Not a peep…
Despite repeated attempts to get hold of Emma Spriggs and Nicola Wilson, so far they have not responded.
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Detailed response from Liz Kitching
- I will fight and vote to keep our NHS Public and free.
- I will fight and vote against TTIP.
- I will fight and vote for fair treatment of Asylum Seekers and shut down detention centres.
- I will fight against and vote against Trident.
- I will fight and vote for a massive carbon reduction economy and introduce 1million climate jobs to protect the environment by building more renewable energy sources.
- I am committed to social housing for all and for fair rents and eco-housing and will campaign to curb fraudulent private landlords who get rich by exploiting Housing Benefit.
- I support a Robin Hood Tax. Big powerful corporations must be made to pay their taxes for a fair society and to stop obscene inequality.
- I will fight and vote to end all benefit sanctions. I will fight and vote for support for anyone in society who needs Social Security whenever they may need it and will fight for dignity and humanity for all.
- I am opposed to fracking!
- I am opposed to weapons for Israel and I support the struggle of the Palestinian people.
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Detailed response from Michael Hayton
- The NHS.
The NHS is an essential service for all citizens of the UK and is something we should all be proud of as a model for social healthcare that has been adopted around the world. The current drive towards privatisation and marketisation is eroding the NHS and leaving many of the most vulnerable in society in danger of falling through the cracks and being left without essential services and creating a two tier health system. That is why I fully support the NHS reinstatement bill. - TTIP.
The TTIP is one of the gravest assaults on sovereign democracy in recent times and I am wholly opposed to it in any form. Fair trade should be promoted between nations but not at the cost of the safety and rights of the people of those nations and that is what TTIP will do if allowed to be put in place. - Fair Asylum Decisions.
Where someone is in genuine need of asylum, if we can shelter and help these people we should. - Trident Replacement.
The UK has often been the leader in many world changing policies and ideas and I feel we should lead the way in true disarmament and put an end to the proliferation of nuclear weapons. In times of so-called austerity how can any government justify the cuts to social services and welfare then spend £100 billion on an unnecessary and provocative program? - Climate Change.
This will always be at the core of my and the Green Party’s polices. Unless we move towards a carbon neutral future we will leave a legacy of fuel poverty, food shortages and untenable living conditions for all the citizens of the world, not just for Britain. - Housing And Rents.
As someone who has been an activist helping to squat empty building and opening them up for community use, such as ‘The Bank of Idea’s as part of Occupy London and ‘The Citadel of Hope’ as part of Occupy Sheffield, I find the lack of affordable housing a ridiculous state of affairs when there 700,000 empty properties in the UK! We pledge to increase the housing subsidy from £1.6 to £6 billion and reinvigorate the building industry to create homes and jobs across the country. - Robin Hood Tax.
This money should be reinvested into our economy to help where it is most needed. The finance industry has been propped up by the people of this country through quantative easing. It is time that we as a country saw the return benefit by this minor tax that would have massive benefits for the economy. - Benefit Sanctions.
Ultimately we as the Green Party want to drive away from benefits and give everyone a Basic Citizens Income, where all have a safety net that they can fall back on. Penalising people for losing their jobs and forcing them into low paid work is a culture that must stop! Coupled with the debacle that was ATOS and the ESA assessments this can only be seen as an attack against those most in need in society. I myself was part of an action with Disabled People Against the Cuts at Westminster Abbey last year where we tried to set up a protest camp against the loss of the Independent Living Fund so this is one that is very close to my heart. - Fracking.
I have a background in petroleum geology thus I understand the horror that is fracking all too well! This is the main reason I choose to become involved in politics and I will do everything in my power to stop this harmful and potentially catastrophic industry from polluting our aquifers, our air and quality of life. Once again an issue close to my heart I was arrested last year at Barton Moss Anti-Fracking Camp trying to prevent what I saw as an unlawful arrest. I was later acquitted and all charges were dropped. - Arms Embargo Against Israel.
Though a complicated issue that stretches back decades in this one instance there should be an immediate ban. The arms trade is one that needs to be curbed and in this instance it is hypocrisy of the highest order that the UK be complicit in the supply and demand of arms to a country that has taken so many aggressive military actions.
