke is a UK-based journalist specialising in investigative and public interest stories. His writing has been published in the Guardian, Independent, The Sunday Times, VICE and others, and he curently works at Greenpeace UK.

This article was originally published on Greenpeace Energydesk.

Fresh evidence of links between the government and EDF Energy has led to concerns over the firm possibly receiving “preferential treatment” for its flagship nuclear project planned for Hinkley Point in Somerset.

Ten advisers and civil servants who worked at the now defunct Department for Energy Climate Change (DECC) in the last five years had ties to EDF, according to an analysis of online professional networking accounts by Energydesk.

This follows new Prime Minister Theresa May’s decision to hit the brakes on Hinkley, calling for a review of the project mere hours after the EDF board finally voted to approve it.

Under David Cameron’s premiership, however, Hinkley was a top priority for the government, with then Chancellor George Osborne determinedly putting together a deal involving both French and Chinese government investors.

Dearly departed DECC

Among the 10 EDF-linked government employees is a regulatory and licensing officer currently working for the French company – recently employed by DECC and previously an operating reactors programme manager at the Office for Nuclear Regulation.

There also features an EDF strategy manager, who has been working for the company since 2014 following a 13-month secondment to DECC’s commercial team (from October 2011) while at previous employer KPMG.

DECC’s commercial team played a crucial role in deciding to press ahead with the Hinkley project and NNB Generation Company Limited, an EDF subsidiary, submitted a proposal to the National Planning Inspectorate for a new nuclear power plant at Hinkley on October 31st 2011.

Centrica’s Sarwjit Sambhi told MPs on the Energy and Climate Change committee in June 2012: “On nuclear what is important is making progress on what’s termed the investment instrument or FID-enabling instruments and clearly the DECC commercial team is very much focused on arriving at an instrument that is investable.”

A communications worker currently employed at EDF was previously Senior Ministerial Visits Manager at DECC from the summer of 2013 until early this year. Energydesk also identified a policy adviser and analyst working at DECC who had recently held similar positions at EDF.

As of August 2015, the French energy giant had one member of staff seconded at the department. None of the other big six energy companies had staff seconded at the same time.

EDF’s ties to the UK government hit the headlines earlier this year when The Times revealed that former energy secretary Sir Edward Davey had taken up a job with a lobbying firm that lists it as a client.

Having struck the deal with the company to build the UK’s first new nuclear power station in a generation in 2013, Davey began a part-time job with MHP Communications shortly after leaving parliament.

‘One of the worst deals ever’ for UK consumers

The deal for Hinkley Point C has been heavily criticised on both sides of the political spectrum. George Osborne’s father-in-law, Lord Howell, dubbed the project “one of the worst deals ever“ for British consumers when speaking in the House of Lords last August.

Last month, the National Audit Office warned that Hinkley may cost UK taxpayers £30bn in top-up payments and suggested that pursuing renewable energy projects might prove to be the cheaper option.

Others have raised concerns about the construction materials and methods being used in Hinkley, while movements at the board room level at EDF have suggested disquiet about the project.

Caroline Lucas, the Green Party MP who has long been a critic of Hinkley and of the relationship between the government and big energy companies, told Energydesk: “Companies such as the big six energy firms do not lend their staff to government for nothing – they expect a certain degree of influence, insider knowledge and preferential treatment in return.

“At such a pivotal time in the UK’s energy and climate change policy, as ministers must get to grips with the realities of climate change, rising costs and energy insecurity, the strong presence of vested interests is a real cause for concern. Given the growing consensus across political divides that Hinkley C is a disastrous policy decision, these revelations add to the feeling that the democratic process may have been undermined.”

EDF: ‘valuable opportunities for career development’

In a statement, EDF defended its relationship with the UK government:

“From time to time Government invites applicants from industry to take on secondments to Government bodies, in order to ensure that Government has access to specialist knowledge, for example in the nuclear field.

“Wherever possible, we will respond positively to any invitations as this can provide valuable opportunities for career development and cross-fertilisation of ideas between the public and private sector.”

