---
election_year: 2015
party_id: green
party_name: Green Party of England and Wales
party_leader: Natalie Bennett
political_spectrum: left-green
victory: false
government_outcome: opposition
sections:
  - economy
  - taxation
  - health
  - education
  - housing
  - defence
  - foreign-policy
  - environment
  - transport
  - law-and-order
  - welfare
  - democracy-and-constitution
  - agriculture
  - energy
  - science-and-technology
  - local-government
---

# Green Party Manifesto 2015

*Natalie Bennett, Green Party Leader*

### We face three connected crises:

### To help heal the planet we will:

### To become more equal and support our public services we will:

### To create a truly democratic central and local government and a common citizenship and

### to promote peace based on democratic principles we will:

## The Green Party: Governing for the Common Good

* Local government? Check out your nearest website or leaflet: you’re likely to be referred to as a customer, not a citizen.
* Privatisation? Look at one of the most recent – Royal Mail. This was owned by you and me, then it was sold for a song, with
* Outsourcing? This is what governments do when they’ve given up governing. The result is a series of scandals from companies
* Zero-hours contracts? These are designed for companies looking to maximise profits through labour flexibility, but hopeless if you
* It’s hard to think of others when we are pitted against one another and sold the lie that individuals are to blame for their
## A Decent Livelihood: A One-Planet Economy

### What is the economy for?

* Is my job secure?
* Will our family have enough this month to pay the bills and put food on the table?
* Can we keep paying the mortgage or the rent?
* Will we have to continue to work unreasonably long or unpredictable hours?
* Is my pay fair compared with others?
* Will my benefits be cut?
* Will I ever get a pension?
* Will I ever get a job with a future?
* Will I ever pay off my student loan?
* Will I ever find a decent place to live?
* Will the economy provide a decent livelihood long into the future for our children and grandchildren?
* More than one in four children is growing up in poverty.
* The bosses of the UK’s 100 biggest companies earn on average 143 times more than their staff.
* The top 1% of the population has the same wealth as the bottom 55%.
* Five families in the UK have the same wealth as 12 million UK citizens. 913,138 people received three days’ emergency food from Trussell Trust food banks in 2013–14 compared with 346,992 in
* Debt levels are growing. By 2018, 2 million households are expected to spend more than half their disposable income repaying
* Household incomes adjusted for inflation are still on average 2% below what they were in 2009–10.

### Short-term economic stimulus

### Alternatives to austerity

* Ensure that everyone who wants one has a decent secure job paid at least a living wage. So we have to encourage and create
* Address the issue of climate change. We need huge investment in using energy more efficiently and generating energy
* Stabilise and tightly regulate the financial sector, whose greed and recklessness have been a major cause of our recent
* Provide equality and security in a mixed economy by committing to the common good, a larger public sector and higher taxation,
* Be prepared to borrow on good terms to fund investment rather than making closing the deficit the main objective of our
* Reject the dogma that everything is best done by the private sector. A sensible economy is a mixed economy, where some things
* Support those without jobs and treat them with respect in a system that makes getting some work worthwhile and provides
* Mobilise the talents and energy of everyone and serve everyone, including the young and the old, men and women, those who
* Recognise that not everything that is valuable has a price attached to it.
* Create a robust taxation system that promotes equality and sustainability.
* Rein in huge companies that put shareholder returns ahead of the common good. Foster institutional change in the economy
* Create an efficient economy that encourages innovation and the use of science but does not rely on dangerous technologies. See
* Foster an economy that is open to Europe and the wider world, that accepts people will move from country to country, and that is
* Ensure that the Treasury’s priority objective is to deliver an economy with these aims.
## The Earth

* We have lost half the wild animals on Earth in the past 40 years.
* We lose between 200 and 100,000 species every year. This is between 1,000 and 10,000 times faster than the natural extinction
* We are causing a ‘sixth extinction’. The other five occurred naturally; this one is down to us.
* We have increased CO2 concentrations from a pre-industrial 280 parts per million (ppm) to about 400 ppm.
* Global temperatures are due to rise between 1.5 and 4.8 degrees C by 2100. And that’s just the internationally agreed range
* UK biodiversity is threatened by development and agricultural practices such as intensive farming, the draining of wetlands and
* Genetic selection is causing endemic health and welfare problems in domestic and farmed animals.
* Animal experimentation is still routine; millions of animals suffer pain and death every year in the UK.
* Overfishing is devastating marine ecosystems.
* Our attitude to the natural world is epitomised by the fact that some circuses still tour with wild animals, including zebras, lions,
### Wildlife and open spaces

* Protect, expand, properly fund and improve non-car access to our National Parks.
* Make good the Coalition’s unfulfilled promise to protect forests through a Forests Protection Bill.
* Reduce dramatically the use of pesticides and prioritise non-chemical farming methods through improved agri-environment
* Secure protection of rural residents and communities from exposure to pesticides sprayed on nearby crop fields and prohibit the
* Improve the management of woodlands through new planting and the local use of sustainable woodland products.
* Aim to ensure through planning that everyone lives within five minutes’ walk of a green open space, and ensure local authorities
* Help bees by reducing pesticide use (banning neonicotinoids), ‘greening’ farming, improving planning guidelines to preserve/
* Promote landscape-scale conservation, using reform of the Common Agricultural Policy, improved agri-environment schemes and
* Repeal the National Planning Policy Framework and in particular its presumption in favour of development, and put planning
* Increase the amount of land offered long-term protection through the European Union’s Birds Directive and Habitats Directive,
* Work with local communities, scientists and conservation groups to expand the UK’s network of Marine Conservation Zones to
* Play our part in creating a Southern Atlantic Reserve and champion internationally the protection of the Arctic.
* Produce a strategy for capturing carbon and reducing greenhouse gases through improved land management, for example by
* Because of the interaction between water supply and the wider environment, require Ofwat (the Water Services Regulation
* Prohibit developers from being allowed to destroy unique habitats by way of biodiversity offsetting elsewhere.
* Because 94% of the biodiversity for which the UK is responsible is found in our Overseas Territories, ensure that conservation of
### Food, farming and fisheries

* That nutritious food is available to everyone at prices they can afford;
* Decent rural livelihoods and support for rural communities;
* That there is national and international food security;
* That farming respects the environment and treats farm animals well.
* Seek to reform the Common Agricultural Policy and reform our national agri-environment schemes to prioritise and support
* Foster environmentally sustainable agriculture, land management and a secure food supply by properly supporting valid, rigorous
* Encourage farming to operate in fair trade conditions, which guarantee a decent livelihood for farmers at home and also in
* Protect productive farmland from development except for that associated with agriculture and those engaged in it. In particular,
* Work to reduce food imports and increase home and local food production where feasible.
* Increase localisation of the food chain and encourage direct sales via local markets; support fair trade for farmers and enable
* Help hospitals and schools and other food buyers in the public sector to lead the way in buying sustainable products, and
* Work to ensure sustainable fishing policies, leading to sustainable fishing communities, at both the national and European levels
* Research, promote and support farming methods that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, enable carbon storage and have
* Support a moratorium, at national and EU level, on the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in all agricultural systems,
* Work to reduce food waste.

### Animal protection

* Improved food labelling and better traceability of our food to prevent further food scandals such as the horse meat scandal;
* Mandatory CCTV in all slaughterhouses.
* Tougher regulations on animal transportation, including a maximum limit of 8 hours and an end to live export from the UK.
* Action to stop the overuse of antibiotics in intensive animal farming, with mandatory targets and surveillance of the human health
* A ban on the production and sale of foie gras.
* A ban on the cloning of farm animals and on the sale of meat and milk from these animals.
* Protection for British farmers from low-welfare imports.
* Increased support and resources to build expertise in wildlife crime within the justice sector, including: strengthening sentencing
* A ban on the import of exotic pets.
* An end to the keeping of primates as household pets.
* Enhanced public education and awareness to reduce demand.
* Allocation of resources to support other countries in tackling poaching and human/wildlife conflict.
* Maintain and strengthen the ban on hunting with dogs and extend this ban to all hunting of all animals for sport or pleasure.
* End the badger cull (see ‘Badger culls’ box).
* End the use of snares.
* End the practice of grouse shooting and other ‘sport’ shooting.
* End the use of all animals in circuses.
* End the use of the whip in horse racing and conduct a full review of the sport.
* Take action over other sports or entertainment that cause suffering to animals.
* Ensure UK taxpayers’ money is not used to fund bullfighting.
* Ensure greater protection for racing greyhounds and initiate a formal independent review of the industry.
* Ban the import of fur products.
* Work for stronger international protection of endangered sea creatures, and an end to the killing of porpoises, whales and
* Stop non-medical experiments, experiments using primates, cats and dogs. End the use of live animals in military training.
* Stop the breeding of and use of genetically altered animals.
* End government funding of animal experimentation, including any that is outsourced to other countries.
* Provide greater funding for non-animal research methods and link funding to a target for developing of humane alternatives to
* Increase transparency and ensure publication of all findings of animal research, including negative findings.
* Introduce a comprehensive system for reviewing animal experiments and initiate a comparison of currently required animal tests
* Completely review and update existing dog legislation, particularly relating to dog control.
* Ensure properly coordinated action on dog fighting.
* Update the rules on selling animals and tackle problems associated with online advertising of pets and illegal imports.
* Introduce mandatory licensing of breeders and control on genetic manipulation through breeding to prevent exaggerated
* End puppy farming by banning the sale of young puppies unless the mother is present.
* Introduce regulations that make it illegal to use aversive training aids such as electric shock collars.
### Science and technology

* Ensure that adequate government funding goes to research on major environmental issues such as climate change, pollution and
* Ensure that basic research is adequately funded and is not controlled by large corporations, and gradually increase public
* Ensure that scientific research is conducted ethically, with regard in particular to human and animal welfare.
* Publish freely the results of all publicly funded research.
* Prevent the patenting of genes and living organisms.