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Detailed response from Hilary Benn
- Keep the NHS Public
The answer to the health challenges we face is not to set hospital against hospital, but to join up services around patients’ needs so I will vote to repeal the Government’s Health and Social Care Act, scrap the competition regime and restore proper democratic accountability to the NHS. This will include re-establishing the duty of the Secretary of State to make arrangements to provide services and repealing the section 75 regulations which have led to the widespread tendering of NHS services. This will open the way for Labour’s policy of NHS preferred provider and give protection for health services from EU procurement legislation. We will also exempt the NHS from the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership Treaty.
We will establish a sensible commissioning framework, based on the principle of an NHS preferred provider, to stop the drive towards privatisation and make sure that NHS services are not destabilised by competition and fragmentation. Where private companies are involved in providing clinical services, we will impose a cap on any profits they can make from the NHS, to ensure that the needs of patients are always put first.
Labour will also invest £2.5 billion in the NHS through our Time to Care fund to recruit more doctors, nurses, care workers and midwives, paid for by a Mansion Tax, a clampdown on tax avoidance and the introduction of a tobacco levy.
We will follow this approach rather than that of the proposed NHS Reinstatement Bill which would require a major top-down reorganisation – the very thing that everyone in the health service says they want to avoid – and would have some potentially adverse implications. Where would the clause specifying only public provision of health services leave the use of Macmillan nurses, for example, or other charities providing care? - Vote Against TTIP
A Labour Government will not support TTIP unless a number of concerns about it are dealt with. There are four issues in particular that worry me.
Firstly, that TTIP could have a damaging effect on public services by encouraging commercialisation, particularly in the NHS. That’s why Labour will ensure that the NHS is exempted from the agreement. Other countries have actively sought to exempt areas, but the EU Commission and the Conservative government have had to be pushed into recognising that there is a potential problem for the NHS and public services from TTIP. Ed Miliband has given a categorical assurance that if a Labour government is elected it will ensure that we have total protection of the National Health Service in any agreement
Secondly, Investor State Dispute Resolution (ISDS). This is a dispute mechanism, commonly used in trade agreements and bilateral investment treaties. It allows investors to take proceedings against a government that is party to that trade agreement. If the government is found to be in breach of the obligations, the investor can receive redress. There is a major concern that the ISDS provisions might hinder our plans to reverse the privatisation of the NHS as they could result in companies seeking compensation for loss of potential earnings. We believe that it is the right of governments to be able to legislate in the public interest and this should be protected effectively in any dispute resolution mechanisms. The European Commission has instigated several changes which have improved the transparency of the agreement. However, it is right that the European Commission has decided to temporarily suspend negotiations on ISDS until the final stages of the negotiations. Labour will call for far greater transparency and for an exclusion for legislation in the public interest, like the NHS.
Thirdly, standards – the benefits of any treaty must be felt by employees and consumers. Concerns have been raised that TTIP could reduce standards, although the principle behind the treaty is to keep or raise standards rather than reduce them. Labour will only support an agreement that avoids a race to the bottom and promotes decent jobs and growth and would safeguard standards
Fourthly, non-inclusion of US States. A significant stumbling block that has been raised is that US states are not covered by the agreement and therefore their procurement will not be opened up. This means we could be at a disadvantage as our markets are opened up but not to the same extent in the US. This is important because significant procurement spend in the US is at State level.
A number of worries similar to our own have been raised by member states and these would need to be taken on board by the EU Commission in order to secure the prospect of any agreement.
More generally, trade agreements can bring benefits through boosting trade and growth, securing and creating jobs, and bringing down costs and extending choice for consumers. Therefore the right kind of agreement between the US, the world’s largest economy, and the largest single market, the EU could have the potential to bring significant benefits. Europe and the United States are the UK’s most important markets today. Indeed, the US is the UK’s biggest export market and likewise the UK economy attracts a significant level of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) from across the Atlantic. More and better trade is good for the UK, and reducing barriers could for example help, for example, our car industry export more vehicles to the US where there are regulations that currently inhibit this. - Fair Asylum Decisions
There is a large number of people living in Leeds who have been granted asylum or indefinite leave to remain, but others are still caught in the system. Since the Home Office took back direct control of the border force and the immigration system, we have seen backlogs increase sharply and the Home Office has admitted that it has no idea how many of the 175,000 failed asylum seekers are still here or where 50,000 failed asylum seekers even are.
