Praxis

The Daily Misleading Statistic

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Stacey) — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 15:52:00 +0000

I tend to be of the opinion that the fewer people there are living in material deprivation the better. Normally, I would have considered this an uncontroversial belief but an article that has appeared today on the Daily Mail website has lead me to question if this is the case.

The Daily Mail and Douglas Carswell MP seemed to be of the opinion that fewer people being in deprivation simply shows that the welfare state is failing.
The Daily Mail asserts that the UK is the country with the most households without work in Europe and at the same time has far fewer people who live without a mobile phone, a TV and a holiday than other places in Europe.

According to Douglas Carswell this shows that “that the welfare system is not doing what it is supposed to do. It is meant to help people who need help because they have fallen on hard times, not people who have learned to play the system.”
There’s several things wrong with the logic involved in getting to that conclusion but the first problem with it, is that the premise on which it is based isn’t actually true.

The Mail’s source for these statistics is the EU body Eurostat. Yesterday, Eurostat put out a press release which highlighted that the risk of poverty was rising throughout the EU. As part of this release they included the figures for each EU country on the percentage of households which had a low employment intensity, and the percentage of households which were considered to be materially deprived.
The Daily Mail accurately reported the UK’s relative position in the two series of figures but their inaccuracy can be seen when looking at the definitions of “low employment intensity” and “seriously materially deprived” and how the Daily Mail chose to report them.

Low employment intensity covered households who were working less than 20% of their full potential over the course of a year, this could be someone only working 1 day a week, someone only finding two and a half months work of work, or one person working in a household with five adults. It is not a measure of workless households as the Daily Mail implied in its headline “UK has more homes where nobody has a job than anywhere else in Europe (but more families who can STILL go on holiday, have a TV and a mobile)”.

Luckily for people interested in the actual rate of households without work, Eurostat provide this statistic just a few clicks away from their press release. This shows that the UK actually appears somewhere near the middle on jobless households.

The other problem with the Daily Mail’s reporting is in Eurostat’s definition of “materially deprived”. Eurostats define you as materially deprived if you can’t afford four of the nine items. These items are: the ability to pay the rent or utility bills on time; to keep the house warm; to be able to pay an unexpected bill; to eat meat or fish every second day; to afford a week’s holiday; to run a car; to have a washing machine; to have a colour TV and to have a mobile phone.
The Mail seem to have latched on to the fact that some of the indicators included are owning a mobile, taking a holiday and owning a TV. In fact as those represent only three of the indicators a person could not be able to afford all three of them and still not count as materially deprived.

Whilst the Mail and Douglas Carswell seem to think that this is too much for anyone to have, the majority of people disagree. Research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation into what people believe should be the minimum that a family need to get by, for an “adequate” life, found that people said that more than just these few items were needed.

Other problems include: equating out-of-work with workshy thereby ignoring disabled people and single mothers who aren’t able to find work easily (as the Government’s new benefit cap does); that nowhere do the statistics show which people are “playing the system” or have chosen welfare as a “lifestyle choice”; and that many welfare systems in Europe are far more generous than ours.

If anything it should be celebrated that our welfare state lifts people out of the worst of poverty in many cases - but sadly welfare is not as effective as the Daily Mail claims.

Climate Change in Bangladesh

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Lampard) — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 12:08:00 +0000

Every Wednesday morning the members of the Joint Public Issues Team gather together for a team meeting, to plan, learn, reflect and decide. Sometimes we are joined by guests who can help us in our thinking and understanding.

Today we were joined by Joyanta Adhikari, a Baptist from Bangladesh, who was visiting the UK as part of a visit to support Commitment for Life, the URC’s partner with Christian Aid. He was also invited to speak at a meeting at the Church of England General Synod at which the Archbishop of Canterbury was present.

Mr Adhikari also is the Executive Director of Christian Commission for Development in Bangladesh (CCDB) as well as the President of the National Council of Churches Bangladesh.

He spoke about the impact that the visible changes in Bangladesh’s climate are having on its population.

