Rishi Sunak

As PM, Rishi Sunack's election promises, had not materialized as of July 2023. According to Zac Goldsmith, the PM has turned his back on climate change. There are still far too few EV charging points, and nobody has thought to implement California style legislation to force electric car makers to introduce a budget vehicle, for low income families to be able to afford the transition. That would quash much of what is circulating in the media, about the cost of owning and operating an EV. Where most new Electric Vehicle models are large executive semi-recreational models, or 4x4s. What is needed are budget Evs, in the £5-10,000 pound range. A new breed of Mini, 2CV or Fiat Topolino. The Ford Model T of the 2020s. And, this is easily achievable, in the modern age of mass production and knowledge transfer. And perhaps, invoking green patents. That so far, the WIPO and UKIPO, are fighting shy of.

ABOUT RISHI

Rishi Sunak (born 12 May 1980) is a British Conservative Party politician serving as Chancellor of the Exchequer in Boris Johnson's cabinet, since February 2020. He was appointed following the resignation of Sajid Javid during a cabinet reshuffle in 2020. Sunak previously served as Chief Secretary to the Treasury under Javid from July 2019 to February 2020, and has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Richmond (Yorks) since the 2015 general election.

In Bojo's September 2021 reshuffle, he remained Chancellor.

Born in Southampton, Hampshire to an Indian Punjabi family, his early education was at Winchester College. Sunak subsequently studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) at Lincoln College, Oxford, and later gained an MBA from Stanford University as a Fulbright Scholar. After graduating, Sunak worked for investment bank Goldman Sachs, and later as a partner at the hedge fund management firm The Children's Investment Fund Management.

Sunak was selected as the Conservative candidate for Richmond (Yorks) in October 2014. The seat had previously been held by former leader of the party and foreign secretary William Hague, who chose to stand down at the next general election. In the same year, Sunak was the head of centre-right think tank Policy Exchange's Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) Research Unit, for which he co-wrote a report on BME communities in the UK. Sunak was elected as MP for the constituency in the 2015 general election with a majority of 19,550 (36.2%). During the 2015–2017 parliament, Sunak was a member of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee.

He supported the UK leaving the European Union (EU) in the June 2016 membership referendum. In the same year, he wrote a report for the Thatcherite think tank, the Centre for Policy Studies, supporting the establishment of free ports post-Brexit, and the following year wrote a report advocating for the creation of a retail bond market for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

Sunak was re-elected as MP in the 2017 general election, with an increased majority of 23,108 (40.5%). He was Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Local Government between January 2018 and July 2019. Sunak voted for then Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit withdrawal agreement and voted against a referendum on any withdrawal agreement. He supported Boris Johnson in the 2019 Conservative Party leadership election and co-wrote an article in The Times newspaper with fellow MPs Robert Jenrick, and Oliver Dowden to advocate for Johnson during the campaign in June.

He was re-elected in the 2019 general election with an increased majority of 27,210 (47.2%). During the election campaign, Sunak represented the Conservatives in both the BBC's and ITV's seven-way election debates.

Sunak was promoted to Chancellor of the Exchequer on 13 February 2020 as part of a cabinet reshuffle, after the resignation of his predecessor Sajid Javid on the same day. Javid had resigned after being asked by Prime Minister Johnson to dismiss his advisers.

Sunak's first budget took place on 11 March 2020. This included an announcement of £30 billion of additional spending of which £12 billion was allocated for mitigation of the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic. Less than a week after on 17 March, Sunak announced £330 billion of government-backed loans for businesses and an extension of business rates relief as emergency measures against the pandemic. Three days later, he announced further measures including a commitment to pay 80% of the salary for staff unable to work, up to a maximum of £2,500 per month, if their employer retained them on their payroll. This was the first time a British government had created such an employee retention scheme.

FOSSIL FOOLS - Geriatric politicians with 'climate-senile' policies will find in difficult to break away from their corrupt ways, as part time politicians with two jobs. Their main job being to find paid consultancy work, rather than craft policies and create statute that works to protect our voters from lung cancer, energy shortages and a lack of affordable (sustainable) housing.

The 'zerophobics' are the undertakers of the political world, sending millions of ordinary people to an early grave, while loading us with NHS, hospital and staff costs that would not be needed if we had clean air in our cities.

