WE at the Journal have asked each of Salisbury's election candidates some questions in the lead-up to the general election on July 4.

So far, we have spoken to Barney Norris from the Green Party, Victoria Charleston from the Liberal Democrats, Julian Malins KC from Reform UK, and Conservative MP John Glen. 

Up next, the Climate Party candidate Chris Harwood has given us his answers.

Why should people vote for you?

I think we have the best bet at stopping climate change. We are the only party that’s 100 per cent committed to it. We have no other objective - we are aiming for this. We don’t expect to form a government; there are only 13 of us standing across the country. But, as a pressure group on the inside, we will pressurise the prime minister and the other MP's to do what they know what they have to do. Climate change is as bad as World War Two, and then we were only going to lose our freedom - this time we could lose what makes us human.

What would be on your to do list on day one and what would be your top three priorities going forward?

Day one: Talk to the PM, probably Keir, about becoming minster for climate change, and I think they are very much on side. I love their GB energy idea - it's fantastic. Its not only 100 per cent renewable, but owned by the people. We need to get everyone on board. Going forward:

  1. Speak to the minister for transport so that we can work with a whole lot of people about getting the electric vehicle situation pushed forward. The Chinese are selling small electric cars in UK for £8000 new - they can do it and pay for the transport, we can do it here.
  2. Have a look at what research and development has been done, and see if we can encourage research and development on air source heat pumps by tax breaks - the sort we're currently giving to fossil fuel companies and remove tax breaks from fossil fuel companies and move on to looking at a carbon tax - so those pushing out caron dioxide pay for it.
  3. Look at industry: Port Talbot was magnificent in moving away from coke to electric heaters for the making of steel but a lot of semi skilled people were really upset because of the mass redundancies. It will also make people unemployed, yes, but we mustn’t do what we did with the Welsh coalfields and just leave people. We must do something about the retraining and moving those people into the new jobs we're creating. 

What are your policies on climate change / net zero?

Our main thing is net zero by 2030, and the push on that will create a whole lot of jobs – badly needed – and create a whole lot of investment. Investment plus jobs equals wealth. It will stop climate change UK-wise, it will then produce the wealth to deal with everything else. Most of the problems come from the fact we're not a rich country at the moment and the councils don’t have the money to deal with what they need to deal with.

We need to persuade the Government to pass law saying it is going to happen. 

What do you think needs to be done to fix the NHS?

The point about what I'm saying about extra jobs and extra investment producing wealth is that wealth will then go to sorting out problems in the NHS, sorting problems with policing - with all sorts of things - basically organisations which are running on fumes as they don’t have enough money to do what they need to do. 

What are your policies on housing, especially for young people? 

We've got to provide for the people who need them. It's not easy, but we've just got to do it. It's got to be affordable - I know a lot of people don’t want new housing developments, so balancing that is a really difficult job - so we've got to find areas where we can build easily and quickly. If you’ve been able to pay rent or have a job that’s secure, why are we saying you have to pay 'x' per cent first? By all means have an independent checking agency but don’t throw these obstacles in people's way - it's not needed anymore and its making people unhappy.

The full list of candidates for Salisbury is: 

Matt Aldridge: Labour Party

Victoria Charleston: Liberal Democrat

John Glen: Conservative

Chris Harwood: Climate Party

Julian Malins: Reform UK

Barney Norris: Green Party

King Arthur Pendragon: Independent