Foreword 1

Executive Summary 3

The Green New Deal 5 The Green New Deal for energy 10 The Green New Deal for housing 13 The Green New Deal for transport 15 The Green New Deal for industry 18 The Green New Deal for food, farming & forestry 21 The Green New Deal for incomes 26 The Green New Deal and the rest of our Manifesto 27

Remain and Transform 28 Brexit and a People’s Vote 29 Transforming the European Union 30

Growing Democracy 34 Shaking up central government 38 Empowering local government 40 Global justice and international aid 45 The Green Quality of Life Guarantee 48 Delivering secure incomes and secure homes 49 Restoring the NHS 54 Unlocking education 55 Restoring our nature and countryside 57 Tackling discrimination 60 Preventing crime 65 Ending the war on drugs 66 Transforming our relationship with animals 68

The New Deal for Tax and Spend 71 Simplifying income taxes 73 Reforming property taxes 74 Making big business pay its fair share 75 Supporting small business 77 Ending wasteful spending 79

Postscript 81

Appendix – How it all adds up 84 The time to vote Green is now.

We know these are dark days. The threat of Brexit hangs over us and our democracy is under attack. The Green New Deal

Above all, the climate and environmental emergency rages from the Amazon to the Arctic. The science is clear – the next ten years are probably the most important in our history.

At this time of crisis, we cannot go on as we are.

If ever there was a time to vote Green, it’s now.

We want to unleash a revolution that lifts up everyone. Our plan for a Green New Deal, and four related programmes of reform, will transform the UK and improve the quality of everyone’s lives by creating a safer, fairer future for all.

We are the only party you can trust to act in time to tackle the Climate Emergency in a way that also tackles pressing social problems.

We are the only party you can trust to stand up for remaining part of Europe and for a final say on Brexit, whilst at the same time tackling the underlying reasons why many people voted to leave.

We are the only party you can trust to fix our broken democracy, by sharing power as well as wealth more equally, so that we can all be heard.

The Green Party has always been on the right side of history and you can trust us to get the future right too.

The choices we make now matter like never before. The UK needs a new start.

If not now, then when?

Green Party Manifesto 2019 1

Note on territorial coverage

This is the manifesto of the Green Party of England and Wales. Separate sister Green parties cover Scotland and Northern Ireland. Many public services are devolved, with the Scottish Parliament, the National Assembly for Wales or the Northern Ireland Assembly taking responsibility. However, most decisions on government expenditure and on taxation are ultimately taken on a UK basis, this is a UK general election and, despite the fact that this Green Party covers only England and Wales, and to maintain consistency and comparability, the policies in this Manifesto will cover the whole of the UK unless otherwise stated.

2 If Not Now, When? To tackle the Climate Emergency, and deliver social justice, we propose:

The Green New Deal

The Green New Deal will invest in our shared future, funding improvements in:

Energy: including the replacement of fossil fuels with renewable energy.

Housing: including the provision of better insulation for all homes that need it, the delivery of major heating upgrades for 1 million homes a year and the creation of 100,000 new energy efficient council homes a year.

Transport: including the delivery of a public and sustainable transport revolution, which will allow people to travel cheaply and safely on new trains, buses, cycleways and footpaths.

Industry: including support for businesses to decarbonise and the provision of training to give people skills to access millions of new green jobs.

Food, Farming & Forestry: including the planting of 700 million trees and support for healthy and sustainable food and farming systems.

Incomes: including the creation of a Universal Basic Income, paid to all UK residents to tackle poverty and give financial security to everyone.

New green homes, new green transport and new green jobs will get us on track to reduce the UK’s carbon emissions to net zero by 2030 and provide new opportunities for everyone to live happier and more secure lives. This will be a combined investment of over £100 billion a year in the Green New Deal, with an additional investment in Universal Basic Income.

Green Party Manifesto 2019 3 To help deliver the Green New Deal, we will deliver four further programmes of reform, closely integrated with our Green New Deal proposals:

Remain and Transform

A People’s Vote to decide the way forward on Brexit, in which the Green Party will campaign for remain. A commitment to realise the full potential of the European Union to lead the fight against the Climate Emergency and to improve the lives of workers, low income families and refugees.

Grow Democracy

Replacing First Past the Post with a proportional voting system, giving 16-year-olds the vote, reforming government to better combat the Climate Emergency and devolving power to councils.

The Green Quality of Life Guarantee

Reversing austerity and funding our public services, tackling discrimination, ending the war on drugs, restoring our natural environment and making wellbeing the focus of our economy.

The New Deal for Tax and Spend

Ending wasteful spending on government vanity projects and reforming our tax system so that the wealthiest pay their fair share.

4 If Not Now, When? The Green New Deal

Unleashing a Green Economic and Social Revolution

Green Party Manifesto 2019 5 In 2019, we face a collective challenge and economic inequality – and to make greater than we have faced for decades. these our top priorities.

The climate we all rely on is breaking The Green New Deal will get the UK on down. The impacts are starting to affect track to reducing climate emissions to us all – the weather is becoming more net zero by 2030 by: extreme, wildlife is declining, sea levels are rising. Our century is only 19 years >> Meeting most of our energy needs old, but already we have had 18 of the through the domestic production of hottest years on record. This summer renewable energy. saw the hottest day ever recorded in the UK, and the hottest month ever recorded >> Reducing our overall energy across the world. demand from buildings and homes.

None of this is happening by accident. >> Transforming UK industry, transport It’s the consequence of an out-of- and land use. control economic system that plunders the Earth’s natural resources to create There will be a combined investment of wealth for the few, casting the climate over £100 billion a year in the into chaos and causing corrosive levels Green New Deal, with an additional of inequality. investment in Universal Basic Income. Through this investment, we will It’s time for a new start, so we have provide new opportunities for everyone developed the Green New Deal. This is a to work and live more sustainably and comprehensive ten-year plan ambitious more securely. The Green New Deal enough to tackle climate and ecological will deliver solid financial foundations breakdown at the scale and speed set across society, through a range of out by science. It will deliver a fast and measures including: fair transformation of our economy and society, renewing almost every >> The creation of millions of new jobs aspect of life in the UK: from the way in renewable energy, transport, land we produce and consume energy, to the management and other sectors way in which we grow the food we eat, transformed by the transition to a and how we work, travel, and heat our net zero carbon economy. homes. >> The provision of the training people As the originators of the Green New need to access these new jobs. Deal, we are the only party you can trust to act in time to tackle the Climate >> The creation of at least 100,000 Emergency and rapidly reduce social new socially rented homes a year

6 If Not Now, When? through low carbon construction to lead the way by innovating and and retrofitting, converting and manufacturing a better future. extending existing buildings. Businesses that are currently obliged to maximise returns to shareholders Implementing the Green New Deal will need to take account of other will need to become a fundamental stakeholders – including the ecosystem objective of government, nationally – and the impact of their activities on and locally, but it will also involve the climate and on communities. Public every single one of us: workers and sector investment to kick-start the investors, creatives and care workers, Green New Deal will act as a catalyst scientists and seniors, administrators for private sector investment, as private The Green New Deal and accountants, farmers and factory investors seek to share in the financial workers, and beyond. rewards of the transition to a net zero carbon future. The Green New Deal will give power and resources for devolved governments, We will create a new public banking elected mayors and local governments infrastructure to help deliver our to transform the communities they ambitious programme and the Green represent. Local people will be directly New Deal will ensure the banks invest involved, actively engaging all of us in and lend at low, affordable interest rates the future of the places where we live to support the economy’s environmental and work. It will also mean new forms transformation. It will also deliver of common ownership throughout vital financial mechanisms and the transfer parts of our infrastructure, such as of new technologies to help the Global waterways, buses, parks and railways. South adapt to climate change in a just way. Investment will be targeted at those who need it most, including The Green New Deal will make space communities with high unemployment, for nature, with policies to restore those excluded from full participation habitats in urban, suburban and in the economy and those dependent countryside settings. It will transform on old, energy guzzling, polluting our food and farming system, to industries. We will work alongside trade improve human and environmental unions to ensure a just transition to a health, maximise the landscape’s green future, which will leave no one ability to store carbon and prevent behind. flooding, promote innovations in land management and ownership, and Business will share collective ease the transition by protecting jobs responsibility for delivering the Green and creating new green employment New Deal too and will be incentivised opportunities.

Green Party Manifesto 2019 7 The wider economy will be transformed global justice the Green New Deal too, re-purposed to protect and includes finance and technology to help enhance the wellbeing of citizens, the majority world adapt to climate society and the natural world. Economic change and support human well-being, growth will no longer be the way we breaking the carbon chains of fossil fuel measure progress. Instead, we will dependence and ending the economic prioritise measures of real prosperity culture that has viewed people and and wellbeing, like improvement in places primarily for the extraction of health, reduction of inequality and the profit. restoration and protection of the natural environment on which we all depend. In short, the Green New Deal will unleash an urgently needed green The Green New Deal is also about economic and social revolution. There is fairness in a warming world. Building no time to lose – we must start now. on the Green Party’s commitment to

Bristol Councillor Carla Denyer, who secured the first declaration of a Climate Emergency in the UK. 8 If Not Now, When? Declaring a Climate Emergency

In October 2018 the UN’s Carla is the Green Party candidate for The Green New Deal Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Bristol West in this General Election. Change published a landmark report warning of the urgent need for rapid In spring 2019 the Green MP for and unprecedented change in all Brighton Pavilion, Caroline Lucas, aspects of society to cut emissions in sponsored an Early Day Motion half in just 12 years. highlighting the Climate Emergency, and welcomed environmental activist Greta Green councillors in Bristol were the Thunberg to Parliament. A few weeks first very politicians in the UK to act in after Greta addressed MPs on the need response. Weeks after the publication for action, Parliament itself declared a of the UN Report, Green Cllr Carla Climate Emergency. Caroline continues Denyer brought an urgent motion to to work to ensure that warm words from Bristol City Council declaring a Climate MPs on tackling the Climate Emergency Emergency and committing the Council are followed through with meaningful to comprehensive action to make the action. city carbon neutral by 2030. From council chambers to Westminster, The motion passed – and set off a and in hundreds of places in between, cascade of others. Over 150 local Greens are leading the fight against authorities have now declared their own climate chaos. Climate Emergencies, along with the Scottish Parliament and the National This election is your chance to stand Assembly for Wales. Green councillors with us and put the Climate Emergency and activists are now working to help at the top of the political agenda. those declaring emergencies to follow through on their promise of action, delivering radical action to halt the Climate Emergency from the ground up.

Green Party Manifesto 2019 9 The Green New Deal for energy >> Introduce new support for solar, geothermal, tidal, hydro and other renewable energies to provide The key to reducing our impact on the much of the remainder of the UK’s climate is to stop burning fossil fuels as energy supply by 2030. soon as possible. >> Transform the planning system so The UK has an abundance of the wind, that it works to support a massive tides, sun and rivers needed to be increase in wind power and other self-sufficient in energy – and it’s time renewable generation. for investment to unleash this potential and enable us leave oil and gas in the >> Work with the Crown Estate, which ground. owns much of the UK’s coastline, to open up more coastal waters for The Green New Deal will accelerate the offshore wind and marine energy. transformation of our energy supply and We will ensure that the long-term create the energy infrastructure of the profits from these vital energy future – one powered by renewables – assets come to the UK government working in harmony with a reduction in rather than energy firms. energy demand. >> Remove subsidies to the oil and gas With our renewable energy supply industries. unlocked, we can hugely reduce fossil fuel use in our energy system, and with >> Apply a Carbon Tax on all fossil fuel it our reliance on nuclear power. imports and domestic extraction, based on greenhouse gas emissions The Green New Deal for energy will produced when fuel is burnt. We revolutionise the way we produce and will also apply a Carbon Tax on use energy. It will: imported energy, based on its embedded emissions. We will raise >> Enable communities to develop the Carbon Tax rate progressively their own renewable energy over a decade, rendering coal, oil projects, so that the benefits of and gas financially unviable as locally generated energy can stay cheaper renewable energies rise up local. to take their place.

>> Introduce new support and >> Connect our electricity supply more incentives to directly accelerate closely to that of our neighbours in wind energy development, paving Europe, to provide a wider supply the way for wind to provide around we can call on when needed and 70% of the UK’s electricity by 2030. 10 If Not Now, When? to allow us to export electricity >> Encourage greater energy efficiency when we have a surplus. Subsea across the economy, including connections to Norway and Iceland by providing energy efficiency to connect to their hydro and training for businesses and public geothermal power supplies will be bodies, emphasising the need for particularly encouraged. behavioural change – we all need to value energy as we value money. >> Deploy demand side management Small businesses and co-ops will and significantly expand and receive this training for free. improve the efficiency of the electricity grid, doubling its >> Ban fracking, and other The Green New Deal capacity so that it can distribute unconventional forms of fossil fuel the increased electricity the UK will extraction, now and forever. need as it transitions away from fossil fuels.

>> Expand our short-term capacity for energy storage so that electricity from peak periods of renewable electricity generation (e.g. days with very strong winds and many hours of sunshine) can be effectively stored – utilising solutions such as domestic solar batteries, storage as heat in hot water cylinders and thermal stores, and smart control of vehicle battery charging.

>> Prohibit the construction of nuclear power stations. We know that nuclear is a distraction from developing renewable energy, carries an unacceptable risk for the communities living close to nuclear energy facilities, creates unmanageable quantities of radioactive waste and is inextricably linked with the production of world-destroying nuclear weapons.

Green Party Manifesto 2019 11 12 If Not Now, When? The Green New Deal for space heating than the average home, significantly reducing housing household bills.

