The World Development Movement has analysed and scored the main parties’ policies on international development – and has rated the Green Party higher than any other party.

The Greens, who score an impressive 8 out of 10, come out on top on issues such as trade justice, international aid and IMF reform, ahead of the Liberal Democrats (6 out of 10), Labour (5 out of 10) and the poorly scoring Conservatives, who lag behind on a score of just 3 out of 10.

To tackle world poverty, the Green Party has said the UK should:

• Introduce a “Robin Hood” tax  which would generate as much as £250bn by taxing bankers transactions by a tiny amount (maybe 0.05%). This money would be used to tackle global poverty, as well as tackling climate change and investing in public services.
• Increase aid by exceeding the UN’s target and allocating at least 1 per cent of UK Gross National Produce for aid by 2011, adding an extra £4.5bn pa. This aid should be targeted for the poorest, not involve economic policy conditions, respect gender equality and not be diverted to equipping security forces.
• Keep an International Aid Department separate from the Foreign Office, so as to separate foreign policy interests from humanitarian assistance.

Green Party leader Caroline Lucas, herself a former policy advisor for Oxfam, commented today:

“I am delighted to see that Green Party policies are considered better than those of the other parties.

“We think our policies would radically improve the lives of the poorest.

“When it comes to international aid, we would exceed the UN target.

“The “Robin Hood” tax, which officially became Green Party policy at our spring conference in February, would provide billions of pounds to tackle global poverty, whilst taking a minute percentage of large financial transactions.

“We are on the brink of getting our first MPs into Westminster, which would mean an independent voice in parliament talking about these vital issues, and holding the Government to account.”

Julian Oram, the World Development Movement’s head of policy commented:

“Anti-poverty campaigners have been shocked by the Conservative party’s admission that part of the aid budget under a Tory government could be used for British military operations in developing countries.

“And Labour’s promise to help countries cope with climate change would also come out of the aid budget, diverting finance away from health and education, rather than being additional to that much needed aid.

“The take-home message to the three main party leaders is: must do better if you genuinely want to tackle the root causes of global poverty.”

Notes:

1. For more information please see: http://www.wdm.org.uk/news/tories-and-labour-criticised-over-development-policies-ahead-world-poverty-day.

2. to read more about the Robin Hood tax please see: http://robinhoodtax.org.uk/.

Of course not. Being green covers every area of life. In summary the Green Party manifesto can summarised as follows.

The banking system

The Green Party would not bail out bankers with taxpayers’ money, but fight for a fair financial deal, with community banks, credit unions and mutuals, providing realistic loans.

We will fight to introduce a High Pay Commission to ensure bankers and highly paid executives are not rewarded for failure.

Health and the NHS

Over £1billion of public money is wasted on privatisation despite quality of care suffering when hospitals and surgeries are treated like profit-driven businesses rather than public services.

Greens oppose cuts, closures and privatisation and demand a full programme of locally accessible services. We will provide free social care to the elderly, abolish prescription charges, re-introduce free eye tests and ensure widely available NHS chiropody. We will also fight to restore free dental care and provide everyone with an NHS dentist.

Pensions

Under The Green Party all pensioners would receive a non-means tested pension of £170 per week. We would also provide free care and support for those living independently..

The Green Party would introduce free home insulation for all, with priority for pensioners and those living in fuel poverty.

Housing

Britain has a shortage of affordable, good quality housing to buy or rent.

The Green Party will make it easier for people to get on the property ladder, to protect home-owners and to eradicate homelessness by:

Building new council homes, supporting the development of housing co-ops, bringing back into use 300,000 long-term empty private sector homes, renovating 37,000 empty council homes to help cut waiting lists, giving social housing tenants greater control over the management of their homes and neighbourhoods, improving the quality of housing stock to help reduce household bills and helping people at risk of repossession keep their homes via a Right to Rent scheme.

Jobs and a living wage

Our priority is the creation of an extra million jobs and training places. A £44bn package of measures would include workforce training, investment in renewables, public transport, insulation, social housing and waste management.