Energydesk asked the government for comment, but they failed to respond.

Joe Sandler-Clarke is a UK-based journalist specialising in investigative and public interest stories. His writing has been published in the Guardian, Independent, The Sunday Times, VICE and others, and he curently works at Greenpeace UK.

This article was originally published on Greenpeace Energydesk.

Fresh evidence of links between the government and EDF Energy has led to concerns over the firm possibly receiving “preferential treatment” for its flagship nuclear project planned for Hinkley Point in Somerset.

Ten advisers and civil servants who worked at the now defunct Department for Energy Climate Change (DECC) in the last five years had ties to EDF, according to an analysis of online professional networking accounts by Energydesk.

This follows new Prime Minister Theresa May’s decision to hit the brakes on Hinkley, calling for a review of the project mere hours after the EDF board finally voted to approve it.

Under David Cameron’s premiership, however, Hinkley was a top priority for the government, with then Chancellor George Osborne determinedly putting together a deal involving both French and Chinese government investors.

Dearly departed DECC

Among the 10 EDF-linked government employees is a regulatory and licensing officer currently working for the French company – recently employed by DECC and previously an operating reactors programme manager at the Office for Nuclear Regulation.

There also features an EDF strategy manager, who has been working for the company since 2014 following a 13-month secondment to DECC’s commercial team (from October 2011) while at previous employer KPMG.

DECC’s commercial team played a crucial role in deciding to press ahead with the Hinkley project and NNB Generation Company Limited, an EDF subsidiary, submitted a proposal to the National Planning Inspectorate for a new nuclear power plant at Hinkley on October 31st 2011.

Centrica’s Sarwjit Sambhi told MPs on the Energy and Climate Change committee in June 2012: “On nuclear what is important is making progress on what’s termed the investment instrument or FID-enabling instruments and clearly the DECC commercial team is very much focused on arriving at an instrument that is investable.”

A communications worker currently employed at EDF was previously Senior Ministerial Visits Manager at DECC from the summer of 2013 until early this year. Energydesk also identified a policy adviser and analyst working at DECC who had recently held similar positions at EDF.

As of August 2015, the French energy giant had one member of staff seconded at the department. None of the other big six energy companies had staff seconded at the same time.

EDF’s ties to the UK government hit the headlines earlier this year when The Times revealed that former energy secretary Sir Edward Davey had taken up a job with a lobbying firm that lists it as a client.

Having struck the deal with the company to build the UK’s first new nuclear power station in a generation in 2013, Davey began a part-time job with MHP Communications shortly after leaving parliament.

‘One of the worst deals ever’ for UK consumers

The deal for Hinkley Point C has been heavily criticised on both sides of the political spectrum. George Osborne’s father-in-law, Lord Howell, dubbed the project “one of the worst deals ever“ for British consumers when speaking in the House of Lords last August.

Last month, the National Audit Office warned that Hinkley may cost UK taxpayers £30bn in top-up payments and suggested that pursuing renewable energy projects might prove to be the cheaper option.

Others have raised concerns about the construction materials and methods being used in Hinkley, while movements at the board room level at EDF have suggested disquiet about the project.

Caroline Lucas, the Green Party MP who has long been a critic of Hinkley and of the relationship between the government and big energy companies, told Energydesk: “Companies such as the big six energy firms do not lend their staff to government for nothing – they expect a certain degree of influence, insider knowledge and preferential treatment in return.

“At such a pivotal time in the UK’s energy and climate change policy, as ministers must get to grips with the realities of climate change, rising costs and energy insecurity, the strong presence of vested interests is a real cause for concern. Given the growing consensus across political divides that Hinkley C is a disastrous policy decision, these revelations add to the feeling that the democratic process may have been undermined.”

EDF: ‘valuable opportunities for career development’

In a statement, EDF defended its relationship with the UK government:

“From time to time Government invites applicants from industry to take on secondments to Government bodies, in order to ensure that Government has access to specialist knowledge, for example in the nuclear field.