Green New Deal investment in housing >> Allocate funding to local authorities will simultaneously reduce climate for council home creation based emissions, tackle fuel poverty and on the needs of their area. We provide genuinely affordable housing. expect much of the need to be concentrated in areas where Green We will improve the insulation of every New Deal jobs will be created. We home in the UK, making sure they are will incentivise local authorities The Green New Deal all warm in winter. This green homes to spread small developments revolution will make sure nobody is across their areas, rather than forced to choose between heating or building huge new estates, and to eating. build, renovate and convert to high quality designs that respect local Everyone should have a safe, affordable architectural heritage. The new and warm place to call home. We will council homes will offer secure, end the housing crisis by creating lifetime tenancies. enough affordable homes – including 100,000 new council homes a year. >> Ensure all new developments will be located and designed to ensure Our plans will also ensure that all new that residents do not need cars to and renovated homes meet the highest live a full life, either having safe possible standards and meet social pedestrian access to local shops needs. Work on our homes, businesses and schools, or are within 1km of and public buildings will create quality a local rail, tube or tram station, jobs in every part of the UK as we shift or 500m of a high frequency bus to a net zero carbon economy. service.

Our Green New Deal for housing will: >> Make energy efficiency and elimination fuel poverty a national >> Empower local authorities to bring infrastructure priority. empty homes back into use and create a total of 100,000 new >> Improve the insulation of every UK homes for social rent (council home that needs more insulation by homes) a year, built to the 2030. The material used for these Passivhaus or equivalent standard. insulation improvements will be This standard will see these new sustainable. homes use 90% less energy for

Green Party Manifesto 2019 13 >> Significantly reduce heating bills by >> Deploy heat networks to transport improving 1 million existing homes heat from the source of renewable and other buildings a year, so that heat to individual buildings in a they reach the highest standard of district or neighbourhood. energy efficiency (over and above the Energy Performance Certificate >> Transform the planning system and A rating). Homes lived in by people building regulations, so that all new on low incomes will be the first to buildings built by private developers receive these major improvements are built to the Passivhaus standard and benefit from reduced heating (or to a standard that delivers bills. This will be a deep retrofitting energy efficiency at an equivalent or of 10 million homes by 2030, on better level). We will enable self- top of the insulation improvements build development that meets the every home that needs it will same standards. receive. >> Improve building regulations so that >> Roll out solar panels and other all renovations to roofs, external forms of renewable domestic walls, windows and doors improve energy generation, giving 1 million the energy performance of that part households a year the means to of the building to the equivalent generate a proportion of the energy of (or better than) an Energy they use. This will mean that 10 Performance Certificate A rating. million homes are able to generate We will reinstate the requirement their own renewable energy by for local council building control 2030. inspectors to carry out inspections themselves of new build properties >> Reduce the use of natural gas and renovations to ensure this for heating homes through a work is carried out to the required programme, to replace polluting standards. boilers with renewable heat from heat pumps, and solar thermal, >> Ensure that all 8 million rented geothermal, biomass and stored homes are A rated for energy heat technologies. efficiency, or as close to this as possible, by implementing >> Insulate non domestic buildings, a Minimum Energy Efficiency addressing the large amounts of Standard escalator to raise the energy lost from offices and public minimum level allowed from the buildings. current E rating to A rating by 2030.

14 If Not Now, When? >> Update the fire safety regulations The Green New Deal for relating to the use of all types of insulation in buildings. transport

>> Change the planning system to Our transport system is built on fossil incentivise renovation, extension fuels. As well as destabilising our and improvement of existing climate, this reliance traps us into buildings, rather than relying stressful, unhealthy and expensive on new build, to reduce the use forms of travel. Car dependency of steel, concrete, cladding and contributes to congestion, road danger finishes, which produce massive and air pollution whilst reducing The Green New Deal amounts of carbon in their physical activity. manufacture. Similarly we will incentivise the use of sustainable The Green New Deal will revolutionise materials. our transport system by ending dependence on carbon, and investing These reforms will integrate closely with instead in alternatives that work for the proposals set out in the ‘Delivering better for the climate and for people. secure incomes and homes’ section on This means more reliable and affordable page 49. trains, electric buses and trams, and better options for cycling and walking.

From new trains and targeted fare reductions, to rapidly expanding bike hire schemes, we think it’s time to transform the way the UK moves.

Our Green New Deal for transport will invest in public transport, walking and cycling so wherever people live they are not forced to use a car, by:

>> Spending £2.5 billion a year on new cycleways and footpaths, built using sustainable materials, such as woodchips and sawdust.

>> Making travelling by public transport cheaper than travelling by car, by reducing the cost of

Green Party Manifesto 2019 15 travelling by train and bus. Coach back into public ownership over ten travel will also be encouraged, with years. new routes for electric coaches provided across the country. >> Ensuring good railway connections with all ports to enable more freight >> Creating a new golden age of train between ports and inland terminals by opening new rail connections to be carried on rail. We will invest that remove bottlenecks, increase in additional freight routes resulting rail freight capacity, improve in the majority of long-distance journey times and frequencies, freight switching from road to rail. enhance capacity in the South West, Midlands and North, and connect >> Giving all local authorities control currently unconnected urban areas. over bus services (as London We would also look, where possible, currently has) and supporting to re-open closed stations. These local authorities to restore lost bus rail improvements will benefit routes and open new ones. Local from funding switched from the authorities serving urban areas will damaging HS2 scheme, which we be encouraged to explore tramways will cancel (see ‘Ending wasteful as an additional public transport spending’ section below for more option. details). >> Providing more bus priority >> Electrifying all railway lines measures on the roads to improve that connect cities, improving punctuality. punctuality. >> Funding local authorities to improve >> Creating a government-owned the appearance and facilities of rolling stock company which would bus stops, bus stations and train invest in a fleet of new electric stations, to make them more user trains to run on newly electrified friendly and convenient for both lines. passengers and transport staff. This includes the provision of more >> Giving responsibility for running public toilets, and ensuring full short-distance passenger rail accessibility for disabled people. franchises to councils, or groups of councils that come together to work >> Apply a Carbon Tax on all fossil on local transport. This will give fuels, as outlined above in the local communities a greater say in ‘Green New Deal for energy’ the running of the rail services they section, which will increase the rely on. We will bring all railways cost of petrol, diesel and shipping

16 If Not Now, When? fuel, as well as on aviation fuel for in 2030 create the minimum of domestic flights. Domestic flights pollution. Even electric vehicles will also lose their VAT exemption pollute, so they represent an and there will be an additional improvement on the current surcharge on domestic aviation situation, not a solution in fuel to account for the increased themselves. warming effect of emissions release at altitude. We will lobby >> Create a network of electric vehicle against the international rules that charging points across the country, prevent action being taken to tax by requiring their construction

international aviation fuel. through the planning system and The Green New Deal encouraging the private sector to >> Ban advertising for flights, and deliver them. We will ensure that introduce a Frequent Flyer Levy to these charging points are located reduce the impact of the 15% of in public places, and do not take people who take 70% of flights. This up pavement and cycling space. Frequent Flyer Levy only applies We will require all existing petrol to people who take more than one stations and motorway service (return) flight a year, discouraging stations to offer electric vehicle excessive flying. charging points by 2025.

>> Stop the building of new runways >> Civilise our streets by making Low and all increased road capacity, Traffic Neighbourhoods (in which saving thousands of acres of rat-running is blocked) the norm countryside every year and for residential areas and making protecting people from the harm of 20 miles per hour the default increased air pollution and traffic speed limit. These changes would danger. reduce traffic, carbon emissions and danger to people walking >> End the sale of new petrol and and cycling. They would restore diesel fuelled vehicles by 2030. our streets to all people. They Over the next ten years we will ease would also form part of a wider this transition by incentivising the commitment to the core principle replacement of diesel and petrol of the Vision Zero campaign – that vans, lorries and coaches with there should be no fatalities or electric vehicles. Our priority is serious injuries as a result of road reducing overall mileage and the traffic collisions. number of vehicles on our roads – these further measures will ensure >> Make 40 miles per hour the default that the vehicles still on our roads speed limit in non-residential areas except on major roads. Green Party Manifesto 2019 17 >> Ensure through the planning system The Green New Deal for that all new housing is served by high quality walking and cycling industry routes and much improved bus, tram and local rail services. New Green New Deal investment will residents must not be forced into rebalance industry, away from the car use. carbon past and towards the renewable future. >> Incentivise changes to travelling behaviour by promoting more stay New technologies, along with huge at home working (with working expansions in renewable energy, will hours’ heating, electricity and Wi-Fi create millions of new, good quality, costs reimbursed by employers well-paid, secure jobs in every corner for low income workers working of the country – with training for these from home), more business new jobs funded by the Green New teleconferencing, more local work Deal. This unprecedented investment station hubs and more car club in training and skills will prioritise schemes. We will also encourage communities hit hard by economic more domestic holiday travel, changes over recent decades. through removing VAT from UK hotel and holiday home stays and A circular economy will underpin this attractions. green industrial revolution, designing out waste and pollution, keeping products and materials in use, and regenerating natural systems. Recycling and repairing will be made easier for all, reducing the need to buy new, expensive products on a regular basis.

Our Green New Deal for industry will:

>> Bring back the UK as an internationally recognised manufacturing powerhouse with proactive, wide-scale support for the UK-based manufacturing of renewable energy infrastructure.

>> Set new clean technology standards and invest in research

18 If Not Now, When? and development to help industry mines, ensuing a just transition for to meet them and create new job workers affected. opportunities through doing so. We will provide companies with >> Invest £2 billion a year in grants to allow replacement of old training and skills (including new high-emitting carbon equipment apprenticeships), to help people with newly developed low carbon access the new, decent jobs equipment. These incentives to created through the transition to a replace equipment will avoid the low carbon economy. long-term lock-in of high carbon technologies. >> Give local authorities the power to The Green New Deal direct the newly created training >> Help create a network of regional and skills programmes. National mutual banks to provide funding for government will provide the funding start-up companies (particularly and democratically elected local co-operatives, community authorities will be given the power interest companies and other to decide how it should be spent, to non-profit businesses) developing help residents’ access new jobs. technologies which contribute to decarbonising our economy. >> Encourage the renovation of non- domestic buildings, through making >> Apply a Carbon Tax as outlined planning consent harder to achieve above in the ‘Green New Deal for for new commercial property. energy’ section. This will raise the price of processes that use fossil >> Reduce the emission of polluting fuels and thus of the products fluorinated gases (used in fridges, they produce. This will incentivise air conditioners and aerosols) industry to switch to low and zero in all manufactured goods by carbon technology and equipment implementing the Committee on as well as encouraging consumers Climate Change recommendations to choose low carbon products. in this area. Non-fossil-fuel greenhouse gas emissions from industrial >> Boost the repair and recondition installations will also be subject to sector with new apprenticeship the Carbon Tax. schemes.

>> Prepare for the rapid >> Develop the infrastructure decommissioning of North Sea oil necessary to enable large rigs and the phasing out of the UK’s corporations and individuals to remaining coal plants and coal recycle close to 100% of the items they use. Green Party Manifesto 2019 19 >> Require manufacturers to offer ten- recycling and disposing of the year warranties on white goods, to packaging they produce. encourage repair and reuse. We will create a comprehensive ‘right to >> Start deployment of a Carbon repair’, to require manufacturers to Capture and Storage (CCS) system keep goods operational years after that can deal with CO2 emissions purchase and to ban the practice of from manufacture of iron, steel and producing goods with the intention cement. that they will become obsolete in a few years’ time.

>> Require manufacturers to only produce the most energy efficient white goods, TVs, lighting and electric cookers.

>> Require manufacturers to only produce the most energy efficient, low emissions vehicles.

>> Encourage a shift from models of ownership to usership, such as with car-sharing platforms and neighbourhood libraries for tools and equipment.

>> Ban the production of single-use plastics for use in packaging and invest in research and development into alternatives to plastic. We will also extend the successful tax on plastic bags to cover plastic bottles, single-use plastics and microplastics, and extend plastic bottle deposit schemes.

>> Develop and implement a reformed waste strategy where manufacturers and retailers are required to pay the full cost of

20 If Not Now, When? The Green New Deal for food, Our Green New Deal for food, farming & forestry will: farming & forestry >> Work with farmers to refocus farm The Green New Deal will transform subsidies to help farmers transition our relationship with the land. It will to more sustainable, diverse and increase space for nature through environmentally friendly forms of the restoration of natural landscapes, land use, including organic farming, habitats and species in urban, suburban agroforestry and mixed farming, and countryside environments. We and away from intensive livestock want to increase the opportunities farming. The Green New Deal for food growing, for greening our landscape and improving our health. >> Provide farmers with grants to allow Through reforestation, rewilding and replacement of old high-emitting regenerative farming, we will reduce carbon farming machinery with carbon emissions and realise the land’s low carbon machinery (including ability to absorb carbon. vehicles powered by biofuels rather than fossil fuels). Grants will also The way we produce our food needs be available to enable further to support employment, the ecosystem improvements to farm buildings and and improve public health. A ten-year infrastructure, to help farmers in the transition to agroecological farming transition to agroecological farming. will include the transfer of subsidies to farming methods and food systems >> Encourage the expansion and that create jobs and restore ecosystem replanting of majority of hedgerows health, including the quality of our soils lost in the last 50 years through and rivers. It will also advance food new subsidies, creating new sovereignty, including by localising environments for wildlife. food systems and putting control over the resources to produce, distribute >> Legislate to give farmers greater and access food in the hands of security of tenure, so that they can communities and workers across the invest in sustainable improvements food system. to their land, whilst ending the use of land as a tax shelter and We will also lay down a new natural encouraging new entrants into inheritance to be passed down to future farming. generations, through the creation of community owned and run forests. >> Create thousands of new jobs in rural areas, through the shift away from intensive farming towards

