The Greenock Telegraph has invited General Election candidates standing to represent Inverclyde and Renfrewshire West to share their views on key topics relevant to the area.

This week, we asked the candidates how they would best combat the cost-of-living crisis.

Here’s what Scottish Greens candidate Iain Hamilton had to say:

“The cost-of-living crisis has impacted all of us. We’ve seen the cost of basics like food, shelter and heating skyrocket, while wages stagnate and public services struggle to keep up.

 “Crises like Covid and Brexit have played their part, and as you travel through Scotland’s scarred towns and cities it’s clear that there’s a deeper root cause: the destructive legacy of Margaret Thatcher.

 “Thatcher’s war on the unions, privatisation drive, sell-off of council houses, and destruction of Scottish industry left generational damage that we’re still dealing with today.

“Experiencing the outcomes of these disastrous policies is how Scotland knows first-hand that they don’t work.

 If we want to move beyond the cost-of-living crisis it's clear that we need to move beyond Thatcher.

“Yet both the Tories and Labour still follow in her footsteps, with senior figures across Labour singing her praises in recent months.

 “However, there is an alternative. We can walk a different path.

“Instead of privatisation, we could lower prices by taking back control of our energy from the big five companies, and putting our public services back under public control - as we recently did with ScotRail.

 “Instead of cutting taxes on the rich, we could place a wealth tax on the top 1% - which would raise over £70 billion to transform everything from health and education, to our response to the climate emergency.

 “Instead of outsourcing industry, we could create the green industry of the future right here in Scotland.

“We could build on our renewable sector that’s already flourishing to provide tens of thousands of new, well-paid jobs to people here in Greenock and across Scotland.

 “That’s the future I and the Scottish Greens are fighting for. A future that works for people and planet, not just corporate boardrooms.”