CC: Keir Starmer MP, Ed Miliband MP, Alan Whitehead MP

After Covid, we need a People’s Green New Deal

The coronavirus pandemic has exposed the injustices at the heart of our society. Our key workers are among the lowest paid. Working class people – particularly communities of colour – are forced to live and work in unsafe environments. Billionaire tax exiles pay dividends to shareholders, while cutting tens of thousands of jobs. Our exploitative economic system entrenches inequality and accelerates the climate crisis.

Covid-19 has shown we are only as secure as the most precarious among us. It has revealed the power of the state to transform industries, provide a safety net and tackle injustices. It has shown that profound social and economic change really is possible.

As we emerge from this crisis, Labour must argue for a new social settlement – a Green New Deal to rebuild the country. The party must fight for a society in which public health always comes before private profit; advocate for public ownership of key industries and utilities to get there; and fight for climate justice across the world. The wealthy must bear the costs, not ordinary people. Where we are in power, Labour must act to put the interests of workers and planet first.

Labour has insisted we can’t go back to normal, with Ed Miliband rightly calling this our 1945 moment. The conference motion for a socialist Green New Deal passed overwhelmingly at 2019 conference by members and trade unionists must now be taken up. As it sets out its plan for post-pandemic recovery, Labour must demand:

1. Millions of green jobs – with a huge programme of investment in renewable energy, home insulation flood defences and a resilient health and care service. Everyone should have the chance to build the new economy through secure, well-paid, trained and unionised public sector apprenticeships and jobs. Labour should build on the 2019 regional manifestos to propose green jobs and industry for left-behind parts of the country.

2. Healthy neighbourhoods – with Labour reiterating demands for a government Warm Homes for All programme to insulate 27 million houses and for full-fibre broadband free at the point of use. Every community should have a right to clean air, cycling-safe streets and green space. Recommit to universal rights to water and energy, run in public hands.

3. Green public transport for the many – with railways nationalised, electrified, expanded and made affordable. Electrified, regular buses should be expanded to serve every community, operated for the public good, not private profit. Invest in green transport, not roads and aviation.

4. A global Green New Deal – with the government supporting the cancellation of Global South debt to enable investment in public health. The UK must take strong action against tax evasion, end fossil fuel finance at home and abroad, and rapidly step up financial support for a just global energy transition.

5. Bailouts for workers and planet – with a sector-wide aviation deal and public stakes taken in failing airlines to manage a just transition. Any bailouts through Project Birch should be subject to stringent commitments to workers’ rights, fair taxation and rapid decarbonisation. An Office for Green Skills should be established to provide retraining to green jobs for those who need it.

Yours, the undersigned