DRACONIAN action against plastic bags in Wales was promised yesterday by Environment Minister Jane Davidson.
AMs from across the political spectrum united yesterday to deplore the use of 490 million plastic bags a year in Wales.
OK, then maybe not quite as far as "a result"...
Hurrah! a devolved parliament has just delivered another promise!
Anyway, plastic bags.
It's not really their use which is the problem, we use our plastic bags for a whole host of functions ranging from storing vegetables, lining our bin... right up to collecting the dog's poo.
And actually in terms of that last function we go through at least three bags a day (more if the mutt is suffering on one of Ms O'Neill's high fibre diets)...something which AM Darren Millar has obviously not taken into account:
The calls were led by Clwyd West Conservative AM Darren Millar who cited a link between "grime and crime".
And when you hear the word "draconian", doesn't it trigger a number of word-associations off in your mind - like, off the top of my head, "dictatorship", "thought-police" etc etc?
Ms Davidson said, "[We] want an absolutely dramatic draconian reduction in those kind of figures in Wales."
Oh.
He said, “A levy which would be paid by the consumer at the retailers’ till and the proceeds of which would be ring-fenced to fund activities which deal with tackling litter. Only this move would really secure the change in behaviour and environmental improvement we need to see here in Wales.”
I somehow doubt it.
Might push a few old dears over the edge at the cash-deak though, consequently causing them to expell an excess of poisonous hot air into the atmosphere.
Labour’s Lorraine Barrett said, “In Wales and the UK we seem to have an addiction to using plastic bags.”
Only when they contain substances of an adhesive nature.
Conservative leader Nick Bourne said his Westminster colleagues would support the transfer of the necessary powers to introduce a levy.
Yes, top priority I'm sure.
Hold on, this whole article (and my post) was dedicated to a topic which the Assembly has no power over anyway.
What a waste of paper and your and my time.
(Ha! But but you've read it anyway!)
7 comments:
Question: What is your big problem with devolution. Was it not the lack of granting devolution to Ireland during the Home Rule crisis that left us with the situation we have in Ireland today?
I had a look at your very first entry. You maintain you want to live in a UK where there is one law. Now even before devolution that was not the case.
The UK has always been run on a hotchpotch of different territorial laws. In Scotland more so than most as much of the laws pertaining to Scotland, particuarly in the criminal sphere are exclusive to Scotland.
To give a few examples:-
Murder - Scotland has always had a different law of non-premiditated murder than England. In England, Wales and I guess Northern Ireland non-premed is defined as a homicide brought about by committing GBH with intent on the victim. GBH was formulated under the Offences against the Person Act 1868 (passed by a Conservative - and no doubt Unionist - government I may add) which does not apply to Scotland. Just to the territorial areas of England, Wales and Ireland (some of the statute is still enforced in the Republic).
Scotland on the other hand uses "Wicked Recklessness against Human Life" - a doctrine developed from 1600 onwards.
The differences in the law meant once the difference between the rope or a finite prison sentence, depending where you committed the crime. Now it is the difference between a life sentence and a finite sentence.
Scots law as you are probably aware is drawn largely from continental civil law with some influence from south of the border.
I saw a comment where you said (it was about abortion) that the UK Parliament was progressive but inferred that the devolved were not. Westminster was the light on these issues?
Oh yeah?
Lets get to the laws governing homosexuality. In 1967 gay sex was legalised in England and Wales. The "enlightened" UK Parliament took another 13 years and four governments later for homosexual activity to be legalised in Scotland. 1982 for NI. By the way for much of the time Scotland was being run by arch anti-devolutionist Willy Ross.
Abortion - Abortion under common Scots law was legal under certain circumstnaces till the original abortion act was introduced by David Steel. Abortion on the other hand had been banned by the Offences against the person act.
Of course it remains banned in NI. Baroness Paisley was saying it should stay that way until "a majority in Northern Ireland" say so.
You seem to hanker for a UK that has never existed.
"Abortion on the other hand had been banned by the Offences against the person act." - I should add applied in England, Wales and Ireland. Indeed there were questions when the constitutional ban on abortion amendment was needed in the Republic in the early 1980's since abortion was still outlawed under the act in the Republic.
Since I am here, here is a difference between the Scots and English law of murder in practice - true case.
A man who was pissed off with some woman decided to give her a fright by pouring petrol on the door (not through the letterbox etc) and setting it alight. The woman and some of her relatives subsequently died due to the blaze.
After being initially convicted of murder it was reduced to manslaughter on the grounds that
a) he did not intend to kill the victims
b) he had not meant to inflict GBH on her.
Under Scots law the "wicked recklessness" doctrine needs to fulfill two of the following criteria:
a) Attack intended to severely injure victim
b) Carried out an act which the assailant knew could result in death but carried on anyway
c) Use of what could be reasonably construed as a lethal weapon
d) Inflicting multiple wounds/injuries on the victim
e) homicide committed during a robbery/theft.
When the English case was invoked as "persuasive" - a term used for foreign cases as English and NI courts are classed as foriegn in Scottish courts - to a similar case in Scotland the judges said that the English assailant would have been guilty of murder under the Scots law due to qualifying in categories b + c - setting fire to a lock fast property knowing somebody in it could die and useing inflamable liquid as a lethal weapon.
