The minimum wage should rise to £10 an hour and the rich should pay a wealth tax, Green Party leader Natalie Bennett said yesterday at the launch of radical new manifesto.

In an announcement that might see the 2015 election race gain a fifth strong contender, the Greens have made a series of radical pledges to address Britain’s financial woes.

Among the proposed policies is the raising of the minimum wage to a rate £2 above the current national living wage. 

“It is a scandal that under the coalition government the number of workers earning less than the living wage has risen by a staggering 50 per cent from 3.4million in 2011 to 5.2million today,” said Ms Bennett ahead of the party’s annual conference. 

She added that the minimum wage should be immediately raised level with the current living wages of £8.80 in London and £7.65 nationwide. 

The increase to £10 per hour, however, would only take effect in 2020.

But the Greens promise to go further by implementing an additional tax on the richest 1 per cent of people in Britain. 

The party said it would deliver “real change” and tackle “persistent inequality and poverty.”

Company-wide pay ratios, renationalisation of the rail network and train companies and keeping the NHS within public ownership and management were also proposed. 

“The fact that the Green Party are consistently polling at some of our best numbers since 1989 goes to show that our message of the need to reshape our politics and economy to work for the common good is really hitting home,” Ms Bennett concluded. 

An Ipsos Mori survey revealed in July that the Green Party was polling at a record 8 per cent — matching the Liberal Democrats.

At this year’s European elections the party beat the Lib Dems’ overall results, something Ms Bennett puts down to the fact that “the Greens are rolling up their sleeves and fighting for what we and our members believe in.”