The Green Party’s parliamentary candidate for Lichfield and Burntwood has vowed they will not sell out their principles.
Class War party candidate Andy Bennetts believes the Greens’ record on Brighton & Hove Council shows the party cannot be trusted.
But Robert Pass, who is from Whittington, claims the Greens in Brighton were forced to make some difficult decisions because of the coalition government.
Mr Bennetts said: “The Green manifesto says they believe in paying council workers higher wages – but as soon as they got into power they sacked the bin workers.
“They also say that local authorities should have the money to help travellers, but the Greens in Brighton have spent billions on trying to evict them.
“This shows the party cannot be trusted in power.”
But Mr Pass hit back. He said: “On our record in Brighton all I will say is that local councils are not involved in passing laws.
“Also, it’s important to point out that local authorities get 90 per cent of their money from central government with 70 per cent of it already spent before it even arrives.
“In order to tackle the equal pay scandal where women earned less than men – Brighton & Hove Council had to reduce the salaries of male bin workers to equalise the pay between men and women. If they hadn’t done that then they would have faced a massive financial legal bill from female workers, which could have bankrupted the council.
“The Greens wanted to hold a referendum to increase council tax to deal with the financial pressures on their budget, but Tory and Labour councillors voted that down on more than one occasion.”
On the issue of travellers, The Green Party candidate explained that council officers rather than elected councillors are responsible for dealing with the issue.
But Mr Pass believes that is why people should vote Green in order to deliver substantial change to the political system.
He said: “Travellers is an issue for council officers carrying out the laws of the land rather than councillors. It’s unfair of Mr Bennetts to blame the Greens in Brighton. But if we got into power national it would be a completely different story.
“We had austerity imposed upon us by the Con-Dem coalition, and we had a choice of either finding efficiency savings or being ousted from power by the government, so we were between a rock and a hard place.”
Mr Pass also insists his party would deliver devolution of power from Westminster to all communities across England.
He said: “We believe in giving councils the power to raise tax revenue and to decide on how they spend that money.”
The candidates standing in the Lichfield constituency in May are:
- Andy Bennetts – Class War
- Michael Fabricant – Conservatives
- Robert Pass – Green Party
- John Rackham – UKIP
- Paul Ray – Lib Dem
- Chris Worsey – Labour
