The Tottenham Independent has asked each parliamentary candidate why they should become an MP at the General Election.

Here, the Green Party candidate for Hornsey and Wood Green Gordon Peters sets out why you should vote for him.

I believe strongly that unfair and unequal power must be challenged. That has been the basis on which I have worked all my life. I have been a teacher, researcher, social worker, director of social services, international consultant on health and social development, and local campaigner defending NHS and public services against cuts. If elected I shall work for public investment and decent local jobs.

I know austerity is not working, and there are many voices from Nobel prize-winning economists to the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), from those on zero hours contracts to NHS workers with frozen pay who will say so. It is an ideologically driven policy: to privatise assets of the state; to transfer wealth from ordinary people to those running the corporate and financial sector. It enables such people to control national indebtedness while reducing the value of publicly owned services. It has not worked and never will.

I think the cost of living is now a major issue for the majority of people. I will work for investment in public infrastructure and Green New Deal jobs that create earning and tax paying capacity which dependence on zero hours and hand to mouth self-employment fails to do. I will work for a living wage - at least £10 per hour by 2020 (and higher in London) - along with rent controls and security of tenure, an end to unrestricted property and land speculation.

I would abolish the NHS and Social Care Act, and the purchaser-provider split in the NHS and bring the NHS back into public hands. Primary and community health care need more funding (from the cancellation of Trident) and social care made free. Far from being a burden, social care employment contributes to the economy.