Green leader calls on UK to "stop selling arms to repressive regimes"

23 August 2011. Caroline Lucas MP, leader of UK's Green Party, called on the UK govermnent to "stop selling arms to repressive regimes".

In response to the changing situation in Libya Caroline Lucas said: "Despite the intensified fighting in Tripoli today between rebel forces and those loyal to Muammar Gaddafi, and the confusion over the reported arrests of Gaddafi's sons, it seems certain that the Libyan dictator's days are numbered. The hope now is that the fighting will be brought to a swift end, and that Gaddafi will be made to face justice in a court of law. And the priority for the international community must be to do all it can to ensure that the pressing civilian needs for essential services and humanitarian assistance are urgently met.

"The mammoth task of rebuilding the country and providing legitimate, truly representative governance after 42 years of a dictatorship now falls to the National Transitional Council and its chairman, Mustafa Abdul Jalil - and it is crucial that these efforts are fully owned and supported across Libyan society. The process of filling the post Gaddafi void and maintaining stability as different elements compete for influence will need to be carefully managed by those who know the country - not by Western nations - if the transition is to be a peaceful and sustainable one. Furthermore, the new administration must show the Libyan people that control of the country's abundant natural resources lies in their hands only.

"Here at home, there are lessons to be learned about the UK's foreign policy. With the help of Western governments and companies acting in their own interests, Gaddafi was able to market himself as a respectable figure on the world stage. Just a few months before the uprising, our Government was still selling him weapons. If we are truly committed to upholding human rights in the region, then we must urgently review our role in the international arms trade - and stop selling arms to repressive regimes. We cannot continue to arm dictators who abuse their own citizens and then try to claim the moral high ground when addressing the conflicts that those same arms have helped to perpetuate."

Green MP says Government education plans will "make higher education an unaffordable luxury"

28 June 2011. Commenting on the proposals set out in the Government’s White Paper on Higher Education, Caroline Lucas, Brighton Pavilion’s Green MP, said:

“The Coalition’s reckless determination to marketise higher education and increase competition poses a serious risk to future generations of students hoping to attend our city’s universities. Just providing prospective students with more information about standards in universities will not change the fact that, for many, £9,000 per year in fees will make higher education an unaffordable luxury.

“And the idea that universities will be ranked according to graduate employment rates and salaries completely ignores the reality that many graduates take up worthwhile jobs which are either voluntary or low paid.”

Call for decriminalisation of drugs from Police Chief and Green MP in Brighton and Hove

Collection of Ecstacy (MDMA) tablets

14 June 2011. A call for decriminalisation of personal drug use, and a health based approach to treatment, has been made Brighton's Green MP Caroline Lucas - and her call has been backed up by Brighton & Hove Chief Superintendent Graham Bartlett.

Caroline Lucas said an evidence-based approach is needed to tackle the UK's drug crisis, reduce the number of drug-related deaths, and make our communities safer. 

In a speech to NHS healthcare professionals in Brighton yesterday evening, Green Brighton Pavilion MP Caroline Lucas supported the findings of the Global Commission on Drug Policy, which earlier this month called for a major review of drugs policy.

Caroline said, "There is growing agreement across the scientific and political communities, in the police and the legal professions, that we need to move away from prohibition of use towards an evidence-based, public health approach to drug addiction.

"One of my top priorities as a local MP is to tackle Brighton and Hove's very sad reputation as the drugs death capital of the UK.

"In order to do that, we need to recognise the reality that the so-called ‘war on drugs' has failed - and start dealing with drugs differently.

"Here in this city, we understand more than most the consequences of a national drugs policy that has failed our citizens and our communities.

"Having seen the commitment locally to successful evidence-based treatment and support programmes, I think we are also well placed to start shaping an alternative approach - one that works."

Caroline, who is an active member of Parliament's All Party Group for Drug Policy Reform, is planning a high level roundtable in the city later this year, bringing together medical experts, and key local stakeholders, including the police and council representatives, to help develop an alternative approach.

