14 March 2021

The Green Party has condemned the harmful and shocking Metropolitan police action on Clapham Common this weekend. 

Responding to policing at the vigil, Green Party co-leader and candidate for Mayor of London Sian Berry said:

“I can’t think of a more shameful way for an organisation to have handled this whole situation. 

“There was literally no chance of this being a violent event if it had been left in peace. And given what prompted it, these scenes are just abhorrent and traumatic to see for so many of us.

“The Met has failed on every level and it’s hard to see how the Commissioner – and the Mayor and the Home Secretary – could not be considering her position right now.”

The highly politicised policing bill arrives in the House of Commons tomorrow, and the Green Party is adamant this should be opposed in order to stop the right to peaceful protest being curtailed. 

Jenny Jones, Green Peer and former member of the Met monitoring body said:

“The government wants to use this new policing bill to buttress its political power in a way typical of an authoritarian regime. 

“The police used extra-ordinary powers this weekend to stop and break up a peaceful vigil, imagine what they would do if given a new set of extraordinary post-covid powers to stop peaceful protest.

“The resources spent on our police force should be used to protect us all. We don’t want money that could be used to protect women‘s lives spent defending the political interests of this far right government.”

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12 March 2021

• Party repeats call for UK to explore options for rejoining the customs union

Former MEP and economics professor Molly Scott Cato has demanded urgent action after trade figures released this morning showed a 40% decline in UK exports to the EU. [1]

Dr Scott Cato said:

“I am horrified by clear evidence that Johnson’s determination to ‘f**k business’ [2] has succeeded so dramatically. The decision to put up new trade barriers with our largest trading partner has had the inevitable consequences that we warned about with trade falling off a cliff.

“We need to take urgent action to reverse the destructive decision to cut ties with our closest neighbours. This is why the Green Party has called for the government to think again about choosing the hardest possible Brexit and to seek ways to rejoin the EU customs union as a matter of urgency.”

Dr Scott Cato, who was recently elected to the Executive Committee of the European Movement, continued:

“As an MEP I took the government to court to release the studies of the impact of Brexit on our economy. Now I understand why they fought so hard to keep them secret.

“Commentators are trying to lessen the blow by suggesting that these figures may be impacted by stockpiling and teething problems but this is entirely to miss to the point. 

“The decision to leave the European Union was an act of wanton destruction driven by a tiny elite for their own self-serving reasons. The devastating consequences for the rest of us are only now beginning to play out.”

ENDS

Notes

1

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56370690

2

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-44618154

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11 March 2021

• The call comes as a report finds just one fifth of money spent by major economies is going towards green policy as part of the Covid recovery

The Green Party is demanding the government take immediate action to invest in green measures to ensure we build back greener after Covid.

A report from the UN and the University of Oxford found that only a small number of countries have made significant increases in spending to tackle the climate and ecological crisis since the start of the pandemic. [1]

According to the report, the UK’s Green recovery spending as a percentage of its total recovering spending is just 17% [2] , falling far behind other nations such as Canada (78%), Germany (47%), France (35%), South Korea (27%) and Spain (24%). Turkey has spent 100% of its total recovery spending on Green measures. 

Jonathan Bartley, co-leader of the Green Party, said:

“The government is failing to ensure that its level of investment in a Green Recovery matches its rhetoric on the climate and ecological crises. This data clearly shows the UK is falling far behind other countries worldwide when it comes to the percentage of Covid recovery investment being spent on green policy.

“In a year when the UK plays host to the UN climate talks and a G7 summit focused on climate, this is a national embarrassment on the global stage. 

“What we need to see is the UK government proving their credentials as a world-leader for green investment, which secures jobs for local communities and puts the environment at the heart of all ministerial decisions, putting their actions into words and setting an example for other nations to follow.

“This leadership is urgently needed since the report is clear that only a handful of governments around the world are taking the climate and ecological crisis seriously when investing for Covid recovery. Most are simply kicking the can down the road and putting the future at risk.

“There is a golden opportunity for the world to turn to renewable, clean policy in the wake of the pandemic so we don’t revert to the highly damaging and backward tendencies of the pre-Covid era which is pushing our planet and its inhabitants to the brink.”