Labour will enforce immigration rules humanely and effectively. We will end the indefinite detention of people in the asylum and immigration system, including ending the detention of pregnant women and those who have been the victims of sexual abuse or trafficking. One of the reasons for delay is a lack of staff, so we will use some of the additional 1,000 staff already announced by the Shadow Home Secretary to increase the efficiency and processing times of asylum applications and appeals. - Trident Replacement
I will vote in favour of the replacement of Trident but I greatly respect those who take a different view.
I want to see a world without nuclear weapons, but they exist and the purpose of the nuclear deterrent is to deter. It has done that for 70 years. Although some threats have diminished, we now live in a differently dangerous world as recent events in the Middle East have demonstrated and no-one can say with any confidence what threats we might face in 30 or 40 years time. What if an organisation like ISIS were ever to get its hands on nuclear weapons?
Some argue that if we gave up our deterrent, other nuclear states would follow suit, but I don’t think that would happen, any more than Germany would have done so in the 1930s if we had then both had nuclear weapons and we had given ours up unilaterally.
The only way forward to rid the world of these weapons is through multilateral negotiation. When Labour was in Government last we cut the number of warheads by 30% in a decade and voted to reduce them by a further 20%.
It is for these reasons that Labour remains committed to a minimum, credible, independent nuclear capability, delivered through a continuous at-sea deterrent. We will actively work to increase momentum on global multilateral disarmament efforts and and look at further reductions in global stockpiles and the numbers of weapons. - Climate Change
The last Labour government put the world’s first Climate Change Act on the statute book, and if elected we will put climate change at the heart of our foreign policy. As the terrible impact of the floods in Britain showed last year, climate change is now an issue of national, as well as global security. From record droughts in California to devastating typhoons in the Philippines, the world is already seeing the effects we once thought only future generations would experience. The effects of climate change hit the poor, the hardest. If we do not tackle climate change, millions of people will fall into poverty.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has made clear that if the world is going to hold warming below two degrees (the internationally-agreed goal), global emissions need to peak in around 2020 and then decline rapidly to reach net zero emissions by the second half of this century.
We will expand the role of the Department of International Development to mitigate the risks of a changing climate, and support sustainable livelihoods for the world’s poorest people. We want an ambitious agreement on climate change at the UNFCCC conference in Paris, in December. We will make the case for ambitious emissions targets for all countries, strengthened every five years on the basis of a scientific assessment of the progress towards the below two degree goal. And we will push for a goal of net zero global emissions in the second half of this century, for transparent and universal rules for measuring, verifying and reporting emissions, and for an equitable deal in which richer countries provide support to poorer nations in combatting climate change.
Domestically, we will set ambitious carbon reduction targets, including a legal target to remove carbon from our electricity supply by 2030 and a major drive for energy efficiency. - Housing And Rents
A lot of people in Leeds Central are concerned about housing. Young people and families starting out feel that their dream of having a home of their own is disappearing into the distance and many families are on the waiting list for a council or housing association property. We need a lot of new homes in Leeds, and yet nationally we are building less than half the number required and young people are being priced out of the market with the average house price now eight times the average wage. We have the lowest level of home ownership since 1985, the lowest level of homes for social rent built in at least two decades, the lowest number of affordable homes built in five years and a record number of young people – one in four – living at home with their parents into their twenties and early thirties. 11 million people are now renting, including over 1.5 million families with children, and rents are going up.
Labour will increase the number of new homes built to 200,000 a year by 2020 with priority for first-time buyers by: giving local communities stronger powers to build the homes needed in the places people want; getting the public sector back into building; tackling land banking through new “use it or lose it” powers; shaking up the housing market by backing SME builders through Help to Build; building the next generation of Garden Cities; granting first time buyers from the area priority access rights when new homes go on sale and making capital investment in housing a priority for a Labour Government.
All councils are now required to identify sufficient sites to meet the need for housing. There is a great need in Leeds which we must meet or else our children and grandchildren will have nowhere to live. So, we all have to do our bit, and the sensible place to start is on brownfield – i.e. previously developed land. Labour will therefore strengthen the brownfield requirement.
We have also published detailed devolution proposals which would give councils like Leeds much greater power over what type of development there should be, where it should go and who gets the homes when they are built. On homes that are deliberately left empty by investors, we will give councils the power to essentially double council tax on these homes.