Basically, the longer you are in politics, the more likely you are to be exposed to bribes, from climate deniers, mostly fossil fuel and energy companies, looking to keep on pumping toxic fumes into the atmosphere, so they can keep making money. The political undertakers are working with them to keep hospitals stocked with cancer victims, adding to the £Trillions we owe as part of the national debt. Under Boris and Rishi Sunack, pensioner's saving have halved in real terms. According to the media, they are blood sucking vampires, draining what little you had saved for your retirement.

RISHI'S BUDGET

The Budget marks the start of record levels of investment in the people’s priorities – infrastructure, the NHS and public services – to ensure the promises in December’s General Election are kept and the potential of every part of the United Kingdom, including the South East, is unleashed.

CARBON CAPTURE

Sunak said the government was spending at least £800m establishing two or more carbon capture and storage clusters by 2030 to “store millions of tons of carbon dioxide that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere”. These clusters, he said, would create up to 6,000 high-skilled, high-wage jobs in areas such as Teesside, Humberside, Merseyside or St Fergus in Scotland.

RAILWAYS

Sunak merely reaffirmed the government’s commitment to fund the Manchester-Leeds leg. All the budget promised Bradford in terms of new money was “up to £500,000” to support its regeneration and development plans to increase the benefits of potential Northern Powerhouse Rail connections.

Liverpool wants to be the western terminus of Northern Powerhouse Rail. But Sunak failed to mention the maritime city, to the frustration of Steve Rotheram, the mayor of the Liverpool city region.

“[Sunak] could have mentioned the fact we are in detailed negotiations of the Liverpool to Manchester leg, which is much easier to get through a planning process because it’s basically farmers’ fields we will be going through,” Rotheram said.

“It’s not an engineering challenge because we are not going through the Pennines. I don’t see the myopia changing in government sometimes. They talk about getting things done, well, this is oven-ready, to use government parlance. The focus as always is on other areas.”

But Sunak did promise £4.bn for “London-style” transport funding settlements over the next five years, shared between the Liverpool city region and the other seven mayoral combined authorities – in West Yorkshire, Greater Manchester, West Midlands, Tyne and Wear, west of England, Sheffield city region and Tees Valley.

ROADS

Mr Sunak announced an investment of £27 billion in Britain’s roads, which includes the second round of Major Road Network and Large Local Major schemes proceeding to the next stage of development, plus a £2.5 billion fund to repair Britain’s potholes, aiming to fill 50 million potholes and resurfacing roads over the next five years.

The government is investing £4.2 billion in the transport networks of eight city regions across England from 2022-23. Funding will be delivered through five-year, consolidated transport settlements.

It will provide £83 million of funding for local road maintenance in the South East through the Potholes Fund in 2020-21. 

THE ENVIRONMENT AND ENERGY

A plastic packaging tax will come into force from April 2022 to incentivise the use of recycled plastic in packaging and help tackle the scourge of plastic in the natural environment.

Rob Morgan, investment analyst at Charles Stanley Direct, says: “The Chancellor’s new plastic packaging tax is a step in the right direction towards encouraging people to alter their day-to-day behaviour towards socially responsible investing. Government intervention is key, as demonstrated by the plastic bag campaign where more than half (56%) say they are aware of it, and 15% say they have subsequently changed their behaviour as result.” 

Fuel subsidies for off-road vehicles or “red diesel” will be scrapped for most sectors in two years’ time.

Communities affected by this winter's flooding will receive £120 million in emergency funding, plus £200 million for flood resilience.

WHAT IS AFFORDABLE - The Conservative Party's idea of affordable is not in keeping with the real meaning, it is more a spin to make it appear as if they are working for genuine sustainability. Flatpacks made of timber cost a fraction of the price of a brick built unit, lock up carbon and reduce energy bills. When Margaret Thatcher allowed councils to sell off their housing stocks as a quick-fix to boosting their income, she failed to make sure that they built new social housing.

In fact Wealden have not built any number of genuinely affordable homes, and increasingly encroach on neighbouring council's infrastructure without settling up. We would like to know where all the money collected on the basis of a Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) is going? Is it another slush fund that is being used to promote the interests of the upper echelon of executives looking to retire with enhanced benefits?

