The Green Party's leader put forward her views on education, pay and the NHS in a live debate with young voters.
The Green Party’s leader put forward her views on education, pay and the NHS in a live debate with young voters
Last night Green Party leader Natalie Bennett was the first politician to appear on Leaders Live, a new debate series that gives young people the chance to put questions directly to leaders.
Broadcast live on YouTube, the series is created by Bite the Ballot, an organisation that empowers young people to make informed voting decisions.
Bennett’s appearance was significant as she has been omitted from the BBC’s scheduled debates that will mark the run up to the general election.
You can watch the full debate here.
The questions that the audience asked Bennett showed that jobs and education are at the top of their list of worries.
When asked who she proposed would cover the cost of the free higher education the Greens have promised, Bennett pointed to rich individuals and multinational companies who do not pay their taxes.
She stressed that there is a need for society to be “rebalanced” and that multinationals need to take responsibility for contributing towards society.
The issue of equality also informs the Greens’ policy on drugs.
Bennett was adamant that drugs “should be treated as a health issue, not a criminal justice issue”, and said that the amount of discretion given to police means that more people from minority backgrounds are arrested for drug misuse than people from other backgrounds.
This, she said, is despite the fact that more privileged people are no less likely to be using drugs.
Bennett also pledged to end zero-hours contracts, and stated that her party was “absolutely opposed” to unpaid internships. Alongside workers who currently receive a minimum wage, interns, she said, should be paid the Living Wage as a minimum.
The NHS was also a key issue in the debate. Bennett warned that the UK is ‘racing towards’ an American style privatised health system, and criticised the private finance initiatives (PFI) which are holding the NHS hostage with huge interest rates and service charges.
Campaign group Drop the NHS Debt estimate that by 2020-21, the annual costs of the 118 NHS PFIs will be £2.14bn. Saving 46 per cent of that would release about £1bn a year.
As part of the Greens’ plans for the NHS, Bennett promised that more detail on mental healthcare would be added to their manifesto. She criticised the way that mental health problems are regarded as less urgent than physical ones, and pledged parity of esteem for people with mental illness.
On education, Bennett said that no school run by a faith group should receive government money. She predicted that in the event of this becoming legislation, many faith schools would choose to come into the secular system rather than become private.
The school system also face criticism from the Green leader over its competitive nature. Bennett said that the system should be based on cooperation, and shold include a more practical curriculum covering things like relationships, health and nutrition, in order to give pupils an “education for life”.
Ruby Stockham is a staff writer at Left Foot Forward. Follow her on Twitter
49 Responses to “Natalie Bennett: We have to ban zero-hours contracts”
Leon Wolfeson
Sounds to me like you need to just guarantee a minimum number of hours then. Say…8 a week.
uglyfatbloke
Now your getting close; most theatres have a minimum ‘4 hour call’ arrangement, so even if the crew are only called in for an hour or two – a thing that happens from time to time – they still get paid for 4 hours. So far so good, but concerts can’t work that way. A lighting or sound contractor may have no work at all for a week or two or three – bugger all happens in January or February for instance. The contractor may have a dozen people that they can call on as required; they cannot possibly have all those people on 8 hour retainers for even one week, let alone six or eight. Remember that the margins for these businesses are very small; if a sole prop owner is making 30,000 a year they are doing pretty well.
Leon Wolfeson
So you’re saying that employment might need to shift to the venues.
uglyfatbloke
Not at all. A great many venues do not have crew of any kind since they do not have equipment. The promoter hires the hall and provides PA, lights, crew, security and whatever else is required. venues that do have equipment will have a sound engineer (two if they have a separate monitor desk) and a lighting designer. They will generally have a pool of crew contacts for humping, follow spots and so on or – more often than not probably – there will be a local crew whose manager/lead hand/chief will provide however many people s/he is asked for.
Alternatively, the venue or the promoter will get the audio or lighting company to provide whatever they need for show staff and a security company to provide …errrr…security. The latter are in an easier, but not dissimilar position from PA and lighting companies; they need a different number of people every day, the difference is that they will generally have a number of venues/clients that need bouncers every might or at least several nights every week and can shuffle people around to meet contracted hours. Even so, they need to have a bunch of contacts who can be called on to meet unexpected demand or cover for folk not turning up or being sick.
The reason gigs work this way is that it is the only way it can possibly work. Fixed hours contracts for stage crew (other than the relatively modest numbers in very busy venues) is simply not feasible from the point of view of the venues, the promoters, the contractors and the crew themselves. If the first three had to have fixed hours contracts for all the people they need from time-to-time they’d soon go out of business and there would n’t be crewing jobs. The only gigs would be in very large concert halls and heavily subsidised art-centre type places.
Peem Birrell
Absolutely – but banning zero-hours contracts will just result in casualisation – no contracts at all. This has actually been happening in HE with some employers boasting that they have no zero-hours contract staff. It’s true technically, but hasn’t made any practical difference.