ENDS

Notes

1

https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/green-recovery-covid-spending-un-b1815153.html 

2

https://data.undp.org/content/global-recovery-observatory/

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6 March 2021

• Party members vote for emergency motion at Spring Conference

The Green Party has backed calls for a 15% pay rise for NHS workers following the Government’s derisory proposal for a miserly 1% increase.

The emergency motion, brought to the party’s Spring Conference today [Saturday], sets out how the 1% pay rise, which would mean a rise of just £3.50 a week for nurses [1], provides no recognition of the work undertaken by those in the health and care sector throughout the Covid-19 pandemic.

The motion commits the party to support the demands of the grassroots NHS Workers Say No to Public Sector Pay Inequality and Nurses United campaigns [2, 3], including a restorative 15% pay rise for health and care workers on Agenda for Change contracts [4] and for outsourced services in the NHS to be brought back in house.

The party will also support the ongoing Moving Forwards on NHS Pay campaign, led by 14 trade unions representing more than 1.3 million members, to secure a fair pay rise for health and care workers.

Green Party co-leader Jonathan Bartley said:

“The Government’s proposal for a 1% pay rise for NHS workers makes the badges, clapping and warm words look like empty gestures and rhetoric. It is an insult to the nurses and other NHS staff who have risked their lives over the past year in order to protect us all and care for those who have needed it.

“This pandemic’s legacy must be a complete reassessment of who and what we value as a society, and that means recognising through their wages the importance of all those on who we depend for our welfare and wellbeing.

“We also need to remember the needs of our care workers, the unsung heroes of the pandemic. We believe care should be fully integrated into the NHS: this would offer our care workers the protection of a proper pay negotiations.”

The emergency motion was proposed by Rebecca Mulvaney, a Green Party candidate for this year’s local elections in Sheffield.

Mulvaney said:

“Since 2010, successive governments have imposed a public sector pay freeze that has led to a real terms reduction in pay of around 15%. 

“A 15% pay rise for health service staff would right the wrongs of austerity and reverse the pay erosion and pay poverty that has blighted the past decade of incomes for some of our most committed and dedicated NHS workers.

“I am delighted that conference backed this motion, thank you to everyone who supported it, and to the Green Party Trade Union Group for their support.”

ENDS

Notes

1

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-56285087

2

https://www.facebook.com/NHSworkersSayNo/

3

https://www.nursesunited.org.uk/campaigns/pay-rise/

4

The Agenda for Change pay system “covers all staff except doctors, dentists and very senior managers”

https://www.healthcareers.nhs.uk/working-health/working-nhs/nhs-pay-and-benefits/agenda-change-pay-rates

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6 March 2021

• High carbon-emitting furnaces for steel production would be replaced with electric alternatives part of an integral transition to a net-zero carbon emissions economy

The Green Party has become the first major political party to call for the end of carbon intensive blast furnaces in steel production and instead invest in electric arc furnaces melting scrap steel to minimise the amount of carbon released from the industry.

Members have today voted for a motion at the party’s Spring Conference which would see the UK government phase out coal completely, while also investing to create hundreds of thousands of Green jobs for the future.

Sian Berry, Green Party co-leader and candidate for London Mayor, said this was necessary to reduce emissions as much as possible before 2030 to avoid catastrophic climate change:

“Backing a new coal mine in Cumbria is utterly wrong from the Government. Only the Greens recognise that every industry needs to transform dramatically to match the urgency of the climate and ecological society. And only the Greens are prepared to invest in the innovation that will make this possible.

“We simply cannot arrive at a net-zero carbon emission economy if we continue to make steel from blast furnaces. The COP climate summit is this year and the Government should be putting new investment into alternatives now if we are to hold our heads up as hosts for the rest of the world.

“We also have to seize this chance to protect workers and create new jobs in greener industries. The comprehensive Green New Deal we are pushing for could create millions of jobs while also protecting our future.”

Green Party Councillor Jonathan Essex, who proposed the motion, said:

“The UK currently imports millions of tonnes of coal from around the world for use in blast furnaces. This has to stop if we have any hope of reducing emissions in the way we need to.

“This motion places the Greens at the forefront of the debate about how to decarbonise our economy completely, and makes it clear that the government must not just commit to new coal use in the UK, but must also phase out our demand for it from around the world.”

ENDS

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