20140905_GP
Source: BBC TV News
URL: N/A
Date: 05/09/2014
Event: "Selling the Greens isn't easy, even here in Solihull"
Credit: BBC TV News
People:
- Natalie Bennett: Leader, UK Green Party
- Ross Hawkins: BBC political correspondent
- Chris Rogers: BBC TV News presenter
Chris Rogers: The Green Party is calling for a wealth tax on the top 1% of earners, in an effort to rebalance the economy. The party also wants a guaranteed income for every adult and child in Britain, including asylum-seekers and prisoners, as our political correspondent Ross Hawkins reports.
[Scene of a busy market stall where vegetables are being sold.]
Ross Hawkins: Selling the Greens isn't easy, even here in Solihull, outside Birmingham, where they're the second biggest party on the council. But now they say they can put money in your pocket. The Green pitch includes plans for a £10 an hour minimum wage by 2020, a wealth tax on people worth more than £3 million and a guaranteed taxpayer-funded income for every man, woman and child, whether they're in work or not. Adults would get £80 a week each, replacing several benefits - but do voters like the idea?
Woman 1: I do, yeah. But what if people are not working and just sitting at home, compared to people that are working?
Woman 2: That's good - that sounds really good.
Ross Hawkins: Paid for by the state - by the taxpayer.
Woman 2: That's not good. [Laughs.]
Ross Hawkins: Some in the Green Party dream of seizing the attention of voters on the Left, in the same way UKIP has managed with some on the Right of British politics. But the party knows it's got a long way to go. And so, down the road at their conference, they think they have to be bold, with policies like a guaranteed income - aimed, they say, at nothing less than restructuring society.
Natalie Bennett: I'm thinking of visiting a food bank, and the staff there were telling me about a father, sole father of two young daughters, who arrived, and they were clearly really worried about the state he was in - his benefits had been sanctioned, through absolutely no fault of his own, and he had no food to put on the table. And, you know, in the sixth richest country in the world, in 2014, we need to say "enough".
Ross Hawkins: So will prisoners get this money as well?
Natalie Bennett: Um, er, yes, prisoners would get it - they're members of our society. I'd expect that you'd probably then see some kind of charge, in the same way that, you know, food and lodgings, there'd be some sort of charge that would probably take most of it back.
Ross Hawkins: She accepts many voters won't like the idea - she hopes enough will embrace it for the Greens to hold onto their one seat in the House of Commons and challenge in others, next year. Ross Hawkins, BBC News in Birmingham.