### Waste and recycling

* Reduce what we use, reuse it when we have finished with it and recycle as a last resort.
* Provide the framework and the infrastructure to help people make more positive choices.
* Use taxation and regulation to ensure that products and packaging are designed with a view to what happens to them when they
* Follow Scotland in banning waste food and other organic material being sent to landfill.
* Increase national spending on recycling and waste disposal by about 50%, an extra £4 billion a year, so that we can do away with
* Aim to recycle 70% of domestic waste by 2020 as a move towards a zero-waste system.
## Energy and the Climate

* Everyone is able to cook and keep warm;
* We are charged for what we use, and not penalised for using less;
* We are not cut off or forced to use pre-payment meters.
* Reduces the amount of energy we need, mainly by improving energy efficiency.
* Ends fuel poverty.
* Invests massively in renewable generation.
* Reorganises the energy generation and supply industry, in particular breaking the dominance of the Big Six suppliers.
* Puts community, cooperative and locally owned clean energy generation and supply at the heart of our energy system.
### Climate change

* The government’s climate change advisers say we are on track to miss even the government’s unsatisfactory carbon targets.
* Progress on energy efficiency has plummeted. The government’s Green Deal to save energy in our homes has been a
* The UK is 25th out of 27 in the European renewable energy league table, despite having some of the best resources for
* We have the highest level of fuel poverty in Western Europe.
### Using energy wisely

* Provide a free nationwide retrofit insulation programme, concentrating on areas where fuel poverty is most serious. This is
* Give tenants the right to require landlords to achieve the same improvement to the energy performance of their home, and
* Require all new homes to be built to the Passivhaus standard.
* Support this investment in insulating and building to Passivhaus standards with investment in training for the design and building
* Invest too in energy awareness programmes so that people become as aware of the energy performance of their home (and of
* Continue a fully funded Renewable Heat Incentive scheme.
* Provide £4.5 billion over the Parliament to support research and development into less energy-intensive industrial processes.
* Prioritise public over private transport, electrification of the transport system and access over mobility.
* Give councils the power to insist that communal heating schemes, for example using waste heat from industrial sources, are
* Establish mandatory standards for commercial building performance such as ISO 5001.
* Use carbon taxes (based on the present system) to fund investment in energy-efficiency measures, and prepare for the following
### Owning and controlling our energy system

* Maximise opportunities for community or municipally owned, or cooperative not-for-profit organisations to generate and supply
* Set a target for at least 42 gigawatts (GW) of community power by 2020.
* Require grid operators to give priority access to community energy projects at an affordable cost.
* Split up the large vertically integrated companies so that they can’t both produce energy and supply it to consumers.
* Secure public control over the strategic direction and policies of the National Grid.
* Support long-term stable fixed-price feed-in tariffs for renewable energy generators.
* Ensure that consumer energy tariffs are progressive, so small consumers pay less per unit than larger ones, that special needs
* Ensure that there is a single scheme of regulation for the entire industry, whose objectives include achieving climate change
### Speeding the renewables revolution

* Invest substantial amounts of public money (up to £35 billion over the Parliament) in renewable generation and in the National
* Give the Green Investment Bank full borrowing powers to help fund this investment.
* Concentrate on expanding mature renewable technologies such as wind energy and solar PV in the period until 2030 and
* Ensure that all schools, hospitals and other public buildings have solar panels by 2020.
* Encourage all social landlords to develop plans to install solar panels on all suitable properties, building on Kirklees Council’s
* Set deployment targets to bring down costs and attract investment in manufacturing and supply chains, aiming for 42 GW of
* Spend £2.5 billion over the Parliament on an intensive research and deployment programme for other renewables such as wave
* Phase out fossil-fuel-based generation, including the closure of all coal-fired power stations by 2023 at the very latest.
* Phase out nuclear power within ten years.
* Ban all UK fracking operations – following a growing number of nations worldwide – and withdraw all relevant licences as soon
* End fossil fuel industry tax breaks, phase out other harmful fossil fuel subsidies (domestic and international) and use the money
* Work with financial institutions, local councils and others to encourage divestment from fossil fuels and develop alternative
* Support the potential deployment of carbon capture and storage to existing biomass and gas power stations only as a transitional
* Develop biomass generation only where it can be done in a sustainable way giving regard to the environmental and human costs
* Set in law a decarbonisation target for the power sector of 25–50 grams of carbon dioxide per kilowatt hour by 2030.
* Expand electricity storage capacity, including using the potential storage capacity of electric vehicles, and develop the
* Introduce smart meters and appliances.
### Adapting to climate change

* Providing help for people and communities to prepare for an increasingly variable climate. We would give an extra £1 billion a
* Obliging government departments and local authorities to
* Having the government act as an insurer of last resort where commercial insurance companies are refusing to provide
* Preventing new building on flood plains.
* Encouraging storing water in uplands through full river system management – including wetland restoration, natural
* Nuclear energy is extremely expensive: not one nuclear plant has ever been built, anywhere in the world by private investors
* Nuclear remains a uniquely dangerous form of energy. If the new plant being built by EDF at Hinkley were to release an
* No long-term solution has yet been found to the question of dealing with nuclear waste.
* Wind power has been found to create around 12 times as many jobs as the same investment in nuclear, and solar power is
* Renewables can provide the same ‘base load’ production as nuclear power at a lower cost without the risks. Nuclear power
* The current UK nuclear programme is planned around a reactor design, the European Pressurized Reactor (EPR), which has
## Equalities

* If the economy gets bigger some benefit will ‘trickle down’ to the poor and vulnerable;
* A rising tide floats all boats – forgetting that not everyone has a boat.

### Equality and diversity

* Reinstate the funding for the Equality and Human Rights Commission.
* Make equality and diversity lessons mandatory in all schools, from the first year of primary education onwards, to combat all
* Continue to tackle institutional racism in the police force and the wider criminal justice system.
* Require all police forces to have equality and diversity liaison officers whose remit is to tackle and take preventive action on
* Implement a UK-wide strategy to tackle violence against women, including domestic violence, rape and sexual abuse, female
* Ensure that effective action is taken to prevent discrimination against people with disabilities.
* Provide comprehensive training for teachers and educational staff on all diversity and inclusion issues.
* Oblige schools to promote equal opportunities in their anti-bullying procedures and to monitor equality issues in
* Work towards ending stigma against people with mental health problems, including discrimination in employment.
* Progressively introduce anonymised CVs so that Black and Minority Ethnic and female candidates are not excluded before the
* Ensure that the public sector does more to employ more Black and Minority Ethnic employees.
* Strengthen Travellers’ rights to sites and guarantee proper protection of the nomadic lifestyle of Travellers while ensuring that the
* Enforce penalties against employers who continue to implement unequal pay.
* Work vigorously towards ensuring that all levels of government and public bodies are representative of the diversity of the
* Support proposals by the Speaker of the House of Common to set up an Equalities Committee.

### Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ) people

* Legislate to remedy inequality in pension inheritance for same-sex marriage partners and same-sex civil partners.
* Consider reducing the 12-month blood donation deferral period for men who have sex with men, based on individual risk
* Apologise to and pardon all 50,000–100,000 men convicted of consenting adult same-sex relations under anti-gay laws that
* Provide mandatory HIV, sex and relationship education – age appropriate and LGBTIQ inclusive – in all schools from primary level
* Require every school to have an anti-bullying programme that explicitly combats homophobic, biphobic and
* Combat homophobic, biphobic and transphobic violence by ensuring uniform legislation against all forms of hate crime.
* End the cuts to the NHS, which have undermined HIV services and made it harder for trans people to access gender
* End the detention of LGBTIQ (and other) asylum seekers and the culture of disbelief that often denies them refugee status.
* Challenge
* Press the Commonwealth to grant accredited status to a Commonwealth LGBTIQ Association and to urge all member states to
### Women

* Poorer – nearly three-quarters of the government’s ‘savings’ have been paid for by women;
* Earning less – the value of low pay in particular is declining, and the pay gap between men and women in their twenties has
* Over-burdened – as support services have been slashed, women are left carrying the load; and
* More at risk of gendered violence – because funding for services that support survivors of sexual and domestic violence has
* Make equal pay for men and women a reality.
* Require 40% of all members of public company and public sector boards to be women.
* Listen to girls and young women about relationships education and about sexism in the media and make personal, social, health
* Take steps to tackle media sexism, starting with working with retailers to stop lads mags and other pornography from being sold
* Ensure that the laws to prevent discrimination against women on the grounds of pregnancy and maternity are
* Follow Scotland’s lead and make it illegal to stop nursing mothers feeding their babies in a public place.
* Ensure consistent long-term funding for a national network of Rape Crisis Centres, spending up to £100 million on the network
### Disability

* Support the principles of, and enforce the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
* End the pernicious system whereby an external contractor assesses whether people are fit for work and return to the system of
* Increase the budget for Disability Living Allowance / Personal Independence Payments by around £1 billion a year.
* Retain the Independent Living Fund, which enables over 18,000 severely disabled people to stay in their home instead of being in
* Provide a further £0.5 billion for free social care for adults aged 18–65 who have a proven care need.
* Increase the Carer’s Allowance by 50%, costing £1.2 billion a year (6.5 million carers save the state £119 billion), and provide
* Raise the profile of the Access to Work scheme among smaller firms and under-served disabled people, with far great
* Provide older carers with more generous and consistent support through a Citizen’s Pension.
* Integrate health and care services so as to look after carers as well as those they care for.
* Recognise the rights of children who are disabled, and their families, in education, in the transition to adult life, in childcare, in
* Recognise fully the housing needs of people who are disabled, including support with planning and obtaining housing.
* Make it a licensing condition for taxis that drivers have Disability Awareness Training.

### Young people

* Ensure that the UK’s child protection systems are effective at tackling child neglect and abuse early on, including changing the
* Set clear targets for ending child poverty, including ways to measure it and fund local authorities properly so they can focus on
* Increase the current investment in young people’s services, providing a comprehensive and inclusive youth service, including
* Extend free local public transport to young people and students, spending up to £4 billion a year. This would encourage the habit
* Support 20 mph zones, cycle schemes and public transport to make our streets safe and useful for young people.
* Raise the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14.
* Lower the voting age to 16.
* Reform the judicial system to create a strong statutory presumption against the imprisonment of young offenders.
* Restrict police use of random stop and search powers, which especially damage police relationships with young people.
* Make higher education free and end the student loan system.
* End the exploitation of interns; ensure no unpaid full-time internship lasts more than four weeks.
* Make renting affordable and possible again for young people through our housing policies, especially those on regulating the
* End the exploitation of young people in low-wage jobs through our living wage policy.
* Keep Housing Benefit for under 25s.
* Do more for young people who have no family; a basic first step would be to pay foster carers a salary, costing about
* Provide access to suitable emergency accommodation for the 200,000 young people who go missing every year if they are
* Support the right of young people all over Europe to go to other parts of the EU to work and broaden their experience.
* Provide more training and work experience for young unemployed people through expanding apprenticeships; specifically,

### Older people and pensions

* Provide free social care funded by taxation on the same basis as the NHS.
* Keep the pensioners’ bus pass and Winter Fuel Payment.
* Provide free prescriptions for all and abolish the TV licence, making the current concessions unnecessary.
* Support enforcing the rights of older people through the Dignity Code.
* Make sure that all pensioners living abroad receive the same pension and annual pension increase as those living in the UK.
* Support 20 mph zones, cycle schemes and public transport to make our streets safe and useful for older as well
* Keep the NHS a public service, comprehensive and free at the point of delivery, especially recognising that the current generation
## Health and Well-Being

### We will end NHS privatisation

* Fragmentation of services, with patients falling into gaps between providers, and poor communication between clinicians;
* Outsourcing, with companies cutting corners to win contracts;
* Cherry-picking of profitable treatments by private providers, leaving the NHS to provide treatments that are not properly funded;
* An increase in administration costs of 9% of the NHS budget.
* Repeal the Health and Social Care Act 2012, and introduce an NHS Reinstatement Bill
* Promote transparency by ending commercial confidentiality.
* Carry out an investigation into the opaque system of patronage and lobbying that has characterised the privatisation
* Require NHS staff to declare financial interests that conflict with their role.
* Stop further private finance initiative (PFI) contracts and end the inappropriate sale of NHS assets.
* Seek ways to buy out existing PFI contracts where that would represent good value for money, and set aside up to £5 billion over
* Restore the public sector ethos of partnership between staff and patients.

### We will end Health Service austerity

* Immediately increase the overall NHS budget by £12 billion a year to overcome the current funding crisis, increase investment in
* Thereafter, increase the overall NHS budget annually in real terms by 1.2% to take account of our ageing population. Together
* Increase alcohol and tobacco taxes to help fund the annual increases in NHS spending over the Parliament.
* Provide
* Provide free social care at the end of life, enabling dying people to choose where they die.
* Provide accessible, local community health centres that provide a wide range of services, including out-of-hours care. These will
* End phony patient choice. For most of us patient choice is much less important than getting good treatment at our local hospital
* Listen to and work in partnership with third sector organisations that are championing patient care.
* Ensure that all cost-effective treatments are available to all patients who need them.
* Work to ensure that cancer outcomes in the UK are as good as the best in Europe.
* Build systems to measure and improve the ecological impact of healthcare, from carbon costings of treatments (building them
### We will act to prevent illness and expand primary and community care

* Restore the proportion of NHS funding for primary care from the present 7% to 2005 levels (11%) and review the case for
* Always consider whether services currently offered in or by hospitals could be transferred to the community.
* Look for low-tech, local solutions as well as technical advances.
* Encourage cooperation between all the primary care providers, e.g. pharmacies and hearing, optical and old age
* Tackle air pollution, which causes an estimated 29,000 premature deaths each year in the UK. UK and EU standards on air
* Give special attention to the well-being of children from conception to 2 years old, the first 1001 days. For example, there should
* Extend VAT at the standard rate to less healthy foods, including sugar, but spend the money raised on subsidising around one-
* Put a minimum price on alcohol of 50p per unit. This will reduce the physical, psychological and social harm associated with
* Put the UK at the centre of efforts to end the AIDS, TB and malaria epidemics and the threat they pose to the health of women,
* Treat drug addiction as a health problem rather than a crime, making drugs policy the responsibility of the Department of Health
* Adopt an evidence-based approach to the step-by-step regulation, starting with cannabis, of the drugs currently banned under
* Introduce a regime of presumed consent for organ donation, which respects the right of relatives to refuse consent.
* Provide the right to an assisted death within a rigorous framework of regulation and in the context of the availability of the
* End mixed-sex accommodation in hospitals.
* Improve hospital food.

### We will restore a person-centred approach to the NHS

* Place the quality of patient care, especially patient safety, at the heart of the system. Reducing costs would not be the primary
* Evolve the best system of care with the help of the service providers.
* Engage, empower and hear patients and carers at all times, treating both with dignity.
* Foster whole-heartedly the growth, development and training of all staff, including their involvement in improving the systems in
* Embrace transparency in the interests of sharing best practice, accountability and cooperation.
* Use quantitative data to better understand how the system is working, not to set targets, and to see them as a route to
* Ensure that there are clear lines of responsibility, especially for safety and interdepartmental cooperation.
* Respect the NHS Pay Review Body and bring NHS pay back in line with inflation and negotiate improved conditions.
* Expand the workforce to drive the wholesale improvement of mental health services.