Green Party Manifesto 2019 21 smaller-scale, more people- and monitoring process – only focussed food production and land pesticides that pass strict tests, management that respects nature. and demonstrably don’t harm bees, We will invest in training and skills butterflies and other wildlife, will be to help people develop and apply approved for use in the UK. We will the skills needed in these new jobs. also reduce the amount of nitrogen fertiliser used on UK farms. >> Better connect rural communities through reliable broadband and >> Plant 700 million new trees and mobile internet, delivered through aim for 50% of all farms to be councils who understand local engaged in agroforestry by 2030. connection needs. We will encourage the planting of more trees in more towns and >> Establish a Land Commission to cities, including apple, nut and investigate the effects concentrated other crop trees than can produce land ownership is having on food food. The new woodland, when fully and farming systems, housing, local grown, will store carbon, provide economies, cultures and livelihoods. home-grown timber and create This Commission will be introduced new wildlife-rich environments. alongside a new Land Value Tax We will support farmers to diversify (see ‘Reforming property taxes’ their incomes through new forest section below), which will help management. ensure that all land is taxed fairly. >> Encourage, through changes to the >> Reduce pesticide and fungicide planning system, the ‘rewilding’ use by at least 50% by overall of spaces to provide new habitats weight by 2022, phase out all for wildlife. An ecological crisis is non-agricultural uses of pesticides, happening – we must tackle it by and immediately ban the most restoring, expanding and joining harmful substances. We will secure up the wild spaces nature needs to protection of rural residents and thrive. communities from exposure to pesticides sprayed on nearby >> Maintain a moratorium on crop fields and prohibit the use of production and import of genetically pesticides in the locality of homes, modified (GM) foods, including food schools and children’s playgrounds. from animals fed on GM feed. We will strengthen the role of independent scientific advice and >> Establish a Food and Agriculture the application of the precautionary Research Council to research principle in the pesticide regulation sustainable and health-promoting

22 If Not Now, When? methods of food production and of the UK’s carbon emissions that distribution. We will also support come from the methane produced research into the reduction by livestock. The revenues from of methane emissions from this part of the Carbon Tax will livestock and the conservation and be recycled back into farming, development of high quality soils, as and will be spent on measures to the foundation of all that we grow. help farmers transition to more sustainable farming methods. >> Encourage urban food growing, including new community farms and >> Promote initiatives to reduce allotments, through the planning food waste, including education The Green New Deal system, as well as matching those programmes and changing the rules with gardens and who want to grow to allow food waste to be used for food with those with the skills to animal feed for pigs and chickens. undertake the work for communal benefit. Similarly we will encourage >> Legislate for a right to food, the creation of new green spaces giving everyone access to healthy, wherever they can take root – from nutritious, locally grown food, pocket parks on vacant land, to including the creation of new living green roofs and walls. We will providers to supply this food at an also encourage urban gardeners to affordable price to schools. We will plan for wildlife – opting for grass also promote children’s access to and shrubs over paving in a garden healthy food and tackle childhood can create vital new habitats for obesity, including by updating the wildlife. School Food Standards to reflect the latest nutritional guidance and apply >> Incentivise changes in food to all schools, and renaming ‘Free consumption, by promoting the School Meals’ the ‘School Meals benefits of healthy diets, based on Allowance’ to tackle stigma. locally and sustainably produced food, and ‘less but better’ meat >> Deploy environmentally friendly and dairy consumption, including flood management measures to clear labelling to indicate carbon protect communities from flooding. emissions, high animal welfare and These measures, which include intensive production methods. tree planning and soil restoration in upland catchment areas to >> Support the transition to plant- tackle excess water at source, are based diets by phasing in a tax on cheaper and more effective than meat and dairy products over the the traditional approach of simply next ten years, to reduce the 5% covering river banks in concrete.

Green Party Manifesto 2019 23 We will change the planning system to prevent building on floodplains, to further reduce the flooding risk communities face.

>> Launch a public information campaign to educate the public about the biodiversity loss and other Climate Emergency threats we face, and encourage the behaviour change needed in response.

These reforms will integrate closely with the proposals set out in the ‘Restoring our nature and countryside’ section on page 57.

24 If Not Now, When? Fighting for Sheffield’s Trees

Sheffield City Council began a tree More Green councillors were elected The Green New Deal felling programme in 2012, as part of in the 2018 and 2019 local elections in a Private Finance Initiative (PFI) deal Sheffield. Finally in July 2019 Sheffield with a private company. Over the next City Council gave into pressure from six years more than 5,000 trees, most residents and Green councillors and of them healthy, were felled in the agreed to save the city’s trees. city. Sheffield Green Party stood with residents horrified at the loss of the Alison is the Green Party candidate trees, protesting in the Council Chamber for Sheffield Central in this General and the streets against the de-greening Election. of the city. In 2017 Green Cllr Alison Teal was arrested with other residents trying to save trees earmarked for destruction.

The Labour council took Alison and several residents to the High Court and had an injunction imposed to prevent them from protecting trees. Later the Labour council accused Alison of breaching the injunction and took her to the High Court to face a committal hearing. However, the judge dismissed the case and the evidence the council had presented against her.

Green Party Manifesto 2019 25 The Green New Deal for This universal enrichment will provide all of us with new options and incomes opportunities, in both our work and personal lives. It’s time to deliver a secure, basic income for all. Our Green New Deal for incomes will:

The Green New Deal will transform >> Phase in the introduction of a our social welfare system by phasing Universal Basic Income (UBI) in a Universal Basic Income (UBI), sufficient to cover an adult’s basic an unconditional financial payment needs. UBI will be an unconditional to everyone at a level above their payment, paid to all UK residents subsistence needs. Through UBI we regardless of employment status. plan, open the door to opportunities that might otherwise be out of reach, and >> Replace most income-related liberate people from job insecurity. benefits with UBI (except for the additional benefits described We think financial security is a key below). Replacing a large range of building block of a good society. No variously means-tested benefits one currently in receipt of benefits with one unconditional payment will will be worse off under UBI – and simplify and streamline the system. many will be much better off. Those excluded or overlooked by the current >> Ensure nobody will be worse off. means-tested system will see the The adult rate of UBI of £89 per biggest benefits. This includes low to week will result in around a 6% medium income families with children, increase in disposable income over young people and students, and some five years for someone in full- pensioners. Someone earning the time work and paid the average minimum wage and working 37.5 hours salary. It is our firm intention to a week would see their income increase increase in particular adult rates at by 10 to 15% through UBI. regular intervals during the first full parliamentary term. UBI will also start to challenge how work is often valued as simply about >> Include additional payments above earning money to drive consumption, as the basic adult rate for some groups part of our plans to encourage sensible, of people: green economic decision making for the long term. >> Pensioners will receive a weekly payment totalling £178.

26 If Not Now, When? >> Disabled people will receive an The Green New Deal and the additional supplement to their UBI, as will lone parents and rest of our Manifesto lone pensioners. You can find out more environmental >> People who were reliant on and financial detail about how we Housing Benefit before UBI would deliver our Green New Deal in the was introduced will continue appendix to this Manifesto. to receive it, so that they can cover their rent. The remainder of this Manifesto sets out four related programmes of reform The Green New Deal >> Families with an income that will help a Green New Deal to of under £50,000 per year succeed – remaining in the EU, growing will receive an additional democracy, making improving quality of supplement of £70 per week for life a government priority and reforming each of their first two children the tax system to make it capable of and a further £50 per week for funding the green revolution. each additional child. This General Election is a chance >> Families with an income of over to show the other parties the scale £50,000 per year will receive of support for not just talking about smaller additional supplements the Green New Deal concept, but per child, with the amount implementing a real, meaningful version decreasing further the more a of it. family earns. Every Green vote is a vote to keep the >> Draw directly on income from Climate Emergency on the political the Carbon Tax to help fund UBI, agenda. Every Green vote is call to thereby ensuring that the proceeds action on climate chaos. Every Green of the tax on carbon emissions help vote will make the Green New Deal meet the cost of enabling people to happen. make the transition to a carbon free future.

These reforms will integrate closely with the proposals set out in the ‘Delivering secure incomes and homes’ section on page 49.

Green Party Manifesto 2019 27 Saying Yes to Europe. And its Potential to Deliver Climate and Social Justice

28 If Not Now, When? Brexit and a People’s Vote power game is rigged. We recognise the reasons why many people voted for Brexit: hollowed out communities, We are a proudly pro-European party power centralised at Westminster, local and are unequivocally campaigning for economies starved of investment, run Britain to Remain in the EU. down public services and jobs without dignity. Nobody voted for less democracy during the 2016 referendum and we continue We will make staying and fighting to believe that more democracy is for the Europe we want a pathway to the way to break the current Brexit change – to a society that is genuinely deadlock and start to unite our country fair, green and fulfilling. Greens will again. play a leading role in mobilising a positive pro-European movement that Our Green MP, Caroline Lucas, was

has young people at its heart. We have Remain and Transform a co-founder of the campaign for a demonstrated that we are willing to People’s Vote. The Green MPs you elect work across party boundaries to resist will champion their constituent’s right to Brexit, and will continue to do so. We an immediate final say on the terms of will inspire a vote to remain with a any Brexit deal, through a People’s Vote, vision of the way membership of the EU with Remain as an option on the ballot can improve all our lives. And whatever paper. happens, we will guarantee the full rights of EU citizens and their families The place that we’ve been brought to by living in the UK, including the right to the outcome of the Brexit referendum automatic settled status and ensure is difficult, dangerous and divisive. there is no rolling back of the rights and Democracy and truth are under attack, protections enshrined in the EU Charter and the real agenda of those pulling the of Fundamental Rights. populist strings is widespread chaos in which discord will thrive. A Green vote in this General Election is an opportunity to choose remaining in It’s time to choose what kind of country the EU and transforming the UK. It’s an we want to be and to rediscover the opportunity to choose a People’s Vote. hopes and dreams that will unite us. It’s an opportunity to choose Project Hope over Project Fear. There can be no turning back the clock. The referendum was a radical rejection of a status quo that is intolerable for huge numbers of people in this country. The social contract is broken and the

Green Party Manifesto 2019 29 Transforming the European Our plan to transform Europe will:

Union >> Allow Members of the EU Parliament to initiate Europe-wide Being part of the European Union legislation, something they don’t offers us the best chance of facing currently have the power to do. In down the big challenges of the future time, we hope that the European – from climate chaos to international Parliament will become the main terrorism. We are fully committed to source of new European legislation working collaboratively with our closest to improve the lives of citizens. neighbours to resolve the common issues we face and in the pursuit of >> Allow groups of EU citizens to peaceful and prosperous lives for all. propose reforms to the EU treaties. The Green Party believes in this vision New rules will require every citizen of international bridges, not walls, and initiative to receive a response, is committed to realising it through setting out how it will lead to building a truly democratic EU that concrete action being taken by the delivers social rights and opportunities EU. for all its citizens. >> Increase the transparency of As Greens we have campaigned hard to European institutions, including the keep the UK in the EU whilst also being European Central Bank, with steps strong voices for change and reform such as live streaming all meetings, within the EU. It’s time to transform and publishing minutes and key the EU into a beacon of democracy, as papers like trade negotiation well as making it more accountable and documents. Citizens have the right transparent. to know how decisions are made and how their money is spent. We want to build on the positive changes secured by Green MEPs in >> Open up the European Council by Europe so far, to further rebalance making positions taken by Member power within the EU in favour of citizens States public. and national self-determination, and away from corporate dominance. We >> Introduce a binding lobbying believe this will lead to a renewed register for all EU institutions and focus on the EU’s potential to deliver set up an independent body to effective solutions to poverty, inequality supervise its operation, as well as and climate chaos – and help secure a other rules on transparency and long-term, positive future for the UK in ethics. the EU.

30 If Not Now, When? >> Campaign for the operations of the a guaranteed minimum income EU to be centred in Brussels, ending for all workers. the wasteful transfer of EU staff and operations between Brussels and >> Reducing migration in the long Strasbourg. term, by correcting imbalances caused by labour-market >> Champion reform of the Common inequalities across Europe. EU Agricultural Policy, so that it policies hold the key to this, promotes more sustainable farming including an EU-wide minimum methods. We will also press for a income guarantee, EU-wide review of the Common Fisheries minimum wages, and fiscal Policy in order to increase its transfers via the Euro. sustainability. >> Working for peace, security

>> Advocate for the EU to prioritise and human rights. The EU was Remain and Transform policy areas where cross-border developed by WWII veterans to co-operation can help deliver real support peace in Europe and change. These include: we celebrate the success of this peace mission. >> Linking up national Green New Deals, to pool renewable energy >> Enshrine Freedom of Movement as resources and share insights a core principle of the EU – enabling and expertise. people to freely live, learn and love without borders. >> Co-ordinating crackdowns on tax avoidance and evasion, so >> Reform European refugee policy, no one seeking to hide from tax centring it on principles of humanity rules can do so anywhere in and compassion. We will campaign the EU. to re-establish a European sea-rescuing mission, to save all >> Harmonising minimum lives in danger in European waters. environmental standards. As nature knows no borders, the >> Press for an urgent review on the EU can play a major role in safety of all migrants travelling to ensuring that habitats split and across Europe. between different counties are all protected by the same rules. >> Advocate for European legalisation to end factory farming and to >> Enforcing social rights and reduce transportation times for protections for citizens, such as animals, including the halting of all

Green Party Manifesto 2019 31 live animal exports from the UK. We will work to ban the killing of animals for sport across the EU.

>> Extend the EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights to give women in all EU countries access to legal, safe and affordable abortion services.

>> Support the introduction of an EU-wide carbon tariff on countries that are not reducing their carbon emissions, to further encourage global action on the Climate Emergency.

32 If Not Now, When? Decriminalising Humanitarian Assistance to Refugees

In June 2018 Green Members of the The motion was won by the Greens, European Parliament proposed a motion with then Green MEP for London Jean calling on EU states to stop criminalising Lambert saying: humanitarian assistance for desperate

refugees. This came after cases when ‘I am delighted that the European Remain and Transform countries had detained and tried to Parliament has sent out a strong prosecute European citizens working message calling on the European to save the lives of refugees at risk of Commission and EU Member States to drowning in the Mediterranean. stop criminalising those who provide humanitarian assistance to people in desperate and life-threatening situations. We can, and must, do better.’

