THIS ELECTION is taking place during a challenging and difficult time for people in Wales. We have the highest levels of poverty and social exclusion in the UK and the ongoing cost-of-living crisis is leaving too many people living in insecure housing, struggling to afford daily basics, using foodbanks and having to choose between heating and eating. 

After years of Tory austerity and Welsh Labour complacency our essential public services are broken with the NHS in a state of perpetual crisis.

It doesn’t have to be like this. These conditions are the result of deliberate political decisions. Our bold and radical policies would reverse this decline creating a fairer and more equal society. 

Unlike Labour, we would immediately lift the cruel two-child benefit cap, lifting thousands of children out of poverty, increase universal credit by £40 a week and introduce a £15-an-hour minimum wage for all over 16. Greens would also introduce rent controls and end zero-fault evictions.

In parallel with the cost-of-living crisis, the need for meaningful action to tackle the climate and nature crises has never been more urgent, yet this existential threat to our future has gone largely unmentioned in this election campaign. 

Unlike the warm words and vague targets offered by other parties, our manifesto clearly lays out our detailed plans for radical and urgent action to tackle these crises and reach net zero by 2040.  

From retrofitting all homes to ensure lower energy bills, to investing in the infrastructure needed to kickstart the green industrial revolution, ensuring a just transition for workers in in heavily carbonised industries, cleaning up our rivers and seas and much more, we would take the action needed to create a fairer, cleaner greener future for all. To do anything less would be a betrayal of future generations. 

The ongoing uncertainty over the future of the steelworks at Port Talbot and the planned industrial action and threats of earlier closure of the plant by Tata highlight the need for a long-term industrial strategy that ensures a just transition to the green industries of the future. 

Workers and communities must be at the heart of planning this strategy ensuring a transition that works for all. Communities across Wales know only too well what happens when governments and industries simply walk away.

Unlike other parties, we are honest and upfront about the scale and urgency of these crises and the resources needed to tackle them, and our bold, radical plans to fund these plans through changes to taxation. In particular this includes the introduction of a wealth tax on multimillionaires and billionaires. 

We would also reform tax rates on investment income ensuring that unearned income is taxed at the same rate as earned income. It is fair and just that those with the broadest shoulders should bear the biggest burden.

This is an election where the need for real hope and real change has never been clearer, yet too many politicians offer nothing but indifference and complacency. 

When elected representatives act so cynically it is unsurprising that so many people have lost faith in politics. For too long, too many politicians have acted as though they are above rules and laws, and all too often arrogantly dismissed or ignored any questioning or scrutiny of their behaviour. 

From the Conservative government partying at Westminster while we were all in Covid lockdown, to our Welsh First Minister Vaughan Gething who has no qualms about accepting eye-wateringly large donations from an individual convicted of environmental crimes the list goes on and public cynicism and weariness is very understandable.  

This election could and should be a moment of real change. After 14 years of a cruel and incompetent government the Tories are finally toast, yet Labour is offering nothing more than to manage the decline more competently. It is critical that our Green message of hope and change is heard with elected Greens in a position to hold a future Labour government to account and to push it to be bolder.

If you want to vote to protect the NHS, for safe affordable, warm homes for all, for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, to defend nature and urgently tackle the climate emergency — it’s time to turn Green.