Seawater now comes 100 miles inland, as opposed to the 20 miles of a few years ago. The “saline intrusion” of the soil means that land is less fertile.

The length of the winter season has shortened to just two months and there has been an increase in the number and intensity of cyclones.

If the sea level was to rise by just 1.5m 16% of the total land of Bangladesh would be underwater, and 17 million people would have to move from the southern part of the country, adding to the number of people already displaced by the impact of climate change.

CCDB is supporting a variety of adaptation ideas which will help people to survive, such as the development of saline and drought resistant crops. The government, however, is often attracted to the large scale construction projects, such as building embankments, rather than the small scale piecemeal adaptation measures which will directly, and quickly, improve people’s livelihoods.

Mr Adhikari said that climate change is a justice issue because it is the poor who are being most affected, and who are losing their lives and livelihoods today.

As we approach the season of Lent, when we reflect on what we need to take up or put down in our lives, I will be challenged by Joyanta Adhikari’s words: “In the beautiful world that God has given us, there is enough to meet our need, but not our greed”.

The Welfare Reform Bill and the abuse of privilege

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Morrison) — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 13:52:00 +0000

The dream of a generation of Christian social reformers has been dealt a terrible blow: their simple dream was that all who contributed to society would receive at least what they needed. Yesterday, the House of Commons voted to change that principle to “all that all who contribute will receive what they need – unless it is a lot”.

There was no mention that families assessed to need a lot, might simply have a lot of needs. Although we were repeatedly told that many people raise families on less than £500 a week, there was no mention of the hundreds of thousands of families who because of their particular and difficult circumstances just can’t. Sadly there is polling evidence to say these families don’t vote and it is popular to pretend they don’t exist.

During the debate jargon phrases like “welfare dependant” were sometimes used to hide the raw contempt of sections of society – but sometimes not even these masks were used. It is an uncomfortable fact but the people in the room, particularly the most powerful ones, were drawn from a very different section of society to the people they were discussing. I would not go down to job centre and expect clients to give me an accurate description of life at Parliament. Sadly today we saw that this lack of understanding goes both ways.

The Government invoked “financial privilege” to prevent further debate on important changes to the Welfare Reform Bill. Essentially the Government said only the Commons can spend money, so any House of Lords amendment which might cost money can be waived away and told never to come back.

The awful truth is that the benefit cap is essentially a financially neutral measure done on the basis of principle and ideology – as the minister Lord Freud said repeatedly. This isn’t primarily a financial measure. If the Lords can’t discuss principle, ideology, money... why are they there? A question the Lords themselves asked repeatedly when they stopped debating the Healthcare Bill and repeatedly asked the government representative if there was any point continuing.

Financial privilege is a rule from 1671 and the Restoration of King Charles II to the throne. It was Parliament’s way of saying Charles II you can’t do what your father did – spend money on an extravagant lifestyle and expect us to raise taxes to pay for it - that is how Civil Wars start. Today it was used to say to the House of Lords you can’t talk about the lifestyles of 220,000 impoverished children, cancer suffers or people with disability. It was the worst example of a lack of respect and self-interested rule bending I heard all day.

Welfare Reform Bill - You Can Act!

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Morrison) — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 21:35:00 +0000

Tomorrow the Welfare Reform Bill will be debated and voted on in the House of Commons. The Government are seeking to overturn the amendments passed in the Lords. As I write another amendment protecting disabled children has just been passed in the Lords against the Government's will.

The principle that all who play by the rules should receive enough to meet their basic needs has been at the heart of the welfare system for 65 years; if the benefit cap becomes law that principle will be destroyed. Only families whose basic needs are less than £26,000 will be safe. The rare and extremely vulnerable families who have greater needs will be left behind

The principle is wrong and the best predictions are that the effects will be equally wrong.The government’s proposed benefit cap will hit many of the most vulnerable people in society. It will affect 220,000 children (75% of those affected) and 14,740 families where Employment and Support Allowance (a disability benefit) is the main household income. It threatens to make over 80,000 children homeless and will push 133,000 children into poverty or further into poverty.