Green Party Manifesto 2019 33 Unleashing a Democratic Revolution

34 If Not Now, When? Brexit laid bare the extent to which party commitment to democratic our governance structures are derelict, reform brokered by the Make Votes but our democracy has been broken Matter campaign group. for a long time. The First Past the Post voting system means that often >> Replace the First Past the Post more than half of all votes cast simply system for local government with a don’t count. The House of Lords gives fair and proportional voting system. power to people who have never been Voters will be asked to elect half the elected and our political representation Council every two years to ensure doesn’t reflect the diversity and reality that fast changing local concerns of the modern UK. We are one of the and priorities can be expressed at most centralised countries in Europe, the ballot box on a regular basis. with disproportionate power held at Westminster, and far too little in our >> Create a fully elected House of regions and local authorities. Lords. Members will be elected for a maximum of ten years with half These flaws allow those who of the house being elected every 5 traditionally hold power to keep hold of years. Growing Democracy power, at the expense of the rest of us. The Green Party will fix our democracy, >> Give 16- and 17-year-olds the so that it becomes an effective tool for right to vote and have a say on their redistributing power away from the future. We will also allow people privileged and towards the people. to stand for Parliament and all other elected offices from the age We want an active democracy in which of 16, offering support to elected we can all believe and trust. We think young people so that they can it’s time for every vote to always count combine their duties with studying. and for citizens’ assemblies to develop We are proud to march with the a written People’s Constitution and inspiring Youth Strike activists explore how as a country we can ensure against climate chaos and know the the fair redistribution of power. passion and wisdom young people can inject into our policies. The Green Party’s plans to unleash people power and grow democracy will: >> Introduce job-sharing, at all levels of government, to make politics >> Replace the First Past the Post more accessible, especially for system for parliamentary elections disabled people and people with with a fair and proportional voting caring responsibilities. We will system. We are champions of the expand the Access to Elected Good Systems Agreement, a cross- Office Fund to support disabled

Green Party Manifesto 2019 35 people to stand for election, and ownership so no individual or support women, non-binary people company owns more than 20% of a and those from minority ethnic media market. To further challenge backgrounds to stand. the control of our media by big tech and unaccountable billionaires, >> Require all political parties to report the Green Party will ensure that a the diversity of their candidates, suitable independent regulator is so that progress in selecting more better able to safeguard a healthy women and minorities to contest plurality of media ownership, to Westminster and local government undertake regular plurality reviews seats can be monitored. This and to trigger remedies where was set out in Section 106 of the necessary. The recommendations Equality Act 2010 but has yet to be of the 2012 Leveson Report will be implemented. implemented, to hold the UK press to high ethical standards. >> Implement a fair system of state funding for political parties to >> Support, through new grants, the eliminate dependence on large growth of a wider range of civic- private donations, removing the minded local news publishers. undue influence large donations Local newspapers in the UK are an can give corporations and the super important part of our democracy wealthy. and culture yet many are closing or struggling to survive. >> Remove the cap on fines that can be imposed by the Electoral >> Introduce a Digital Bill of Rights Commission on political parties that that establishes the UK as a leading have been found to have breached voice on standards for the rule of electoral law. law and democracy in digital spaces and ensure independent regulation >> Strengthen the transparency rules of social media providers. This on recording political lobbying and legislation will safeguard elections make the work of Think Tanks more by responding to the challenges transparent too, by establishing of foreign interference, social a distinct legal entity for political media and declining confidence in foundations which conduct policy democracy. research and political education. >> End the sale of personal data, >> Protect the BBC, reinstate free TV such as health or tax records, for licences for over-75-year-olds commercial or other ends. and tighten the rules on media

36 If Not Now, When? >> Revive the role of democratic trade and increasing the powers of the unions. current National Assembly for Wales. >> Back a Citizens Convention and citizens assemblies to examine >> Tackle our toxic political culture, further ways to strengthen by exploring measures such as democracy, including developing new codes of conduct to embed a written People’s Constitution compassion and co-operation in all and Bill of Rights, and ensure the aspects of public life. proposals come before Parliament. This will enshrine genuine >> Introduce a public interest defence democracy at the core of our for breaching the Official Secrets political system, making sure that Act, alongside better protection and ultimate power will always rest with support for whistle-blowers in the the people. public and private sectors.

>> Give fuller voice to regional and >> Protect the right to peacefully national identities, holding a protest and prevent disproportionate Growing Democracy referendum on a Cornish Assembly police responses to protest.

More Local Democracy

In 2018 Green councillors successfully system requiring all councillors to campaigned for Worcester City Council work together. Across the country to move from a Cabinet system, Green councillors campaign to open where power was concentrated in the up decision making and increase hands of one party, to a Committee community involvement in it.

Green Party Manifesto 2019 37 Shaking up central government zero economy right at the heart of government. The Carbon Chancellor will set a yearly Carbon Budget, A safer, fairer future for all will only which will drive the decarbonisation be delivered with effective central of the economy. We will create a government. Yet right now we have fossil fuel free politics, with vested an out of control executive attacking interests who depend on continued the independence of the courts, fossil fuel use banished from undermining the rule of law and positions of influence. ignoring the great challenges of our time. >> Move away from consumption and Gross Domestic Product as key We have a Chancellor of the Duchy of measures of economic success and Lancaster, a feudal barony from the towards indicators that measure 14th century, but no Cabinet Minister human and ecological wellbeing, responsible for combatting the Climate such as work/life balance and Emergency that threatens the future of quality of life. every UK citizen. >> Introduce a Future Generations It’s time to make government fit for Act for England, modelled on the purpose today and fit to face the future. current Act for Wales, building the We will also transform how Parliament needs of future generations into works, to improve accountability at every government decision. We will the same time as encouraging greater also appoint a Minister for Future co-operation and long-term decision Generations to represent young making. people at the heart of government. We will restore central government to its >> Empower the Youth Select democratic purpose and core function Committee, currently a learning of making the lives of UK citizens better. programme, to scrutinise and hold the government to account like any The Green Party’s plan to ensure central other Select Committee. government serves a modern UK will: >> Scrap the Home Office, and end its >> Create a new government decades-long creation of a hostile department to oversee the environment for Black Minority implementation of the Green New Ethnic (BME) and other minority Deal, led by a Carbon Chancellor, communities. We will instead create based at number 11 Downing Street a Ministry for Sanctuary and a to put the just transition to a net Ministry of the Interior. The Ministry

38 If Not Now, When? for Sanctuary will be responsible >> Instruct all government departments for enforcing migration rules with to work to meet, and when possible compassion, and due regard for exceed, the UK’s commitments human rights, as well as providing under the Paris Agreement of recompense for those affected by 2015, which committed UN nations the Windrush scandal. One of the to combat climate chaos. The Ministry of Sanctuary’s first acts will Foreign Office will be tasked with be to abolish income requirements promoting the Agreement and other for people wishing to come to the international agreements to tackle UK to join a loved one – no families climate change around the world, should be separated because of and encouraging nations to uphold how much someone earns. The them. Ministry of the Interior will oversee domestic security with full regard >> Create a legal responsibility for to human rights and the needs of government to give individuals diverse communities. consular support, rather than it being discretionary. >> Replace the Ministry of Defence Growing Democracy with a Ministry for Security and >> Transform how Parliament works Peace, making the promotion of with electronic voting, measures to peace a key foreign policy objective protect against filibustering, steps and linking the role of the defence to promote cross-party and co- services more closely to the world operative working, and a systematic we now live in – a central part of overhaul of parliamentary language their responsibilities will become to make it self-explanatory. defending environments around the world from the effects of >> Develop and implement a robust climate chaos and dealing with the plan for ending bullying and sexual humanitarian and environmental harassment in Parliament. impacts of climate-related disasters. >> Stop the gagging of our democracy through the creation of better >> Close down the government’s protections and support for arms sales activities, including the whistleblowers in the public and Department for International Trade’s private sector including a public Defence and Security Organisation interest defence for breaching the (DSO), and end all subsidies and Official Secrets Act. support for the UK arms industry’s exporting of weapons and systems that fuel conflicts, violence and suffering across the world. Green Party Manifesto 2019 39 These policies will integrate closely with Empowering local government those set out in the ‘Green New Deal’ chapter of this Manifesto, ensuring that Across the country, hardworking central government is reshaped around councillors and council workers strive the overwhelming need for green social to improve the lives of people and and economic revolution. communities.

They do this at a time of staggering and unprecedented cuts to local government budgets. Over £50 billion has been slashed from council budgets over the past decade because of central government decisions. Councils have been forced to close libraries, sell off public land, abandon meals on wheels for older people, close children’s centres, stop repairing roads or no longer collect litter.

We will choose to devolve real power from central to local government, giving councils the tools needed to deliver public services. Properly resourced and led councils are in the unique position of being able to make real and effective change, bring people together and lead the services people need where they live. We will reverse spending cuts and restore local government budgets so local councils can afford to serve their communities.

It’s time to transform local government. In this age of climate chaos, action to secure the future of people and the places they love, led by democratically elected local representatives, is needed more than ever. We want local councils to lead the delivery of the Green New

40 If Not Now, When? Deal and the transition to a resilient, >> Fund councils to deliver new zero carbon economy. We believe this training and skills for residents, to is how to make life better today and equip them for jobs created by the create a future where local people and Green New Deal. businesses can thrive. >> Give councils the power to set The Green Party’s plan to empower their own housing targets, and to local government will: strike the right balance between local housing need and the need to >> Increase central government preserve the local environment. funding to councils by £10 billion a year. This funding, combined with >> Expand the powers of councils the local council revenue raising, to prevent land banking through will enable local government to mechanisms including charging improve the frontline services they developers who sit on land where provide and which local people permission has been granted need and want. We will support or using compulsory purchase councils to also use this funding powers to accelerate appropriate Growing Democracy to nurture arts and culture in their development where development is areas, keeping local museums, stalled or slow. theatres, libraries and art galleries open and thriving. >> Give councils the ability to set planning fees locally. Tax payers >> Ensure councils can plan with are subsidising developers for the financial certainty by committing to costs of their planning applications annual, rolling multi-year financial to the tune of £200 million a year settlements. – councils need the power to meet these planning costs not from >> Give councils access to an central funds, but from charging additional £3 billion a year Climate developers realistic fees for the Adaption Fund. Bids from councils planning services councils provide facing the greatest threat from for them. climate chaos, and councils with the high levels of poverty, will be >> Fund councils to deliver additional prioritised as money is distributed social housing in their area (over from the Fund. 100,000 new homes a year nationally) through sustainable >> Give all councils power over bus construction, renovation and services in their area, and over conversion, and to improve and franchises for local train services. insulate existing homes (over 1

Green Party Manifesto 2019 41 million homes a year). We will >> Provide an additional £4.5 billion also support councils to set more a year to fund councils to provide affordable rent rates for social free social care to people over 65 housing tenants in their area by who need support in their own lifting the local housing allowance homes. This model has been in and reconnecting it to average area place in Scotland since 2001 and rents. has helped millions of people be cared for in their own homes – it’s >> Support councils to better provide time to extend this right to free housing for disabled people, home care to pensioners in England supporting every council to draw up (care in Wales is devolved to the their own disability housing plans, National Assembly for Wales). We and work to significantly increase will also explore how this free social the numbers of homes built to care at home could be extended to mobility standards over the next five everyone who needs it, regardless years. of age.

>> Give councils clearer guidance >> Support councils to extend staying and better training on helping put arrangements, to enable homeless people, including support fostered young people to stay with for the Housing First approach, a foster parents until they are 21. widening of the grounds on which councils can offer help to people >> Task the Department for Housing, without a home, and the provision Communities and Local Government of social services once a person with reviewing on a rolling basis is housed. The extra costs of this which powers can be further can be met from the £10 billion devolved from central government yearly uplift to council funding. We to local government. will refocus council services in this area on homelessness prevention >> Replace the First Past the Post rather than crisis management, system for local government with a through expanding and combining fair and proportional voting system. multiple funding pots into a single Voters will be asked to elect half the grant distributed to councils. We Council every two years to ensure would also repeal the Vagrancy Act that fast changing local concerns 1824, which criminalises street and priorities can be expressed at homelessness and can hinder the ballot box on a regular basis. attempts to help those without a home.

42 If Not Now, When? >> Legislate to require councils to >> Require councils (and other public switch from a Cabinet system, bodies) to divest their pension funds which concentrates power into away from fossil-fuel-related the hands of a few councillors, to investments. We will encourage a Committee system – where all all private pension funds to do the elected councillors make decisions same. together for the community they represent.

>> Support councils to further democratise their own processes, including introducing more participatory democracy, allowing residents to form panels and assemblies to directly input into council decision making.

>> Introduce participatory budgeting, Growing Democracy to enable local citizens to decide how to allocate part of the council budget, through identifying, discussing and prioritising public spending projects, and having real power to decide how money is spent.

>> Support councils to promote waste prevention innovations and to increase recycling.

>> Give councils new powers and resources to deliver environmental improvements and increase biodiversity, as well as tackling flooding and coastal erosion locally.

Green Party Manifesto 2019 43 Action on Affordable Housing

In 2018 Green councillors on Brighton meaning that a family with an annual & Hove Council pushed the controlling income of £20,000 can now afford to Labour group to reduce rents on local live in a new council house in Brighton. council houses, by calculating these rents using local wages – not local In the 2019 local elections the Greens house prices. won the popular vote in Brighton, winning 19 councillors – just short The Green campaign succeeded and in of Labour’s total of 20. The Green September 2018 council houses were and Labour groups are now working for the first time offered to local families together on the Council on a plan to at lower rents based on local wages, build 800 new council homes in the city.

A New Year Bus Service for Residents

Each and every year, Green Party Green Cllr Andrew Cooper helped activists and councillors in Huddersfield start the voluntary service in 1992, as operate and a run a free New Year’s Day residents without cars had to rely on bus service for residents. expensive taxi journeys to visit relatives at New Year, due to limited local bus services. Twenty seven years on, Cllr Cooper still drives the bus every year!