### We will tackle the crisis of our time: Mental health

* Ensure that spending on mental health care rises within our overall commitment to increase real spending on health.
* Ensure that no one waits more than 28 days for access to talking therapies.
* Ensure that everyone experiencing a mental health crisis, including children and young people, should have safe and speedy
* The use of police cells as ‘places of safety’ for children should be eliminated by 2016, and by the end of the next Parliament
* Ensure that everyone who requires a mental health bed should be able to access one in their local NHS Trust area, unless they
* Implement a campaign to end the discrimination and stigma associated with mental health through supporting the Time for
* Invest in dementia services, ensuring that support is available for all affected by this debilitating disease, including families and
* Pay special attention to any mental health issues of mothers during and after pregnancy, children and adolescents, Black and
* Improve access to addiction services, including both drugs and alcohol addiction.
* Give higher priority to the physical healthcare of those with mental health problems.
## A Place to Learn: Education

### Early years education and childcare

* Build a free but voluntary universal early education and childcare service for all children from birth until compulsory education
* Integrate this into the local education service, run by local education authorities, and build on existing infant schools. Local
* Ensure that the system includes children’s centres for the very youngest children and their parents, and childcare and early
* Ensure that those who lead early years education are qualified teachers with qualified teacher status and with specialist
* Encourage parents to participate in helping to run the service.
* Ensure that parents would receive much increased Child Benefit from 2016 and would continue to receive Statutory Maternity

### Schools

* Democratic accountability and a key role for local authorities in planning, admissions policy and equality of access for children
* A comprehensive system of local schools offering mixed-ability teaching and staffed by qualified teachers, and the integration of
* Restoring education current and capital funding to 2010 levels in real terms (costing around £7 billion a year) and distributing
* Action to reduce teacher workload and introduce professional pay levels for all teachers.
* Ending the marketisation and outsourcing of education.
* Leaving local education authorities free to decide how much to allocate to current spending and how much to
* Class sizes of 20, costing £1.5 billion over the Parliament.
* The integration of academies and free schools into the local authority system.
* Academic learning from 6 years old, with earlier years education focusing on play, social cohesion and confidence-building, and
* The abolition of SATS and league tables and the evaluation of schools by parents, teachers and the local community, not Ofsted
* A broad, balanced and enriching curriculum, including creative and vocational areas, and making PSHE (including sex and
* An increase in outdoor education and physical activity so children establish an early and strong relationship with their
* The right for every child who is disabled to a mainstream education.
* The removal of charitable status from private schools, with a view to absorbing them into the state system, but nevertheless
* We will phase out public funding of schools run by religious organisations.  Schools may teach about religions, but should not
* Home education and flexi-schooling.
* Free nutritious lunches, with local and GM-free ingredients, and children involved in growing, preparing and cooking food where
* Ensuring that all schools that serve particular vulnerable communities, for example the Jewish, Muslim or Sikh communities, are
* An end to the trend whereby parents have to buy as extras equipment needed at school or for participation on expensive school

### Further education and skills training

* Oppose the privatisation of further education and return further education colleges to the democratic control of
* Reverse the trend whereby 45% of apprenticeships, that is, jobs with structured training, are now taken by people over 25. We
* Restore the Education Maintenance Allowance for 16 and 17 year olds.
* Provide the further education sector with £1.5 billion a year extra funding.
* Connect universities with local schools and colleges through nationwide Widening Participation programmes.
* Encourage local authorities to use some of the additional money we propose to give to them to restore a full range of local adult
* End the anomaly whereby schools and academies can reclaim VAT on goods and services whereas sixth form colleges and
* Prioritise training in the skills needed to build a low-carbon economy.
### Higher education

* Ending undergraduate tuition fees. We appreciate that the current level of applications to study at university reflects the paucity
* Cancelling student debt issued by the Student Loans Company and held by the government. Taking account of the loans that it is
* Reintroducing student grants costing £2.2 billion over the Parliament. In the longer run we would support student living costs
* In the longer term, considering scrapping fees for academic postgraduate courses.
* Restoring access to lifelong learning by supporting mature students and their families. We will reverse the 20-year programme of
* Reintroducing the block grant to universities. It is essential that teaching and learning can be supported effectively across the
* Encouraging universities and pension funds such as the Universities Superannuation Scheme to divest from fossil fuel
* Supporting the 10:1 ‘fair pay campus’ campaign. We are committed to ending the scandal of Vice-Chancellors paying themselves
## A Place to Live: Housing

* A misplaced faith in the market as the way to meet housing needs, where the market for houses has too often reflected a desire
* A lack of investment in public housing for at least 20 years, following Right to Buy and restrictions on what local authorities can
* A private rented sector where too often people have insecurity of tenure and are being charged extortionate rents for
### The housing market: House price stability

* Give the Bank of England the powers it has requested to limit the size of mortgages in relation to the property value and the
* Take steps to ensure that development is more evenly distributed across the whole of the country, so reducing pressure on
* Make ‘buy to let’ less attractive, so reducing pressure on house prices, by removing tax incentives, including the deduction of
* Introduce new higher Council Tax bands for more expensive homes, with higher rates for empty homes.
* Scrap the government’s Help to Buy scheme, which does nothing to help those in the greatest housing need and contributes to
* Take action on empty homes to bring them back into use. There are about 700,000 empty homes. Halve this number through
* Gradually phase out Stamp Duty Land Tax and consider a Land Value Tax.
* Minimise encroachment onto undeveloped ‘greenfield sites’ wherever possible by reusing previously developed sites that have
### Public housing: Providing 500,000 new social rented homes

* Provide 500,000 social rented homes to high sustainability standards by increasing the social housing budget from £1.5 billion a
* Devolve Housing Benefit budgets to councils, so they can design packages that improve access to housing in their local market
* End mass council house sales and the Right to Buy at a discounted price.
* Provide more rights for homeless people, giving local authorities the same duties with regard to single people and childless
* Oppose new arm’s length management organisations and ensure genuine tenant participation in existing ones.
* In November 2012 Brighton Council introduced a new licensing scheme by which private landlords letting a property for
* By July 2014 the Green-led Council had brought some 416 council homes and more than 460 empty private homes
* By November 2014 Greens had overseen the delivery of 389 affordable homes (as part of wider residential and mixed
* In the Green Party’s term of administration it will have overseen the building of 639 homes. A further 681 affordable homes,
* For the first time in living memory, communal heating bills in some Brighton & Hove Council blocks have fallen as Council
### Make renting normal and not a rip-off

* Reform the private rented sector by introducing a ‘living rent’ tenancy (including five-year fixed tenancy agreements), smart rent
* Set up a Living Rent Commission to explore whether controls could bring rents more in line with local average incomes.
* Introduce a mandatory licensing scheme for landlords.
* Abolish landlord perks, such as tax deductions against a variety of expenditures, including mortgage interest relief. Ending
* Increase the supply of small lets by raising the tax-free amount under the Rent a Room Scheme to £7,250 a year.
* Abolish the ‘bedroom tax’, which has saved less than £400 million a year. A Department for Work and Pensions report found that
* Bring Housing Benefit for all age groups back in line with average market rents, so that it provides all citizens with the means to
* Subject the Shared Accommodation Rate to a comprehensive review to ensure it reflects the real cost of renting
* Change the definition of affordable rented housing to depend on local median incomes and not on local market rents.
* It affects nearly 500,000 people – the equivalent of a city the size of Leicester.
* Two-thirds of those affected are disabled.
* Cash-strapped housing associations have spent millions helping affected tenants.
* By February 2014, two-thirds of residents hit by the bedroom tax were in rent arrears.
* The Tories devised it, the Lib Dems backed it and Ed Miliband took a year to decide he didn’t like it.
* Green MP Caroline Lucas has voted against the bedroom tax at every opportunity.
## Creating ‘Common Wealth’: Work, Money, Industry and Tax

### Work

* Many job-market casualties have turned to self-employment, where life can be precarious and salaries low (there has been a 15% of the workforce is self-employed. For some this is by choice, for others it is because they can’t get better work;
* Many new jobs are insecure, poorly paid and with contracts that fail to balance the rights and responsibilities of employers and
* The young in particular suffer, with one in three young workers now on low pay; and
* They’ve redefined some jobs out of the public and into the private sector.
* Increase the minimum wage so that it is a living wage. We propose a minimum wage target for everyone who is working in the
* Revive the role of democratic trade unions, including the right to belong to a union and have the employer recognise it, and the
* Phase in a 35-hour week. Apart from improving the quality of our lives, this would combat unemployment by sharing available
* Provide a comprehensive nationwide system of good-quality pre-school early education and childcare, free at the point
* End exploitative zero-hours contracts.
* End the exploitation of interns, and ensure no unpaid full-time internship lasts more than four weeks.
* Make equal pay for men and women a reality.
* Introduce a maximum pay ratio of 10:1 between the best paid and the worst paid in every organisation.
* End blacklisting. We will set up a full investigation into blacklisting in the construction industry and consider the creation of a new
* Give workers a greater say in the running of their companies, including employee-elected directors in medium and larger
* Reduce Employment Tribunal fees so that tribunals are accessible to workers.

