THE LEADER of the Scottish Greens would support measures to scrap air miles schemes which reward people for regular plane travel.

Patrick Harvie, who is co-leader of his party alongside Lorna Slater, said that while he did not think the measures were currently within the competence of the Scottish Parliament he would be supportive of removing the flying schemes, which have been in place for decades with some of the largest airlines.

He also said Alex Salmond, speculated by some to be a threat to the Green vote, was a "discredited figure" and added that "yesterday's man" was in no position to tackle the problems of the future.

His comments come as the election campaign nears a close, with Mr Harvie hoping that voters will be wooed by his offerings on plans to change the planet, create more sustainable housing and boost the public transport network.

He explained: “The industry in promoting itself, and promoting travel for its own sake needs to be challenged.

“I would be comfortable with [removing frequent flyer air miles benefits], I think that's a reserved issue so that would be something that I don't think we'd be able to address in the new session of the Scottish Parliament. Obviously, if we get the powers of independence, then we would be able to regulate those kind of marketing activities on behalf of the airline.”

Flying, and the introduction of a frequent flyers levy is one such proposal Mr Harvies’s party has made in its manifesto which he said would not impact the average family taking one flight a year to go on holiday, for example.

He said the tax would target those on high incomes “who treat aviation as casually as ordinary people treat buses”.

He said: “I think 15% of the population, the wealthiest 15% of the population, takes 70% of the flights in the UK. It's hard for a lot of people to wrap their head around that.

“You expect you might fly once or twice a year for a holiday. Personally I don't, but for a lot of people that’s normal.

“It's hard to recognize the fact that this tiny proportion of people are flying so frequently. A frequent flyer levy wouldn't have very much impact on people who fly once a year, or maybe even take two flights a year, but it would have a ratcheting effect on people who are very very frequent fliers.”

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Along with plans to improve public transport, and the infrastructure for ‘active travel’ measures such as cycling and walking, the party has taken a stand on housing rights, particularly around those for people in the private rented sector.

Mr Harvie suggested that simply building more social housing was not the way to end the to-heavy housing market in Scotland, which has seen more and more young people pushed out of home ownership opportunities as prices soar.

He said: “We've seen government policies that are ostensibly about helping people to buy or helping people to rent, and actually end up just inflating the housing market even further.

“We need to be unlocking that by using things like a modern version of a property tax, instead of the broken council tax we have now, as well as things like taxing underused, vacant and derelict properties, gives the incentive to bring these properties back in to use.”

Mr Harvie said that the relationship between landlords and tenants had to be addressed, to make the system fairer, explaining: “ Huge numbers of people find owner-occupation, not just not affordable now but increasingly thinking it's never going to be affordable unless we change the economics of housing.

“For those same people, for the most part social housing is unavailable, there's just not enough of it and so the private rented sector is all they've got. Many of those people end up paying more than they would for a mortgage, effectively being forced to line the pockets of somebody who's getting unearned wealth just from property ownership and very often it’s a deeply exploitative relationship.”

The Herald:

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According to the Greens manifesto, the party will not support the investment in road projects which would “increase capacity” on the transport network but would not be against maintenance and safety improvement schemes.

Mr Harvie said there were “pinch points” where investment was needed to improve safety on some roads, but added: “ Building more capacity into the road network only generates more traffic, it doesn't actually solve either the economic or social problems or the impact of congestion. It makes the problem of pollution even worse, so you end up with a bigger problem, not a smaller problem as a result of that spending.”

However the manifesto also states the party want to roll out an online police portal to allow members of the public to upload their own footage of dangerous drivers, to allow for easier prosecution.

When pressed on whether some motorists may feel that the Greens were waging a war on car drivers in their dossier, he said: “Certainly if you walk or cycle, or you wheel you will constantly see people parking on the pavement, in bike lanes, parking illegally and that's extremely dangerous. “Having proper parking enforcement is certainly not being harsh on people who use their cars responsibly.

“I really would question the idea that helping people to shift into public transport is being harsh. Giving people more options, giving people the option of public transport that is available, reliable and affordable… that's not being harsh. It's giving people what most people want and need, certainly in our urban areas.”

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He insisted: “A huge number of people would like to be able to not have to shell out to keep their own car on the road If the public transport was there for them.”

Mr Harvie also said he did not think his party was going to be threatened at the polls by Alex Salmond’s Alba, and described the former FM as “yesterday’s man”.

He explained: “Alex Salmond is a discredited figure. People I've met out in the streets, people stopping for a chat about the election, most of them recognise that this is just an ego trip from yesterday's man.

“And I don't see any huge overlap between people who are looking at the Greens as a solution to the climate and nature emergencies, thinking about Covid recovery in terms of building a more equal society based on the recovery. I don't think they are looking to Alex Salmond as the answer to those critical questions about our future.

“Our slogan for this election is 'Vote like your future depends on it' and figures from the past are not the answer to those hugely important challenges of the future.”