14 June 2019

Vix Lowthion, Green Party education spokesperson, has described the announcement today by Damian Hinds of 22 new free schools as a decision based on “ideology not evidence”.

Vix, a secondary school teacher, said: “Free schools have not raised attainment. They have consumed vast financial resources and are not accountable to their local communities. Their creation is driven by ideology, not evidence.

“They are not being put where they are needed, whilst too many of our community schools are bursting at the seams.

“The government must end this privatisation ideology and allow councils to plan for and deliver the educational needs of their communities.”

The announcement came as the failures of the school inspection system were exposed by a report showing that more than 80% of schools that had been top-rated by Ofsted were downgraded on their latest inspection, with inspections being conducted after a hiatus of up to a decade.

Vix said: “The Green Party calls for the focus to be schools cooperating to achieve the best result for every pupil, not competing against each other for league table places.

“We want to abolish Ofsted, replacing it with a truly independent organisation which would monitor standards but also work closely with schools to cooperatively share best practice and support each other.”

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13 June 2019

Green Party members will be at the BBC in Salford today, supporting a protest from the National Pensioners’ Convention against the abolition of the free TV licence for the over-75s.

Astrid Johnson, Manchester Green Party member and candidate in the European elections, said: “That our most senior citizens should face the worry and concern, and potential loss of an essential bulwark against loneliness, a crucial entertainment in many people’s lives, cannot be accepted.

“But the blame needs to be laid where it is due: at the government that pushed responsibility for funding the fee on to the BBC, when it had previously been accepted as a government responsibility.

 “A further concern is that while the BBC has attempted to help some of the poorest older pensioners through sparing those in receipt of the pension credit, this is a blunt instrument that will miss many who need it most.

“Estimates are that 1.3 million pensioners who are eligible to get pension credit don’t get it, and so will also miss out on a free TV licence.

“This is a demonstration of the dangers of means-testing, to which the Green Party is opposed. We want universal benefits – like the TV licence for over 75s.”

Astrid continues: “More fundamentally, however, we are opposed to the structure of the licence, which operates as a poll tax, the poorest citizens in our society paying the same charge for it as billionaires.

“We very much believe in publicly funded public service broadcasting, but it should be funded from a ringfenced portion of progressive taxation.” 

Michael Welton, Green Party councillor in Altrincham, Trafford, said:  “The BBC is the fall guy for the Government’s cowardly buck passing of this unpopular decision.

“Means testing will exclude the 1.3 million people who are are due pension credit but don’t claim it, many of whom are vulnerable or unwell.

“The Green Party’s policy of funding the BBC via progressive taxation is the only just solution.”

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12 June 2019

Reacting to Theresa May’s answer to Green MP Caroline Lucas at Prime Minister’s Questions today, Green Party co-leader Jonathan Bartley said: “The Prime Minister’s claim that setting a legal target is ‘action’ simply doesn’t stack up.

“As Caroline identified, there are significant steps that Theresa May could take in her short remaining time as Prime Minister, cancelling Heathrow expansion, turning money earmarked for new roads to public transport and stopping fracking.”

Jonathan continued:

“What most of the discussion has missed since the Prime Minister’s announcement is, however, the positive possibilities that a strong, fixed zero-carbon target date means for businesses.

“With Finland setting the goal of 2035, businesses there will be racing forward with new technologies and approaches. 

“Yet our government is planning a review of the target in five years, so British business is not being given the stable policy framework that it needs to take advantage of the huge possibilities offered by the need to reshape our economy and society for the Climate Emergency.

“That is what business is asking for, nationally (1) and globally (2).

“Instead in Britain we have had see-sawing policy and sudden decisions, such as cutting and ending the feed-in tariff and removing the planned zero-carbon homes standard, that have left businesses around the country stranded. ”

Notes

1. http://www.aldersgategroup.org.uk/latest#legislating-net-zero-target-is-crucial-step-forward
2. https://www.corporateleadersgroup.com/reports-evidence-and-insights/publications/publications-pdfs/we-mean-business-the-climate-has-changed.pdf

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11 June 2019

Green peer Jenny Jones has responded to a report on the use of the Investigatory Powers’ Act (IPA – known as the ‘snoopers’ charter’). 

The campaigning group Liberty has highlighted the conclusions of the Investigatory Powers Commissioner’s Office that MI5 had “illegally mishandled” data including calls, messages, location and web-browsing history.

Commissioner Adrian Fulford said compliance failures first became clear in January 2016, but were only brought to the IPCO’s attention in February 2019.

Jenny said: “This report has confirmed what we’ve known for some time, that the security services, as well as the police, are operating their surveillance systems without accepting that they have to operate lawfully, and in a properly targeted manner.

“I know from my own experience of being put on the domestic extremism database that valuable security time and energy are wasted on the wrong targets.

“We have to ensure the police and security services are not out of control, trampling on our human rights and civil liberties.” 

Back when the Act was passed in 2016, Jenny wrote: “We have given our security services unprecedented powers to spy on us.” (2)

She said today: “They have clearly exceeded even the sweeping powers they were given, and broken the law in the process.”

Further information: contact press@greenparty.org.uk, 07967-417859

Notes

(1) https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-security-mi5/watchdog-says-mi5-spy-agency-mishandled-snooping-data-for-years-idUKKCN1TC1NC?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&rpc=921

(2) https://twitter.com/GreenJennyJones/status/798922431545098240?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E798922431545098240&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theinquirer.net%2Finquirer%2Fnews%2F2477546%2Fsnoopers-charter-20-ip-bill-passed-by-parliament-and-will-become-law-within-weeks

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9 June 2019

Delegates at the Green Party conference passed an emergency motion on Saturday in support of a trade unionist who was sacked for writing “racist” on a poster for the government’s Prevent programme.

David Muritu, a college lecturer and member of the Universities and College Union, was sacked by Sandwell College this week after defacing the poster because he felt the Prevent scheme – which requires teachers to report students who show signs of being drawn into extremism – unfairly targeted Muslims (1).

Green Party member Samir Jeraj, who moved the motion, said:

“We completely oppose trade union victimisation and call on Sandwell College to reverse their decision. 

“Prevent is a racist endeavour and we stand in solidarity with Dave in calling this out.”

The Green Party conference motion called for Mr Muritu’s immediate reinstatement.

Co-leader Sian Berry said: “The Green Party has since its inception been expressing concerns about Prevent.

“In its current form it disproportionately targets Muslim communities.

“We should instead pursue community-led collaborative approaches to tackling all forms of extremism.”

Notes

1. https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/black-country/sandwell-college-sacks-lecturer-dave-16380273

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