Question: What is your big problem with devolution.
I’m a Unionist.
I believe in our shared concept of Britishness.
I’m proud to be a citizen of the United Kingdom.
Has the devolution experiment strengthened or weakened the United Kingdom?
Looking at it as a taxpayer and citizen, it’s delivered an unnecessary extra level of administration and bureaucracy, without delivering better governance. The way it’s been implemented has created an unquestionable unfairness and inequality between the four constituent parts of the UK. Jumped up parish pump empty-heads are now in charge of health, education etc.
It’s turned politics inwards, made the parochial seem important.
Was it not the lack of granting devolution to Ireland during the Home Rule crisis that left us with the situation we have in Ireland today?
The majority of people living on the island of “Ireland” are more than happy with their present economic and political situation, hence Sinn Fein’s humiliation in last year’s ROI election. If by “Ireland” you actually mean Northern Ireland, two factors have led to the present situation:
1.Irish people being prepared to murder (and support the murder of) other Irish people because of their perceived national identity and/or religion.
2.And, as I ‘ve pointed out to you before, devolution (or Home Rule if you like) being granted to NI in 1922.
I had a look at your very first entry. You maintain you want to live in a UK where there is one law. Now even before devolution that was not the case.
Maybe not, but that’s the kind of United Kingdom I want to live in.
I saw a comment where you said (it was about abortion) that the UK Parliament was progressive but inferred that the devolved were not. Westminster was the light on these issues?
Oh yeah?
As a secularist who is also liberal in matters of social conscience living in Northern Ireland, who is likely to provide me a better guarantee of the kind of human rights that we should take for granted in a modern western democracy, Westminster or the orange and green reactionaries up at Stormont?
You mention the question of both abortion and homsexual rights.
If Scotland had been given a devolved parliament at the same time as Northern Ireland, would it have been quicker or slower than Westminster in “legalising” homesexual activity?
Your point about abortion provision in Scotland isn’t entirely clear, was it already legal prior to it being introduced in England/wales, but only a limited basis?
Was abortion an offence in Scotland prior to the 1980s or not?
If it were, same question again, would a Scottish parliament have been quicker or slower than Westminster in delivering for its female citizens this basic human right?
Re the situation in NI, if it were left to the theology-dominated parties in charge of our Assembly, women will never achieve full reproductive rights. You quote Paisley’s wife; at Westminster, she is only one voice; her husband’s party, along with SF (whom despite their alleged “socialist” credentials, are still unwilling to upset the “faithful”, or at least the RC Hierarchy, on this subject) control our devolved “parliament”. Again, it may be a helluva long time coming, but there is a much better chance of Westminster delivering this right than Stormont.
Our Culture Minister believes that the world is 5,000 years old, that dinosaurs co-existed with human beings and that our world and everything in it was created in 6 days- you and other Celtic nationalists may be happy with that kind of nutter in charge, on the basis that at least he’s a Celtic nutter rather than a British/Englishman….
I’m not.
Concerning the Home Rule crisis - I am talking about the age of Parnell and Redmond.
You question whether devolution has weakened or strengthened the UK. If Ireland in the late 19th/early 20th century had been granted a measure of limited home rule, then it many of the population would not have become disaffected by it, led to paramilitarism, gun smuggling from Germany and the 1916. Throw into the mix the UK's government's cackhanded handling of those events which made it worse.
It was quite an achievment to get to turn the mainly lets-have-some-autonomy-not-independence Irishman in the street into a Republican sympathiser in two decades due to daft footdragging and some stupid actions. Less than two decades before no political party in the Nationalist camp was campaigning for independence. Certainly not the Irish Party. Even quirky Sinn Fein under Arthur Griffith was advocating Ireland should still share a common foreign, defence, currency and a few others area policy with Great Britain.
Devolution at least acts as safety valve. You are correct, that aspects of it are unfair. Federalism would be the most stable structure. However that is the problem of the UK government and parliament and their reluctance to do some much needed reform - but then we still have an unelected upper house and skewed voting system to tackle.
Concerning how a devolved Scottish Parliament would have voted on social issues such as abortion and gay rights, I unfortunately do not know the attitude of all the politicians and potential politicians of the day to these things.
As for your minister, you get nutters in charge even in the UK government.
"Hold on, this whole article (and my post) was dedicated to a topic which the Assembly has no power over anyway. "
Clearly you have no idea how the new Government of Wales Act works. Now the Assembly draws up powers it wants transferred to Wales and passess them to london who decide whether to pass them.
So, unlike before May 2007, the Assembly is not restricted to act within its current powers. There are 6 or 7 LCO (the tool used in London to transfer the powers) in the mix at the moment.
Banning plastic carrier bags is something the Assembly has been keen on for years. Nothing has been done about it before because they hasd no power over it and no way of obtaining that power. Now they do so now its news.
Clearly you have no idea how the new Government of Wales Act works
No, I was aware of the procedure, it was more the fcat that a full debate, loads of hot air, newspaper articles and blog post had been wasted on plastic bags! Linked along with the "trainer issue" I blogged about earlier, it gives the impression that the WAG is more Sixth Form Debating society rather an institution which can make real differences to people's lives.
I also meant to add, in the interests of fairness, that the ID card Debate and vote was a good example of a subject that the WAG should be involving itself with.
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