And we also have a plan to help families and others who rent, with new long-term tenancies and a ceiling on rent increases during the tenancy. We will legislate for 3-year tenancies giving renters greater security and peace of mind, and put a ceiling on rent increases in years two and three of those new tenancies. We will also ban lettings agent fees being charged to tenants. - Robin Hood Tax
Many people feel strongly about this issue, not least because of the effects of the global financial crash and the part the banks played in it. I believe that our banking sector needs to be reformed so it is more sustainable and competitive, and so that our banks work for savers, investors and small and medium-sized businesses that have found it so difficult to get the finance they need to invest and grow. I also think that the banks should make a significant contribution to repaying the debts that were incurred as a result of the banking crisis.
Labour will continue to campaign for an international Financial Transaction Tax (FTT), covering major financial centres. We agree that this should be looked at to see if it could be introduced in a way that would raise additional revenue while making financial transactions less volatile and more sustainable. It is also important that any FTT should incorporate the widest possible global participation to avoid the risk that traders simply play one jurisdiction off against another.
Meanwhile, the next Labour Government will raise the current Bank Levy to fund an increase in free childcare from 15 to 25 hours a week for working parents of three and four year olds and we will introduce a bank bonus tax to pay for our Jobs Guarantee for the long-term unemployed. Labour will also reform our banking system to make it more competitive in the long-term, including by introducing at least two new challenger banks and a market share test.
Labour will also close tax loopholes that cost us billions of pounds a year with tougher penalties and an end to unfair tax breaks used by hedge funds and others. We will seek international agreement on transparency covering multinational companies’ revenues, profits and tax for each country in which they operate and will act at home if agreement is not reached. British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies will have to declare the real owners of companies. We will review the practices of HMRC and abolish non-dom status so that all those who make the UK their home pay tax in the same way as the rest of us. - Benefit Sanctions
I have seen a growing number of people who have been sanctioned coming to see me in my advice surgeries. There is also a problem that affects some of those sanctioned when their housing benefit is incorrectly withdrawn because Jobcentre Plus has notified the local authority of an ‘end to entitlement’. Working with Leeds CAB I have raised this problem with ministers and with Leeds City Council.
We have had a tenfold increase in the number of people being sanctioned. This Government says that they don’t have targets for sanctions but it’s pretty clear they do. Sanction policy has been about getting people off benefits rather than getting them into work and it has had a devastating impact on a lot of people and their families.The huge rise in the number of people using food banks in the last few years shows that the social security system is too often letting down those who need its support, with job centre advisers giving unfair targets for sanctioning people rather than providing the support to help people back to work.
If it is clear that someone is deliberately trying to avoid work then sanctions should be available, but if somebody is five minutes late for an appointment because it is snowing and their bus has been cancelled then they should clearly not be sanctioned and with a Labour Government they won’t be. - Fracking Ban
Labour’s view is that fracking cannot take place unless there is a system of strong regulation and comprehensive inspection in place which can deal with the concerns that have been expressed. We set out these conditions in Parliament and some of them were agreed. We would also ban fracking for shale gas in national parks, areas of outstanding natural beauty (AONBs), sites of special scientific interest and in groundwater source protection zones (SPZs) or near aquifers, and we would put in place a duty to report fugitive emissions, as well as have a proper independent system of well inspection. - Arms Embargo Against Israel
At the time of the assault on Gaza last year – when so many people were killed – I raised the issue of UK arms exports to Israel with the Foreign Secretary. It was clear at the time that no new licences should be granted where there was any doubt about the end use of military equipment. We must also be sure that the UK rules on arms exports, which prevent the export of military and dual use equipment which could be used for internal repression, the abuse of human rights or to provoke or prolong armed conflicts, are being applied fully. Having said that, all states have the right to defend themselves from attack.
The main point, however, is that the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian people will not be solved by an arms embargo. It is the complete failure of the political process that is the problem. Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are illegal, unjustifiable and immoral and their continued expansion remains a major obstacle to resolving the conflict.
Peace and security in the Middle East are one of Labour’s most important foreign policy objectives. We are committed to a comprehensive two-state solution – a secure Israel alongside a viable and independent state of Palestine. There can be no military solution to this conflict and all sides must avoid taking action that would make peace harder to achieve. Labour will continue to press for an immediate return to meaningful negotiations because only a negotiated solution will bring the troubles to an end. The parties to the conflict – Israel and all the Palestinians (Hamas and Fatah) – must now show the courage needed and the willingness necessary to compromise for peace. Only in this way will we see a stop to the suffering and a peaceful future.
