Green Party co-leaders Carla Denyer and Adrian Ramsay

The Green Party of England and Wales published its general election manifesto today. The document sets out the party’s vision for how the country could be transformed over the next five years, with a focus on redistributing wealth and power, and protecting the environment in the face of climate and ecological crisis.

There are dozens of individual policies in there. Here’s a rundown of the 10 most exciting of them.

1. Introducing a £15 an hour minimum wage

As part of their measures to address the cost of living, the Greens are proposing to raise the minimum wage to £15 an hour. Alongside this, the party is arguing that the current system where younger people can be paid less should be scrapped, equalising the minimum wage for all.

2. Introducing rent controls and banning no-fault evictions

The Green Party has said that to tackle ‘unaffordable rents’ and ‘constant insecurity’ in the private rented sector, they would allow local authorities to introduce rent controls. The Greens also say they would introduce a ban on no-fault evictions.

3. Reversing the failed privatisation experiment

Running throughout the Greens’ manifesto is a commitment to ending privatisation in public services. The party says it is “committed to a fully public, properly funded health and social care system, and to keeping the profit motive well away from the NHS.” Elsewhere, the Green Party have committed to renationalising the railways, taking water back into public ownership, and nationalising the big five energy retail companies.

4. Cancelling recent fossil fuel licenses and ending oil and gas subsidies

Unsurprisingly, addressing climate crisis is a high priority within the manifesto. Phasing out fossil fuel use is central to this. The Green Party has said it would cancel recently granted fossil fuel licenses – including for the Rosebank oil field. The party has also said it would remove all existing subsidies for the oil and gas sector.

5. Delivering free personal care

The social care sector has been in crisis for more than a decade, with austerity and privatisation having made care largely unaffordable for both individuals and for local authorities. The Greens are proposing to tackle this through £20bn investment in the sector in order to introduce free personal care.

6. Moving towards a four-day working week

Alongside increasing pay, the Green Party has a series of other policies to improve the lives and conditions of workers. One of the most eye-catching of these is the proposal to move towards a four-day working week, which advocates argue improve productivity and the wellbeing of staff.

7. Ending arms sales to Israel

The Green Party’s manifesto contains as specific section on how the party would address Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza. The manifesto says that the Greens would – in addition to pushing for an immediate ceasefire – end arms sales to Israel and work with other countries to end the occupation of Palestine.

8. Scrapping nuclear weapons

A long-running policy found in many a Green Party manifesto has been the commitment to scrap Trident – Britain’s nuclear arsenal. This year is no different, and the Greens are also saying that they would remove all foreign nuclear weapons from UK soil too.

9. Ending the hostile environment

While the other parties engage in a race to the bottom on migration, the Green Party has made clear that it supports migration and wants to welcome refugees. In its manifesto, the Greens have said they would end the UK’s hostile environment policies, create safe routes for refugees, allow asylum seekers to work while their applications are processed, end immigration detention and abolish the policy which gives some people ‘no recourse to public funds’.

10. Ending the ‘Right to Buy’ and delivering 150,000 new social homes

Since Margaret Thatcher’s government, the social housing stock has been hollowed out, forcing people into the private rented sector and ramping up housing costs for millions. The Greens are proposing to reverse this trend by ending the ‘right to buy’ scheme, which takes homes out of the social housing stock, and providing 150,000 new social homes every year.

Image credit: Bristol Green Party – Creative Commons