I'm Sarah Peters, a local campaigner and NHS doctor, and your Green Party candidate for Newcastle North in the 2024 General Election.

Full statement

Green politics is about working with local communities to find positive and practical solutions to the challenges that face them, championing policies that promote a fairer and greener society. At a time when public services are stretched to their limits with rising demand and slashed funding, people in Newcastle and across the country are struggling with the realities of the cost of living crisis, the Green Party plans to increase government revenue through raising taxation on the wealthiest businesses and individuals. Like millions across the UK, I have benefitted from the incredible care of the NHS throughout my life; both personally and professionally I have seen it transform lives, and I strongly believe that it represents one of our greatest achievements as a country. However, working in the NHS day to day, I see the desperate need for better funding to our health and social care to allow these services to be properly staffed and resourced. Like many of my colleagues within medicine and nursing I have chosen to take industrial action over the last couple of years. This has been a hugely challenging decision; healthcare professionals go into their careers to help and protect patients, but when that role is made increasingly impossible by an under-resourced system, strike action becomes the only way to bring about change. A Green government would bring an end to the current strike action through pay restoration for healthcare professionals and other public sector workers, recognising their expertise and experience with fair wages. I will continue to advocate to keep our public services public: we have seen the havoc wreaked on the lives of British people and the UK's natural environment through privatisation of the nation's water companies. For me, examples like the sewage leaks of the last few years demonstrate how just solutions to the climate and nature emergencies are also matters of social justice. We know that the climate crisis we face will widen pre-existing inequalities both nationally and globally; the increasing frequency of heatwaves in Europe demonstrates that this is an issue already affecting the lives of British people today. Despite the monumental scale of this existential challenge, this also represents a unique opportunity; many of the solutions to the climate crisis are also solutions to the social and economic inequalities existing in the UK and across the world. Better insulating homes, expanding renewable energy infrastructure and improving our public transport networks represent just a few of the ways in which climate and social justice can be served simultaneously. This is the time to vote for the positive politics that the Green Party in government will bring. Vote for real change. Vote Green on the 4th of July.