READERS might have noticed that the Green Party MP Caroline Lucas has decided to step down at the next election. There are few MPs who are more widely respected for their honesty or can claim to have got more of the big decisions right at an early stage.

If we had followed her advice then homes in Britain would have been much better insulated well in advance of this winter and people would have gone through this horrible cost of living crisis with significantly lower bills. If we had installed solar panels on new homes, schools and hospitals when she first advocated them we would also saved a lot of money at the same time as helping the planet.

She consistently supported staying in the EU and reforming it instead of allowing mass produced Australian food imports to undercut our food standards and our farmers’ livelihoods. That now looks like much more responsible approach than wild promises about a better future outside the EU that show little sign of being delivered.

There is only one realistic way to get sensible far sighted policies like these on the political agenda. It is to vote for people who are also interested in standing up for their local community and their local environment. I am looking forward to offering local voters the opportunity to do that at the next General Election and am now the Green Party’s Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Skipton and Ripon.

I hope I have earned the trust of the local people who elected me to Craven District Council with just over 50 per cent of the votes five years ago and then last year to North Yorkshire County Council with 79 per cent of the votes.

It really is way past time that we transformed the way politics works in this country.

Councillor Andy Brown

Green Party

Cononley