Green Manifesto 2010 Policies For Citizenship

Green Manifesto 2010 Policies For Citizenship

Promoting trust

We would:

• Oppose ID cards.They will not reduce or prevent crime. We also have grave concerns over the development of a national dataset, including detailed biometric data, which has potential for the infringement of civil liberties.
• Free up information – allow us to see the data they have on us. We believe that citizens should be entitled to access to information held by Government except where specifically restricted. Restrictions should protect the privacy of individual citizens and national security. Information on policy formulation, the conduct of public affairs, the environment and health and safety should be freely available.
• Reform the system of parliamentary expenses so that politics becomes a respected vocation, not mired in sleaze and scandal.

Promoting equality, celebrating diversity

The Green Party aims to treat everyone equally and fairly. We will work to ensure respect for everyone whatever their ethnicity, gender, age, religious belief or non-belief, sexual orientation, class, size, disability or other status.

Here we use the example of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) issues to illustrate this general policy in more detail. Other areas of discrimination are equally important and will have their own emphases.

LGBTI Issues

We would:

• Amend the Equalities Bill/Act to provide explicit protection against harassment of LGBTI people.
• Require all police forces to have equality and diversity liaison officers whose remit is to tackle, and take preventive action on, crimes against LGBTI people, people from ethnic minorities (including refugees and asylum seekers) and disabled people.
• Legally target incitement of hatred on the grounds of gender identity and amend the Equality Bill/Act to provide explicit protection against harassment of LGBTI people.
• Open up civil marriages and civil partnerships, without discrimination, to both same-sex and opposite-sex couples.
• End the blanket, lifetime ban on gay and bisexual blood donors.
• Campaign for homophobic, transphobic and racist crimes, and crimes against disabled people, including people with learning difficulties, to be dealt with effectively and on a par with racist crimes.
• Ensure legal parity for parents and those wishing to become parents regardless of sexual orientation, and equality of provision of maternity services; lobby for widely available, affordable state-funded creches.
• Push for the rewriting of the Mental Health Act to remove trans people from the Psychiatric Disorder Register.
• Campaign against any reduction in the AIDS/HIV budget and target health promotion work to prevent sexually transmitted infections.
• Ensure safe haven and refugee status for LGBTI people fleeing persecution in line with other social groups according to the Geneva Convention.
• Refuse visas and work permits to ‘murder music’ singers and others who incite homo- phobic and transphobic violence.
• Oppose all opt-outs from equality and antidiscrimination laws by religious organisations and remove special treatment allowing faith schools to promote homophobia on the grounds of religion.
• Provide comprehensive training for teachers and educational staff on all diversity and inclusion issues; schools to promote equal opportunities in their anti-bullying procedures; equality issues to be monitored in teaching recruitment.
• Support the human rights struggles of LGBTI movements in oppressive states such as Jamaica, Iran, Uganda, Malawi, Iraq, Nigeria, Zimbabwe and Russia.

Other Areas of Discrimination

Among our key policies in other areas of discrimination, we would:

• Implement a UK-wide strategy to tackle violence against women, including domestic violence, rape and sexual abuse and trafficking.
• Ensure that effective action is taken to prevent discrimination against disabled people.
• Work towards ending stigma against people with mental health problems, including discrimination in employment.
• Enforce penalties against employers who continue to implement unequal pay.
• Work vigorously towards ensuring that all levels of Government are representative of the diversity of the populations for whom they work. Keeping information public

We would promote broadcasting to high standards by:

• Maintaining the BBC as the primary public service broadcaster, free of Government interference.
• Tightening rules on cross-media ownership.
• Ensuring that all have digital access; give BT an obligation to provide affordable high-speed broadband-capable infrastructure to every household.
• Strengthening controls on advertising directed at children.