Shropshire Star

We need to get people out of their cars, says Green leader

Last month the Prime Minister committed £12 billion to making the UK carbon neutral by 2050.

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Sian Berry

"It's a drop in the ocean," says Sian Berry, co-leader of the Green Party.

"This is way below what is needed, way below other countries and way below what has been allocated for defence.’

"We're proposing an investment of £100 billion a year to fight climate change."

The sum sound eye-watering. The annual bill for running the NHS is £130 billion, the defence budget about £42.2 billion. The commitment that the Green Party is calling for is roughly comparable to the UK's entire education budget.

Miss Berry, who took part in a virtual meaning with party campaigners in the West Midlands over the weekend, acknowledges the numbers are huge.

"But compared to sums the Chancellor was talking about in the spending review, it does not seem so unreasonable," she says.

Certainly, the figures presented by Rishi Sunak last week make for grim reading. He committed to spending £55 million towards fighting the coronavirus, and projected that total borrowing over the year would plummet to £394 billion over the year – the highest level in peacetime. Maybe, against those figures, £100 billion does not sound so excessive, but where is the money going to come from? Miss Berry says £91 billion of that would be borrowed, with the remaining £9 billion coming in extra taxation.

"We would introduce new carbon taxes that would raise £7 billion a year, there would also be an increase in corporation tax," she says.

"Most people won't notice the difference. Most people don't fly a lot, they don't consume vast amounts of carbon.

"We will also save £2 billion a year by scrapping Trident, and there will be a reduction of £2 billion a year in spending on the health service because of better quality air.

"And we would help by reducing VAT on essential items."

While Boris Johnson's 10-point plan earmarked more than £1.2 billion for investment in nuclear, hydrogen and carbon capture technologies, as well more wind turbines, Miss Berry says he is looking at the problem from the wrong angle. She says the focus should be on reducing people's energy consumption in the first place.

"There's lots of talk about big projects, about nuclear power and carbon-capture technology which doesn't even exist yet, but there are lots of smaller, more basic things we should be doing first," she says.

"Insulating homes, for instance, if all homes were properly insulated there would not be so much need for energy," she says. The Government should also initiate a programme replacing gas boilers with ground-source heating systems, which make use of heat below the earth's surface.

"We need to look at town development plans, we're very car-dependant now, we need to be building estates on the outside of towns, allowing them to cycle or walk to work.

"We need to connect housebuilding to shops, so that people are well-connected to the rest of town."

Miss Berry, who is a member of the London Assembly and the Green Party's candidate to be Mayor of London, worked in marketing in the pharmaceutical industry before becoming involved in politics. It was her campaign against urban 4x4s which propelled her into the public eye: she produced a set of spoof parking tickets, which she and her supporters began issuing to drivers of off-roader vehicles in North London. One such recipient was the actress Thandie Newton, who changed her 4x4 for a Toyota Prius hybrid and urged other celebrities to do the same.

She then went to work for the Campaign For Better Transport pressure group, where she built up a name as an anti-roads campaigner. Then in September, 2018, she was elected along with Jonathan Bartley to become joint leader of the party, succeeding Caroline Lucas, who remains the party's only MP, having held Brighton Pavilion since 2010.

Given this background, it is little surprise that she is vehemently opposed to the proposed £82 million Shrewsbury North West Relief Road, which has been championed by local MP Daniel Kawczynski. Last year Mr Kawczynski secured £54 million funding for the road, which he says is vital not only for Shrewsbury's economy, but also to reduce congestion and pollution particularly in the town centre.

But Miss Berry fiercely disputes these claims.

"I now hear it's proceeding, and it's such a shame, it's a lot of wasted funding which could be used to improve local public transport links," she says.

"Experience shows that building new roads always leads to more traffic. The bypass will serve people who are travelling between the same places as before. A lot of the time time road building looks like it is going to solve all these problems, but the number of car journeys actually increases."

She says instead of spending more money on new roads, the Government should be subsidising public transport instead.

"Local councils who are responsible for transport are also responsible for subsiding the non-commercial transport, but austerity has absolutely decimated their ability to pay for these services," she says.

But while that is all well and good in big cities, where it is easy to invest in public transport, how is is it going to work in rural areas such as Shropshire, where huge swathes of the population may have to travel 20, 30, or 40 miles just to get to work? Surely for some people, the car is not only essential, but it is actually the most environmentally friendly way to make these journeys?

"There are some people who do need to use the car, but we have to focus on those who can use other forms of transport," says Miss Berry.

"Focusing on cars is defeatist and it traps people in car dependency. There are people who can’t drive for a number of reasons and they are stuck in a transport desert, that’s not right."

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