The Bishops amendment, carried in the House of Lords removes Child Benefit from the calculation. The effect would be to remove most of the families with children from the cap. The amendment was supported by children's charities, churches, faith groups , no-faith groups and many others because injustice of impoverishing children because of an arbitrary limit is obvious and painful.

The Methodist, Baptist, Quaker, and United Reformed Churches jointly wrote to every MP, explaining their objection to the principle of the Benefit Cap and urging them not to overturn the Bishop's amendment in tomorrows debate.

If you wish to contact your MP to express your concerns about the Welfare Reform Bill press the Church Action on Poverty button below. The emailer link will ask for your email address (for replies) and your street address (to find your MP). It will then offer you a draft email which you can edit or accept as is before sending it to your MP with one more click.

Click to Email Your MP

Useful Links:

The idea of a benefit cap is initially appealing to some. Many within churches - even former Archbishops - have supported it.
Go here for a simple explanation of why the Churches have said that the principle of a Cap is flawed:
Today's Press statement of the Baptist, Methodist, Quaker and United Reformed Churches is here:
You can read the letter that was sent to MPs here.

Taking a sober look at the facts around alcohol

noreply@blogger.com (James North) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 18:19:00 +0000

One of the most interesting things about alcohol is that British people apparently find it hard to talk about it calmly and rationally, even when they are stone cold sober!

Over the last 30 years, alcohol has became steadily more affordable: price rises have consistently failed to keep pace with wage increases and Governments have kept alcohol taxes artificially low compared to other sources of revenue. As affordability has increased, so has consumption. And – hardly surprisingly – as consumption has increased, so has the harm caused by alcohol. Alongside this Government incentive to consumption, alcohol has also become more available and more heavily marketed; the alcohol content in available drinks has also increased and much larger wine glasses have become the norm. These are changes that many of us have seen in our lifetimes. In 2010, in England alone, there were over 1 million alcohol-related hospital admissions for the first time, and harms associated with problem drinking continue to rise.

A recent poll commissioned by the Methodist Church and its partners found that 61% of adult respondents in the UK felt there was a problem with excessive drinking in their neighbourhood. But public disorder, violence and other visible effects of alcohol misuse are not just issues of morality and enforcement; above all, they are medical issues to be considered alongside liver and heart disease.The simple fact is alcohol is a legal and socially acceptable drug which can cause dangerous long-term effects both on the body and people's behaviour. It is essential that all alcohol policy should be informed by medical research.

Studies such as the University of Sheffield’s landmark 2008 research (see e.g. http://www.shef.ac.uk/polopoly_fs/1.95621!/file/PartB.pdf) have shown that a minimum price per unit of alcohol of between 40p and 50p would reduce health harms, public disorder, alcoholism and sick days, saving lives and millions of pounds in costs to the NHS and Police. As noted by Quaker Action on Alcohol and Drugs,(see http://www.qaad.org/wp-content/press-releases/alcohol-briefing-june-2011.pdf), per unit minimum pricing has been recommended by the Chief Medical Officer (2009), the Royal College of Physicians, the British Medical Association (2008), the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE, 2010), the all-party Parliamentary Committee on Alcohol (2010), and Alcohol Concern. Churches (including the Methodist, Baptist and United Reformed Churches) and charities have backed this call and David Cameron announced support for the per unit minimum price at the end of 2011, although there is significant opposition within the Coalition Government.

Objectively, the key question is whether setting a minimum unit price is illegal under European competition law. This remains to be established: there are grounds for believing that the health argument may take legal precedence. However there is a less rational criticism of minimum pricing that keeps emerging. People take queries about their alcohol consumption personally as a moral criticism saying, in essence, “who are you to tell me how much to drink; I know my limits”. Yet doctors routinely deal with people in their 20s or 30s who have effectively destroyed their livers or even brain function through excessive drinking without showing the clichéd signs of alcoholism.