44 If Not Now, When? Global justice and international >> Make the Climate Emergency and tackling poverty priorities for aid our international aid budget. We will phase out payments to richer As one of the world’s richest countries nations and increase support for and being amongst the first to the poorest, to help countries deal industrialise, the UK has caused more with the causes and impacts of the historical climate change emissions Climate Emergency. Support will be than most. We have a moral imperative given on the basis of need, not UK to right the wrongs of the past, including defence and trade considerations. using our influence and wealth to help alleviate suffering and redress global >> Ensure that all UK aid is aimed at power imbalances. the poorest, and is locally designed, appropriate and subject to local We want the UK to be a leading force scrutiny. Where feasible, aid will be for good in the world, to be the country given as grants, not loans. that brokers peace and tries to resolve >> Making finance and technology

the refugee crisis. Our international Growing Democracy policy will focus on co-operation in available to support developing order to tackle climate chaos, to secure nations to develop local Green fairer, more sustainable societies New Deals and transform their around the world and encourage fair economies, equipping them to and peaceful resolutions to conflict. tackle the causes and impacts of We will make supporting the United the Climate Emergency. Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals a priority. >> Increase the proportion of aid paid to individuals through electronic We will build bridges not walls and we cash transfers, providing regular will empower people in the Global South monthly payments to women in to control their futures. the developing world. This builds on evidence showing that greater The Green Party’s plan for global justice control over household resources will: by women can result in spending that benefits children and builds >> Phase in an increase in spending economic resilience. Write off debts on foreign aid from 0.7% to 1% of owed to the UK by the poorest our GNI, making us the third highest countries. Other aid-receiving donor (by Gross National Income) in countries in debt to the UK will have the world by 2021. their debt service payments limited to 10% of export earnings per year.

Green Party Manifesto 2019 45 >> Press other aid-giving nations >> Seek resolution in line with and international bodies to embed international law and the the above principles in their aid principles of self-determination programmes, and to abolish ‘tied to long running conflicts, illegal aid’ (whereby a nation is only given occupations and human rights aid in return for buying goods and violations. services from the donor). >> Guarantee the rights of indigenous >> Require UK corporations to abide and native people by securing their by the environmental, labour and autonomy, land rights and human social laws of their own country rights, providing aid to protect and of the country in which they are cultures and support sustainable operating – whichever are the more initiatives and ensuring that stringent – and advocate for other development schemes where the corporations to do the same. UK government has influence only take place with the permission, >> Ensure just supply chains for the and under the active control of, materials necessary for the Green indigenous people. New Deal. >> Champion a treaty which >> Introduce a new law on Universal establishes the Arctic, Antarctic and Jurisdiction, to make it easier Amazon as World Nature Reserves. to prosecute those committing In these new reserves, commercial genocide, crimes against humanity exploitation of natural resources and war crimes, wherever these would be banned and the rights of crimes take place. indigenous populations protected.

>> Seek to make the combatting of >> Create a new international ‘ecocide’ climate and ecological breakdown law to prosecute crime against the and the spreading of human rights natural environment. and justice core purposes of the United Nations. >> Commit that any future trade deals will maintain and enhance >> Support the introduction of an environmental and food standards EU-wide carbon tariff on countries and workers’ rights, minimise the which are not reducing their carbon environmental footprint of trade, emissions in line with the Paris make trade terms explicitly subject Agreement of 2015, to further to environmental and human rights encourage global action on the commitments, and not undermine Climate Emergency. the implementation of existing

46 If Not Now, When? or new national and international commitments (including over protections for vital global ecosystems and habitats such as the Amazon, and for indigenous people).

>> End the current practice of including investor-state dispute settlement mechanisms in trade and investment agreements. These mechanisms can give too much power to investors, at the expense of democracy, and need to be scrapped.

>> Ensure trade democracy by assessing the development Growing Democracy impact of all trade and investment agreements and guaranteeing Parliament a vote on them.

These policies will integrate closely with those set out in the ‘Green New Deal’ chapter of this Manifesto, ensuring that international aid and UK foreign policy help other countries to reduce their carbon emissions and build sustainable economies.

Green Party Manifesto 2019 47 Unleashing a Revolution in Public Services and the Public Realm

48 If Not Now, When? We pay for public services, we use to deliver services they can be proud them, we own them. It’s time they of. We will invest in public services properly belonged to all of us. built on the principle of kindness. We will support new technologies and From our hospitals to our post offices, approaches that will let us live longer, energy grid, water, railways and healthier lives. schools, the Green Party will campaign for public services that are run by the We will revolutionise the relationship people for the people. between citizens and the public realm. From access to the countryside to These services will be properly spending more time with loved ones, resourced to meet your needs, now our quality of life guarantee is all about and in the future, not struggling to keep unleashing the potential for everyone pace with demand. Since 2010 the NHS, to live happier, more secure lives – and facing unprecedented rising demand, making this the central purpose of has been given barely half the resources government. it needs to keep up. Schools now have less to spend per pupil than they did in A guarantee of a good quality of life is 2010. at the very heart of what the Green New Deal will achieve. The government’s role is to make you feel safer and more secure, but it’s Delivering secure incomes and doing the opposite. Too many people fear not being able to access the secure homes basic services they need, and this can The Green Quality of Life Guarantee sometimes turn into resentment against Social justice is at the heart of our plans scapegoats eagerly offered up by hard to transform the UK into a more equal right politicians, such as migrants and country, where everyone can build a people on benefits. decent, secure life.

The Green Party offers something The Green New Deal set out in the first different: a guarantee that our public part of this Manifesto will deliver a services will grow and improve. And we Universal Basic Income (UBI), a weekly will be honest enough to tell you that payment for everyone, replacing the this means transforming the tax system current benefits system and lifting so we can afford to invest in quality of everyone up. life for all.

We will ensure those working in our public services have the resources

Green Party Manifesto 2019 49 The Green UBI will also: >> Provide a supplement to UBI for people with disabilities. This will >> Provide all pensioners with a help restore the benefits withdrawn decent income, recognising their from disabled people over the past contribution to society over their ten years, providing more financial lifetimes. All pensioners will receive security. £178 a week (£10 higher than the current highest possible state >> Continue to pay Housing Benefit to pension payment). This rate will be those who received it before UBI increased in line with inflation over was introduced, so that they can the years to come. cover their rent.

>> Be phased in, with a view to all >> Continue to pay a full Carers adults being in receipt of their full Allowance to carers, on top of the rate of UBI by 2025. with the first UBI payment. This means that a tranche of people to receive it full-time carer would continue being women born in the 1950s. to receive their £3,200 Carers These women, represented by Allowance, plus £4,630 in UBI the campaign Group WASPI payments a year. (Women against State Pension Inequality) have been penalised by >> Replace Universal Credit and the unnecessarily abrupt changes to cruel benefit sanctions regime, the pension age brought in by the which have left hundreds of Coalition Government and it is right thousands of people facing that are first to feel the benefits of destitution. UBI. We will also look at additional ways of addressing this injustice, We will also transform the support which has affected hundreds of provided to citizens by: thousands of women. We hope to have fully phased UBI for every UK >> Increasing the Living Wage to £12 resident by 2025. and extending it to workers aged between 16 and 21. >> Ensure nobody who takes times off work in order to care for loved ones, >> Legislating to ensure the maximum or has an irregular employment wage paid to any member of staff in record, unjustly struggles to access an organisation should not exceed the state pension. Everyone will ten times that paid (pro rata) to the receive UBI, at either the adult (£89 lowest paid worker in the same per week) or pension (£178 per organisation. We will also ban any week) rate. bonuses exceeding the annual

50 If Not Now, When? wage of the lowest paid worker in nine months. This free childcare the organisation granting the bonus. will include in-work facilities, such as on-site crèches and flexible >> Reviewing current employment working opportunities (e.g. job- law to close loopholes that allow shares) to help parents who choose employers in the gig economy to return to work. (where workers are offered freelance work or short-term >> Requiring all employers, no matter contracts only) to deny gig workers their size, to legally recognise any key rights. We will ensure that gig union chosen by their workforce to economy workers always receive represent them. at least the current minimum wage, and have job security, sick leave, >> Transform the lives of renters, by holiday pay and pension provision. increasing housing security and bringing rent levels down, especially >> Closing the gender pay gap. We will in places where they currently far require all large and medium size outstrip incomes. We will introduce companies to carry out equal pay rent controls on private tenancies, audits and redress any inequality which reflect average local income uncovered both in terms of equal rates and the cost of maintenance. pay for equal work, and recruitment We will also end no-fault evictions and retention practices which and make it easier to set up create a glass ceiling which needs community-led housing initiatives to be shattered. We will change and for private renters in Houses of the law so it’s easier to take action Multiple Occupancy to buy and run against employers in unequal pay their home as a housing co-op. The Green Quality of Life Guarantee cases. >> Give communities the first chance >> Installing a 40% quota for women to buy local land that comes up on major company boards. We for sale by extending Scotland’s recognise the many barriers Community Right to Buy policy to faced by women and gender England and Wales. Communities non-conforming people in male- will then be able to directly dominated spaces, and know that deliver new affordable homes on tackling the ‘boys’ club’ atmosphere purchased land, supported by the in workspaces is crucial to tackling Community Housing Fund (which inequality in the workplace. the Government plans to end in 2020, but we will maintain for at >> Provide 35 hours a week of free least another three years). childcare for all, from the age of

Green Party Manifesto 2019 51 >> Creating an environment >> Modernising and reforming where everyone feels fulfilled copyright and intellectual property in worthwhile employment and rights legislation to ensure a better pursuing policy which will lead to balance between the rights of a shorter working week and better consumers and the rights of those work life balance, freeing up people working in the creative economy to spend more time with their loved to be protected from commercial ones and doing things they love – exploitation. with no loss of pay. We will support employers to explore four day working weeks in their workplace, driving up productivity as well as boosting the wellbeing of staff.

52 If Not Now, When? Extending the Living Wage

In February 2019 the Green Group and got it through council, securing a of councillors on Richmond Council pay rise for hundreds of people and proposed a motion to extend payment allowing vital workers to continue to of the London Living Wage to all council afford to live in the borough in which staff, including contractors. The Green they work. councillors built support for the motion The Green Quality of Life Guarantee

Winning Support for Rent Controls

Green Party Co-Leader Sian Berry repeatedly demanding at Mayoral was elected to the London Assembly Question Time that action be taken. The in 2016. During that time she has pressure has paid off – in July 2019 campaigned relentlessly for the London Mayor Sadiq Khan formally introduction of rent controls to ease the asked the government for powers to pressure on the city’s renters, introduce London rent controls.

Green Party Manifesto 2019 53 Restoring the NHS reduce private sector involvement in the NHS, which has proved to be a costly and dangerous distraction The NHS has an amazing history. We from universal healthcare provision. want it to have an even brighter future. >> Replace private sector involvement We will build on the founding principles in the NHS with community of the Health Service – universal, leadership. We will allow local publicly provided healthcare free at authorities to lead a ‘bottom up’ the point of delivery – to widen and process, and services will be enhance the services provided. This planned and provided without will include fit-for-purpose mental and contracts through Health Boards, reproductive health services available which could cover more than one to all. The increased funding that will local authority area if there were enable this will be complemented local support. by a devolution of healthcare, with communities given more control >> Provide stronger powers to Health over health services and individuals and Wellbeing boards to represent supported to take steps to improve their the interest of the public in the NHS. own health. >> Reinstate the Health Secretary’s Our plan to restore the NHS will: duty to provide services throughout England and create a duty to ensure >> Increase funding for the NHS by at there are enough health and care least £6 billion per year each year, staff – including nursing – to meet until 2030 (a 4.5% increase on the the needs of the population. 2018/2019 NHS Budget), and a further £1 billion a year in nursing >> Focus funding to enable the higher education, allowing for construction of new community nursing bursaries to be reinstated. health centres, bringing health This will constitute a programme services closer to people’s homes. of sustained investment, bringing These health centres will pioneer spending of health services in preventative healthcare, helping the UK up to northern European people live healthier lifestyles so averages. that they are less likely to fall ill.

>> Roll back privatisation of the NHS, >> Focus funding to enable major through repealing the Health and improvements to mental health care Social Care Act 2012 and abolishing to truly put it on an equal footing the internal market. This will hugely with physical health care, and

54 If Not Now, When? ensure that everyone who needs it Unlocking education can access evidence-based mental health therapies within 28 days. We Education should be about nurturing will ensure that tailored and specific potential and inspiring a love of provision is readily available for the learning. Yet all too often it can feel particular needs of Lesbian, Gay like a production line, manufacturing Bisexual, Trans, Intersex, Queer children-shaped pieces to fit gaps in and Asexual (LGBTIQA+) and Black the workplace. Minority Ethnic (BME) communities, children and adolescents, and older The freedom to let children play, people. flourish and grow has been replaced with endless testing and measuring. >> Focus funding to provide better It demoralises teachers and adds yet reproductive health services. We more pressure on young people. And will ensure that all forms of birth we have turned further and higher control are free, to give women a education into a commodity, when it real choice of the birth control that should be a basic right. works best for them. We will also It’s time to build an education system ensure that PrEP – a daily pill which on the principles that learning must be prevents HIV infection – is provided lifelong, liberating and accessible to by NHS England without delay. all. Education can and should unlock creativity and enable self-expression across all ages.

Our plan to unlock education will: The Green Quality of Life Guarantee

>> Relieve the financial squeeze on schools after years of education cuts, by increasing funding by at least £4 billion per year.

>> Focus funding to reduce class sizes down to under 20 in the long term, to help teachers focus on individual pupil needs and create a pleasant learning environment.

>> Free schools from centrally imposed testing regimes, OFSTED

Green Party Manifesto 2019 55 inspections, rigid national are fully supported in that school. curriculum and league tables. This means ensuring accessible Teachers will be trusted to plan buildings, an inclusive curriculum their lessons and assess progress and the provision of specially according the needs of their pupils, trained teachers across the school not to meet one-size-fits-all system. Specialist schools will be measurements that currently cause retained, for when children and huge stress to pupils and teachers parents would prefer that option. alike. Formal education will start at 6 years, to allow young children >> Introduce an English Climate to develop at their own pace. Emergency Education Act to support Those under 6 will remain in early schools to teach young people years education, with a focus on about the urgency, severity and play-based learning and access scientific basis of the climate and to nature. Sweden has hugely environmental crises, and to ensure benefited from using a similar youth voices are heard on climate system. issues. We will also enable more outdoor lessons, where children will >> Strengthen the link between learn more about nature, animals schools and the communities they and the environment, and a new serve, by ending academisation Nature GCSE. and bringing all schools back into the control of democratically >> Restore arts and music education in elected local authorities, not private all state schools, to enable children companies, and empowering local to develop their creative potential. authorities with the responsibility and accountability for education >> Make sure all children get at least within their communities. a half-day equivalent of sports in school and encourage both the >> Replace OFSTED with a use of schools sports facilities by collaborative system of assessing the community and participation and supporting schools locally, in regional and national sporting to improve standards and be events by our young people. accountable to the communities in which they serve. >> Remove charitable status from private schools and charge >> Create a fully inclusive education full VAT on fees. The private system, where children with school sector will be subject to special education needs are able regular independent audits, to to access their local school and ensure private schools improve

56 If Not Now, When? accessibility and pay their taxes in Restoring our nature and full. countryside >> Ensure that all children receive the basic elements of a good childhood: Our countryside is a precious resource – a decent place to live, safety and a home for people and wildlife, a source security in their community, time of employment, a place of enjoyment for and space to play, as well as those who visit its wealth of landscapes. opportunities to learn and develop It is vital for our common health, inside and outside of school. prosperity and wellbeing.