“Wherever possible, we will respond positively to any invitations as this can provide valuable opportunities for career development and cross-fertilisation of ideas between the public and private sector.”

Energydesk asked the government for comment, but they failed to respond.

Joe Sandler-Clarke is a UK-based journalist specialising in investigative and public interest stories. His writing has been published in the Guardian, Independent, The Sunday Times, VICE and others, and he curently works at Greenpeace UK.

This article was originally published on Greenpeace Energydesk.

Let’s get one thing straight. The EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is a disaster.

It is essentially a £50 billion welfare system for the landed gentry and other big landowners across Europe.

While people who genuinely need public funds find their benefits cut to the bone, these people get huge amounts of public money for doing absolutely nothing. It amounts to one of the most glaring transfers of money from poor to rich in the UK.

The CAP has also been disastrous for people in the global south. For decades, Europe dumped excess agricultural produce into markets in the global south, ruining the livelihoods of local farmers who could not compete with the artificially cheap imports.

But cleverly, through the WTO, rich countries have ensured that poor countries cannot raise equivalent subsidy programmes of their own. For example, India has been castigated for its food security policy that gives cheap food to the poor, while relatively rich EU farmers gets huge sums for doing not very much at all.

So given all of this, you would think that leaving the EU could actually be a positive thing for agriculture. Free from the shackles of the CAP, we might finally get a fairer system. Right?

Huge welfare handouts for the wealthy few

Wrong. Theoretically of course it is possible that Andrea Leadsom, the new secretary of state at DEFRA, the government department in charge of agriculture and the environment, could spearhead a radical progressive programme of subsidy reform. But all the political indications suggest this is highly unlikely.

For a start, there will be a huge lobbying effort from bodies like the National Farmers Union and others who represent big agricultural and landowning interests to keep the free cash flowing to them. They will undoubtedly be helped by the fact that some people in government personally benefit from subsidies.

It was revealed this week that the environment minister, Lord Gardiner, has interests in a farm that receives £49,000 a year in agricultural subsidies. Leadsom herself has also accepted money from someone who gets over £450,000 a year from the scheme. Iain Duncan Smith’s wife’s family got £159,000 and the Queen claimed £686,000 in 2014. 

Even within the EU, the UK refused to implement more progressive parts of the CAP. For example, the UK no longer gives subsidies to small farmers with under 5 hectares of land and has not implemented a cap on payments to large farms. Outside the CAP, the UK is free to further stack subsidies in favour of the rich.

This is especially the case considering the fact that as the economy enters post-Brexit blues, there is likely to be less money to go round. If the government doesn’t cut subsidies for its rich friends and donors, then the alternative is to cut the subsidies linked to environmental protection, which would be a disaster.

But it doesn’t have to be this way!

First we need to untie subsidies from land ownership to ensure that wealthy landowners are not getting huge welfare handouts regardless of whether what they do has any social or environmental benefit.

We must reform agricultural subsidies in a way that promotes a more sustainable farming model. Subsidies should only be given to those farms that practice high environmental standards.

There is also an argument that more could be done to support smaller-scale farmers who do not enjoy the economies of scale that industrial-scale farms do if they are willing to follow best environmental practice.

Implementing a ceiling for subsidy payments would help save money and level the playing field a bit in this regard. The Landworkers Alliance has estimated that even a fairly lenient cap on payments of £120,000 would save £400 million a year, money that could be spent on fostering a much fairer and more ethical food system

It is also a scandal that farms that pump healthy animals with antibiotics are given handouts.  These farming practices are contributing to the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria to the extent that we now face the dawn of a terrifying new post-antibiotic era. This must end.

We could also link subsidies to more stringent animal welfare standards. The taxpayer should not be paying farmers to subject animals to the cruel and unusual punishment that is battery farming.

It is also important to ensure that whatever agricultural subsidies we decide to retain do not end up harming the livelihoods of farmers in the global south. Subsidised British produce must not end up being sold at below cost prices in the markets of Beijing or Bangui.

