The Green Party has pledged to raise taxes on top earners in its manifesto, external, claiming the plans will generate £70bn a year to mend “broken Britain”.

The plans include raising the National Insurance (NI) rate to 8% on annual wages above £50,270 – equivalent to an extra £283.74 per year in tax for someone earning £55,000.

They will also introduce a wealth tax of 1% on assets worth over £10m, and 2% on assets worth more than £1bn.

Party co-leader Adrian Ramsay said the Greens were the “only party being honest” about the scale of changes needed to fix the climate crisis, housing and the NHS​.

The party pledged to invest tens of billions of pounds in public services and stop “all new fossil fuel projects” in the UK.

Mr Ramsay said the Greens were not expecting to form the next government but their MPs will be in Parliament to “speak up for you on the issues you care about”. The party will focus their efforts on four seats they see as winnable.

At the manifesto launch in Hove, co-leaders Carla Denyer and Adam Ramsay said electing Green MPs would “push Labour to be bolder”, particularly on Net Zero climate change policies, which they accused other parties of “running away from”.

“Most people are working harder and yet getting poorer,” Ms Denyer told supporters, but “transforming” tax would “end the rip-off of rising bills, appalling services and shareholders trousering millions”.

Conservatives and Labour have been holding “a race to the bottom” on lowering tax, she said, by taking “2p off here and a penny off there”.

“They think people won’t cotton on that this means even more devastating cuts to public services like the NHS that we rely on every day,” she added.