Press Release from West Cornwall Green Party
Monday 22nd February 2010

Justice is Theme of Green Conference

Tim Andrewes, the Green Party’s parliamentary candidate for the St Ives constituency, attended the Party’s spring conference in north London last weekend, and has welcomed a raft of new policies that were agreed.

A strong theme running through the event concerned justice for ordinary citizens. New policies were agreed to curb excessive pay and bankers’ bonuses, to increase patient power within the NHS, and to defend civil liberties in the face of the growing power of the state.

Tim Andrewes commented: ‘One of the most inspiring sessions at the conference looked at how unequal our society has become. The gap between rich and poor has continued to widen under this government. This inequality is causing ill-health, increased crime, family and community breakdown.

‘Here in West Cornwall, the impact of inequality can be seen most starkly in the housing sector, where many people cannot afford to rent a home, while thousands of houses, owned by the wealthy, stand empty or underused for much of the year.

‘The Green Party has a number of policies to tackle inequality, including a fair system of taxation that would narrow the gap between rich and poor.’

The conference considered a number of other issues, including fisheries and marine conservation, creeping privatisation in the health service, and support for a ‘Robin Hood’ tax on international financial transactions.