AFFORDABLE HOMES

The Government is investing a further £9.5 billion in the Affordable Homes Programme which in total will allocate £12.2 billion of grant funding from 2021-22 to support the creation of affordable homes across England. There is no evidence to show that any of this money went to build genuinely affordable homes. All local authorities do is maintain a register of those who want to build their own home. But, as we have verified for ourselves, there are no plots of land available. No councils have used their powers of compulsory purchase to provide such land. But, umpteen councils have purchased other land, to develop their own property portfolios.

In the UK thousands of executive houses have been built after the floodgates were opened to unsustainable development in the countryside, meaning that fat-cat landlords gained more of a foothold, not less. The idea was to blackmail developers into building 30% of the new stock as affordable. It never happened because there were no too many loopholes for kleptocratic councils to make a fast buck - never mind the climate emergency they were helping to fuel in building expensive houses devoid of solar panels, water heaters and charging points, etc.

The Nolan Report was supposed to change council practices to outlaw cozy positions of trust being abused. That did not work either. Greg Clark made an effort to secure land for affordable housing with the 2012 National Planning Policy Document. But that did not work either. The fact is that young families cannot get on the housing ladder at genuinely affordable prices because land is not being compulsorily purchased, or otherwise earmarked for affordable housing (only). The definition of affordable is that an ordinary working man might purchase such a unit on his wage.

As an example of councils behaving badly, Wealden have proven themselves to be one of the most corrupt councils over many years, leading to a Petition in 1997, where the police did not investigate the misuse of authority. The situation remains largely unchanged, where some of the old staff are still in residence, clearly passing on their bad habits, infecting newcomers. Lord Nolan QC was wasting his time suggesting routine flushing of the system, though Boris Johnson has seen the light in suggesting examinations of competence, where .

Tom Slingsby, chief executive of property developer Southern Grove, says: “Only sufficient provision of affordable homes in the right areas can prevent the sort of social inconsistencies that appear when high property prices put key areas of UK cities off limits to younger workers and their families.

“We know from conversations we have constantly with housing associations that the appetite is there to keep building through economic cycles and this fund will ensure that will happen.”

Mr Sunak says that there will be almost £1.1 billion allocated from the Housing Infrastructure Fund to build nearly 70,000 new homes in high demand areas across the UK.

A new £400 million Brownfield Housing Fund aims to create more homes on brownfield land in areas such as the West Midlands.

INCOME AND SCHOOLS

The National Insurance threshold will increase to £9,500 this April, benefitting 31 million people with a typical employee saving over £100 in 2020. In addition, the National Living Wage will increase by 6.2% to £8.72 from April.

Increases in the National Insurance threshold and the National Living Wage announced in the Budget will mean families keep more of the money they earn, while tens of millions of pounds of investment in the region’s roads, rail, housing, broadband and flood defences will ensure everyone can have the same chances and opportunities in life wherever they live.

Thanks to the Budget’s measures, someone working full-time on the minimum wage in the South East will be over £5,200 better off compared to ten years ago when the Conservatives came into office.

The Budget has also committed to a new £3 billion Skills Fund to ensure people gain the skills they need to get rewarding well-paid jobs. Additionally, now we have left the EU, the Government will abolish the tampon tax from 1 January 2021 and reduce the cost of essential sanitary products for women in the UK.

It will provide £29 million a year by 2023-24 to support primary school PE teaching, ensuring children are getting an active start to life and £90 million a year to introduce an Arts Premium to secondary schools in England.

CONTACT RISHI

Constituency Office:

Unit 1, Omega Business Village

Northallerton, DL6 2NJ

Telephone: 01609 765330

Email: rishi.sunak.mp@parliament.uk

Westminster Office
House of Commons

London, SW1A 0AA

Tel: 020 7219 5437

Email as Chancellor: CEU.enquiries@hmtreasury.gov.uk

PRESSING ISSUES

We are particularly concerned with climate change, transport and affordable housing as issues that need urgent attention. Where the coastline is a feature of the United Kingdom, Blue Growth is a food security issue, especially where this side of of our local economy is under-exploited and at the same time under threat. There is no Planet B.

FORMER CHANCELLOR - After his resignation, Rishi Sunack praises the former Chancellor, Sajid Javid after his cabinet resignation.

