Scottish Green Party election profile

The Scottish Green Party is an environmentally focused party, with their policies often being classified as left-wing, which currently holds five parliament seats. Whilst they are only the fourth largest party in the Scottish Parliament, their status as one of the only parties supporting Scottish Independence makes them important to the political prospects of parties across the spectrum. 

The Scottish Greens don’t have one leader like the rest of the major parties, their party constitution means they elect two co-leaders for two-year terms; one of these leaders must be a woman. Patrick Harvie, an MSP since 2003, and Lorna Slater, a previous candidate in various seats in Lothian, are the party’s co-leaders.

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Under the Scottish Greens, a one-off windfall tax on profits made by larger companies as a result of the pandemic will aid the rebalancing of the economy and support recovery. 

The Green Party in Scotland have set a number of environmental targets as part of their election campaign, including:

• further investment in renewable energy, including tidal and wind power;
• improving home energy efficiency;
• phasing out North Sea oil and gas extraction;
• extending land reform, including banning grouse shooting and creating new opportunities for urban and rural communities; and
• the reforestation of Scotland to the European average.

The Scottish Greens’ policy for tackling Scotland’s drug problem is the treatment of drug use as a health issue rather than a criminal issue.

To tackle poverty in Scotland, the Green Party has made commitments to:

• introduce a universal basic income pilot scheme (the full powers to implement this do not currently lie with the Scottish Parliament and would need to be negotiated with the UK Government);
• double the Scottish Child Payment;
• increase grants for new-born children in low-income families and school clothing grants;
• increase funding to local authorities so they can introduce grants to mitigate the effects of the benefit cap; and
• introduce year-round free school meals for all pupils including breakfast.

Focusing on justice, the Green Party in Scotland have made a number of commitments as part of their election campaign, including:

• reforming prisons, including special provisions for the mentally ill and for those who are pregnant;
• the decriminalisation of sex work;
• further funding for human trafficking awareness groups; and
• and legal aid to all victims of domestic abuse.

The Scottish Green Party has committed to retaining provisions introduced during the pandemic for early medical abortions at home. The party is also committed to introducing compassionate laws to allow the terminally ill the right to an assisted death. 

Please see the full Scottish Green Party manifesto for more details.