To reduce inequality The Green Party will fight for a National Minimum Wage of 60% of net national average earnings, currently £8.10 per hour.

Transport

Train fares in England are some of the highest in Europe. The Green Party would re-nationalise trains to improve service and lower fares.

We would divert £30bn from road projects into public transport. We would spend £1.5bn subsidising public transport to reduce fares up to 10%. This would strengthen communities, reduce crime, improve health, reduce traffic fatalities and create 160,000 jobs.

So at last the truth is out. All three old parties have talked about post election cuts but no one has been willing to say where they will fall. The Tory leader David Cameron left us no doubt yesterday during his interview with Paxman where those cuts would fall first – right here in the North East.

I guess it should come  as no surprise given the Tories are not set to win any more seats in the North East that they should start their programme of cuts right here. So far from investing to support and develop the most disadvantaged of the English regions, the Tories look set to cut its support first. Far away from London and so far away from being a Tory priority.

More than 48% of workers in the North East work in jobs which are funded by the state. Surely this is the time to invest rather than cut back? It now looks like only the Green Party is left to protect jobs and boost local services in the North East of England. Stimulating the private sector won’t happen if we first decimate the public sector.

Vote Tory – more like Vote P45 is you live in the North East and work in public sector.

If you want read more about what Cameron said checkout the Guardian lead story.

North East Greens are calling for a return to a publicly funded, publicly provided health service, opposing creeping NHS privatisation.

Anna Heyman, Green Party candidate for Newcastle North said:

“Compassion in health care and the prevention of illness should be at the forefront of our health care service; instead successive governments have treated health care as a market. We need to end the phony idea of ‘patient choice’. Most of us just want good treatment at our local hospital or health centre.

“We want to keep the health service free, as was originally intended. Greens would abolish prescription charges, re-introduce free eye tests and NHS dental treatment for all, and ensure NHS chiropody is widely available. And, in particular, implement, in the rest of the country, the scheme that provides free social care to the elderly in Scotland. This would be phased in, costing about £3bn in 2010 rising to £8bn pa and could create 120,000 jobs. But preventative care of this sort should save money overall.”

Andy Redfern, Green Party candidate for Gateshead, continued:

“Prevention is better and more cost effective than cure, but part of prevention is about living healthier lives and greater equality. We cannot have an effective preventive approach – a health service rather than an ill-health service unless we encourage healthier eating, more exercise, a lower-stress society, reduction in environmental pollutants and greater access to tranquil countryside.

“And simply making our society more equal will improve our health, without spending a penny extra on the NHS. Life expectancy, infant mortality, low birth weight and mental illness are worse in more unequal societies. Drug addiction is more common in more unequal societies.

“Better health is not a matter of ever increasing spending on the NHS. A surer route centres on simple things like good food, good quality housing and a good life-work balance.”

John Pearson, Green Party candidate for Newcastle Central, concluded:

“Our approach to a fairer, more cost-effective health service with an emphasis on preventative health care is spelled out in detail in our manifesto ‘Fair is worth fighting for’ and includes action to:

- end the postcode lottery by ensuring that all cost effective treatments are available to all patients who need them.
- ensure that all medicines meet minimum safety standards, they are properly labelled with ingredients and have information on side effects
- make available on the NHS complementary medicines which are cost effective and have been shown to work
- provide accessible, local community health centres with a wide range of services, including out of hours care, in addition to local GPs
- end mixed sex accommodation in hospitals
- provide the right to an assisted death within a rigorous framework of regulation, and in the context of the availability of the highest level of palliative care.
- use increased taxes on alcohol and tobacco to fund overall real growth in the medium term of at least 1.2% per annum in the NHS budget.
- decentralise health care responsibility to local government but ensure that minimum service levels and national guidelines are provided to prevent a postcode lottery, and oppose further health service centralisation”

Caroline Lucas, Green Party leader, talks about how you can use our new digital tool, www.onlygreen.org.uk, to help elect the first Green MPs in our target constituencies of Brighton Pavilion, Norwich South and Lewisham Deptford. Make sure you send your friends the good news!