>> Revive the further education Yet this national treasury is under threat. sector to provide a wider choice of The amount of farmland, woodland and academic and vocational learning. forest destroyed by development has We will also raise the funding rate grown by nearly 60% in recent years, for 16–17-year-olds, followed by whilst over 10,000 miles of footpaths an annual rise in line with inflation, have been blocked, built over or allowed at the same time as introducing to fall out of use. Nature is under attack a capital expansion fund for sixth from industrial farming, over fishing, form providers. hunting and shooting – with devastating impacts for wildlife species and their >> Fully fund every higher education habitats, from farmland to the hills to student and scrap undergraduate the coast. tuition fees. University will be fully accessible, with courses being It’s time for an approach that recovers, offered as learning experiences, not rebuilds, restores, regenerates and The Green Quality of Life Guarantee as pre-work training. Education will reinstates nature and the health of our be for education’s sake. countryside.

>> Write off existing debt for former We have a plan to transform and students who studied under the £9k reconnect with the countryside, which tuition fee regime. will:

>> Increase funding for adult education >> Create a new ‘ecocide’ law to across England and Wales, creating prevent crimes against the natural a range of new adult education environment. programmes for learners to access. These programmes will be >> Amend the National Planning integrated with Green New Deal Policy Framework so it no longer training projects. imposes centrally set development

Green Party Manifesto 2019 57 targets on local councils. We will from clean air to litter-free roads. allow councils to develop their own The EPC will enforce the ecocide planning policies, based on genuine law, a new Clean Air Act, which local housing need and their will set new air quality standards requirement to contribute to the for the UK, and a new Sustainable creation of at least 100,000 new Economy Act, including targets for council homes a year nationally. new soil quality and biodiversity Councils will be required to deliver standards. these new homes in a way that preserves local ecology and >> Develop a soil health monitoring creates6 new green spaces. programme for England, to match those in Scotland and Wales, to >> Strengthen Green Belt, Areas of assess and understand changes in Outstanding Natural Beauty and the health of soil over time. Sites of Special Scientific Interest protections, with development in >> Increase funding for the these areas only being permitted in Environment Agency and Natural exceptional circumstances. England, to support the vital work they do to protect our environment. >> Ban mineral extraction, road building and military training from >> Immediately ban the most harmful all National Parks. We will give local pesticides (including glyphosate) communities a say in National Park and introduce new rigorous tests governance, though creating new for pesticides. Only pesticides that democratically elected positions on pass this test, and demonstrably National Park boards. don’t harm bees, butterflies and other wildlife, will be approved for >> Open up car-free access to the use in UK. National Parks with new cycling, walking and bus links. >> Invest in peatland restoration and end both the burning of peatlands >> Encourage applications from and use of peat in compost in communities for new Green Belt, horticulture. We will advocate an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty emergency international agreement and National Park designations. to conserve and enhance carbon sinks and reservoirs including >> Create a new Environmental forests, peat fields and coastal and Protection Commission (EPC). This estuarine areas. will be one integrated body to enforce environmental protections,

58 If Not Now, When? >> Protect our precious water supplies farming industries. A more densely by enforcing stricter penalties for wooded and hedged farming polluters and for water companies landscape will provide new habitats found to be extracting too much for wildlife, and sanctuaries for water. We will require water threatened species. companies to invest in water conservation and in capturing water >> As a member of the EU we will surpluses, to enable transportation press for a review of the Common across the country. Agricultural Policy, so that it is focussed on supporting UK and >> Restore access to the countryside other EU farmers as they make the by re-opening lost public rights transition to sustainable farming. of way and creating new ones. We will grant to people in England and >> Commit to making at least 30% Wales the same right to roam over of UK domestic waters into fully all landscapes as people in Scotland protected marine protected areas currently enjoy. We will protect by 2030. We will also work with and enhance access to inland British Overseas Territories (BOTs) waterways. to increase the ‘blue belt’ protecting BOTs’ waters from commercial >> Invest in ecotourism and associated extraction, from the current 32% of schemes such as rewilding, habitat coverage to 50%. recovery and species reintroduction, creating new job opportunities. >> Reintroduce nature into our urban environments, by investing in >> Introduce new support for small- schemes such as street planting of The Green Quality of Life Guarantee scale family farms and for new native trees, compulsory hedgehog entrants to farming. This support, holes in all new fencing and bee including increased security of corridors. tenure for farmers, will help develop sustainable farming methods. >> Recognise access to diverse nature Farmers will be supported to as a human right and uphold it adopt diverse uses for agricultural across society. land and buildings, such as fitting solar panels on farm buildings >> Create a Nature GCSE to encourage and planting orchards and other children to value nature, and to woodland. The incorporation of grow a whole new generation of trees into farming will provide new naturalists. We will also introduce crops such as fruits and nuts, as an English Climate Emergency well as timber, linking forestry and Education Act to support

Green Party Manifesto 2019 59 schools to teach young people Tackling discrimination about the urgency, severity and scientific basis of the climate and environmental crises, and to ensure Despite huge social progress over the youth voices are heard on climate past century, we still live in a society issues. where factors like our gender, ethnicity and sexuality play a part in how we are These policies will integrate closely with treated. those set out in the ‘Green New Deal for food, farming & forestry’ section of The Green Party wants to actively this Manifesto on page 21, reducing the challenge discrimination and carbon emitted from the use of the UK’s exclusion, at the same time as creating land. opportunities for everyone to flourish. In doing so we recognise that rights for one group should not take away rights from others – that none of us are equal until we all are.

Our Green plan to transform society and end discrimination will:

>> Establish a cross-government strategy tasked with tackling ethnic inequalities, ranging from school exclusions through to biased treatment in the criminal justice system, and covering housing, employment and health.

>> Replace ‘Prevent’ with community cohesive policing which engages rather than antagonises Black Minority Ethnic (BME) communities and addresses concerns about the use of stop and search powers.

>> End the hostile environment which puts migrants, from the EU and further afield, at risk and increases racism and anti-immigrant

60 If Not Now, When? sentiment. This will include ending >> Make a ‘Windrush Day’ bank indefinite detention, closing the holiday, to celebrate the contribution immigration detention centres that migration has made to our and ending the culture of abuse society. and violence that has prevailed in them. We will immediately suspend >> Confront racism, antisemitism all deportation flights and allow and prejudice, including from an refugees to live freely, with a right early age through a broader and to work, whilst their applications decolonialised curriculum in school, are considered. focussing on histories and role models from a diverse range of >> Bring forward a new humane ethnicities and religions. immigration system with no minimum income rules for visas, >> Defend the right of people of all full workplace rights for migrants, faiths – to express their faith, be the right to work for asylum seekers that in religious clothing, food or and recourse to public support for reasonable accommodation of migrants and asylum seekers who religious observance. We will also need it. work with religious communities to defend the safety of places of >> Guarantee safe and discreet access worship. to public services such as the police, health and education, so that >> Retain the Human Rights Act and migrants can access these without reaffirm the UK’s commitment to fear of being subject to immigration the European Convention on Human enforcement. We will also abolish Rights. The Green Quality of Life Guarantee the draconian powers brought in under the 2014 and 2016 >> Make misogyny a hate crime across Immigration Acts and scrap health the UK and increase the police’s charging for migrants. capacity to deal with domestic violence and misogynistic hate >> Create a new Ministry for the crimes. Funding to support the Interior that will be fully committed prevention and prosecution of all to upholding human rights. This hate crimes will be increased, and Ministry will have responsibility police officers will be given further for protecting the fundamental training in this area. We need an rights of Travellers, a group that are intersectional approach to hate often overlooked in efforts to end crime, which recognises the groups discrimination. of women who are most at risk.

Green Party Manifesto 2019 61 >> Develop and implement a UK-wide by media coverage. Media-led strategy to tackle gender-based misogyny affects women of all violence, including domestic backgrounds, all ethnicities, all violence, rape and sexual abuse, religions, cis and trans, lesbian, Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), bisexual and straight – it’s time to and trafficking. This will include end it once and for all. working with perpetrators to prevent them from continuing to >> Introduce a regulatory framework abuse. We will also reverse cuts to for online harms to ensure legal aid to prevent survivors being social media companies take forced to represent themselves responsibility for how their against their abusers in court and platforms are being used and introduce a new Domestic Abuse invest in technological solutions Bill, which enables prosecution of to address misogyny and online economic abuse. harassment.

>> Roll back the cuts to domestic >> Extend the EU’s Charter of violence support centres and Fundamental Rights to give women women’s refuges, and increase in all EU countries access to legal, funding to provide more safe and safe and affordable abortion secure accommodation for women services. and their children. >> Support employers to explore the >> Put funding for Rape Crisis Centre benefits of offering menstruation services on a sustainable footing so and menopausal leave to workers. that every survivor of sexual assault or violence receives proper support. >> Improve access to high quality care We will increase and ring fence during pregnancy and ensure that the Rape Support Fund and ensure all women are entitled to the care funds are provided via the Victim of a single midwife through prenatal Surcharge. care, birth and the first month of post-natal care. Baby clinics will be >> Establish a new press regulatory expanded, so that women can get regime which will allow women access to health visitors and take to make formal complaints about their babies for regular check- media coverage that will encourage ups at a location and time that is misogyny against women. This convenient for them. regime will allow for third party complaints to be made, on behalf of women negatively affected

62 If Not Now, When? >> Increase funding for areas of the trans youth and non-binary people NHS heavily relied on by Lesbian, to get legal recognition through Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Intersex, Queer self-declaration. and Asexual (LGBTIQA+) people, including trans healthcare, gender >> Introduce a legal right to identity clinics, HIV treatment and independent living for disabled mental health provision. people, overseen by a National Independent Living Support Service. >> Properly fund training to support the This service will support and delivery of comprehensive, age- empower disabled people who do appropriate Personal Health and choose to live independently. Sexual Education (PHSE) lessons in schools covering all aspects of sex >> Fully embed the UN Convention and relationships, with a focus on on the Rights of Persons with consent. Disabilities (UNCRPD) into UK law. This will mean that the >> End the opt-out of LGBTIQA+ unacceptable practices of inclusive PHSE classes at school compulsory treatment, chemical to ensure that every child learns and physical restraint, isolation, and about different types of couples and seclusion are made illegal in the UK. families that make up UK society.

>> Train school staff in spotting and stopping sexual harassment and bullying, to ensure that schools are safe places for all to learn in. The Green Quality of Life Guarantee

>> Fund schools to provide free eco- friendly sanitary products to pupils.

>> Remove the spousal veto so that married trans people can acquire their gender recognition certificate without having to obtain permission from their spouse. We will also change the law so an X gender marker can be added to passports for non-binary and intersex people who wish to use it, and update the Gender Recognition Act to allow

Green Party Manifesto 2019 63 Combatting Hate Crimes Against Women

In 2017 Green Party Deputy Leader Amelia and the Green Party joined Amelia Womack called for violence forces with cross-party campaigners against women motivated by their on this issue, to keep up the pressure gender to be considered a hate crime, on government to take action. In saying: September 2018 the Ministry of Justice announced that they had ‘From domestic abuse to rape, groping asked the Law Commission to to stalking and harassment, we know undertake a review of the coverage that women suffer abuse because of and approach of hate crime legislation, their gender. The Home Office does not including consideration of how gender record hate crimes according to gender characteristics should be considered by and to me that’s a powerful symbol hate crime law. of the way misogyny is treated in this country: sidelined, ignored, brushed under the carpet.’

64 If Not Now, When? Preventing crime see the effects of what they have done and take responsibility.

Everyone has the right to feel safe - The Green Party’s plan to make on the street, in their home or online. everyone safer will: Simple things like more police on the beat and enforceable laws against >> Significantly reduce the number malicious trolling can make a huge of short-term prison sentences difference. handed out, replacing them with restorative justice projects that However, not all crime can be tackled have a better record of preventing by being tough. Punishment for its own reoffending. sake is ineffective. It might make us feel better, but it doesn’t change very much. >> Enhance the rehabilitation services on offer to long-term prisoners, The Green Party thinks it’s time to commissioning rehabilitation transform our justice system. services that have a track record of success. We want to tackle the underlying causes of crime more effectively than >> Follow the evidence that shows CCTV cameras, stop and search or that prison is particularly counter- draconian sentencing can ever do. productive for women, trapping So we will focus on the prevention of them in lives of crime. We will crime with community-based policing, therefore support and develop a alongside investment in education and network of specialist women’s employment. centres in order to reduce the The Green Quality of Life Guarantee female prison population. These Overall, we aim to halve the prison small-scale custodial centres will population, as has successfully been offer pastoral support to women to achieved in the Netherlands, breaking address the issues that led to them the vicious cycle of reoffending. 60% of offending. newly released short-term prisoners reoffend in the year after their release, >> Invest in youth services and centres, often graduating to more serious crimes to help turn at-risk children away than the one for which they were from crime. All the evidence shows originally imprisoned. the cuts in youth services have increased crime, especially knife We will expand restorative justice when crime. To end knife crime once crimes do take place, both to give and for all we need to invest in victims a voice and to help offenders specialist programmes provided through youth centres. Green Party Manifesto 2019 65 >> End the war on drugs, which has Ending the war on drugs trapped hundreds of thousands of people into lives of crime and treat drug addiction as a health condition, Taking drugs can be dangerous but not a crime, building on the prohibition of drug use has created successful approaches pioneered many more problems than it has solved. in Portugal and other countries (see Over the last 50 years, the international below page on ending the war on war on drugs has been a resounding drugs for further information). failure. Harmful drug consumption has markedly increased and has given rise >> Integrate police forces more closely to a multi-billion pound illegal industry with the communities they serve by that has fuelled organised violent crime creating new community liaison and and caused untold social and ecological equality officers to work on positive destruction. relations and by putting more police on the beat. There is little evidence for the two core assumptions that form the basis of current UK drug policy:

1. That supply-side enforcement can reduce drug availability and use. 2. That the criminalisation of people who use drugs is an effective deterrent.