Another illusory claim is that if the British had a continental drinking culture like, for example, the French, we would not exhibit the worst kinds of binge-drinking. Until around 30 years ago, Britain was essentially at the bottom of alcohol harms in Europe and liver disease and other alcohol-related conditions were high. During the same time period that drinking culture caught on the UK, France started to reconsider its drinking culture, and harms have fallen.

10 years ago, even to question the role of alcohol in society was to risk being accused of being a weirdo or even worse, religious! Now many voices are saying our drink culture has gone too far, even if many of these voices think it is only ‘other people’ who are in danger.

It is time consider the similarities between the present time and the 19^th and early 20^th Century heyday of the Temperance movement. Then as now, alcohol (like gambling) is an activity whose abuse disproportionately harms the poorest and most vulnerable. Concern for social justice means challenging policies which exploit the vulnerable.

Maybe instead of a new Temperance-style movement, based on the negative command to abstain from alcohol, Churches can offer a positive vision of life in community. Hard as it is to believe nowadays, Christians were once known for their radical joy. There may be nothing wrong with spirits in moderation, but isn’t a society that becomes reliant on chemical props one that has lost touch with the Spirit?

Solar PV feed in tariffs – a new bonanza until 3 March?

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Hucklesby) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 15:00:00 +0000

The management of the feed in tariffs by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has been shoddy. DECC have set aside a budget over four years that is now just a shade over £1 billion to fund the feed in tariff. That budget is now 75% committed after less than a year into the budget period. Faced with a budget crisis, DECC attempted to slam the doors shut on the now generous tariffs by announcing that installations installed after 12 December 2011 will be eligible for only 21 pence per kWh. The High Court ruled that this move (without consultation or Parliamentary approval) was illegal and that ruling was upheld on Wednesday by the Court of Appeal.

solar-energy.co.uk

It was always anticipated that an increase in demand for Solar PV in the UK would lead to falling costs of installation. This has proved to be the case with the cost of systems falling by 30% since feed in tariff were introduced. The feed in tariff originally set at 43 pence per kWh now looks over generous. This is nice for those of us (such as myself) who are fortunate enough to be able to scrape together the capital cost of a small system. But it also means that companies offering so-called ‘rent a roof’ schemes can make a killing. (With a rent a roof scheme you get your system for free offering you some saving on your electricity bill but the installers capture the feed in tariff income).

Following this week’s ruling it seems likely (unless DECC are successful in their appeal to the Supreme Court) that if you get a solar power system installed on your roof before the 3 March 2012, you (or future occupiers of your property) will benefit from an income of 43 pence per kWh for the next 25 years. Any churches that had been considering putting panels on their clergy houses and have ready cash available have a fleeting second chance to invest at a particularly attractive rate, contributing to our care for creation and establishing a small income stream for mission.

So, given the current mess, what should DECC be doing with solar PV and feed in tariffs? Germany has implemented a similar scheme and expects to provide a whopping 10% of their energy needs from solar by 2020. Electricity is a high value form of energy and solar panels generate electricity during the peak hours of demand. With the right incentives even cash-strapped local councils will install PV solar on social housing enabling council house tennants to save on fuel bills. With rising oil prices and cost of PV panels bound to fall further, solar makes sense.

What we clearly haven’t got right yet is the incentive pricing and the mechanisms for adjusting tariffs. So how about this as a way forward: -

1. In addition to a budget over the Comprehensive Spending Review period lets also work out indicative costings for feed in tariffs for solar and other renewables over 10 years

2. Agree in advance the cut off dates for future tariff adjustments so that church and other community solar PV schemes can plan accordingly

3. Publish the general criteria that the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change will use in determining the tariff for the next tariff period. This will provide those planning larger community schemes (for example on social housing) with some confidence in the government’s commitment to sustain tariff arrangements.

(See our joint churches response to the DECC consultation on feed in tariffs)

Faith leaders ask for the government to protect children.

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Stacey) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 11:20:00 +0000

The Methodist, Baptist and United Reformed Churches signed the following letter calling for the household benefit cap to exclude child benefit:

As leaders of faith communities, we are often the first to see the impact of changes in Government policy as it impacts our congregations and the communities in which we work. We are deeply concerned about the planned introduction of a cap on benefits which will be debated in the House of Lords on Monday 23^rd January.