In theory, the sky is the limit in terms of what we can achieve. In practice, however, we are limited by the blinkers of a myopic political elite constrained by what is considered acceptable to influential landowners.

Campaigners should fight to overcome this and push for a UK food system that is fair and ecologically sound for both producers and consumers.

Alex Scrivener is policy officer at Global Justice Now.

This article was originally published by Global Justice Now.

Three years ago, an unprecedented partnership of organisations published the State of Nature report. Their work revealed that 60% of species we know about in the UK have declined in the last 50 years. This work drew new attention to the decline of wildlife in our country.

At the time, I wrote that as well as a state that looked back, we also needed a vision that would look ahead. I argued that no one had more legitimacy to write such a vision than the young people who would inherit the future we decided, as a society, to nourish.

In a piece for the Ecologist website that same year I also wrote about diminishing childhood connection to nature. This, I believe, is one of the greatest threats to nature: if fewer people experience it and care about it then protection for it will diminish too.

That’s why I’ve spent the last three years of my life working at the heart of the burgeoning youth nature movement. And why we’ve just published our Vision for Nature report. You can follow its progress and take in this initiative using #VisionforNature.

This new report uses creative writing, art, photography and policy to set out the vision young people have for the future of the natural world. We’ve taken into account the views of over 200 young people, through surveys, focus groups, interviews and other conversations. At the heart of A Focus on Nature is a practice of working with other generations.

We’re very grateful that Sir David Attenborough has backed our report. We also know, from new polling we conducted, that these 200 or so young people are far from alone. In the polling we’ve had commissioned, nine out of ten 16-34 year olds feel it is important (very important or quite important) for politicians to take care of the environment.

This vision is of young people’s hopes for the future of nature in the UK. We call for changes such as the development of ten city national parks across the UK; the transfer of all subsidies and tax breaks for fossil fuels to renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies; and for the reintroduction of lost apex and keystone species and the re-wilding of large areas of land. And we believe that these changes will take us towards a future where people live lives far more connected to nature, in far more sustainable towns and cities, where they eat local and sustainable food and where the landscape is buzzing and brimming with wildlife.

Most importantly, we challenge the existing UK Government. They have recently announced a delay in publication of their 25-year plan for nature. We believe that protecting nature for one generation is not enough. While special places and creatures can be destroyed in the blink of an eye, it can take decades or longer for them to recover. Their future needs to be safeguarded for generations to come, not just one generation.

So our top recommendation is for the UK Government to produce a 250-year plan for nature, with this first 25-year plan as just the first step. We also hope similar long-term planning and thinking will be applied by governments in the other four countries in the UK.

Perhaps most importantly though, this report is the clarion call of a growing UK youth nature movement. I was privileged enough to be involved in the UK youth climate movement for five years. This movement joined up with other young people around the globe and together, I believe, they made a real impact on the progress of action on climate change, particularly at the UN level.

Every day, I learn of and connect with new projects in other countries where young people are coming together and working to secure nature’s future. Too often, the environment falls out of our political debate. And even when it is mentioned, too often are nature and wildlife forgotten in favour of energy and climate change. Young people’s voices are all too often forgotten as well. If the UK Government’s 25-year plan is meant to protect nature for a generation, where has the consultation with young people (who will inherit this plans results, for good or for bad) been?

So, we’re asking politicians and decision-makers of every ilk, third sector organisations and businesses, whose flows of private investment will be critical to building a sustainable future, to speak and work with us. We realise our vision may be ambitious, but young people, wildlife and future generations deserve, and can accept, nothing less.