The Green Party recognises that people have always and will always use drugs, including alcohol. Drugs perform many purposes in society, including recreational use and as part of medical treatment. Seeking to prevent drug use is demonstrably futile; we need a radically new system grounded in harm reduction. Government needs to strike the right balance between responsible adult drug use and the potential harms of problematic use.

The taxes and licence fees that will apply to drugs under our proposed system will raise significant revenues.

66 If Not Now, When? Some of these revenues will pay for the drugs, building on the success of harm that drug use can cause, including drug consumption rooms in other NHS time. countries which have encouraged more problematic drug users into Our Green plan to reduce harm and treatment. adopt an evidence-based approach will: >> Regulate access for adults to >> Repeal the Misuse of Drugs stimulant and psychedelic drugs Act 1971 and the Psychoactive based on the evidence around harm Substances Act 2016. reduction through pharmacies, after a safety consultation with a >> Pardon and expunge the criminal qualified pharmacist, at fixed doses records of all individuals previously and fixed prices. convicted for possession and small-scale supply of drugs. >> Make cannabis, labelled according to laboratory-tested strength, >> Enable medical scientists to available to adults from licensed conduct research on psychoactive small businesses. Cannabis will drugs to develop new treatments be sold subject to minimum unit for mental and physical illnesses. pricing and plain packaging.

>> Invest in education and treat >> Allow for licensed Cannabis Social problematic drug use as a health Clubs where adults can collectively issue, not a crime, building on the cultivate and consume cannabis successful approaches pioneered in and allow adults to grow a limited numerous other countries. number of cannabis plants at home. The Green Quality of Life Guarantee

>> Replace the current system of >> Prohibit commercial advertising of prohibition with an evidence-based, alcohol (and all other drugs) and legalised, regulated system of drug introduce minimum unit pricing, control. The production, import and which has been shown to reduce supply of all drugs will be regulated harmful drinking in Scotland. according to the specific risks that they pose to the individual, to >> Set up an independent statutory society and to the environment. body, the Advisory Council for Drug Safety, comprised of experts, who >> Make heroin available on will be responsible for monitoring prescription after a medical patterns of drug use, advising assessment by a doctor and provide the government on changes to safe facilities for users who inject regulation and sourcing socially and

Green Party Manifesto 2019 67 ecologically sustainable supplies subsidies, used to maintain artificial of opium and coca from the Global landscapes designed only for South. hunting (such as grouse moors) will be ended and the land rewilded Transforming our relationship where possible. Where necessary for ecological reasons, humane with animals culling will be licensed by Natural England and carried out by trained We share this planet with, and are professionals. We will also ban the dependent on, a wealth of other animal use of lead ammunition and outlaw species. Yet wildlife destruction, factory all forms of snaring. farming, live export, companion and domestic animal abuse, and the use >> End the badger cull, which has no of animals for experiments, sport and evidence basis and has failed to entertainment are all contributing to the effectively reduce Bovine TB. We systematic mistreatment of animals. will fund research into a sensitive test to enable cattle vaccination, as We think it’s time for a better future, an essential, as well as humane, where animals are actively protected part of a meaningful strategy to from cruelty and our own quality of life control the spread of the disease. is improved too. We will also invest in better farm bio-security and badger The Green plan to transform vaccination. understanding of the relationship between humans and animals will: >> Stop the use of primates, cats and dogs in research and the >> Guarantee the principle of animal importation of monkeys for use in sentience. This will mean that labs, and work towards an outright that regard for the welfare needs ban on all animal testing. We will of animals as sentient beings is also end the use of live animals in uppermost in formulating and military training. implementing relevant government policy. >> Enforce tougher regulations on animal transportation, including a >> Ban all hunting. This includes trail maximum limit of eight hours travel hunting, where dogs are used to for animals in transit and an end to track foxes who are then shot, all live exports from our shores. We and the commercial shooting of will work to minimise all stress- deer and game birds. Government causing practices during production of animal-based food products.

68 If Not Now, When? The Green Quality of Life Guarantee

Green Party Manifesto 2019 69 >> Advocate for European legalisation contact with animals on human to end factory farming, prohibit psychology. the routine use of antibiotics for farm animals, and ban the killing of >> Create a new Commission on animals for sport across the EU. Animal Protection, responsible for overseeing all rules designed to >> Call on all nations to declare the protect animals from cruelty. This waters under their control as Commission will ensure that the havens from whaling, to provide highest standards of animal welfare sanctuary throughout those are applied to companion animals, waters for cetaceans (whales and farm animals and wildlife. This will dolphins), and to co-operate in ensure that the right of all sentient achieving global sanctuary for beings not to be subject to undue cetaceans in the longer term. suffering is always respected.

>> Implement a complete ban on cages and close confinement and deliberate mutilation of farm animals.

>> Help shoppers choose cruelty free food, with mandatory method of production labelling for meat, milk and dairy products.

>> Protect animals that give companionship or support. We will enhance regulation and controls on breeding, sale and import, with compulsory licensing applying to everyone working with animals. Those convicted of cruelty will be placed on an animal cruelty register and prevented from working with animals again.

>> Encourage the use of companion animals in therapy and other treatments, drawing on evidence showing the beneficial impact of

70 If Not Now, When? The Green Quality of Life Guarantee

Unleashing a Revolution in the Redistribution on Wealth

Green Party Manifesto 2019 71 We’re the fifth largest economy in the government spending away from world and yet today there are 4 million wasteful vanity projects, and towards children living in poverty. The streets enabling people to build the lives they of our cities are home to 4,000 rough want to lead. sleepers. Nurses are going to foodbanks to put dinner on the table. Above all, we will transform our tax system, so it is able to generate the We can do so much better than this. It’s funds needed to deliver good public a question of political choices. The rich services and the Green New Deal, and are getting richer whilst everyone else deliver ongoing economic, climate and struggles to make ends meet. social justice.

Talking about the problem isn’t enough – it’s time to act. We will redistribute wealth and lift everyone up.

We want to enable people to build secure lives and livelihoods. Alongside giving everyone a minimum level of security with a Universal Basic Income, we will make our tax system fit for purpose – fairer and more effective at bringing in revenue for public services and funding the Green New Deal.

We see tax as the primary way most of us contribute towards our own and the common good – a fair and valuable payment towards a well-functioning, just society that protects citizens and the planet which sustains us.

We will simplify taxes, close tax loopholes and make sure everyone pays their fair share. We will redesign the way property and land are taxed, shifting responsibility away from renters and business tenants and instead towards wealthy landowners who benefit the most. We will redirect

72 If Not Now, When? Simplifying income taxes closing of loopholes will bring in an estimated £20 billion extra per year into the public purse. It will mean Our current system of income taxes is that all income is treated the same hugely complex. Those seeking to avoid way for tax purposes. tax are able to use this complexity to their advantage. >> Tax income from investments/ assets at the same level as the Tax avoiders can shift their money in taxation of income from work, and out of different income and asset through the Consolidated Income categories, switching category just Tax. This will end the injustice before the tax official catches up with whereby people who work for their them. A whole tax avoidance industry incomes are taxed more highly than exists to guide those prepared to pay to those whose income is derived from wriggle out of tax through the cracks in wealth. the system. >> Replace the Income Tax threshold This charade keeps billions of pounds with Universal Basic Income. out of the public purse every year, money that could be spent on new >> End the double taxation of pension homes, schools and hospitals. funds, which are currently subject to Corporation Tax and then Income It’s time to straighten out the tax Tax when paid out to individual system, so that tax avoiders can no pensioners. longer evade their responsibilities, and so that income from wealth is taxed the same as income from work. This will ensure that the wealthiest pay their fair

share. and Spend Tax The New Deal for

Our Green plan to simplify tax will shine a light on the corners of the economy where the richest stash their wealth. We will:

>> Merge Employees National Insurance, Capital Gains Tax, Inheritance Tax, Dividend Tax and Income Tax into a single Consolidated Income Tax. This

Green Party Manifesto 2019 73 Reforming property taxes Winston Churchill backed an LVT, arguing that the value added to a property because of improvements, like The Green Party wants to transform land transport infrastructure, paid for by the and property taxes. public purse, should be returned to the community. The many other benefits Half of England is owned by less than include bringing more brownfield sites 1% of its population. Our tax system into use; discouraging speculative land allows landlords to sit on land and banking; and more efficient, sustainable do nothing whilst public money for use of land. enhancements sees land value increase. LVT will help stabilise the property Council Tax is failing too. It is one of market and shift the burden of taxation the main ways of taxing wealth, yet from land users, including renters bands are still based on valuations and business tenants, to wealthy from 1991. This means someone in a landowners. It’s a critical part of how to multi-million pound property pays a far tackle the housing crisis. lower proportion of tax than someone in a one-bedroom flat. Our Green plan to transform land and property taxes will: All the while, small and independent businesses are crying out for reform of >> Abolish Council Tax and Business the unfair business rates system, and Rates, replacing them with an LVT. young people face a lifetime of housing The LVT will also absorb National insecurity and high prices. Non-domestic Rates, Stamp Duty on Land, Annual Tax on Enveloped It’s time for change. Dwellings, Capital Gains Tax on land sales, Inheritance Tax on land Over the long term we will take steps and Income Tax on land for owner- to replace the current unjust, out-of- occupiers. The new LVT will charge date system with a Land Value Tax the landowner a proportion of the (LVT), designed to redistribute wealth capital value of the land each year and help fix our broken housing market. (estimated to be around 1.4% of LVT will be a single tax (replacing the current values). multiple taxes that currently exist) which will capture the real value of land, >> Ensure LVT is paid by landowners and the increased value arising from regardless of whether or not they improvements to it. live on the land. This will incentivise those who own empty properties to release them back into the housing market. 74 If Not Now, When? >> Lift millions of renters and business Making big business pay its fair tenants out of property taxes share altogether, by shifting the burden of land taxation from land users to landowners. We will legislate In a transformed green economy we to prevent landowners passing will need to harness the power and these tax costs back to renters and influence of businesses to do good. tenants. At the moment, huge corporations tend >> Phase in the changes over ten to use their power to generate profit for years, with reliefs on offer. This a small number of people and to reduce will ensure that the vast majority the amount of tax they pay. We think it’s of homeowners will face similar time to straighten things out, so nobody or lower levels of tax to that which can abuse the tax system and dodge they pay now. their responsibilities.

>> Protect those who have low When Corporation Tax was first incomes but who are ‘land rich’ introduced to the UK in 1965, it stood with a right to defer the tax until at 40%. Now it’s at 19%, one of the the property is sold or transferred. lowest in Europe. And overseas giants Likewise, pensioners who are like Amazon and Google exploit tax homeowners will be enabled to loopholes to pay even less. ‘roll over’ LVT payments until their property is sold, so they don’t feel Businesses can be the bedrock of an undue pressure to move. economy that enables us all to thrive, if they pay what they owe and invest in In the long term, the new LVT will bring the public services and infrastructure in more money for the public purse. from which they benefit.

However due to the phased introduction and Spend Tax The New Deal for of the policy, and the reliefs we will offer Our plan for tax justice will: to help homeowners transition to the new system, we estimate that the LVT >> Increase the rate of Corporation will be revenue neutral for the first ten Tax to 24%, in line with the years (bringing in the same amount of Organisation for Economic Co- revenue as the taxes it replaces). operation and Development (OECD) average. We will advocate public country-by-country reporting and consolidated Corporate Tax across the EU to prevent profit shifting.

Green Party Manifesto 2019 75 >> Increase the Bank Asset Tax. This >> Establish HM Revenue & Customs will counteract the huge levels as an independent agency of of support previous governments government, answerable to have given the banking sector, Parliament. This will remove the through public protections, licenses power of politicians to strike secret and subsidies. We will also close deals with powerful corporations a loophole in the Stamp Duty and individuals. on Shares, by including share purchases of all values and new >> Entrench the anti-avoidance share issues within the Duty. principle in UK tax law and oblige banks to provide information about companies automatically to HMRC.

Combatting Tax Avoidance

In 2014, Molly Scott Cato, Green MEP avoided paying the taxes they owe to for the South West, was chosen to society. represent the Green Group on the European Parliament’s tax working This process has led to powerful group. The LuxLeaks scandal broke new tax avoidance polices, including shortly afterwards and the Greens a blacklist of tax havens, a unified lobbied the parliamentary authorities minimum tax rate for the whole EU, and to establish a special tax inquiry the end of the buying of golden visas by committee. Molly was a member of wealthy non-EU citizens. that and the three subsequent inquiries into the outrageous way that large Molly is the Green Party candidate for companies and wealthy individuals have Stroud in this General Election.

