General Election 2024: Meet the Green candidate for Brighton Pavilion - Siân Berry

The eight candidates are Steve AI (Independent), Siân Berry (Green), Carl Buckfield (SDP), Tom Gray (Labour), Mark Mulvihill (Reform UK), Ashley Ridley (Liberal Democrat), Citizen Skwith (Official Monster Raving Loony) and Sarah Webster (Conservative).

Each candidate answered questions submitted by voters. Here are the answers from the Green candidate Siân Berry, 49, a community campaigner, who tweets @SianBerry. She posts on Instagram as @sian_berry and on TikTok as @sianberrygreen and her Facebook page is Siân Berry Green.

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Why do you want to be an MP and how are you qualified for the role?

It’s a critical moment. Climate change poses an existential threat.

We face an inequality crisis with millions falling deeper and deeper into poverty.

In Brighton, so many are struggling to cope and the local services we rely on are at breaking point.

I want to champion and support people in this community and push the next government to go further and invest properly in both people and planet.

Having spent my life campaigning, including as an independent campaigner and for a national charity, I’ve learnt to use different political levers and tactics to build pressure, drive movements and secure change.

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If elected, how would you deal with performance and pricing problems in privatised utilities such as the water companies, railways, energy companies and the Royal Mail?

I believe in public services being owned by the public. As your MP, I’d campaign for real change so our utilities are run for public benefit not profit – starting with the water companies and the big 5 energy retailers.

This is what Greens have pledged to do in our manifesto and we are the only party in England prepared to take this commonsense bold action.

We want to urgently stop sewage being dumped in our seas and rivers, and households being ripped off with high energy bills, by making the companies answerable to the public not shareholders.

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What would you do to help people who are struggling to rent or buy a home? Should second homes or Airbnb-style holiday lets be banned?

As a renter living in Brighton, I’ve experienced the housing crisis first-hand and am passionate about taking the heat out of the housing market to bring rent and house prices down.

So that’s new genuinely affordable homes, in the right places at the right price, and ending the “right to buy” so our community doesn’t lose the investment that goes into building council homes.

And I’ll champion controls on rent levels, ending “no fault” evictions, action on Airbnb-style lets, like limits on how long they can be rented out, and a universal right to a warm dry home.

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What steps would you take to improve hospital performance, community care and access to GPs for patients in Brighton and Hove?

The Green Party has put restoring the NHS front and centre of our election promises – including investment in primary care so you can get a same-day doctor’s appointment when its urgent and rapid access at other times.

We’d guarantee you can see an NHS dentist and prioritise reducing hospital waiting lists, paying NHS staff properly to help retain their expertise and giving hospital trusts long-term funding certainty, so they can better plan to deliver better care for us all.

If elected, I’d passionately oppose any plans from a new Labour government to let private companies run health services.

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Events in Israel and Gaza have affected many members of the community here. What can people in your constituency expect you to say and do as an MP?

This is something so many residents tell me matters to them and I am so proud of the consistent principled stand taken by the Greens – on condemning terrorism, calling for the unconditional release of all hostages, demanding an urgent bilateral ceasefire, on ending UK arms sales to the Israeli army, urging the UK to properly fund humanitarian aid in Gaza and to find a political solution that delivers peace, justice and security for Israelis and Palestinians going forward.

I’m also deeply committed to healing the divisions that have arisen in our community as a result of this war.

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Do you support the Royal Mail plans for Patcham Court Farm despite the threat posed to the aquifer there that provides much of the drinking water for Brighton and Hove?

In a word – no. I’ve met local residents to listen to their concerns and why they are against Royal Mail’s plans.

Everything they said made the risks clear so I’ve lodged a formal objection with the council and urged them to reject the proposal.

The city’s water supply is far too precious to gamble with. But it’s not just the aquifer. The application is riddled with discrepancies and the proposals may not even be lawful.

Bosses at Royal Mail also need to get their act together, sort out local deliveries and stop running our precious postal services into the ground.

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Polling stations are due to be open from 7am to 10pm on Thursday 4 July. Photo ID is required for those voting in person.