### Finance

* Move towards creating all national currency through a national monetary authority, answerable to Parliament. The power to
* Separate retail and investment banking. Retail banks should be required to limit their role to taking deposits and making loans
* Introduce controls on bank lending.
* Act to control payday lenders and offer alternatives (see the ‘Greens in power’ credit union box).
* We will use the government-owned Royal Bank of Scotland to create a network of local banks for every city and region, ensuring
* Invest £2 billion in a network of community banks, mutually owned and serving local areas or particular groups.
* Expand the role and the funds of the Green Investment Bank by offering green Individual Savings Accounts and pensions,
* Introduce a Robin Hood tax (a financial transaction tax) to reduce destabilising speculation (see the ‘Taxes’ section below
* Work for the abolition of the City of London Corporation and the special statuses it enjoys. allow banks to fail safely separate ordinary and investment business provide some control on overall lending and debt
### Changing economic organisations

* Encourage small firms, which are more embedded in their local communities and provide less opportunity for creating huge
* Amend company law to ensure that medium and large companies take account of and report on the environmental and social
* Amend company law to ensure that medium and large companies have employee and consumer representatives on
* Ensure that Companies House actually collects data due from companies and has accurate data on their
* Set local authorities free to run local enterprises for their own communities.
* Support social enterprise.
* Introduce a cooperative development fund managed by community banks to finance new and expanding cooperatives, alongside
* Grant employees the legal right in certain circumstances to buy out their companies (funded by the Green Investment Bank)
* Expand cooperative education, teaching young people the history of cooperatives as well as how to set them up in practice. We

### Small firms and the local economy

* Make it easier for small businesses to employ people and contribute towards paying the living wage by using receipts from a
* Improve the competitive position of small firms, maintaining corporation tax for small firms at 20% while raising that for larger
* Increase access to finance by investing £2 billion in a network of community banks, mutually owned and serving local areas or
* Reduce the tax on conviviality and help small businesses in the tourism and restaurant businesses by lowering VAT to the
* Keep trade local by allowing local authorities to favour local procurement to help their local economy.
* Ensure that legislation requiring that small businesses should be paid on time is properly enforced.
* In the longer run, simplify PAYE through our Basic Income proposals.
* Encourage greater diversity among entrepreneurs, including young people, women, ex-service people, the previously
* Ensure that the great majority of honest small businesses can compete fairly with the less scrupulous by cracking down on tax
* Give BT and other public telecommunications operators an obligation to provide affordable high-speed broadband-capable

### Taxes

* To reverse the politically inspired, damaging and unnecessary cuts in public services we have faced in recent years;
* To improve these services in key areas such as early education and social care for older people;
* To meet the challenge of building an entirely new sustainable economy in a world where the private incentives of the
* Introduce a wealth tax of 2% a year on the top 1% (see the ‘Wealth tax’ box) to raise about £25 billion a year by the end of the
* Get serious about collecting tax. We would steadily increase staff in HMRC by 15,000 per annum over the Parliament, in particular
* Introduce an urgent programme of legislation, starting with a Tax Dodging Bill designed to reduce the tax gap and establish
* Consider making the £2 billion industry of designing, promoting and selling tax avoidance schemes illegal.
* Introduce a Robin Hood tax of 0.1% on transactions in bonds and equities and 0.01% on derivatives, replacing the existing stamp
* Reform Council Tax by asking people in bigger homes to pay more and those in smaller ones less, and adding two additional
* Make preparations to replace both Council Tax and the Uniform Business Rate by a system of Land Value Tax, where the level of
* Abolish the employees’ National Insurance upper threshold. This would raise £28 billion a year in a full year from those on higher
* Raise the additional (top) rate of income tax to 60%. This will help bring down the maximum salary ratio in any workplace from
* Not allow corporation tax relief on any part of a salary that exceeds the maximum allowed by the 10:1 ratio in that company, to
* Increase corporation tax from 20% to 30%, yielding around £12 billion a year in a full year. Small firms would remain on 20%.
* Abolish the capital gains tax personal allowance, raising around £3.8 billion a year.
* Fundamentally reform inheritance tax and turn it into an accessions tax. At present, inheritance tax is one of the easiest taxes to
* Counter avoidance by abolishing the seven-year rule and making all gifts by living donors subject to a similar accessions tax,
* Begin a major ecological shift in the taxation of companies by removing disincentives to employ people. Specifically we would
* Reintroduce the fuel duty escalator, raising £2.2 billion in 2015 and an additional £2.2 billion in each successive year through the
* Put aviation on a level playing field with other modes of transport by making it subject to fuel duty and VAT, raising £16 billion in
* Reduce VAT on housing renovation and repair work (including insulation) to 5%, costing £1.6 billion a year. At present there is no
* Reduce VAT on the tourism industry (meals and drinks out, accommodation and also live performances) to 5%, putting the UK on
* Tax plastic bags and unnecessary packaging, raising perhaps £1 billion by 2020.
* Levy eco-taxes on non-renewables or pollutants, in particular pesticides, organo-chlorines, nitrogen and artificial fertilisers and
* Introduce new taxes on the use of water by businesses and on waste heat from power stations, raising £3 billion by 2020.
* Increase alcohol and tobacco duties by a successive £1.4 billion every year in the Parliament.
* It taxes the value of land and rents, which derive from nature and the efforts of the wider community and not from any effort
* It is hard to avoid because land cannot be hidden or moved;
* It dampens speculation in land and land hoarding;
* It favours tenants in particular, since the tax cannot be passed on from the landowner, and would substitute for Council Tax,
* It discourages landowners from not using derelict or vacant land.
## Putting the Social back into Security: A Plan to Reform the Tax and Benefits System

## Foreword

* Living on benefits is to experience constant insecurity, wondering if payments will stretch to cover today’s food, next week’s
* It’s to experience discrimination, as society is divided into strivers and scroungers, the deserving and the undeserving poor,
* It’s to be subject to delayed payments and sanctions, which push you to the food banks.
* It’s to lose up to four weeks’ payments simply for missing an interview.
### A radical long-term plan to reform the tax and benefits system

* Act as a springboard rather than a safety net; people can take jobs without fear of prosecution for working while on benefits;
* Prevent people falling into absolute poverty rather than trying to help them when they are already there;
* Reward people for all the work that’s done outside the formal economy, and most of this work is done by women;
* Encourage more of this unpaid activity, much of which – such as food growing, fixing things that have gone wrong, converting
* Avoid the poverty trap in which an increase in wages leads to a massive loss of benefits;
* Make everyone who earns, however little, a citizen who contributes to society by paying taxes, giving almost everyone a stake –
* Be simple to administer and easy to understand.
* Consult upon this scheme,
* Have government departments carry out and commission research (including research into behavioural changes and how Basic
* Draft appropriate legislation, with a view to implementing the full scheme in the following Parliament.
* Reform the existing working-age benefits regime.
* Pay an enhanced Child Benefit.
* Introduce a universal Citizen’s Pension.
### Working-age benefits

* Halt implementation of the Universal Credit programme and carry out a thorough review of its structure and implementation,
* End work-for-benefits programmes, or workfare, and ensure a fair choice of waged work opportunities or voluntary training for
* Ensure that all those on training or work placements as part of the benefits regime are either in college-based training or at work
* Review the harsh systems of sanctions and benefits caps introduced by the Coalition government and its predecessors.
* Consider offering more personalised job-seeking support for people with mental health problems.
* Restore Council Tax Benefit at the equivalent of 2012–13 levels for low-income householders, costing around £500 million
* Cancel the Department for Work and Pensions contracts with the private sector for benefit entitlement assessment.
* Restore the link between state benefits and earnings; ensure state benefits rise as fast as prices or wages, whichever of those
* Abolish childcare tax credits and tax reliefs in the light of our proposals for free universal early education and childcare.
* Pay students maintenance grants until Basic Income is introduced.
* Raise the minimum wage and outlaw exploitative zero-hours contracts, so that the jobs taken by unemployed people are above a
### Child Benefit

* Raise Child Benefit as from 2016 from £20.70 a week for the oldest or only child and £13.70 a week for additional children in
* Pay for the £15.5 billion net cost of this by using this much of the £28 billion raised from those on higher incomes by abolishing

### Citizen’s Pension

## Government and People, Public and Private, Local and National

### Who governs?

* Regulate the private sector in the common interest, including curbing excessive pay for executives and senior managers.
* Introduce a Public Service Users Bill to bring back into public ownership sectors of the economy on which we all depend.
* Recognise that, if government is small, society doesn’t automatically become big – the third sector needs strong,
* Treat citizens as grown-ups, capable of recognising the common good and acting on it.
* Not accept the dogma that government cannot lead or innovate and has no entrepreneurial drive. We will set creative government
* Recognise that efficiency in public services does matter, provided it is not at the cost of poor service or exploitation of staff. We
* Make public ownership the default option before any service is sold off.
* Ensure people are asked – and genuinely listened to – before any service is put out to tender.
* Give the public a right to recall private companies if they’re running our services poorly.
* Make private companies running public services more transparent.

