Source: BBC Radio 4: Today Programme
URL: http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9586000/9586372.stm
Date: 10/09/2011
Event: Caroline Lucas on the achievements of the UK Green Party
People:
John Humphrys: You must be a bit worried that your support is staying pretty stagnant, about 5%?
Caroline Lucas: I think that's a bit of a harsh way to start. I mean, in the last 18 months, we've won our first seat in Parliament, we're now controlling our first council in Brighton & Hove. We've managed to really make some big achievements there. We're introducing things like a living wage, we're rolling out the largest ever programme of solar panel installation ever seen in the city. You know, so we're making big achievements, we're on the up, our membership has risen by 40% in the last couple of years. If you look at the last time there was a PR election - a Proportional Representation election, in the country, the last European Elections - over a million people voted Green. So there is huge latent support for us, which increasingly is breaking through a system which, everyone has to admit, is pretty much stacked against us.
John Humphrys: Just wonder whether you're on quite the right tack, though, really. I mean, solar power - solar panel installations may be terribly important and worthy, and all the rest of it, but people are worried about things like riots and the state of the economy rather than that, aren't they.
Caroline Lucas: Well of course, solar panels, right now, is an awfully good way for councils to make money, because of the Feed-In Tariff system, so the council's actually going to make money through putting solar panels on its buildings, as well as reducing -
John Humphrys: It's marginal though, really, that's the point I'm making.
Caroline Lucas: Well, it's not going to be marginal, as fuel prices rise, and so it's going to be putting the city in a very good position. As fuel prices - fossil fuel prices - rise, and as it's a very easy way to make some money for the council, I think people should be pleased about that.
John Humphrys: Yeah -
Caroline Lucas: On the issue of the riots and the economy, you know, I think that's precisely why things like a Living Wage Commission, which we've set up in the city to try to involve - and will involve - business leaders, public sector bodies, trade unions, to look at how we reduce inequality. I think that's an absolutely crucial issue to people, particularly as they're on the hard end of the austerity cuts - the vicious cuts, really - that this government is rolling out.
John Humphrys: But you mentioned the riots, there - I was looking at what you said about "Cameron's crackdown", as we refer to it, occasionally - and you said that his response had been "immoral". Wonder whether you're in touch with what most people think, on this.
Caroline Lucas: I think an awful lot of people think that cutting people's benefits, making them homeless as a response to their - their involvement in the riots, is the wrong response. Of course, the top line - I absolutely condemn what happened in those riots. But to think that you're going to make things any better by calling people a "feral underclass", by cutting their benefits, by making them homeless, I think is utterly misguided. And another point that I made was essentially that those on the streets who grabbed what they could from JJB Sports or TK Maxx, were little different from those at the top, that took what they could from Barclays or RBS. And so to make it sound as if we've got this terrible "feral underclass" that is completely letting the country down, is a misreading of a much wider problem -
John Humphrys: Well, maybe -
Caroline Lucas: - and I think the Greens are in touch with that.
John Humphrys: Maybe the big difference is that one action was legal - we may deplore it but nonetheless, it was legal - the other was illegal. Politicians have to make a distinction between the two, don't they?
Caroline Lucas: There's an important distinction between what's legal and illegal, but there's also an important distinction to be made around values. And I think if we look at the values of those at the top, who were getting billions, arguably, in a way that was immoral, then that, I think, is perfectly right to be made a comparison with, in terms of what was going on, on the streets, in those riots. And I think the importance of trying to understand it is not to excuse it but to try to stop it happening again, and when we have one of the most unequal societies in the whole of Europe, I don't think it's wrong to try to understand that, and to see what role that might have played -
John Humphrys: Quick -
Caroline Lucas: - in the really terrible scenes that we saw in our streets.
John Humphrys: Quick thought about some of your other policies, one of the other policies in particular. You want to bring back free eye tests and scrap prescription charges in England. That would cost a lot of money, and you want to pay for it by - as I understand it - clamping down on tax avoidance and evasion, which every government has sworn to do for the last 150,000 years, as far as I can remember. And an increase in corporation tax. Well, if you increase corporation tax, you make the country less competitive.
Caroline Lucas: Well, there are plenty of other countries in Europe and the G8 who have much higher rates of corporation tax that we do, and are still competitive. On the issue of free eye care and prescriptions - yeah, I'm proud to stand up for that. I'm proud to say that actually we do want to go back to those founding principles of the NHS, and the point is: yes, it will cost a bit more, but actually not that much more, because the cost of trying to administer all of the exceptions that exist, for these different kinds of benefits - which people don't actually, necessarily, make much use of, but nonetheless there is a big administrative burden there - it's not going to cost that much. If we actually want a good set of public services, we have to pay for them, and the richest have to pay most. I'm proud that the Green Party says that, and I think it's increasingly resonant in the country.
John Humphrys: Caroline Lucas, many thanks.