She railed against austerity and NHS privatisation
Green Party co-leader Carla Denyer was applauded during the 7-way leaders debate for arguing to tax the rich in order to invest in public services. Denyer was up against Labour’s Angela Rayner, the Tories’ Penny Mordaunt, the SNP’s Stephen Flynn, the Lib Dems’ Daisy Cooper, Reform UK’s Nigel Farage and Plaid Cymru’s Rhun Ap Iorwerth in the debate.
The second question put to the leaders was on the future of the NHS. In response to the question, Denyer said: “The Green Party are the party that’s ready to be honest about the need for investment” in the NHS.
She then added: “The NHS has been chronically underfunded for decades. It’s on its knees. This cannot be allowed to continue. Most of us agree about that.
“But the answer is not as the Conservatives and, surprisingly, Labour think,- to invite big multinational companies further into our National Health Service. The answer is investment and protecting our NHS from privatisation.
“We announced our health and social care policy just yesterday and that included a £30bn investment for our health services, £20bn on social care”.
When asked by the host Mishal Husain how the Greens would finance this, Denyer went on to make the case for taxing the rich to fund public services. She said the funding “come from reforming the tax system, because currently the UK tax system is unbelievably unfair. It puts more onus on lower income working people to contribute to the treasury than it does towards the super rich – the millionaires, the multi-millionaires and the billionaires. And so the Greens would make some adjustments to that system, so that those with the broadest shoulders who can most easily afford to pay quite a modest amount and that will provide plenty of funding for decent investment in public services that benefit all of us.”
Her comments were met with applause from the audience in the studio.
Chris Jarvis is head of strategy and development at Left Foot Forward
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