Caroline believes that Brighton could set a positive example for other cities battling high levels of drug misuse by shaping a different approach which builds on successful initiatives that are already happening in the city, such as the highly successful RIOTT trial, which demonstrates that previously unresponsive patients can achieve major reductions in their use of street heroin.

In her calls for a potential decriminalisation of personal drug use and a health based approach to treatment, Caroline is joined by Brighton & Hove Chief Superintendent Graham Bartlett.

He commented, "My officers will continue to enforce the law as it stands. However, my personal view is that whilst production, supply and trafficking are and should remain crimes, the use of drugs is not well addressed through punitive measures.

"Providing people with treatment not only resolves their addiction - thereby minimising risk of overdose, drug related health issues, anti social behaviour and dependence on the state, for example - but cuts the cost to the community by reduced offending."

Caroline added, "We have some excellent practice in the city in dealing with drug addiction, both from the third section, and from interventions like Operation Reduction, run by the local police.

"Over the coming months, I want to work closely with key agencies, healthcare professionals and community groups to explore ways for us to make a change for the better. I want to hear from local people about whether the city's services are currently equipped to best reduce drug-related harms - and how they could be improved.

"One area I should like to explore is extending the provision of naloxone, used to counter the effects of heroin or morphine overdose, to all prisoners leaving prison with a history of addiction.

"Pilot programmes in Scotland and Wales are already showing positive results in terms of lives saved."

She has also called for an urgent review of the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act, together with a cost benefit analysis to compare its effectiveness in reducing the societal, economic and health costs of drug misuse with an alternative approach based on treating drug addiction as a health issue, not a criminal one.

"In this age of austerity, when we are told that every penny of public spending must be justified, nobody is checking whether the war on drugs is value for money or money and effort wasted", Lucas will say.

"I don't think it will be easy.

"A new approach, based on treating drug addiction as a health issue not a criminal one, will represent a significant shift in thinking - and any changes should be brought in slowly and carefully.

"But in the long term, a more evidence-based drugs policy will help us to prevent crime, and protect our communities from the worst effects of drug abuse."

Green campaign to sustain independent traders comes to George St. in Hove on Saturday 2 April

George Street looking South (Google)

Brighton and Hove Green Party Press Release of last night

Green campaign to sustain independent traders comes to George St. in Hove.

31 March 2011. Greens will bring their campaign to sustain independent traders to George Street, Brighton and Hove, on Saturday 2nd April. A stall will be set up where members of the public can discuss this and other issues with Green candidates in forthcoming local elections. Caroline Lucas is expected to attend the stall around noon.

Greens want to protect the independent traders who help give Brighton and Hove its unique character. Recent times have seen these shops closing to be replaced by chain stores, a trend nowhere more evident than in Hove’s George Street, a pedestrianised area that provides a community focus for Central Hove, Goldsmid, and Wish Park.

Ruth Buckley, Green candidate for Goldsmid, said: “Many high streets now are indistinguishable from one another and have lost their local character, the very essence for which they were once known. Seven Dials has retained its character due to the prevalence of mainly independent traders. Unfortunately, George Street seems to be losing this battle as week by week a shop closes to be taken over by either a charity shop or a chain store.“

Green Councillor for Goldsmid, Alex Phillips, said: “Small businesses in Hove are under pressure. I talked with shop owners along Church Road who say rates for small businesses are too high.

“Greens have had success stemming the march of the superstores in the East of our city, most recently convincing Tesco to drop plans for a mega store at Preston circus and to withdraw from the Lewes Road community garden site, a campaign I was involved with, alongside other Green councillors and Caroline Lucas.

Chris Hawtree, Green Candidate for Hove Central, planned the stall on George Street as a talking shop for community issues. He said: "Local independent shops, such as Fine Records, are very much a place where people meet and talk. Such shops create the essence of a place."