Gateshead Green Party today called for the scrapping of Trident and cancelling the programme to develop a replacement nuclear deterrent. The Green Party candidate for Gateshead Andy Redfern said “We have an opportunity to make the United Kingdom a nuclear weapon free country. We should grab that opportunity with both hands. Initial estimates suggest that the cost of replacing Trident will be around £25 billion. That’s the equivalent of the money needed to pay for 60,000 newly qualified nurses and 60,000 new secondary school teachers for the next 10 years.”

“Disarmament isn’t a dream. It can happen, and has happened in many places around the world. In a few short weeks, the British electorate has the opportunity to have its say too. We must send a message to all parties, that replacing Trident is immoral, irrelevant – and a cost simply not worth paying.”

Redfern added “We have a once in a generation opportunity to scrap our weapons and turn the skills we have to building an economy built on sustainable power generation. The North East has already built the foundation to the lead the way – cancelling Trident and investing in Green engineering jobs is the obvious next step.”

The Gateshead Green Party has had a few emails and calls this week about where we are standing. Currently we are fielding one candidate in the General Election in the Gateshead Constituency and one candidate in the local elections in the Lobley Hill and Bensham ward for the local elections on the same day.

If you’re not sure if you live in the Gateshead constituency or not this map should provide the answer. Click on the map to see a more detailed version of the map.

The Green Party today launched its Older People’s Pledge for the 2010 general election (1) – with, at its heart, the promise of support for the National Pensioners’ Convention’s demand for a £170-a-week basic state pension.

Gateshead Greens unveiled this pledge today to show the Green commitment to all aspects of life – especially those for whom life is tough due to low incomes in retirement.

Andy Redfern, Green Candidate for the newly-formed Gateshead constituency said: “After a lifetime of hard work and contributing to society, pensioners deserve better than having to scrape by on an inadequate state pension. It’s only fair that the basic state pension should be enough to live on – that is why Greens would make sure that all pensioners receive a non-means-tested £170 per week, as well as free social care for all who need it, as is currently offered in Scotland.”

The figure of £170 per week is calculated as the minimum required to keep the basic state pension above the official poverty line, according to the National Pensioners’ Convention, in its Pensioners’ Manifesto, which calls for a range of measures to improve conditions for older people (2).

A spokesman for the NPC said today:

“The NPC welcomes the Green Party’s commitment to improving the basic state pension for Britain’s 11 million older voters and hopes that other parties will see the economic and moral sense in tackling pensioner poverty. This is something no political party should ignore.”

The Greens have spelled out how the £170 basic state pension would be funded (3).

End the default retirement age, say Greens

In addition to raising pensioners above the poverty line, the Green Party’s Older People’s Pledge promises to end the default retirement age, so that people would have the freedom to go on working and contributing to society if they wished to, free from discrimination on the basis of age.

Michelle Mitchell, Age Concern and Help the Aged’s Charity Director, said:

“We welcome the Green Party’s focus on older people and desire to address the challenges of ageing as we head towards the general election. Abolishing the default retirement age and increasing the basic state pension are absolutely key to improving the retirement prospects for millions of older people.”

The Green Party has also pointed out that under its policy of free insulation for every home in Britain, pensioners would benefit from warmer homes and would be less reliant on winter fuel payments.

Notes

1. The Green Party’s Older People’s Pledge is below in full.

2. The NPC’s Pensioners’ Manifesto can be downloaded here: www.npcuk.org/publications.htm.

3. There are roughly 12 million pensioners living in the UK and a further 1 million living abroad. Paying a single rate of £170 per week, and a couples rate of £300 per week, will cost £110bn per year. The current basic state pension, plus certain other specific pensioner benefits like Pensions Credits paid to those of pension age (which would become redundant if the basic pension rate was raised to the level we propose) costs £70bn. For the remaining £40 billion, the Green Party would abolish tax relief on pension contributions (£20 billion), and the national insurance rebate on employer and employee contributions to private pension schemes (£19 billion). The final £1 billion would come from increased income tax receipts from pensioners.