In Summary:

• The UK’s youth nature network, A Focus on Nature, has launched its Vision for Nature report, setting out young people’s hopes for the future of nature and wildlife in the UK.
• The report has received the backing of Sir David Attenborough
• New poll shows nine out of ten 16-34 year-olds think it’s important for politicians to take care of wildlife and the environment
• The same number of young Brits believe it’s important to take care of the natural world for future generations
• Two thirds of UK millennials say environmental policies are their top voting priority
• Now is the time to stand up for nature, says new report written by young people – Vision for Nature – which sets out the future for wildlife and the environment that young people would like to see

This Author:

Matt Williams is a nature lover and photographer. He’s Associate Director of A Focus on Nature, the UK’s youth nature network. Follow him @mattadamw and mattadamwilliams.co.uk.

Last month’s signing of the contract to build the Rampal coal plant in Bangladesh, just a few miles from the edge of the world’s largest mangrove forest, has re-triggered concerns both domestically and internationally about the controversial 1320 megawatt power project.

Late July saw clashes in the streets of Dhaka between demonstrators intent on taking their demands to scrap the Rampal project direct to the office of Bangladesh’s prime minister and police deploying batons and tear gas canisters. Local media reported the arrest of six protestors and the hospitalisation of 16 other participants as a result of the police operation, which prevented the ‘Save Sundarbans’ demonstration from reaching its planned destination. Eyewitness accounts put the number of injured participants as high as 50.

Indian groups who also reject the project (see a new video presenting joint Bangladeshi-Indian civil society resistance to Rampal) condemned what they described as the use of “brute force” by the police against a “peaceful protest march”, and issued a statement of solidarity which further called on the Bangladesh government to “stop using all undemocratic means to deal with legitimate people’s protests.”

Just two weeks prior, however, the official ‘mood music’ emanating from a Dhaka hotel about the project might as well have come from another planet. At a ceremony to mark the signing of the engineering, procurement and construction contract awarded to Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL), India’s largest engineering and manufacturing company, Ujjwal Kanti Bhattacharya, managing director of Bangladesh-India Friendship Power Company Limited (BIFPCL), the joint venture company undertaking the Rampal plant, commented to journalists that “We respect the concern of the people of Bangladesh, we are set to maintain the maximum environmental standards for the plant”.

As tends to be the hallmark of such moments in the laboured development of controversial fossil fuel projects such as Rampal, the assembled officials had come to gush. With co-operation between Bangladesh and India being flagged relentlessly, the principal secretary to Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina let it be known that Rampal has been ‘a dream project’ of the two countries’ leaders, and promised “all sorts of cooperation will be provided to [BHEL] except time extension.” BHEL now has until July 2019 to have the power plant installed and ready for operations.

Scrutiny of the construction contract does indeed suggest that the Indian giant BHEL is on the receiving end of an awful lot of  ‘co-operation’. Yet when viewed alongside other emerging project details that are now raining down as part of the official PR monsoon, it’s becoming ever more apparent that if Rampal is a ‘dream project’ for India, then as currently conceived it stands to become a nightmare for Bangladesh.

‘Sweeteners’

BHEL won the tender for the $1.49 billion construction contract at the beginning of this year but the official signing of the deal dragged on to July due to, as local media sources have pointed out, the company holding out for “extra sweeteners” from the Bangladesh government including exemptions from taxes and duties as well as from the mandatory insurance process. In what could be a worrying precedent for Bangladesh’s state coffers when the involvement of Indian companies is sought for major infrastructure projects, it’s also been reported that it took a personal intervention from Prime Minister Sheikk Hasina in April to settle the tax waiver in BHEL’s favour. 

Meanwhile, in another clear sign that Delhi is running the Rampal show and putting Indian interests first, negotiations are reportedly under way between the project promoters and Coal India on the supply of 4 million tonnes of Indian coal per year to fuel the plant.

If this materialises, then it would undermine some of the baseline calculations – on emissions and pollution – included in the project’s already highly questionable environmental impact assessment (EIA), in which scenarios have been based on coal supplies originating from Australia, Indonesia or South Africa.

Indian coal is generally reckoned to be of a lower grade than coal from the other countries referred to in the EIA, but the potential impacts remain vague since precise details on sulphur and ash content are unknown. The mounting coal glut in India may, however, have an even bigger long-term outlet near the Sundarbans – as the controversy over the currently proposed plant rages, an often overlooked detail in the EIA is the alarming proposal to build a second 1320 megawatt coal plant adjacent to the first “in the future”.