Green MP for Brighton Pavilion Caroline Lucas has been campaigning to get government to act on the next step of the Sustainable Communities Act – consultation with local communities. It will help local people protect their services and have a say in improving their communities. On 29 March, she organised a debate in Parliament, to discuss the Government’s stalling. It was confirmed that the consultation needed to allow local people to make future proposals under the Act will start immediately.

Caroline Lucas said: “Thankfully, in Brighton Pavilion there is still a thriving local economy, with traders and businesses fighting off incursions onto the high street by the big chain stores and supermarkets.

“But there are many battles ahead, and we need more powers to restrict the number of large chain stores that pose a threat to the unique character of Brighton. I hope that the new phase of this Act will bring about regulations to help local people stop aggressive supermarket expansion – given that we already have about 56 stores.”

Ruth Buckley added: “There is a place in our community for good stores that bring a choice of commodities to our high streets at attractive prices. But there has to be a balance, or we’ll end up with soul-less high streets dominated by similar stores with no local roots, and no commitment to the well being of local communities.”

“With stores that are part of a national group, the money fed into the shop is not redistributed within the local community, but is fed to shareholders and its board, mostly in another city. Local shops help support local jobs and local businesses. A vote for the Green Party in May is a vote to protect your local community.”

A problem for Brighton and Hove is that in 2006 the then-Labour-led council adopted a consultant’s ‘retail study’ that argued the city needed new supermarkets and shops with a total size equivalent to nine Churchill square shopping centres. The document is still used by supermarkets to justify and support their ever-expanding presence in the city.

Caroline Lucas added: “In the past decade, Britain has lost a quarter of all its post offices, a quarter of all its independent newsagents and a fifth of all its bank branches – with unsustainable consequences for local communities.

“Local people want to be engaged and to get involved, but they often feel that they can’t change anything. The Prime Minister talks about the Big Society, but without adequate resources it is unreasonable to expect that people will have the capacity and skills to either plug the gap left by cuts to public services or provide the input required for genuine community development.

“This is what the Sustainable Communities Act is about – long term, community controlled sustainable engagement allowing local people to decide the solutions to problems in their communities.”

The Green Party 2010 Manifesto promised to amend planning laws to appropriate small businesses and ensure that all large retail developments included spaces for small local businesses, introduce a network of local community banks, and reduce corporation tax for small firms to 20%.

Notes to editors

1) Caroline Lucas’ speech to the Adjournment Debate: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmhansrd/cm110328/debtext/110328-0004.htm#11032843000002

2) The Sustainable Communities Act became law in 2007 as a result of a long and widespread grass-roots mobilisation campaign organised by Local Works, a coalition of more than 120 national organisations. The campaign inspired tens of thousands of citizens to urge their MPs to back the Sustainable Communities Bill.

3) The Green Party was the first political party to back the Bill formally, and the campaign continued to call for cross-party support. That was eventually achieved and the Act became law in 2007 with the support of all parties across the House. In October 2008, the Government launched the first invitation for proposals under the 2007 Act. Local Works held many more public meetings across the country, where communities lobbied their councillors to resolve to use the Act. A hundred local authorities responded.

4) The people of Brighton and Hove successfully urged the council to opt into the Act, and then many got involved in coming up with the proposals that would help the area become a more sustainable place. Of those proposals, eight were shortlisted by the LGA. Examples include allowing food grown in allotments to be sold locally, introducing feed-in tariffs for local renewable energy and empowering councils to have more flexible business rates to encourage local trade and jobs.

5) In early 2010, Local Works successfully campaigned for the Sustainable Communities Act 2007 (Amendment) Act 2010. The 2010 Act ensured that the process would be ongoing, and allowed parish and town councils to submit proposals to central Government directly.

Contact:
Contact Brighton and Hove Green Party Press Office for interviews with Candidates and Counsellors.
bhgp.news@googlemail.com

Office of Caroline Lucas
Melissa Freeman, Senior Parliamentary Press Officer
Tel: 020 7219 0870 (no answer phone)
Mob: 07590 050565
Email: melissa.freeman@parliament.uk