76 If Not Now, When? >> Close down Corporation Tax Supporting small business loopholes by widening the definition of ‘profit’ to cover dividends, share buybacks, additions to cash We will transform our economy to make holdings, payments to parent or it work for the wellbeing of people subsidiary companies (both onshore and our environment – and we want and offshore), and other distributed business to play a leading role. income. We want enterprise in the 21st century >> Clamp down on tax havens to be about more than what pays. We internationally and, domestically, want to support enterprise to create require offshore companies to a bigger, more diverse future, through reveal their beneficial ownership stakeholder finance, ownership rooted before being accepted as in communities and business done for competitors for publicly funded the common good. contracts. In instances where beneficial ownership is not clear We recognise the many challenges and/or payments are made to facing businesses today, especially secretive tax havens, all money and small, local businesses, run by families assets transferred will be treated or individuals – and the enormous value as income distribution and taxed they bring to the communities they at the full Corporate or Income Tax serve. We understand how hard it is level. We will explore how to best to start and run a business – and how to tackle tax avoidance channelled rewarding it can be when that business through British Overseas Territories. grows. We will campaign for the EU to clamp down on member state We want to transform the business tax havens, including Ireland, the environment in the UK, so enterprise

Netherlands and Luxembourg. that benefits us all is rewarded and and Spend Tax The New Deal for helped to thrive. >> Abolish the rule that allows non- domiciled residents not to pay tax The Green plan for a small business on foreign income. revolution will:

>> Give small businesses access to lending at affordable rates, by helping to establish a network of regional mutual banks. These new banks will be created specifically to provide funding for

Green Party Manifesto 2019 77 locally led economic initiatives restaurants, on hotel bookings and opportunities, including co- and on theatre, music concert operatives, community interest and museum and gallery tickets, companies and other non-profit This will boost the leisure and businesses. cultural sectors, helping 125,000 businesses at the heart of their >> Further free up funding by local communities. introducing credit guidance for traditional banks, requiring them >> Increase the Employment Allowance to increase their lending to small to £10,000 (currently just £3,000) businesses and businesses per year, allowing small businesses focussed on the sustainability which employ people to claim back transition. the equivalent National Insurance of four full-time workers earning >> Grant 15% of government contracts the average salary. This tax cut will to small and micro businesses. We benefit hundreds of thousands of will revise the government contract small businesses, allowing them to application process, to remove the hire more people, increase wages current barriers for entry to small or reduce prices. business. We will encourage local authorities to adopt this model with >> Promote and support an increase their own contracts. in co-operatives and community interest companies. Education >> Require businesses to publish about these forms of communal and report the difference between enterprise would start in school. agreed payment days and actual payment days. We will introduce >> Roll out high speed broadband. fines for large companies that fail to pay small businesses on time.

>> Support small business to work with employees to adopt full workplace rights.

>> Create new support for entrepreneurs and small business owners from BME backgrounds.

>> Reduce VAT on food and drink served in pubs, bars and

78 If Not Now, When? Ending wasteful spending the development of non-carbon- emitting technologies and finance to help countries deal with the Climate Successive governments have Emergency. committed large sums of public money to projects that contribute nothing to >> Scrapping the government’s the potential for a safer, fairer future for new road building programme, all. Beliefs that big is always best, that including the proposed road tunnel growth is good for growths sake and at Stonehenge that threatens to that communities and environments can desecrate an iconic World Heritage be sacrificed have left a dreadful legacy Site. The funding for this road of public harm and financial waste. building programme, the £6.5 billion It’s time to pull the plug on what hasn’t in revenue received from Vehicle worked so we can invest instead in Exercise Duty each year, will be the Green New Deal and other ways to switched to supporting sustainable sustainably transform the state of the public transport and new cycleways nation. and footpaths as part of the Green New Deal. £1.5 billion of Vehicle As we transition to a net zero economy Exercise Duty revenue will be the Green Party will tackle wasteful retained to maintain existing roads. spending, starting by: >> Scrapping plans for airport >> Cancelling the Trident nuclear expansion across the country. weapons system and nuclear powered submarines. We will join >> Scrapping the doomed HS2 rail line. the United Nation’s Treaty on the The funds freed up will be spent on Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons more effective sustainable public and work within that multilateral transport options, as part of the

framework work for the total Green New Deal. This will enable and Spend Tax The New Deal for elimination of all nuclear weapons, an increase in rail capacity in including the implementation, regions that desperately need more enforcement and verification of all investment, including the creation disarmament, arms control and of three electrified rail lines running non-proliferation agreements. We from Liverpool and Manchester to need a security system that can Sheffield, Hull and the Tees Valley. st keep us safe from 21 -century These three newly electrified lines challenges, not one that could will run through Bradford and realise cold war nightmares. Leeds, creating new rail hubs in the The funds saved from cancelling heart of Yorkshire. Trident will be diverted towards

Green Party Manifesto 2019 79 >> Ending the NHS internal market, will slash poverty rates and ultimately which has driven up administrative save billions per year in government costs in the health service without spending. improving clinical practice, patient care or staff wellbeing. We accept that these savings will take place over a long period of time. >> Ending the Help to Buy Programme, When they are delivered we will seek which mainly served to drive to allocate these funds to other areas developer profits. The funds will of public service provision that are be redirected to the Green Party’s currently being underfunded, such council home creation programme as education, healthcare and local that will deliver attractive, services. affordable homes for all.

>> Abolishing the heavily subsidised current Right to Buy Programme. We will instead allow councils to set discounts locally and retain 100% of receipts to reinvest in new and existing homes.

These are the worst offending projects – our review of government spending is likely to consider further vanity projects that need a rethink.

The Green Party’s plans will also deliver savings in the long term. By tackling some of society’s major problems head-on, Green policies will free up funds currently allocated to managing the harmful effects of poverty, pollution and illegal drug use. Poverty alone costs the UK taxpayer an incredible £85 billion per year. Using effective anti-poverty measures such as the Universal Basic Income, new job opportunities created by the Green New Deal and increased support for the disabled, pensioners and carers, the Green Party’s programme

80 If Not Now, When? In this age of Brexit, our politics In the chaos of the present, we have a resounds with references to the Second similar opportunity to look ahead and World War. make big choices that will unleash a bigger future. In all this looking back, there is one pointer to the future. At the height of the This Green Manifesto sets out five War, amidst the chaos and confusion, a aspirations for our times: social activist named William Beveridge presented a report to the political >> A Green New Deal to tackle the parties of the day on how the country Climate Emergency and deliver could be reshaped when peace came. social justice >> A UK that remains in the EU, to The Beveridge Report set out five transform it for the better aspirations which, if met, could build a >> A democratic renewal, that better future for all: gives everyone a voice >> An economy for tomorrow that >> Adequate household income has improved quality of life and >> Access to healthcare wellbeing at its heart >> Access to educational >> A revolution in tax & spend to opportunity spread wealth fairly and fund >> Adequate housing the Green New Deal >> Gainful employment Every Green vote in this election is a These five aspirations became the vote for this bigger future. It’s a vote to building blocks of the NHS and other transform the UK and build something social services built after the war. good together. It’s a vote for making sure that our best days are still to come.

If not now, then when?

Green Party Manifesto 2019 81 82 If Not Now, When? Green Party Manifesto 2019 83 The section below sets out how we will taken on a UK basis, this is a UK general pay for the policies proposed in this election and, despite the fact that this Manifesto. Green Party covers only England and Wales, and to maintain consistency We have set out our spending over ten and comparability, all the figures in this years, in line with our proposed ten- chapter are UK figures. year Green New Deal to put us on track to reducing our carbon emissions to A Green New Deal zero by 2030. This extended time period reflects the scale of the change needed to fix our climate and fund our future. >> Operational Expenditure related to For ease of comprehension, we have Universal Basic Income put investment and spending amounts as per billion per year. Although exact Cost of proposed UBI regime rates of investment and spending may (including supplements and free vary year from year (especially as childcare): £86.2 billion policies are phased in), the average for To be met from tax changes and each year after ten years will be the savings revenue yearly figure given. >> Operational Expenditure not related This is the manifesto of the Green to Universal Basic Income Party of England and Wales. Separate sister Green parties cover Scotland Investment in skills and training: and Northern Ireland. Many public £2 billion services are devolved, with the Scottish Support to private sector to kick- Parliament, the National Assembly for start investment: £1 billion Wales or the Northern Ireland Assembly Reduction in public transport fares: taking responsibility. However, most £3.5 billion decisions on government investment, Upgrading cycleways and footpaths: expenditure and taxation are ultimately £0.5 billion (admin costs)

84 If Not Now, When? Research and development for Growing Democracy farming & forestry: £1 billion Research into carbon capture technologies: £0.8 billion >> Operational Expenditure Tree and forest planting: £0.7 billion Increasing direct funding to local Total: £9.5 billion authorities: £10 billion To be met from tax changes and Providing a climate adaption fund savings revenue for local authorities: £3 billion Funding local authorities to provide >> Capital Expenditure free social care at home for over 65s: £4.5 billion Upgrades to electricity grid: Funding political parties and other £10.4 billion smaller policies: £1 billion Improvements to energy storage Increasing international aid: system: £4.5 billion £6.5 billion Renewable electricity generation: £12 billion Total: £25 billion Funding local authorities to better To be met from tax changes and insulate all homes and deep retrofit savings revenue of 1 million homes a year: £24.6 billion The Green Quality of Life Funding local authorities to better insulate non-domestic buildings: Guarantee £7 billion Funding local authorities to create >> Operational Expenditure at least 100,000 new social homes a year: £10.2 billion Increased funding for NHS, Research and development for including increased nursing industry: £6 billion training: £7 billion Industrial processes: £3 billion Increased funding for schools: £4 Upgrading rail capacity, including billion electrification: £12.2 billion Scrapping tuition fees and funding Upgrading cycleways and footpaths every student: £7.8 billion infrastructure: £2.0 billion Increasing adult education: Electric vehicles and infrastructure: £1 billion £2.5 billion Smaller policies: £1 billion

Total: £94.4 billion Total: £20.8 billion To be met from public borrowing To be met from tax changes and >> savings revenue Green Party Manifesto 2019 85 Additional revenue generated from Additional revenue generated from tax savings (per year) changes (per year)

The below figures come from The below figures come from calculations made by Green Party Tax calculations made by Green Party Tax and Fiscal Working Group: and Fiscal Working Group:

Savings from cancelling wasteful Carbon Tax: £76.7 billion (excluding projects: Carbon Tax revenue from farming Scrapping Trident: £2.2 billion (an sector, which is restricted for additional £0.2 billion of savings spending on the farming sector only) from this measure will be spent on Simplifying income taxes: £21.7 costs of cancellation) billion Scrapping the government’s road Increasing Corporation Tax to 24%: building programme: £5 billion £12 billion Scrapping HS2: £3.5 billion (an New taxes on banking: £5 billion additional £0.5 billion of savings Tax avoidance and evasion from this measure will be spent on crackdown: £3 billion costs of cancellation) Reduction of tax relief on pension Scrapping Help to Buy: £1 billion contributions (all relief at 20%/basic Ending the NHS internal market: tax rate): £6 billion £2.3 billion Reduction of tax-free drawdown on pensions to £40k: £2 billion Savings from tackling social Legalised drug taxes: £8 billion problems (we have assumed we Increased alcohol duties: £3 billion will only be able to realise 30% of longterms savings in these areas in Minus VAT reduction for leisure, the first ten years): eating & drinking out, sports, Tackling poverty: £12.6 billion recreation, creative arts & Ending the war on drugs: £1 billion entertainment and household repairs Ending air pollution: £1.8 billion sector (£9.5 billion) Minus increase in Employment Total extra revenue generated by Allowance from £3k to £10k (£3.5 savings: £29.4 billion)

We have not added any increase in revenue from our reforms to land taxes to our revenue predications. This is

86 If Not Now, When? because, whilst the new Land Value Public borrowing Tax will bring in increased revenue, we are committed to using the initial We propose to borrow an extra extra revenue generated to mitigate the £94.4 billion a year, to pay for capital impact of the new tax on homeowners. expenditure. Our commitment to This transition period, and the write off student debt from fee loans associated reliefs to help homeowners accumulated under the £9,000 tuition move to the new system, will last for ten fee regime will add an additional sum years. onto the national debt.

Total extra revenue generated by new The costs of servicing the extra tax regime: £124.4 billion borrowing and paying down the debt over time will be met by the additional Green New Deal – additional private revenue from the new jobs created sector investment and the surplus left over from our tax changes and savings revenue. The cost We envision that Green New Deal public of government borrowing is at its lowest sector investment will be a catalyst for for decades, creating an unparalleled private sector investment, as private opportunity for public investment. investors seek to share in the financial rewards of a transition to a low carbon We feel that this borrowing to invest future. We have budgeted (see Green is justified, in the face of the looming New Deal Operational Costs) for the Climate Emergency, and prudent, given administration of a fund to encourage how Green New Deal investment will and help direct this private sector kick-start an economic and social investment. regeneration. The proceeds of this investment will in time mean that the This private investment will form a Green New Deal pays for itself. second, non-publicly funded stream of finance for a Green New Deal. We The rate of the Carbon Tax will rise expect the amount of private investment through the Green New Deal period, to reach £50 billion per year, including with the reducing amounts of carbon in around £25 billion of private sector the economy taxed at an accelerating finance matching public sector spending rate to encourage further phasing out. on deep retrofitting homes. Private At the end of the Green New Deal period investment will also benefit the Green the extra revenue from the jobs, rented New Deal for energy and the Green New homes and transport assets created Deal for industry, accelerating progress by New Deal investment will make in these sectors. themselves felt – replacing Carbon Tax revenue in the long term and providing

Green Party Manifesto 2019 87 a healthy surplus. This will form a stable Our programme of investment should be foundation for future finances. seen as a starting push on our national bicycle – giving us the momentum to set off and pedal with growing strength towards a better future.

Drawing it all together

This Manifesto proposes extra the increased revenues the government operational expenditure of £141.5 billion is likely to receive from an economy a year, paid for by a mix of tax reforms boosted by significant investment, or and savings measures. We propose the reduced spending requirements £94.4 billion of capital expenditure, arising from a happier, healthier society. raised through government borrowing. These benefits are likely to accrue at an Surplus from our tax reforms and accelerated rate as our policies begin savings measures, alongside increased take effect, paving the way in the long revenues from the new jobs created, term for an economy and that is far will pay for servicing and paying down more stable than ours currently is. this extra borrowing. Our investment will kick-start the great We appreciate these are large numbers. transition to a net zero carbon economy We are, however, confident in them. We and a better quality of life. If not now, have been deliberately cautious in our then when? estimates. We have not included in full

88 If Not Now, When?

Promoted by Judy Maciejowska on behalf of the Green Party, both at The Biscuit Factory, Unit 215 J Block, 100 Clements Road, London, SE16 4DG.