Download PDF (49k)
When Patrick Harvie is asked what issue is closest to his heart,
the answer "climate change", may not come as a huge surprise.
However, Harvie clarifies, "what I'm interested in doing is getting
beyond those single issues like climate change or oil depletion or
depletion of the fish stocks or whatever these environmental themes
are and look at what's underlying it. What's underlying it is
selfish, shallow, consumerist me-me-me culture and it's been very
deliberately constructed to fuel economic growth in the second half
of the twentieth century and it's still going on. That's what's at
the heart of the ecological damage and also the social harm and
unhappiness that we see around us. It's hard that kind of message
to get across in populist terms, in public terms, but it's
necessary to start getting underneath some of these incredibly
pressing issues that threaten the future of human society and the
economy and civilisation as well as the world around us."
This approach - to dig deeper and find inter-connected solutions
to difficult problems - is reflected in Harvie's approach to his
role as Convener of the Scottish Parliament's Transport,
Infrastructure and Climate Change Committee: "What I think we need
to do constructively is think about what kind of transport system
can we have and what do we want for the 21st century …
one that doesn't buy into the idea that just moving around more is
good for the economy. Economists conventionally have had this
almost psychological connection between burning oil and economic
growth; we need to break that link just as much as we need to break
the psychological link between growth and happiness."
Of course, the Climate Change Bill is also under Harvie's
Committee's remit, and he identifies this not only as, "a chunk of
work", but work that is "time critical". "Lives are already being
lost because of climate change and the longer we delay making the
cuts the deeper the subsequent cuts have to be if we are going to
save accumulatively the amount of carbon dioxide and other
greenhouse gases that we need to. So there's got to be sense of
urgency."
He argues that we need a clear programme of action that says how
are we going to do this, what are we going to do differently which
will reduce our emissions? He is not interested in offsetting
because "the world cannot pay somebody else to reduce emissions; we
have to actually live differently and run our economies
differently."
Patrick Harvie believes that the current balance of the Scottish
Parliament may work in favour of a stronger Bill: "I think minority
government has been very healthy. So we need to use the fact that
we are in a period of minority administration creatively and if we
can do that there is a chance we can get a Bill that is braver than
a civil servant might advise a Minister to do."
His views on the benefits of minority Government do not
necessarily extend to support for particular SNP policies. Greens
don't support the local income tax because they see it as less fair
than proper income tax, ending up with very, very wealthy people
paying nothing at all. Their proposal is for land value tax.
Obviously they are in a minority position advocating that but
"in a tightly balanced Parliament between those who support council
tax and those who support local income tax, we can argue for an
element of land value tax which will be re-distributed from the
kind of individuals or companies that have land banks and simply
seek to manipulate the system to their own advantage and it will
benefit disproportionately those who don't have much assets".
Harvie sees it as important for an asset wealth element to be
included in the tax mix; otherwise "we are just going to benefit
those who can employ accountants to shift their wealth from income
to assets".
When thinking about the most effective routes to tackle poverty,
Harvie believes that reserved issues come into play. "Our principal
approach is to simplify a lot of the tax and benefits system. We
have a policy called Citizen's Income, which is a universal income
paid to everybody as a right." Tax people pay on any earnings above
that would be higher and so it becomes redistributive, with high
earners (like MSPs) paying quite a bit more but crucially while
"people who earn a little, people who are far in their own lives
from the position where they can just go out and get a full-time
job, people who maybe need to take it slowly, people who need to
combine working with education or caring - they wouldn't lose out,
they wouldn't lose their citizens income so you abolish completely
the poverty trap and the situation of people losing benefits
because of taking on work".
That's particularly important in relation to parents and young
parents who (he says) very often feel pressured, and if they are
coming from being on benefits, almost literally forced to take on
work that they may not feel they are ready for "whether it's
mothers of fathers - totally gender neutral - the relationship
between parents and young children is crucially important for this
generation and I think we are effectively selling that at the
moment if we are forcing those people to become so called
economically active". He strongly believes that there are other
forms of activity more valuable to society than economic activity
in the labour market: "We need to recognise that people's freedom
to be parents when their children are young is hugely important to
society, more important than more economic growth."
Patrick Harvie's own Members Bill, that will allow Scotland's
courts to impose tougher sentences for offences aggravated by the
victim's disability, gender identity or sexual orientation, will,
he hopes, be law by 2009. He is optimistic that the Bill will see
little opposition once people understand what is being proposed:
"Those who do have a problem with homosexuality or transgender
people continually say they oppose hate crimes as well, they don't
want people to be targeting individuals with criminal offences
whether that's violence or harassment or anything else and so I
think they should be able to welcome a proposal that tackles that
and is about applying appropriate sentences."
When asked about the role of the churches in politics, Harvie
finds that "a tricky one … as a secularist I think society would be
better off if all religious worldviews including atheism and
humanism were on a par, on a level playing field; at the moment
they're not."
However, he goes on to say that he wouldn't want that to be
taken as meaning that the churches or anybody else shouldn't play a
part in politics: "They always have done - the Church of Scotland
in particular; the history of its development is in with the bricks
with the history of the development of modern democracy and that's
something they should be very proud of and Scotland should be very
proud of; even as an atheist I am proud of that part of Scottish
history. To imagine that they shouldn't play a part in politics
locally or globally would be absurd.
That, he says, needs to be a constructive part; just as
environmentalists sometimes finger wag at people and come over as a
hectoring, lecturing attitude about how people are supposed to
live, sometimes people in the religious hierarchy do that in a way
that he thinks a lot of their followers are uncomfortable with,
whether that's about sexuality or about anything else.
When asked what individuals can do to counter climate change,
Harvie is initially cautious about politicians saying "here's how
you should live your life": "we need to be empowering and give
people opportunities". Practical steps that people can take start
with coming together as a community, "to try and create the kind of
community cohesion and community cooperation that can result in far
bigger reductions in emissions than we can make in our own
individual life". There are things like going on fewer foreign
holidays and switching things off but people "don't need to be told
that by politicians". "Creating a community involvement is the
first thing that people can do - to make the first step in that
direction by knocking on the neighbour's door or whatever or taking
part in a community group, or with a religious organisation;
eco-congregations are starting to come up and say what they can
do".