On the recognition of Palestine, I have voted in favour of recognition of Palestinian statehood. Palestinian statehood is not a gift to be given by someone else but a right to be recognised and that is why, in both 2011 and in 2012, Labour urged the UK Government to support the Palestinian bid for recognition at the UN as a bridge for restarting talks.
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Detailed response from Luke Senior
- The NHS.
We have a clearly defined policy on the NHS, that it should remain free at the point of use for UK citizens, and free from the influence of private companies seeking to make a profit from public money.
We would wish to engage in further debate on this particular bill, and have some input of our own to ensure that we deliver an NHS that works best for Britain. - TTIP.
Until a full draft proposal is submitted for consideration, at this stage I cannot state with any confidence as to how I would vote. Any proposal which potentially puts the NHS at risk of further privatisation, I would oppose.
UKIP would prefer to negotiate our own free trade agreements, on mutually agreeable terms, upon withdrawal from the European Union. - Fair Asylum Decisions
I believe very strongly that we have an obligation to treat those seeking asylum in this country fairly, and humanely. The current system of processing applications is not fit for purpose, neither is the appeals process, or the removal of people who have been refused asylum.
Following withdrawal from the European Union, and with it the withdrawal from the jurisdiction of the ECHR, we would introduce a British Bill of Rights, which would streamline the process immensely. - Trident.
Unfortunately, at this stage we live in a world where many countries have nuclear weapons, and there is a danger that these could fall into the wrong hands and be used against countries such as ours.
With this in mind, I feel it is only responsible to maintain our nuclear deterrent.
Disarmament is only a realistic possibility with extensive international co-operation. I’m not of the opinion that ‘taking the lead’ is necessarily the right option to pursue. - Climate Change.
I believe strongly that we need to protect our environment, but without global action from countries such as China, India and the USA, action taken by this country will amount to very little, and we could lose essential industries abroad, which would affect the standard of living for everyone, and with it hinder our ability to invest in technologies which could potentially reduce fuel consumption and increase energy efficiency.
I believe that the development of renewable energy technologies and also the methods of heating and powering buildings go hand in hand, an example of this would be an under floor heating system, powered by a ground source heat pump. - Rent Controls.
There are many reasons why the price of renting a home has increased dramatically. Firstly, the sell off (and lack of replacement) of council housing stock, low levels of house building activity due to the construction industry downturn in the latter part of the last decade, and secondly, a population that is rapidly increasing.
Current levels of net migration dictate that a city the size of Leeds has to be built every three years, to cope with this increased demand.
We would pledge to build a million new homes on brownfield sites by 2020, but unless there is action taken to slow down the growth in population, this cycle will continue indefinitely.
A pledge to place a cap on the rentable value of a home is a cheap one, that can’t realistically be implemented. Addressing the underlying issues that have caused a spike in rental prices is the most effective solution, and a natural correction would occur in time. - Robin Hood Tax.
Whilst I don’t condone the actions of those in the financial sector who behaved recklessly in the period leading up to the banking collapse, it is important to acknowledge that the UK is the hub of the financial sector in Europe, and provides a huge source of jobs for people up and down the country, and generates significant revenue for the Treasury.
In what is now a global economy, implementing stealth taxation on a particular sector of our economy, you would see a flight of business and capital from the UK, which would affect the ability of the government to provide services for all of us.
I would propose tighter regulation of the financial sector to ensure that the situation of the last ten years isn’t repeated. - Benefit Sanctions.
I believe that it is unfair that people who claim benefits are often stigmatised, and that the number claiming fraudulently is minimal.
The welfare system does need to be reformed in a way that protects the most needy, at the expense of those who are in a position to support themselves.
UKIP has identified over £30bn annually of cuts to public spending that could be made, without having any impact on our ability to provide for our most needy – some of this could be used to scrap the bedroom tax. - Fracking.
At present, due to the instability of global oil prices, and a situation where Russia controls a significant element of gas supplies into Europe, we lack energy security.
Shale gas extraction presents us with an opportunity to create jobs, reduce energy bills, and generate a sovereign wealth fund similar to those seen in countries such as Norway, which could then be used as the government sees fit, perhaps for major infrastructure projects. - Arms Embargo on Israel.
The Israel/Palestine situation is a very sensitive one, and I feel that it is imperative that talks take place with a view to trying to generate lasting peace in the region.
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