No help on DAB radio's energy cost from DECC or Chris Hughes

If you remember my blog on 25th July where a number of local activists sent letters to Chris Hughes who is the Energy and Climate Change Secretary re DAB Radio Energy and Cost. Well we all received the same reply from the Department of Energy & Climate Change, well for what's its worth, here it is;

Thank you for your letter dated 9 July to Chris Huhne and your comments on DAB Radios and climate change. I have been asked to reply and apologise for the lengthy delay in doing so.

This government is committed to making the urgent decisions needed on energy and climate change. The Prime Minister has publicly stated that he wants to make this the greenest government ever'. Climate change is the biggest challenge we face, and the time we have to address it is short. But it also represents a real opportunity to drive forward innovation, job creation and competitiveness, supporting the UK economy while playing our full part in tackling global climate change.

You may wish to keep an eye on our website (www.decc.gov.uk) which is regularly updated with policy developments.

It also contains details of our open consultations to which you are welcome to contribute your views. The latest and most comprehensive expression on the Government's agenda, is set out in the Annual Energy Statement, which our Secretary of State, Chris Huhne, presented to Parliament on 27 July, details of which can be found at: http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/contentlcms/whatwedo/uksupply/aes/aes.aspx

I hope that you find this helpful.

Yours sincerely
Matt Valentine
DECC Correspondence Unit

As you can see Matt Valentine totally ignored the contents of the letters, so one of our members has sent the letter below in reply to Matt. I think it speaks for itself;


Dear Mr.Valentine

DAB Radio and Climate Change Action Contradictions

Thank you for your letter, dated August 2010, replying to mine with the above heading, which was addressed to Chris Huhne MP, and dated 9th July.

I must say that I am very disappointed that you have made no attempt whatsoever to answer any of my questions, or to discuss any of the points that I made about adverse effects on climate change in my letter. Nothing you have said alters my conviction that this DAB radio conversion was the last government's response to pressures from the businesses and industries that are involved and that will benefit hugely from it. Nor does it ease my serious doubt that any adverse impacts on climate change were even remotely considered by that previous government.

Quite naturally, because of the green claims by both the Prime Minister David Cameron and his Deputy Nick Clegg, and also by the DECC Secretary of State Chris Huhne, I did expect much better from this new Coalition government. Yet, while this DAB radio changeover will have some very obvious links to job creation that you refer to, it most certainly not green jobs that are going to be created by it!

I hereby, once again, accuse the DECC of supporting a policy that is going to waste energy and accelerate climate change, not slow it down.

How can the DECC, possibly justify doing this? Is job creation and supporting the economy always going to win over climate change action?

Please tell me how this is going to save any energy whatsoever, even over the longer term, as compared with the sum total of all the energy that will be consumed in making this changeover, plus all the energy that will be wasted – the energy that was invested in making the analogue radios.

Please tell me how this is going help us play our part to stop global climate change. If you can offer me one shred of evidence or any persuasive argument that will prove me wrong I would be quite pleased to hear from you again.

I would be even more pleased to receive the courtesy of a more detailed reply from the actual gentleman that I took considerable trouble to write to in the first place, rather than have my letter discarded into the "distraction therapy unit" that you appear to be working in. This seems to be incapable of doing much more than issue stock phrases of reassurance to people's letters that the new minister finds too awkward for him to reply to himself.

I shall look at the www.decc.gov.uk website, and I will respond to any open consultations. However, in my experience, these are very often just a black hole into which concerned people take a lot of trouble to pour out their hearts, with their serious concerns and even constructive suggestions - yet where any unwelcome feedback is conveniently lost forever.

Most government consultations seem to me to exist to justify the claim to having had one.

Yours sincerely

xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

In addition a letter has been send to our local MP Dr Phillip Lee who is Chairman of the All Party Committee on the Environment and is also a member of the Energy and Climate Change Committee. We await his reply to, lets hope he actually reads the letter.