CABINET & MPS -MAY 2023 - MUSICAL CHAIRS & A LOT OF NEWCOMERS BRAVE ENOUGH TO TRAVEL UP SHIT CREEK WITHOUT PADDLES

CABINET MPS -MARCH 2020

CONSERVATIVE MPS 2017-2020

UK POLITICS

The United Kingdom has many political parties, some of which are represented in the House of Commons and the House of Lords. Below are links to the websites of the political parties that were represented in the House of Commons after the 2015 General Election:

CONSERVATIVE PARTY

CO-OPERATIVE PARTY

DEMOCRAT UNIONIST PARTY

GREEN PARTY

LABOUR PARTY

LIBERAL DEMOCRATS

PLAID CYMRU

SCOTTISH NATIONAL PARTY

SINN FEIN

SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC AND LABOUR PARTY

UK INDEPENDENCE PARTY

ULSTER UNIONIST PARTY

Conservative Party

Co-operative Party

Democratic Unionist Party

Green Party

Labour Party

Liberal Democrats

Plaid Cymru

Scottish National Party

Sinn Féin

Social Democratic and Labour Party

UK Independence Party

Ulster Unionist Party

SIX (SUGGESTED) STEPS TOWARD A COOLER PLANET

1. TRANSPORT: Phase out polluting vehicles. Governments aim to end the sale of new petrol, and diesel vehicles by 2040 but have no infrastructure plan to support such ambition. Marine transport can be carbon neutral. Zero carbon shipping is gaining ground with offshore solar boat racers reaching 35knots (Delft University @ Monaco 2019). The first solar powered circumnavigation record was set in 2012 by PlanetSolar. That record could be halved by another contender on the drawing board.

2. RENEWABLES:  Renewable energy should replace carbon-based fuels (coal, oil and gas) in our electricity, heating and transport. We are well on the way to that with solar and wind power now price competitive to fossil fuels.

3. HOUSING: On site micro or macro generation is the best option, starting with new build homes that are affordable and built of wood for improved insulation and carbon lock. New units might not need planning consents if energy self-sufficient, or very nearly so. Planning consents should be struck for genuinely affordable/sustainable housing and self builds where cost is below £50,000. See letter to Nus Ghani July 2019.

4. AGRICULTURE: We need trees to absorb carbon emissions from a growing population, flying, and to build new homes. Reducing food waste and promoting less energy intensive eating habits such as no meat Mondays.

5. INDUSTRY: Factories should be aiming for solar heating and onsite renewable energy generation. This could be done simply by making it a 106 type (mitigation) condition of new builds that they include solar heating and photovoltaic panels. Too many units were built in the last 3 years without climate friendly features, such as EV charging points.

6. POLITICS: - National governing bodies need to adopt rules to eliminate administrative wastages, restrain local authority empire building, scale down spending on war machines, educate the public and support sustainable social policies that mesh with other cultures transparently. Ban kleptocratic policies. Open your doors to transparency and a new era of honest politics. Local authorities are famous for finding the loopholes to keep on doing favours for mates. Simply close those loopholes with binding statute. Any gray areas should be made black and white in writing. Even then councils will break the law, so introduce a task force to prosecute offending local authorities..

LINKS & REFERENCE

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/rishi-sunak-s-dismal-failure-on-every-priority-laid-bare-as-pm-faces-dire-polling/ar-AA1dom3D

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/rishi-sunak-s-dismal-failure-on-every-priority-laid-bare-as-pm-faces-dire-polling/ar-AA1dom3D

https://www.wealdenconservatives.com/news/affordable-wealden-homes

https://www.moneywise.co.uk/news/2020-03-11/budget-2020-ps600-billion-boost-britains-infrastructure

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/mar/11/sunak-budget-regions-liverpool-hull-chancellor-infrastructure

https://www.cityam.com/budget-2020-chancellor-rishi-sunak-promises-record-infrastructure-spend/

https://www.gov.uk/government/people/rishi-sunak

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rishi_Sunak

https://www.rishisunak.com/

https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/rishi-sunak-heaps-praise-on-sajid-javid-just-weeks-after-replacing-him-as-chancellor

CLIMATE CHANGE COP HISTORY

DESERTIFICATION COP HISTORY

BIODIVERSITY COP HISTORY

UN CLIMATE ACTION PORTFOLIOS

1. Finance
2. Energy Transition
3. Industry Transition
4. Nature-Based Solutions
5. Cities and Local Action
6. Resilience and Adaptation
7. Mitigation Strategy
8. Youth Engagement & Public Mobilization
9. Social and Political Drivers