THE GREEN Party has called for the statutory minimum wage to be raised to living wage levels immediately and for a £10 per hour minimum wage for all by 2020.
At the Party’s recent autumn conference in Birmingham, party leader Natalie Bennett set out their new proposal which called for the current minimum wage of £6.31 to be raised immediately to £7.35.
Under the new plans the minimum wage would be linked to rising living costs and the current age-based differential rates would be abolished to ensure that everyone could receive a minimum of £10 per hour by 2020.
The party has said that raising the minimum wage would benefit an estimated 5.2million people (17% of the working population) and lead to a “fairer society where fewer workers are trapped in poverty pay conditions.”
Green Party Leader Natalie Bennett said: “Under our plan no-one would be paid less than £10 an hour in 2020. It is a scandal that under the Coalition government the number of workers earning less than the Living Wage has risen by a staggering 50% from 3.4million in 2011 to 5.2million today. It makes a mockery of Prime Minister David Cameron’s 2010 statement that a Living Wage is ‘an idea whose time has come.’”
“The fact that the Green Party are consistently polling at some of our best numbers since 1989 goes to show that our message of the need to reshape our politics and economy to work for the common good is really hitting home.
“It is our policies such as making the minimum wage a Living Wage, a Wealth Tax on the top 1%, renationalising our railways and having a publicly owned and run NHS that are both encouraging people to join as members and vote Green in growing numbers.”
For more information about the new policy just click here.
