General Election: "I want to stop deprivation" says Green Party candidate for North Bedfordshire

Philippa Fleming is standing for the third time as she is “very passionate” about changing politics and making it fairer.

“The way politics is happening at the moment is not engaging with people at all,” she said.

In its manifesto, the Green Party is pledging to create a “greener, fairer country together”.

“This includes a £15 minimum wage, alongside universal basic income,” Ms Fleming said. “People need enough to live on.”

Universal basic income is an allowance paid to every permanent UK resident whether they are employed, unemployed, studying, wanting to start a business, caring for some or unable to work.

The Green manifesto said this is a long term aim and would allow everybody to “live their life in dignity”.

In the shorter term, if elected the Green Party would increase Universal Credit and legacy benefits by £40 a week, as well as raising the minimum wage.

“I want to stop deprivation,” Ms Fleming said.

“The Green Party is saying that we want free care for disabled and elderly, we want to bring back the NHS into proper use.

“It has been systemically underfunded.”

The Green Party claims that the NHS faces the “worst crisis in its 80-year history”, adding that this is the result of “deliberate Conservative under-funding” that it says undermined the NHS – putting it at risk of collapse and facing “further privatisation”.

The party says it is “committed to a fully public, properly funded health and social care system”, and keeping the “profit motive well away from the NHS”.

To meet its plans for the NHS, the Greens have estimated that an additional annual expenditure of £8bn is needed during the first full year of the next Parliament – which will “rise to £28bn in total by 2030”, with additional capital spending of at least £20bn is needed over the next five years for hospital building and repair.

“We need to have cheaper housing and more social housing,” Ms Fleming added.

“We’ve hundreds and thousands of people on the social housing waiting lists, and those houses aren’t being built.”

The Green Party has pledged to provide 150,000 new social homes every year.

If elected, the Green Party’s pledges will be partly funded by a “Wealth Tax” of 1 per cent annually on assets above £10 million and of 2 per cent on assets above £1bn.

“Only a tiny minority of people would pay this tax,” the Party has said.

“I’ve just hated watching what’s happened to the country in the last14 years, it’s just not right,” Ms Fleming said.

“A few people are benefiting from [decisions] and most people have had to suffer.”

The other candidates standing to be North Bedfordshire’s MP are

Pippa Clayton – Reform UKRichard Fuller – ConservativeUday Nagaraju – LabourJoanna Szaub-Newton – Lib Dem

The election will be held on July 4.