The Greens are reaching out to renters with a huge election commitment on new and environmentally friendly housing, including a plan to let councils requisition empty properties or ones without proper insulation.
Among other housing commitments in the party’s manifesto being launched on Wednesday is a proposed £49bn investment programme over the next five years to insulate homes and public buildings, and to fit properties with heat pumps.
With the Greens in England and Wales hoping younger voters will help them double the one MP they had in parliament before the election was called , the party is also setting out plans for a wealth tax and other levies targeting wealthier people, which it says could raise at least £50bn a year to help public services.
At the manifesto launch in Brighton later, the Greens’ co-leader, Adrian Ramsay, will accuse the major parties of “a conspiracy of silence” over how they can improve the NHS and other services without tax rises.
The housing pledges also include introducing rent controls and ending the right to buy system for social properties, as well as a huge programme to provide grants for the proper insulation of all homes, and public buildings such as schools and hospitals.
There are also proposals to “empower local authorities to bring empty homes back into use”, including allowing councils, social landlords and community housing groups to be given the chance to buy up homes left empty for more than six months.
This could also be done for privately rented properties not insulated to at least EPC rating C, or ones that fail to meet the decent homes standard.
Another housing plan, one that reflects the fact the Greens now run or co-run a number of councils, would give local authorities guarantees that new housing developments would be in appropriate sites, and would come with investment in associated infrastructure, such as GP surgeries, buses and extra school and nursery places.
The Greens are particularly targeting four seats in a highly focused campaign, and are forecast to have a decent chance of winning two: Brighton Pavilion, held by Caroline Lucas since 2010 and now being contested by Siân Berry, and Bristol Central, where the party’s other co-leader, Carla Denyer, could unseat Labour’s Thangam Debbonaire.
The launch in Brighton will see Denyer and Ramsay, joined by Berry, set out tax plans including an annual wealth levy of 1% on individual taxpayers with assets worth £10m or more, rising to £2% for those with assets above £1bn. Capital gains tax would be aligned with income tax, and higher earners would pay more national insurance.
Ramsay said: “Labour and the Conservatives would rather hide their plans for cuts to public services than confront the need for a fairer tax system that asks those with the broadest shoulders to pay more – including the very wealthiest in society, who have grown even wealthier over the last 14 years.”
Much of the party’s campaign is aimed at tempting traditional Labour voters, with the pledge that Green MPs would push a Keir Starmer government to be more bold.
Denyer said: “Things can only get worse under Labour unless we dramatically change our tax system to raise money from those with the broadest shoulders.
“Young people, in particular, know just how broken Britain’s frontline services are. The economy is not working for them. They have been priced out of the housing market and are struggling to fund their education. Now is the moment to be ambitious. Not unrealistic, but ambitious.”