### A new constitutional settlement

* Move towards a written constitution with a Bill of Rights.
* Bring in proportional representation (PR) using the Additional Member System for parliamentary elections and continue fixed-term
* Introduce the right to vote at 16.
* Reform the House of Lords to become a fully elected body chosen by PR; but, to promote its independence, members should be
* Bring in a fair system of state funding for political parties so there’s no longer a need for reliance on private and trade union
* Ensure that all lobbying, and in particular corporate lobbying, is registered and fully disclosed, including lobbying of elected
* Immediately repeal the unsatisfactory Lobbying Act, so that civil society organisations can campaign properly.
* Retain the principle that human rights are the common property of the whole world by keeping the Human Rights Act and
* Aspire to a 50:50 Parliament by 2025 with equal numbers of women and men.
* Introduce referendums on local government decisions if called for by 20% of the local electorate.
* Introduce recall referendums on MPs and other representatives if 20% of electors request it.
* Make equality before the law a fundamental constitutional right. But this is only a reality if all can afford to use the law. We would
### Localisation

* Provide a £10 billion a year uplift in local authority budgets to allow local authorities to restore essential local services, creating
* Add further higher bands to Council Tax to allow authorities to raise more on the largest homes.
* Not cap what local authorities are allowed to raise in Council Tax, allow local councils to conduct revaluations and to set their
* Ensure that
* Also allow local authorities to levy new local taxes, such as local tourist taxes, empty homes levies, supermarket taxes or
* Allow local authorities freedom to set local fines, fees and charges.
* Put these taxation arrangements beyond future Whitehall revision by giving formal constitutional protection to local democracy
* Scrap the New Homes Bonus and add the money to the Revenue Support Grant.
* Not start any new private finance initiative projects and set local authorities free to borrow to fund local capital investment in
* Set up a fund of up to £5 billion over the Parliament to buy out existing PFI projects where it is a good deal to do so.
* Restore local authority control over education, with full delegation of the appropriate budgets.
* Allow local authorities to run local public transport and other local services such as domestic and commercial waste disposal,
* Keep trade local by allowing local authorities to favour local procurement to help their local economy.
* Give local authorities powers to encourage local live performance in the arts by moving funding from the regional to the local
* Create an Assembly for Cornwall, with similar powers to the Welsh Assembly.
* Work for the abolition of the City of London Corporation and the special statuses it enjoys. Residents will decide on the future
* Require local authorities to set out a local carbon plan showing how their area will meet overall greenhouse gas
* Put planning back in the hands of local government by:
* Support preservation of the historic environment, in part by being flexible about how older buildings reduce their energy use.

### Wales

* Increase real power at all levels, from local councils up to the Welsh Assembly.
* Increase the number of Assembly members.
* Push for the National Assembly to become a Parliament with powers equal to those in Scotland.
### Information and digital rights

* Oppose any case for secret unaccountable mass surveillance of the type exposed by Edward Snowden. We do accept that
* Replace the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, which has failed
* Support and protect Internet freedom.
* Follow human rights judgments limiting surveillance and data retention in full.
* Support the EU’s proposals to strengthen data protection laws against opposition from large US data-driven companies.
* Limit the censoring or takedown of content or activity to exceptional circumstances, clearly set out within a comprehensive legal
* Make copyright shorter in length, fair and flexible, and prevent patents applying to software.
* Introduce a more satisfactory law on so-called malicious comments made on social media than the blanket and crude section
* Oppose the privatisation of data held by the government that should be open to all, such as the Postcode Address File, or by
* Oppose the sale of personal data, such as health or tax records, for commercial or other ends.
* Use government purchasing power to support open standards in information technology.

### Media, sports and the arts

* Tighten the rules on cross-media ownership and ensure that no individual or company owns more than 20% of a
* Support the recommendations of the Leveson Inquiry into press ethics and for the cross-party Royal Charter. But if this is not
* Maintain the BBC as the primary public service broadcaster, free of government interference, with funding guaranteed in real
* Increase government arts funding by £500 million a year to restore the cuts made since 2010 and reinstate proper levels of
* Reduce VAT to 5% for live performances.
* Work to support fair pay productions in the arts.
* Support initiatives to make the arts and sports accessible to all.
* Set targets for participation in sports by women, ethnic minorities and disabled people in particular.
* Make sure all children get at least a half-day equivalent of sports in school and encourage both the use of schools sports
* Ensure that all have digital access and give BT and other public telecommunications operators an obligation to provide affordable
* Strengthen controls on advertising directed at children.
* Value the contribution made by civil society organisations both here and abroad. In particular, we would repeal the Lobbying Act
* Support state funding of political parties.
* Give fair representation to political parties in televised debates.
## Getting Around: Transport

* Reduce the distances travelled, reduce the number of journeys made by car and switch as many journeys as possible to walking,
* Encourage alternatives to travel, such as video-conferencing;
* Integrate different transport options and provide seamless door–to-door journeys;
* Prioritise everyday access for everybody wherever they live to local facilities such as the shops, the doctors’ surgery, schools and
* Eenable more people to get to where they need to go while using a car less.
*  cycling;
*  light goods vehicles, taxis and low-powered motor cycles;
*  heavy goods vehicles; and

### Bringing the railways into public hands

* Interest payments;
* Debt write-offs;
* The costs of railway fragmentation;
* The profit margins of tiers of contractors and sub-contractors;
* Payments to shareholders; and
* Bonuses paid to railway bosses (up to 166% of annual salaries).
* Mean a better deal for passengers;
* Increase the scope for the democratic involvement of local communities in planning and running railways; and

### Decarbonising transport

* End the wasteful and destructive national major roads programme, saving £15 billion over the Parliament.
* Spend part of this £15 billion on improving and subsidising public transport, with an average fare reduction of 10% costing £8
* Support walking and cycling. In particular, we would ensure that pedestrians and cyclists get their fare share of road space and
* Support the re-regulation of bus services to provide a better, more reliable service.
* End the favourable tax treatment of aviation and have a separate target for aviation emissions of below 37.5 million tonnes CO
* Stop airport expansion, in particular no new runways at either Heathrow or Gatwick, and ban night flying.
* Invest in electric vehicle charging points for buses and taxis, and for cars where there are gaps in the network of public and
* Incentivise consolidation of white van deliveries so that last-mile deliveries can be made by cargo bikes and electric vehicles in

### Affordable public transport

* Prioritise affordable local public transport, accessible to all, including those with disabilities.
* Support free local transport for pensioners, including the existing local bus pass scheme and the Freedom Pass in London.
* Extend free local public transport to young people and students, costing around £4 billion a year.
* Develop regional smart payment systems with integrated ticketing, like the London Oyster system.
* Extend networks of public transport to include rural areas.
### A step change in road safety

* Work for a road transport system that results in zero deaths or serious injuries by systematically reducing sources of danger on
* Reduce both collisions and fuel use by bringing down speed limits, in particular to 20 mph in residential areas, including main
* Change the culture of road justice and civil compensation with a road danger reduction approach. A greater duty of care should
* Reduce the alcohol limit for drivers to as close to zero as is practicable.
* Require newly manufactured lorries to be equipped with best practice technology to make sure that drivers are fully aware of
* Reduce lorry activity and road freight volume by improving rail freight services, reducing the number of empty or partially loaded

### Towns and cities for people

* Make streets healthy and safe places for people to cycle and walk and for children to play, while building physical activity into
* Help schools and workplaces to support active travel to and from work, and encourage local authorities to assist this by linking
* Ensure that all planning decisions have to take into account the active travel and public transport implications.
* Make public transport more convenient by integrating ticketing with smart regional ticketing systems such as the London Oyster
* Introduce road-pricing schemes such as the London congestion charge and road-user tolls for heavy lorries.
* Begin consultation with a view to developing a framework for the progressive elimination of diesel exhaust emissions. A major
* Introduce Ultra Low Emission Zones to ensure air pollution reduces to comply with EU limits.
* Reduce the need for car parking spaces by reducing car dependency and transferring trips, where appropriate, to walking,
* Reduce parking spaces in new developments and increase rates of walking, cycling and public transport by strengthening
* Eliminate pavement parking and, in close cooperation with waste collection and emergency services, make sure that these
* Ensure that parking policies in residential areas deliver a high-quality street environment and reduce the numbers of those who
* Provide cycle parking throughout towns and cities at locations where there is demand and invest in on-street secure cycle
### A rural transport revolution

* Make sure that rural areas are not neglected when transport budgets and planning for our cities and city regions are under
* Develop networks of community and public transport to provide regular links to onward transport networks.
* Introduce speed limits of 20 mph in villages and 40 mph on rural roads.
* Introduced the largest connected 20 mph zone in the country, and casualties fell by 19%;
* Built a new cycle hub at the station;
* Introduced cycle priority at junctions, proper cycle lanes and cycle contraflow lanes;
* Introduced the first ‘floating’ bus stop, resulting in:
## The Local and Global: International Affairs

* By using up global resources or polluting the air or water that we all share;
* By influencing how much we pay for diminishing natural resources and how much we get paid for our labour;
* By driving displacement;
* By creating insecurity at home and abroad.
* A new, holistic and consistent approach to peace and defence, which is focused on genuine peacekeeping and respect for the
* A fundamental restructuring of our global economy, with power held at the local and regional level and only passed upwards
* Writing off and writing down unpayable international debt, avoiding paternalistic aid, and securing the rights of First Nations
* A global policy of Contraction and Convergence in which rich countries’ use of finite energy resources contracts, while that of
* Making UK foreign policy genuinely independent, based on the principles of shared responsibility, cooperative security and human
* Seek negotiated settlements to a range of conflicts around the world and block sales of weapons and military equipment that
* Take proportionate measures to protect against terrorism, ensuring that civil liberties are not undermined in the process, that
* We opposed military interventions in Afghanistan, Libya and Iraq, and will oppose all future interventions that lack a sufficient
* We would provide humanitarian support for the millions of refugees displaced by these conflicts.
* We seek a just, sustainable and peaceful solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, based on mutual recognition of the rights to
* We would work to support a negotiated settlement between Russia and Ukraine, while developing a new security structure for

