4 November 2020

Green Party co-leader Jonathan Bartley, said:

“With millions of votes still to be counted, we utterly reject Donald Trump’s attempt to delegitimise the election process and deny millions of electors the right to have their votes counted. He has undermined the international standing of US democracy and abandoned any claim to be the “Leader of the Free World”.

“We call on our government to publicly condemn Trump’s authoritarian actions and make a clear statement of our continuing support for free and fair elections and the rule of law. 

“Democracy requires patience and cooperation. Every vote must be counted.”

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2 November 2020

Twelve months on from the launch of the government’s net zero review (2 November 2019) Green Party deputy leader Amelia Womack said:

“It’s been a year since the launch of the Treasury’s review into going net zero, and we still haven’t seen a word of the promised report.

“As the UK prepares to bring together world leaders next year to drive forward climate action, we must show that we are ready to lead the way. Our government should publish a credible plan to go net zero as soon as possible.

“The Green Party 2019 manifesto is still the most ambitious and comprehensive climate plan published anywhere in the world, taking us to net zero by 2030 while creating a fairer and more equal country. 

“We need to see a transformational spending commitment of around £100bn a year to transition every sector of the economy, powering the UK with nearly 100% renewable energy by the end of the decade, along with offering insulation improvements to every single home. 

“This Government is nowhere near the right level of ambition. They’re forcing through a £29bn road building programme, they’ve rolled out a measly discount scheme for home insulation but with no one trained to do the work, and they’ve promised a net zero plan which simply doesn’t seem to exist.

“A year on from the net zero review and with a year to go until COP26, we must now see real climate action from this government, not just warm words.”

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1 November 2020

Schools, colleges and universities must close this week if lockdown is to be effective, says Green Party

The Green Party is calling for secondary schools, colleges and universities to be added to the list of closures from Thursday after a month-long lockdown in England was announced by the Government. 

Co-leader Jonathan Bartley is demanding this afternoon that common sense prevail, following the release of figures by Independent SAGE showing that a lockdown with schools remaining open will be significantly less effective than if they were closed.

“The government is fond of saying they are following the science, but this is an example of them doing the exact opposite,” says Bartley. 

“The figures are clear, a lockdown with schools open would need to be three times longer than if they were closed, to have the same impact. This lockdown is going to negatively affect huge numbers of people, so it has to be worth it. 

“Of course there are going to be exceptions – young people with special educational needs for instance should still be able to attend schools in person. But in general, this is the time to shut secondaries and universities, move to remote learning, give the support needed to curb the rates of infection where that can be done, fix the test and trace system which is still woefully underperforming. Use the time to make this lockdown worthwhile.” 

Green Party Education spokesperson Vix Lowthion said: “The government produced their own guidelines back in August which clearly stated that secondary schools must be on a remote learning rota or closed when the threat of the virus increases. Surely, that’s where we are now? 

“University teaching can move online during this heightened period and school teachers can focus on online learning plans whilst appropriate home-school rotas are put in place. Yes, it’s a huge challenge for our schools but so is working in a frankly unsafe environment where you’re not being given the back-up you need to keep yourself and your pupils out of harms’ way.

“Along with this there needs to be thought put into safeguarding for children at home, their physical and mental health and making sure they have everything they need to learn – the tech equipment and the support.

“The vast majority of children in secondary schools and young adults in higher education are able to learn from home with supervision from teachers. In the medium term this ‘blended learning’ will disrupt the economy less than a full shutdown including primary schools as in most cases older children have less need for intensive childcare provision.”

ENDS 

Independent Sage weekly briefing 30.10: https://www.independentsage.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/WeeklySlides30Oct.pdf

August contingency planning guidance for schools: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/all-possible-measures-to-be-taken-before-schools-and-colleges-close

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29 October 2020

Green Peer Natalie Bennett has welcomed the greater understanding of the relationship between the destruction of habitats and the risk of causing future pandemics.

Speaking ahead of the launch of the IPBES report into the link between biodiversity loss and pandemics, Baroness Bennett said:

‘Our wellbeing and our economy are utterly dependent on the environment, as this important report reminds us. In the case of the coronavirus pandemic and other deadly diseases such as SARS and Ebola, as well as Covid-19, it is clear that a significant factor is our destructive and exploitative relationship with the natural world.

‘We are destroying natural forests and other wild habitats on an unprecedented scale, disrupting ecosystems and giving greater chances to viruses to jump to human populations.

‘Poor standards of animal welfare in settings like wet markets and factory farms also increases the potential for spill-over events.

‘We need to be protecting our few relatively natural spaces, in severely nature-deprived nations like the UK increasing them, and ensuring all of our lands and seas are treated with respect. In the UK we should start with setting a target of designating 20% of Britain as national park and shifting rapidly to agroecological production of healthy food, with crop diversity and an enormous expansion of agroforestry.’ 

ENDS

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Note:

IPBES (Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Service) brought together 22 experts from across the world to provide scientific evidence on risk factors driving Covid-19 and other pandemics and identify what can be done differently to prevent future pandemics.

The launch can be followed live from 14.00 GMT here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcKuw5BMglM&feature=youtu.be

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28 October 2020

Responding to Government amendments to the Environment Bill currently going through Parliament, Jonathan Bartley, co-leader of the Green Party of England and Wales said:

“Government’s vague long-term plans to deliver environmental improvements, ‘enabling’ local authorities and ‘promoting’ resource efficiency amount to little when compared with the European law it intends to replace.

“It was clear that Brexit would weaken environmental protections and the government’s proposed Office of Environmental Protection was a toothless watchdog. But the government amendments to the Environment Bill would allow the Government to basically tell the Office of Environmental Protection what to do. 

“Given that the inspiration for Brexit amongst many Conservative MPs was precisely ripping up the ‘red tape’ that has protected our countryside, waterways, and natural habitats for decades, to have no route to independent legal redress would be a source of considerable concern.  

“The Green Party is campaigning for a strong, independent environmental regulator with legal powers to prosecute the government for breaches of environmental law. We are supporting amendments to the Environment Bill that will create powerful environmental protections for decades to come.”

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