Although targeted at promoting fairness between working and non-working households, evidence from The Children’s Society shows that the cap will principally affect children much more than adults - only one in 560 adults is affected, compared to around one in 60 children. As many as 80,000 children could be made homeless as a result of the cap as it currently stands.

We very much hope that the Government will accept the proposed amendment to reduce the disproportionate impact of the cap on children by removing child benefit from household income as measured against the cap.

Child benefit is a non means tested benefit paid to both non-working and working families, to support the costs of raising their children. The amendment works to ensure that it is preserved for some of the poorest families in the Country.

Signed by:

Reverend Tim Stevens, Bishop of Leicester
Reverend Peter Smith, Department for Christian Responsibility and Citizenship
Rabbi Laura Janner Klausner, Movement for Reform Judaism
Dilwar Hussain, President, Islamic Society of Britain
Rev Leo Osborn, President of the Methodist Conference
Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg, Assembly of Masorti Synagogues
Maulana Shahid Raza, Secretary General, MINAB (Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board)
Rev Dr Pat Took, President of the Baptist Union of Great Britain
Rabbi Danny Rich, Chief Executive Liberal Judaism
Fuad Nahdi, Senior Research Fellow, Muslim College, London
The Revd Dr Kirsty Thorpe, Moderator of the General Assembly of the United Reformed Church
Sayed Mohammed Al-Musawi, President of World Ahlul Bayt (as) Islamic League,

The original letter can be found on the Sunday Times website: http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/comment/regulars/lettersandemails/article860414.ece

DLA reform – Disabled people’s views discouraged and ignored.

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Stacey) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 12:29:00 +0000

As part of the welfare reform bill, the Government is planning to scrap Disability Living Allowance (DLA) and replace it with the Personal Independence Payment (PIP). Rather than being a positive step reforming the benefit to make it better able to meet disabled people’s needs, the reform has been a mess from the start. The Government issued a public consultation that was supposed to inform their policy making but clearly were not willing to listen to disabled people’s views on the subject. The normal practice with a consultation where disabled people are expected to be consulted is to make the consultation longer than usual to allow all interested parties sufficient opportunity to respond. Instead the DLA reform consultation was two weeks shorter than usual and took place over the Christmas holidays. To compound this, the Government announced its policy two days before the consultation closed by publishing the Welfare Reform Bill.

The Government has previous on this – announcing Housing policy the day their consultation closed - A report published on Monday written and researched by a group of concerned disabled people has examined the responses to this consultation. The “Responsible Reform” report showed that the Government’s official response to the consultation misrepresented the input they received. The vast majority of respondents to the consultations warned of the problems that would be caused by the Government’s reforms. Whilst responses were in some case eager to see DLA reformed, they were also highly critical of proposals put forward by the Government. The debate around report can be followed on twitter on the #spartacusreport hashtag.

There are many good reasons why disabled people are concerned about the proposed reforms. The main difference between DLA and its replacement PIP is that eligibility for PIP will be based largely upon an assessment. This assessment closely mirrors the Work Capability Assessment which determines eligibility for Employment and Support Allowance and has wrongly stripped vast quantities of disabled people of their benefits causing the Government to have to hire more judges to deal with the massive numbers of appeals that have occurred.

People will moved from DLA to PIP by a centralised assessment process. Medical Professionals employed by the private sector will use a checklist given to them by the government rather than people trained in working with disabled people and how their disability affects them. The overall answer the assessment company must deliver is already set – 20% less money to go to the disabled. As the Minister for Disabled People Maria Miller has admitted part of the purpose of this assessment is to help the department achieve a 20% DLA budget cut. Rather than meaning that this 20% will be cut from those who are least in need of the support the assessment could mean that support will be cut from those whose condition tick the right boxes.