### International agreement on climate change

* Allowing countries that currently emit very little carbon dioxide to increase their emissions, using their energy resources to
* Requiring all other countries to reduce their emissions to a small per capita limit, fixed to be consistent with a global limit that
* Recognising the special responsibility of countries such as the UK that have become wealthy from 200 years of fossil-fuel-based
### Security and defence

* Pursue a policy of ‘defensive defence’, which threatens no one yet makes it clear that threats and attacks will be resisted.
* Take a leading role in preventing violent conflict, genocide and war crimes overseas through (i) helping to develop local
* Develop policies and programmes for ‘environmental defence’ and disaster mitigation and relief, drawing on the skills and
* Diminish dependence on arms sales through a halt to government subsidies and introducing a strict licensing regime to prevent
* Look after veterans and their families.

### International disarmament and security agreements

* Enhance UK cooperation with civil society and international agencies to implement relevant UN Security Council Resolutions,
* Save a massive £100 billion over the next 30 years by cancelling Trident replacement and decommissioning existing nuclear
* Enhance international security and non-proliferation by initiating and/or joining negotiations on a universally applicable nuclear
* Initiate and/or join negotiations on new international treaties and laws to prohibit the development, deployment and use of
### Europe

### Migration

* Climate change affects their environment so that it can no longer support them;
* The economic opportunities in their home country are so limited that they leave home to work abroad; or
* War, natural disasters or political repression lead them to become refugees.
* Make a global deal on climate change a priority of our foreign policy, and help poorer countries cope with the climate change.
* Promote policies in the EU that improve opportunities across the Union and refocus on social and environmental benefits, rather
* International obligations to accept refugees, whether seeking sanctuary from wars, political repression or climate change.
* No restrictions on foreign students. Foreign students contribute hugely to our education system, both financially and in terms
* Review the rules for those wishing to set up or do business here to ensure they are not discriminatory against smaller
* Ensure that no prospective immigrant is held in detention. As a matter of urgency, the administrative detention of children and
* Assist integration by making available free or affordable English or Welsh language lessons to all new immigrants who want
* Ratify the International Labour Organization’s Convention on Domestic Workers.
* Ensure that those who have been trafficked are not subject to summary deportation; we must protect the victims of trafficking.
### Trade, aid and grassroots development

* Advocate for ambitious sustainable development goals, including a commitment to end AIDS, TB and malaria; action to eliminate
* Take real action to end tax evasion and avoidance and transfer mispricing by transnational corporations, which steals resources
* Support global efforts to develop a fairer global tax system.
* Put a stop to the corporate takeover of African food by ending UK funding of the G8’s New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition.
* Promote fair trade, in particular seeking to ensure that workers in poor countries receive decent pay and conditions within
* Initiate democratic discussions, alongside international trade unions, citizen groups and the ILO, to investigate the potential for a
* Ensure UK companies operating abroad respect international human rights and environmental standards and do not encourage
* Ensure that every country has the political space to make its own democratic choices, without pressure to prise open its
* Ensure that trade deals allow poor countries to control their economies; we will take the UK out of trade agreements that go
* Support the rights of indigenous people to control their own lands and resources.
* Fight for the writing-off of international debts for the poorest countries and limiting repayments for other low-income countries,
* Increase the overseas aid budget from 0.7% of GDP to 1.0% of GDP over the Parliament, costing around £6 billion a year in 2019.
* Help poorer countries to fund climate change adaptation and build resilient communities through the UN Adaptation Fund. We
* Attempts to bring the National Health Service and the railways back into public ownership could be financially penalised or
* Authorisations for genetically modified organisms may be accelerated at European level and risk assessment standards
* Regulation of banks and the financial industry would be harder, if not impossible.
## Crime and Punishment

* Under Margaret Thatcher there were 1,724 new laws per year;
* Under John Major there were 2,402 per year;
* Under Tony Blair, 2,663 per year.

### The context of crime

* 60% of offenders have no qualifications at all; 48% have literacy skills below those expected of an 11 year old; 65% have numeracy skills below those expected of an 11 year old; 67% were unemployed at the time of imprisonment; 49% of prisoners ran away from home as a child; 41% were excluded from school; 71% suffer from two or more mental disorders; 70% of offenders had been drinking at the time the offences for which they were imprisoned were committed;
* There is more crime in more unequal societies.
* Treat drug addiction as a health issue (see Chapter 6 for our health policy).
* Restrict police use of random stop and search powers, which damage police and youth relations.
* Improve the design of our cities to provide safer streets and public spaces.
* Focus on crime prevention measures, including more community policing under local democratic control, more local police
* Oppose the privatisation of policing and establish a Royal Commission on Policing as a first step towards delivering a service
* Provide proper funding for Women’s Refuges for survivors of domestic violence, and make domestic abuse a specific criminal
* Work to change attitudes towards rape, including improving initial responses to women, early evidence collection and access to
* Abolish Police and Crime Commissioners, and return control of the police to local government.

### Restorative justice and offender rehabilitation

* Oppose the privatisation of the probation services.
* Provide access to real work and education, the work to include repairing damage done by crime.
* Provide access to artistic and creative facilities.
* Provide access to literacy and numeracy classes from the first day of imprisonment.
* Operate a smaller prison system, saving £5.5 billion over the course of the Parliament.
* Grant prisoners the right to vote.
* Oppose the use of the death penalty abroad.
## A Postscript

### Note on territorial coverage

### Economic assumptions

### Government spending

Our proposed additional expenditures are as follows: Green Party proposed additional spending (£ billion)
| Item | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |

Economy
| Equity for the Green Investment Bank | 0.5 | 0.5 | 1.0 | 2.0 | 5.0 |
| Public sector costs of introducing the living wage | 0.4 | 0.7 | 0.7 | 0.7 | 0.8 |
| Additional staff for HMRC | 1.0 | 2.0 | 3.0 | 4.0 | 5.0 |
| Establishing community banks network | 0.2 | 0.3 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.5 |

The Earth
| Funding for monitoring of micro-chipping of dogs | 0.01 | 0.01 | 0.01 | 0.01 | 0.01 |
| Extra funding for flood defences | 0.5 | 1.0 | 1.0 | 1.0 | 1.0 |
| Government as insurer of last resort | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.1 |
| Increased government funding for R&D | 0.9 | 1.9 | 2.8 | 3.8 | 4.7 |

Energy
| Major investment in renewable generation and the National Grid | 2.0 | 6.0 | 8.0 | 9.0 | 10.0 |
| R&D for newer renewables | 0.0 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 1.0 |
| Buildings insulation, mainly houses | 5.3 | 9.9 | 9.9 | 9.9 | 9.9 |
| Improving energy efficiency in industry | 0.5 | 1.0 | 1.0 | 1.0 | 1.0 |

Health
| Resolve current NHS funding gap | 8.4 | 12.0 | 12.0 | 12.0 | 12.0 |
| NHS annual additions for ageing | 0.0 | 1.4 | 2.8 | 4.2 | 5.7 |
| Increase in Carer’s Allowance | 0.8 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 |
| Free social care for the elderly | 3.8 | 7.9 | 8.2 | 8.7 | 9.1 |
| Extra cost of organic food in schools and hospitals | 0.5 | 1.0 | 1.0 | 1.0 | 1.0 |
| Subsidy on fresh fruit and vegetables (matches unhealthy food tax) | 0.0 | 6.7 | 6.7 | 6.7 | 6.7 |

Local government and constitutional
| Fund to buy out PFIs | 0.5 | 2.5 | 1.0 | 0.5 | 0.5 |
| Restoring local authority finances | 10.0 | 10.0 | 10.0 | 10.0 | 10.0 |
| Increase spending on recycling and waste disposal | 1.0 | 3.0 | 3.0 | 4.0 | 4.0 |
| Restore cuts to Legal Aid | 0.7 | 0.7 | 0.7 | 0.7 | 0.7 |

Social security
| Greater incentives to work while on benefits | 4.0 | 5.0 | 6.0 | 7.0 | 8.0 |
| Net cost of increased Child Benefit | 0.0 | 15.7 | 15.8 | 16.0 | 16.1 |
| Net cost of change to Citizen’s Pension | 0.0 | 25.7 | 25.1 | 24.6 | 24.0 |
| Restore the cut in Council Tax Benefit | 0.3 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.5 |
| Extra funding for disability | 0.9 | 1.8 | 1.8 | 1.8 | 1.8 |