Some state (of the art)

Yet, insist Rampal proponents, the coal plant will involve the world’s most efficient and environment-friendly technology. ‘Modern ultra-Super Thermal Technology’ is touted by BIFPCL, but the company’s construction tender document does not require state of the art pollution control technologies.

For example, the technology required at Rampal will emit nearly 30% more sulphur dioxide than truly state of the art technology. Similarly, the outdated technology required at the proposed coal plant can remove roughly 96% of fine particulate matter, but state of the art technology can remove 99%. Three percent might not seem like a lot, but when it comes to extremely toxic, long-lasting and widely dispersing heavy metals such as mercury emitted over the 60 year life of a coal plant, it matters. 

Shockingly too there are no technologies required at Rampal to specifically eliminate harmful emissions of mercury, nitrogen oxides, nickel, chromium, arsenic, antimony, cadmium or cobalt, though widely available technologies exist to do so. Finally, toxic unburned coal particles from the massive coal piles and transfer points will enter the Passur River and Sundarbans ecosystem on a daily basis, as the tender documents require only ineffective water sprays on coal piles, and optional enclosure of stockpiles and transfer points.

And of the many question marks still hanging over the project’s EIA considerations – including air pollution, direct impacts on water resources including heavy coal transportation traffic through the network of sensitive Sundarbans waterways and cumulative ecosystem impacts – poor planning for the disposal of 0.94 million tons of toxic coal ash per year is just one aspect of the project design attracting increased expert scepticism and concern.

The proposed disposal of ash by lagooning and uncontained ‘land development’ poses huge environmental risks in an area minimally above sea level, prone to seasonal flooding, typhoon-driven storm surges, tsunamis, and subject to – as the EIA does at least acknowledge – large seismic events up to 7.0 on the Richter scale.  

Escalating PR offensive

While many of the EIA’s assumptions have been heavily criticised, it does at least admit to the possibility of project impacts arising: “dredging activities,” it concedes for example, “may have impacts on river water quality.” Any such precautionary language about the Rampal project, however, seems to have gone out the window as part of the promoters’ escalating PR offensive.

On July 19, the day after a major splash in the Washington Post (“A new power plant could devastate the world’s largest mangrove forest”) increased international awareness of the long list of problems that Rampal is stacking up for the Sundarbans and its inhabitants, BIFPCL’s Public Relations Manager Anwarul Azim hit back with a stunning run-through of positive bullet points about the project, leading him to the flourishing conclusion that the “Rampal Power Plant will not damage rather it will preserve the Sunderbans (sic)”.

Before getting stuck into his version of project details, Azim points to energy generation from coal statistics from around the world (including USA 40%, Germany 41%, China 79%) and contrasts with Bangladesh’s current 2.05% figure. No mention is made of international agreements to curb emissions, of efforts now materialising in these countries to drastically cut coal power emissions due to public health and climate crises, or of the rapid scaling up of renewable energy around the world. Yet Azim writes, “In order to accelerate the economic development of the country, it is the demand of time to increase the production of coal-based electricity at the present moment.”

This narrow ‘demand of time’ narrative also fails to mention the rapidly encroaching effects of climate change which Bangladesh, one of the most vulnerable countries on earth, is staring in the face, nor does it acknowledge Bangladesh’s burgeoning solar power industry, with over 65,000 solar home systems being installed every month, making it the largest and fastest growing off-grid program in the world.

Nor is Azim detained by perhaps the easiest to grasp time calculation when it comes to clean versus dirty power generation: solar plants can be set up in slightly over a year, as opposed to the four to five years that coal plants take, thereby providing electricity very quickly to people who desperately need it, as in Bangladesh.

