General Election 2010 The Green Party. The Green Party of England and Wales SymbolLeader Caroline Lucas Born 9 th December 1960 (49) MEP for South East.

General Election 2010

The Green Party

The Green Party of England and Wales

Symbol Leader

• Caroline Lucas• Born 9th December 1960 (49)• MEP for South East England• Leader of the Green Party

since 2008.

The Green Party of England and Wales – Fact-file

• Also known as the Greens.

• Beliefs:

The most important issue facing the world today is the environment. The Government should be making sure that every decision takes into account how it will affect the environment.

People in the UK need to work together more. The Government should tax rich people more than poor people. Other taxes should be based on

how they affect the environment. The worse the environment is affected, the higher something should be taxed.

People should be able to rely on the Government to help them with money when they need it – there should be fair rules about who gets help and it should allow people to live well.

England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales should stay together as one country, but each country should have its own Parliament. But MOST decisions should be made at a local level where people can really have a say.

All cultures are equal, and being ‘British’ is not an important issue. All cultures should be celebrated equally.

Britain should be a part of the European Union but the European Union should be changed to make it more local, more concerned with keeping peace and the environment and less concerned with money. Britain should keep the pound.

Britain should not have a strong army, navy and air-force and only use it when it really needs to.

The Green Party – Most Important Promises

• Reduce greenhouse gases by 90% by 2030.• Spend £45billion on clean sources of energy and

making people use energy efficiently.• Change the tax and benefits system so that everyone

is given a ‘Citizens Wage’.• Take away powers from Parliament and give them to

local councils.• Write down the rules of the way the UK is ruled in a

Constitution, including a list of all of the rights the people in Britain have.

• Start a fairer way of MPs being voted into Parliament.

The Green Party – Money

• Make sure that banks are not too big (so that they cannot make huge mistakes which affect many people).

• Be tougher on people who don’t pay tax and make it more difficult for people who put their money into countries where they don’t pay tax.

• Put a tax on money which is spent abroad.• Make sure that banks have enough money before they

are allowed to trade.• Increase the tax paid by people who earn a lot of money.• Merge together Income tax and National Insurance (which

everyone pay)• Get rid of taxes on things we buy and change them to

taxes on things which harm the environment.

The Green Party – Race and Immigration

• Stop putting people who want to live in the UK in detention camps when they arrive.

• Allow asylum-seekers to work. • Ensure that people who want to be a refugee in the UK

are dealt with quickly and fairly, within 3 months, (and if it takes longer, they will be allowed to have equal access to public services until a decision is made).

• Give asylum-seekers full welfare benefits.• Ensure that the courts do not engage in treat people from

different backgrounds differently.• Make sure that in jobs where there are fewer people of

certain races increase the numbers of people from different backgrounds.

The Green Party – Afghanistan and Defence

• Bring home British soldiers from Afghanistan and Iraq straight away.

• Ensure in the future that the British army, navy and air-force is only used in to defend Britain, or as a last resort, to help out as part of a group of armies from around the world.

• To use the army to avoid war and help other countries not to fight.

• To get all countries in the world to make agreements to get rid of weapons of mass destruction, especially nuclear weapons.

• To stop helping companies who sell weapons to other countries.

• To get rid of Britain’s nuclear weapons.

The Green Party – Crime

• Make criminals talk to their victims so that they realise what they have done to them.

• Stop private companies being used to run prisons.• Allow less people to keep guns.• If prisoners show that they are sorry for what they

have done and are behaving well they should be released early.

• Help poorer people so that they do not have to turn to crime to live.

• Make some drugs legal.

The Green Party – Health

• Stop people having to pay for health services.• Tell everyone how much they are spending

on health.• Give free medicines to everyone.• Spend money to look at how pollution makes

people ill and how exercise makes people healthy.

The Green Party – Education

• Get rid of SATs and school league tables.• Schools should check how well they are doing and

local councils should check that the school’s are doing this.

• Private schools should be made open to everyone.• Children with disabilities and special educational

needs should be allowed to attend their local school.• All schools to should teach about and respect other

religions. • Stop opening Academies. • Get rid of tuition fees and provide students with

grants for living expenses.

The Green Party – Family

• Change the way that help is given so that mothers who stay at home are given a ‘wage’.

• Look to change the way that people work across Europe so that women and men have more time for their family life.

• Allow gay and lesbian couples to marry in the exactly the same way as heterosexual couples.

The Green Party – Environment

• Reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 90% by 2030, or about 10% per year.

• Half of the energy used in the UK should come from renewable energy sources by 2030.

• Spend £45 billion on renewable energy sources, new meters for people to see how they use energy and for help with people to make their own energy.

• Homes, schools and hospitals should save more energy.

The Green Party – Pensions

• Change the way pensions are paid, and make them go up at the same level as wages rise.

• Make sure that the money people save for pensions is kept safely for people.

• Stop people having to give up work at a certain age.

The Green Party – Housing

• Provide £6 billion to councils to buy up and convert (or build) 60,000 new houses to rent, making sure the houses will save energy.

• Provide £3 billion to local councils to buy homes which people are about to lose because they cannot afford them and rent them back to the people.

• Insulate all un-insulated houses over 5 years.• Give groups money to help people to set up

groups to house poorer people.

The Green Party – Foreign Affairs and Europe

• Stop the European Union becoming too powerful.• The EU should only deal with environmental

protection, working together to be richer, protecting of human rights, sorting out problems between countries and cultural support.

• All countries in the United Nations should be included in all decisions.

• Increase the amount that the UK spends to help other countries (more than any other party promises).

• The money owed to the UK by the 52 poorest countries in the world will be cancelled.

The Green Party – Local Government

• Give more power to local councils.• Against areas having directly elected mayors.• All councillors from different parties should work

together to run councils.• Make sure decisions are taken at the most local level.• Use a fairer way of electing councillors.• Have different systems of local government in

different areas, because all areas have their own needs.

• Hold votes on any government decision if a certain percentage of the people ask for one.

The Green Party – Transport

• Double the amount of buses.• Cheaper bus fares.• The Government should own the railway system spend money on

improving it.• Cut UK rail fares by 33%.• Stop all new airport runways, including third runway at Heathrow.• Stop any more major new roads.• Charge a fuel tax on all planes arriving in, or departing from, EU

airports.• Charge tax on using planes.• Increase the tax paid on using roads.• Charge cars for using roads.• Encourage people to walk and cycle.

The Green Party – Countryside and Farming

• Help people to eat things grown locally.• Stop GM crops being grown. • Reform the money the EU gives to farmers so

that they are only paid for improvements.• Stop fishermen fishing too much.• Stop all blood-sports.• Stop battery farming and intensive rearing of

cattle, pig, sheep, and poultry to make the lives of the animals better.

The Green Party– Human Rights and Freedoms

• Support transfer of policing and justice powers to the Northern Ireland Assembly.

The Green Party – Making Government Better

• Not allow rich people to give money to political parties.

• Make the way voters registered better.• Not allow election posters.• Strictly control the money spent on elections.