4. In 2009-10, the full basic State Pension is £95.25 a week. For a married couple who both qualify, it is £190.50 a week. From April 6 2010, these figures will rise by 2.5%.

In advance of Alistair Darling’s 2010 budget, the Green Party wants to see three key provisions included:

- a non-means-tested state pension, set at £170 a week (1)

- a nationwide programme to insulate homes which would create 350,000 training placements over the next year (2)

- an end to the zero-rating of VAT on new dwellings, putting them on a level with conversions and renovations of existing dwellings, raising £5bn in 2010 and £7.5bn by 2013

The Green Party welcomes Labour’s adoption of a long-standing Green policy idea, the idea of a People’s Bank. The Green Party would provide initial funding of £2.5 billion over the next Parliament to assist communities in setting up such a network.

The Green Party’s leader, Caroline Lucas, said, “Our manifesto, to be released just after the call of the general election, is a practical and realistic plan to move towards a more equal society, fight climate change and protect public services.”

Lucas continued: “Unlike the other parties, we will argue that increases in taxation for the better-off are required. We will raise taxes fairly and explain them honestly.”

“Labour’s plans depend upon wishful thinking about how quickly the economy and tax revenues will recover. They are unwilling to tell you about the cuts and tax increases coming later. The Conservatives will cut public spending, but have not put forward a plan that adds up to remotely enough cuts without tax increases to cut the deficit.”

“In contrast, the Green Party will be open about what we would cut, what we would defend, and about the fact that we need to raise taxation from 36% of GDP in 2009-10 to around 45% in 2013. This would halve the gap between government expenditure and revenues by 2013-14 (as the Labour government proposes) and progressively close the gap thereafter.”

Notes:

1) There are roughly 12 million pensioners living in the UK and a further 1 million living abroad. Paying a single rate of £170 per week, and a couples rate of £300 per week, will cost £110bn per year. The basic state pension costs £56bn, and when certain other specific pensioner benefits like Pensions Credits paid to those of pension age are abolished, the total saving will be almost £70bn. For the remaining £40 billion, we would abolish tax relief on pension contributions (£20 billion), and raise a further £19 billion from abolishing employer national insurance contributions and employee national insurance rebates associated with pension schemes. The final £1 billion will come from increased income tax receipts from pensioners.

2) This proposal would involve workforce training for jobs in energy conservation and renewable energy, including grant-funded conversion courses for skilled engineers from other industries. In particular, we would spend £5 billion in the next fiscal year, creating 350 000 training places, offering opportunities to 700 000 unemployed people, in particular the young unemployed.

Gateshead Green Party is pleased to announce that it will be standing in the upcoming General Election. The candidate will be Andy Redfern who lives in Lobley Hill and works on Team Valley.

Andy commented “I am delighted to have been selected by the local party to contest this seat. With a new constituency and no current MP, this is a great chance for a genuine fresh start for Gateshead. A Green  vote is a vote to put people and democracy at the heart of the area.”

Originally from Manchester, Andy Redfern has lived in the newly formed Gateshead Constituency for the last 14 years – initially in Low Fell and more recently in Lobley Hill. A committed environmentalist he has worked in sustainable trade since moving to the North East – first for fair trade pioneer Traidcraft and then for Ethical Superstore and Natural Collection. He has also served on the board of Cafedirect and the British Association Fair Trade Shops. He is a regular speaker at conferences on fair and sustainable trade issues. He is a committed vegetarian, cyclist and runner.

Andy believes that so called “New Labour” has locally and nationally let down people.  The Green New Deal puts people and the planet back at the heart of policy. He feels it is time to challenge Labour’s hyprocrisy and “corruption” head on and give people a alternative to a party that takes the support of local people for granted.