Just one example bullet point from the article illustrates the kind of glossing of project impacts that is now going on as the project promoters seek to navigate what could be their final, crucial administrative hurdle – clearance from Bangladesh’s Ministry of Environment and Forest.

“A negligible amount of water (0.05% of the lean period flow) of [the Passur] River will be used,” Azim writes. Yet the project’s EIA acknowledges that water use at the plant will reduce the downstream flow of the Passur River by 4 million litres an hour, or 35 billion litres each year, which Bangladeshi NGOs point out is considerable in an ecosystem already stressed by increasing salinity and reduced freshwater flow from upstream diversions. The same river, one of the Sundarbans’ key waterways, suffered the latest sinking of a large coal cargo vessel in March this year.

Project finance will involve reputational risk

Waiting in the wings too is India’s Exim Bank, currently considering a $1.6 billion loan for the Rampal plant construction even if this will involve taking a ‘reputation risk’, as the bank’s head recently admitted. Over 135,000 people and 100 civil society groups have so far petitioned the head of India’s Exim Bank not to finance the Rampal project.

Informed speculation suggests that Exim will only bankroll the project if agreement on the supply of Indian coal is reached. There are many reasons why, following global pressure from civil society, none of the other major international banks – which are still not averse to financing coal projects especially in the developing world – are prepared to touch Rampal.

Civil society groups in Bangladesh are also taking their concerns to the international stage. Last month 53 Bangladeshi groups, under the umbrella group National Committee to Save the Sundarbans, reiterated their concerns about Rampal to the United Nations’s World Heritage Committee and IUCN. Over 50,000 people from around the world supported their petition.

Reputations, facts and one of the world’s most prized natural assets are at the mercy of Indian coal dreams, and the Bangladesh government’s capitulation is set to unleash a nightmare on its people and environment. The international community needs to stand with the resistance movement in Bangladesh and demand that India’s Exim Bank abandons its financing plans for the construction of the reckless Rampal coal plant.

Action: Ask India’s Exim to drop its financing plans for the Rampal construction.

This Author:

Greig Aitken is a coal campaigner with BankTrack, a Netherlands-based campaign group tracking the operations and investments of private sector banks and their effect on people and the planet.

Twitter: @BankTrack

Among its myriad effects, Brexit threatens a radical shakeup of UK agriculture with the withdrawal of billions of pounds of EU subsidies. There is considerable anxiety in the agricultural community as most farmers rely on some form of income support from the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Without a policy of smooth transition, the transformation of agriculture will lead to a radical shift in land values as many farmers lose their holdings to the international market.

The fall of the CAP opens up the ominous possibility of the corporate countryside, the brave new world of high intensity agribusiness, accelerated road building, suburban residential and retail commercial developments, airports and tourist facilities. In an era of cheap land and perhaps negative interest rates – not to mention the housing crisis – development will proceed apace as the integrity of the countryside is forever altered.

Contrary to this nightmare scenario, the current CAP policy favoured stability, and in recent decades, environmental criteria and objectives, linked through cross-compliance to farming subsidies. Activities such as crop diversification, pesticide control, wildlife corridors have been central to the Pillar I requirements for EU subsidies. Such activities are still in place across the UK and indicate an alternative path for the British countryside, other than the corporate takeover of rural Britain.   

It is ironic that British scholars and scientists have been central to the articulation of EU environmental law and policy, the most developed body of such law in the world. Indeed, given the high level of public education in the UK on environmental issues, especially of such issues as climate change, it would be difficult, and in fact, counter-productive, to walk away from such a longstanding commitment to the environment.  

Confronted however by the forced choice between economic development and the environment, many may tolerate the incremental destruction of the rural landscape. But, we must be clear that this is a false choice and that a better approach to the countryside is possible than a passive drift toward the wasteland. To get a glimpse of the nightmare scenario, we need only consider the American (formerly rural) landscape of suburbs, retail malls, theme parks, landfills and industrial farms.

