Greens vow £70bn tax hike on wealthiest

The Green Party has pledged to raise taxes on top earners in its manifesto, claiming the plans will generate £70bn a year to mend “broken Britain”.

The plans include raising the National Insurance (NI) rate to 8% on annual wages above £50,270 – equivalent to an extra £283.74 per year in tax for someone earning £55,000.

Party co-leader Adrian Ramsay said the Greens were the “only party being honest” about the scale of changes needed to fix the climate crisis, housing and the NHS​.

The party also pledged to increase the energy efficiency of homes and to stop “all new fossil fuel projects” in the UK.

Mr Ramsay said the Greens were not expecting to form the next government but their MPs will be in Parliament to “speak up for you on the issues you care about”. The party will focus their efforts on four seats they see as winnable.

In the lead-up to the manifesto launch, the party committed to spending £50bn per year on health and social care by 2030.

The Greens are proposing a new wealth tax charged at 1% on all assets worth more than £10m, declared in a self-assessment tax return, increasing to 2% on all assets above £1bn.

They say this would affect fewer than 1% of UK households and raise £15bn a year by the end of the next Parliament, with the money going to the NHS.

Mr Ramsay said the increase was “modest” by European standards and Greens wanted to challenge the “conspiracy of silence” on the need to raise taxes.

He said a small number of millionaires may leave the UK as a result but insisted the super rich would stay.

Extra taxes for those earning more than £50,270 will be raised by reforming the National Insurance (NI) system.

Currently employees pay no NI until they earn more than £12,570, 8% on earnings of between £12,570 and £50,270, and 2% on earnings of above £50,270 for the 2023/24 tax year.

Under the Greens’ plans, the 8% rate would be paid on all wages above the upper earnings threshold.

On taxes, the Greens have said they would:

• Have no further increases on the main rates of corporation tax
• Introduce a carbon tax on businesses starting at £120 per tonne emitted, rising to £500 per tonne over 10 years, to push businesses to decarbonise
• Expand the 75% windfall tax on fossil fuel profits to banks, aiming to raise an extra £9bn a year
• Bring Capital Gains Tax in line with income tax bands.

The Greens plan to field candidates in every constituency in England and Wales for the 4 July election. The Scottish Greens are a separate party.

Mr Ramsay also confirmed four out of 574 candidates have been replaced after the party launched an investigation into reports of antisemitic or extreme comments.

He said: “Out of that huge number, there were four who were originally selected who are now not going forward and have had new candidates put in their place.”

When pressed over other candidates who had been investigated, he said, “I can’t recite every candidate” adding that the process is “separate from the leadership as a matter of good governance”.

The Green Party’s tactic since the start of this campaign has been to paint Labour as being too similar to the Conservatives.

At the manifesto launch in Hove, co-leaders Carla Denyer and Adam Ramsay said electing Green MPs would “push Labour to be bolder”, particularly on Net Zero climate change policies, which they said other parties were “running away from”.

The party set out details of a Green Economic Transition programme aiming to upgrade homes across the UK, making them warmer and cheaper to run by increasing energy efficiency.

Sian Berry, who is the party’s candidate for the Brighton Pavilion constituency, said her passion was to get a fair deal for renters “so that renters don’t have to live at someone else’s mercy”.

She said ending the housing crisis was “right at the top of what people tell me they need” and bringing in rent controls to support them was “not a pipe dream”.

Other key policies include:

• Stopping “all new fossil fuel projects” in the UK
• Insulating homes and subsidising heat pumps, to make buildings warmer and cheaper to heat.
• Investing in public transport and bringing railways into public ownership
• Supporting the switch to electric vehicles and taxing frequent flyers