Housing
| Expansion of social housing | 2.5 | 3.5 | 4.5 | 4.5 | 4.5 |
| Removal of the bedroom tax and other Housing Benefit cuts | 1.2 | 2.3 | 2.3 | 2.3 | 2.3 |
| Right to rent scheme | 0.1 | 0.3 | 0.5 | 1.0 | 2.0 |
Our proposed additional expenditures are as follows (continued): Green Party proposed additional spending (£ billion)
| Item | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |

Education, training and young people
| Free universal early education and childcare | 2.0 | 4.0 | 6.0 | 7.0 | 8.0 |
| Restore education cuts – schools | 3.5 | 7.0 | 7.0 | 7.0 | 7.0 |
| Free school meals | 0.3 | 2.0 | 2.0 | 2.0 | 2.0 |
| Smaller class sizes | 0.1 | 0.2 | 0.3 | 0.4 | 0.5 |
| Restore the Education Maintenance Allowance | 0.3 | 0.5 | 0.7 | 0.7 | 0.7 |
| Additional funding for further education | 0.8 | 1.5 | 1.5 | 1.5 | 1.5 |
| Increase funding for apprenticeships | 0.3 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.5 |
| Package of youth measures | 0.6 | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 |
| Pay salaries for foster carers | 0.4 | 0.9 | 0.9 | 0.9 | 0.9 |

Transport
| Subsidise public transport to reduce fares | 0.9 | 1.7 | 1.7 | 1.7 | 1.7 |
| Bring railways into public ownership | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.1 |
| Interest on £23 billion debt once rail in public ownership | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 1.1 | 1.1 |
| Extra annual expenditure on walking and cycling | 0.9 | 1.8 | 1.8 | 1.8 | 1.8 |
| Free local travel for young people | 2.0 | 4.0 | 4.0 | 4.0 | 4.0 |

Global
| Increase aid to 1% of GDP | 0.8 | 2.3 | 3.5 | 4.8 | 6.1 |
| Provide free English classes for immigrants | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.2 |

Miscellaneous
| Additional funding for Women’s and Rape Crisis Centres | 0.03 | 0.03 | 0.03 | 0.03 | 0.03 |
| Increase funding for the arts | 0.3 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.5 |
| Reinstate Equality and Human Rights Commission funding | 0.03 | 0.03 | 0.03 | 0.03 | 0.03 |
| Increased interest on the national debt | 1.0 | 3.2 | 5.3 | 8.0 | 11.0 |
| Total new spending | 60.3 | 156.6 | 169.0 | 182.5 | 197.8 |

Finally, to get to our overall spending plans, we take the baseline plans for expenditure, add on our proposed extra expenditure above, and subtract our proposed savings: Green Party proposed total government expenditure (£ billion)
| Item | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 2015 baseline | 743 | 743 | 743 | 743 | 743 |
| Add proposed additional spending | 60 | 157 | 169 | 183 | 198 |
| Subtract proposed savings | 3 | 12 | 15 | 18 | 21 |
| Total government expenditure | 799 | 888 | 897 | 907 | 919 |
### Taxation and revenues

We start from the government’s plans for its revenues, converted to the 2015 price base using the GDP deflator. In this case we assume that the revenues are proportional to GDP. Because we have assumed that GDP is lower than the government assumption (because we expect less growth), our baseline revenues are also lower. As with the spending figures, there is some phasing to allow changes to come into effect. Our proposed increases in revenues are as follows: Green Party proposed revenue increases (£ billion)
| Item | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Wealth tax | 0.0 | 10.0 | 15.0 | 20.0 | 25.0 |
| Robin Hood tax | 0.0 | 5.0 | 15.0 | 20.0 | 20.0 |
| Tax avoidance and evasion | 6.0 | 12.0 | 18.0 | 24.0 | 30.0 |
| Raise additional rate of income tax | 1.1 | 2.2 | 2.2 | 2.3 | 2.3 |
| Increase corporation tax | 4.2 | 12.5 | 12.5 | 12.5 | 12.5 |
| Remove capital gains tax allowance | 1.5 | 3.1 | 3.2 | 3.3 | 3.3 |
| Reform of inheritance tax | 0.0 | 1.0 | 1.0 | 1.0 | 1.0 |
| Reform of Council Tax | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.1 | 0.1 |
| Reintroduce fuel duty escalator | 2.2 | 4.3 | 6.5 | 8.6 | 10.8 |
| VAT and fuel duty on aviation | 5.0 | 16.0 | 16.0 | 16.0 | 16.0 |
| Introduce environmental taxes | 1.0 | 2.0 | 3.0 | 4.0 | 5.0 |
| Increase alcohol and tobacco taxes | 0.0 | 1.4 | 2.8 | 4.2 | 5.7 |
| Unhealthy food tax | 0.0 | 6.7 | 6.7 | 6.7 | 6.7 |
| Abolition of mortgage interest relief for landlords | 2.9 | 5.8 | 5.8 | 5.8 | 5.8 |
| Increase in income tax and NI because of living wage | 0.5 | 1.0 | 1.0 | 1.1 | 1.1 |
| Abolition of upper NI threshold | 0.0 | 14.5 | 29.8 | 30.5 | 31.1 |
| Reduction of tax relief on pensions | 0.0 | 10.4 | 21.3 | 21.8 | 22.2 |
| Total increase in revenues | 24.4 | 108.0 | 159.9 | 181.8 | 198.6 |

Changes that will reduce government revenues are as follows: Green Party revenue decreases (£ billion)
| Item | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Increase tax-free amount on Rent a Room Scheme | 0.1 | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.2 |
| Write off student loans | 1.1 | 2.2 | 2.2 | 2.2 | 2.2 |
| End student tuition fees | 0.0 | 0.3 | 0.9 | 1.4 | 2.0 |
| Replace student maintenance loans with grants | 0.0 | 0.1 | 0.4 | 0.7 | 1.0 |
| Reduce employers’ National Insurance | 0.0 | 10.0 | 15.0 | 20.0 | 25.0 |
| Abolish BBC licence fee | 1.6 | 3.2 | 3.2 | 3.2 | 3.2 |
| Allow FE colleges to reclaim VAT | 0.1 | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.2 |
| Reduce VAT on restaurants, tourism, etc. to 5% | 3.0 | 6.0 | 6.0 | 6.0 | 6.0 |
| VAT reduction to 5% for home renovation | 0.8 | 1.6 | 1.6 | 1.6 | 1.6 |
| Total revenue decreases | 6.7 | 23.8 | 29.6 | 35.5 | 41.3 |
This leads to the following overall government revenues: Green Party total government revenues (£ billion)
| Item | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Government baseline revenues on Green Party growth assumption | 667 | 693 | 710 | 726 | 741 |
| Add Green Party additional taxation | 24 | 108 | 160 | 182 | 199 |
| Subtract Green Party revenue reductions | 7 | 24 | 30 | 35 | 41 |
| Total government revenues | 685 | 777 | 840 | 872 | 898 |

### Green Party tax and spend plans as a proportion of GDP

To sum up, this leads to the following predictions for the deficit and for our plans as a proportion of GDP compared with the Coalition’s plans: Green Party predicted deficit and proportions of GDP
| Item | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Green Party prediction for GDP (£ billion, real 2015 terms) | 1,885 | 1,926 | 1,965 | 2,004 | 2,040 |
| Green Party proposed total government expenditure (£ billion) | 799 | 888 | 897 | 907 | 919 |
| Green Party total government revenues (£ billion) | 685 | 777 | 840 | 872 | 898 |
| Green Party predicted deficit (£ billion) | 114 | 111 | 57 | 35 | 21 |
| Green Party spending as % of GDP | 42.4% | 46.1% | 45.6% | 45.3% | 45.1% |
| Green Party revenues as % of GDP | 36.3% | 40.3% | 42.7% | 43.5% | 44.0% |
| Green Party deficit as % of GDP | 6.1% | 5.8% | 2.9% | 1.7% | 1.0% |
| Coalition plans for spending as % of GDP | 39.4% | 38.0% | 36.7% | 36.0% | 36.0% |
| Coalition plans for revenues as % of GDP | 35.4% | 36.0% | 36.1% | 36.2% | 36.3% |
| Coalition plans for deficit as % of GDP | 4.0% | 2.0% | 0.6% | −0.2% | −0.3% |
| Coalition plans for deficit (£ billion) | 75 | 39 | 12 | −5 | −7 |

Existing government plans for investment amount to around £70 billion by 2019. Our plans add around a further net £5 billion of investment, making £75 billion in all, which is 3.7% of GDP. We consider that it is appropriate for the government to borrow to fund investment. Accordingly, our plans show a surplus of 2.7% (3.7% minus 1.0%) on current account by the end of the Parliament.