Nevertheless, Britain differs from the Americans since they have already created their wasteland. The UK still stands at the crossroads, not having taken the plunge toward overdevelopment and corporate agriculture.  Indeed, while the UK will leave the EU, there is no good reason to simply surrender the countryside to the vast corporate monolith. Yet, such surrender will occur in the absence of political clarity, imagination and investment.   

At the crossroads, we may still articulate a new vision for the countryside, one which expresses the concerns and desires of stakeholders – farmers, conservationists, land and land tenure reform advocates, communities, and environmentalists. In this way, Brexit provides an unprecedented opportunity to take a step forward from the status quo, and in the spirit of the new independence, to remake the countryside in the interests of citizens and communities. 

The new vision cannot simply be a re-branding of the CAP into a BAP subsidy regime. While the CAP allowed the agricultural community to subsist, it also institutionalised inertia, homogeneity and dependency in the rural economy – and the domination of the supermarket.

The new policy must instead work for farmers and consumers, working together with rural stakeholders for a new settlement and an array of smart subsidies. In the absence of EU criteria – and with a desire to avoid the disastrous effects of a liberalisation of the land market – we may be more ambitious and embark upon an alternative path of countryside development which supports the needs of farmers, citizens and communities, but continues, and indeed, accelerates efforts to protect, diversify and restore the environment. 

The central concepts of the new vision of the countryside, I will suggest, are access, sustainability, diversity and restoration. Access concerns the needs of citizens for land – farmers, families, communities and recreationists. The needs of each of the groupings, often overlapping, can be accommodated in the new countryside. 

Land reform, farm tenancy and ownership reform, community land acquisition and ownership, rural industries, farmer-community production and distribution partnerships, the rights to wander and to use waterways – these are some of the watchwords for a progressive vision of the countryside in the post-Brexit era. 

Sustainability speaks of an ecological approach to the rural landscape, in agriculture, forestry, fisheries policy and land management. Such notions are well known to countryside stakeholders and indicate a commitment to the indefinite vitality of arable land and the integrity of rural eco-systems. 

Land is not simply a factory of inputs and outputs, whether in agriculture, tourism, housing or property development. The rural landscape is a diverse habitat for human communities in relation to vegetation and animal life – it is not simply a space of production, but a lifeworld.

Diversity entails a vibrant and complex rural landscape, understanding that agriculture and other activities are situated within the broader life of the countryside. The integrity of the rural ecosystem will accommodate an agricultural practise which is sensitive to its place within the new countryside. Poly-culture, biodiversity, organic cultivation, wildlife corridors – these are some of the practises which will heal the rift between intensive agriculture and the wider ecological space. 

Restoration works for an augmentation of the rural landscape through the restoration of forests and common lands. Such aspirations stand at odds with the nightmare of a corporate countryside – but they were also impossible in the context of the CAP. It is well known, for example, that EU subsidies required the elimination of “wasteland,” a harsh word for forest growth, ponds and other ecological features. EU policy was a barrier to policies of reforestation and the spirit of many of its own stated priorities.  In the post-Brexit paradigm, attractive prospects emerge for ambitious initiatives to restore a robust British countryside

The metaphor of the crossroads cannot be over-emphasised, between the path of neo-liberal drift to the corporate countryside, in the image of America, and that of the new British landscapes which will be cultivated through cooperation between the devolved nations, rural communities and farmers. 

A progressive rural policy, for the protection and enhancement of the rural landscape and the rural economy, in the interest of citizens and communities, promises a unity of purpose and interest among the many interested stakeholders of the rural  landscape from farmers to environmentalists, workers to consumers, ramblers to young families seeking a new start in life.

This Author:

Dr James Luchte is a philosopher, author, writer and poet.  He has written for many publications, including Salon, Counterpunch, Tele-SUR, Daily Wales, Planet Magazine, Agonist and Farmer’s Weekly.

He is currently Visiting Professor of Philosophy and Aesthetics at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics. His latest book, Mortal Thought: Hölderlin and Philosophy (Bloomsbury 2016), details the revolutionary significance of the poet’s thought for philosophy, art and politics.