The Green Party of England and Wales has today launched their Real Hope Real Change manifesto, promising to "invest to mend broken Britain."
You can watch the launch event in Brighton & Hove, East Sussex, on Youtube here and read the press release.
Co-leaders Carla Denyer and Adrian Ramsey said, "Voting Green on 4th July is your way of showing you believe a fairer, greener world is possible – and is worth fighting for."
The Green Party is standing candidates in every constituency. Please support your local candidates, Cllr Hema YellaPragada (Warwick & Leamington) and Cllr Alix Dearing (Kenilworth & Southam), pictured below with other Green candidates, to spread the message for the 2024 General Election.
Highlights of the manifesto include:
- Introduce a wealth tax of 1% annually on people with assets over £10 million and of 2% on assets over £1 billion.
- Align tax rates on investment income with employment income tax and NIC and remove NIC upper earnings limit so high earners pay more.
- Increase the minimum wage to £15 an hour with the cost of small businesses offset by reducing their national insurance payments.
- Increase Universal credit by £40 a week and abolish the two-child benefit cap lifting 250,000 children out of poverty.
- Invest £40 billion per year over the course of the next parliament in the shift to a green economy and £12.4 billion in skills and training to equip workers.
- Introduce a carbon tax to drive fossil fuels out of our economy and raise money for the green transition.
- Bring the railways, water companies and big 5 energy companies into public ownership.
- Set up regional mutual banks to support small and medium sized businesses and drive investment in local economic sustainability.
- Invest £28 billion in the NHS to reduce waiting lists, increase staff pay and guarantee access to an NHS dentist.
- Invest an additional £20 billion on hospitals buildings and repair.
- Introduce free personal care to ensure dignity in old age and for people with disabilities, at a cost of £20 billion.
- Introduce A Right Homes, Right Place, Right Price charter so local authorities have to build new housing to Passivhaus standards and protect green space.
- Provide 150,000 new social homes every year and end the ‘right to buy’ to keep social homes for communities for perpetuity.
- Implement rent controls so local authorities can keep rents affordable and an end to no fault evictions so tenants are secure in their homes.
- Invest £29 billion investment over the next five years to insulate homes to energy efficiency EPC B standard and £9 billion in low carbon heating.
- Transition to a zero carbon economy as soon as possible and ten years ahead of 2050 by investing in wind and solar energy, and phase out nuclear.
- Cancel recent fossil fuel licences such as Rosebank, stop all new fossil fuel extraction projects in the UK and remove oil and gas subsidies.
- Introduce a new Rights of Nature Act to protect and restore nature and stop the scandal of water companies pumping sewage into rivers and seas.
- Introduce a Right to Roam Act to extend people’s access to green space and waterways and a Clean Air Act so everyone can breathe clean air.
- Create a Commission on Animal Protection, ban blood sports and badger culling.
- Triple financial support for farmers to adopt nature friendly farming and link payments to reduced use of pesticides and other agro-chemicals.
- Invest an additional £19 billion over five years to improve public transport, support railway electrification, and create new cycleways and footpaths.
- Introduce a frequent flyer levy, ban domestic flights for journeys that take less than three hours by train, and halt the expansion of airports.
- Introduce equal employment rights from day 1, a legal obligation on employers to recognise trade unions, and move to a four day working week.
- Increase school funding by £8 billion including £2 billion for a pay uplift for teachers, end tuition fees for higher education students and abolish Ofsted.
- Introduce free schools meals for all children and free breakfast clubs for primary school children.
- Replace first past the post with a fair and proportional voting system and the House of Lords with an elected chamber. Extend the vote to 16-year-olds.
- Change the law so no individual or company can own more than 20% of any media market.
- Push for an immediate bilateral ceasefire in Gaza, end arms sales to Israel and campaign to end the illegal occupation of Palestinian land.
- Increase international aid to 1% and climate finance for the Global South to 1.5% of gross national income by 2033, with an additional contribution to a new Loss and Damage Fund.