This will remove support from people who need it in order to carry out their daily lives. It may force people who rely on the support from DLA to allow them to work to leave their jobs. For others the lack of support will cause their condition to deteriorate forcing them to take more support from the NHS. The Poverty Truth Commission in Glasgow said “nothing for us without us” – the same message applies here – without the knowledge and experience of disabled people DLA reform will meet the Government’s wish to cut spending, the private company’s wish to make a profit but not the needs of the people the system is supposed to serve.

New Year - Highland Flings Only!

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Morrison) — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 16:29:00 +0000

Like many people with a young child, I saw in the New Year watching Jules Holland trying desperately to keep my eyes open between yawns whilst trying to remember when any time after 10pm had become insufferably late.

At the stroke of midnight my phone tinkled with New Year texts and emails. The first one in was not from my brother but from an appalling company called Married Affair. It is an online dating agency aimed at both encouraging adultery as well as making a profit from it.

The headline was New Year – New You, and preyed on the insecurities many have when time passes. Should you be on their emailing list you will get a similar missive on your birthday. The solution to feeling old, not having achieved all that you want, generally feeling unhappy and unfulfilled is, in their view, a bit of adultery. You won’t be surprised to hear that is not the Methodist Church’s opinion.

The site is run by Global Personals Ltd UK who also run a number of other less morally questionable sites. Single people might question if they want to use any Global Personals sites as the company’s ethical position is clearly questionable . A campaign – Faithfulness Matters – has been set up to challenge the business practices of companies who make money out of breaking up relationships. You can find out more information here, and sign up to support the campaign.

In my view those who, with a calm calculating mind, seek to exploit peoples’ weaknesses, vulnerabilities and moral failings in order to make a profit have a great deal of responsibility – one which the attitude of “the market will provide” does not exonerate.

The responsibility for adultery arranged via this site belongs both to the individuals who participate in it and to Global Personals. Shared responsibility is an important concept – without it exploiters such as adultery website providers, loan sharks, and even tax avoiders can blame those they damage for their own problems without ever challenging their own behaviour.

Happy New Year and don’t have an affair - even if it will help Global Personals UK’s profits – there are better ways of promoting the economic recovery!

A lesson from the Bible for the Minister for Welfare Reform

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Stacey) — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 14:17:00 +0000

Last week in the House of Lords in a debate on the Welfare Reform Bill Lord Freud, the government minster for welfare reform, invoked one of Jesus’ parables. Lord Freud was in the middle of Justifying the proposed government policy that those who have had their Jobseekers Allowance removed for thee yehttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifars because they have not complied with the requirements set by a Job centre should not be able to start receiving Jobseekers Allowance again by simply reengaging with the requests of a jobcentre but instead should hold down a job for at least six months before they can receive Jobseekers Allowance again. This lead to the following exchange:

Lord Freud: I think I can safely say that we are not saying that. We are just saying that we want real proof of a change. The prodigal son must do more than turn up and warm his hands on the fire as the fatted calf is slaughtered. I am saying that he has to take a job and hold it for a minimum of six months.

Baroness Hollis of Heigham: Could the noble Lord perhaps move from the Old Testament to the New Testament?

Lord Freud: I thought it was the New Testament. It is definitely a New Testament matter. I am shocked that the noble Baroness-

Baroness Hollis of Heigham: I was a Methodist.

Lord Freud: I am utterly shocked. Let me keep going; the hour is late and I am forgetting what I am talking about very quickly.

Whilst he has correctly identified the testament the parable appears in, he does seem to have forgotten what the parable actually says. The prodigal son does just turn up and is forgiven by his father. It seems rather odd for the Minister to invoke this particular parable as part of a defence of conditionality requirements. Conditionality requirements on Job seekers say that that unless someone works hard enough to try and find a job they should not receive any help. Supporters of this policy can sound like the cry of the prodigal son’s older brother who complains that he doesn’t deserve any help because he’s wasted his time doing things he shouldn’t have been whilst he’s been working hard. The government’s position seems distinctly different to that of the father in the parable.

A few days after the debate David Cameron made a speech supporting the importance biblical values have on politics. Perhaps in the future he may want to have a word with Lord Freud that it might not be the best idea to invoke a biblical parable and then directly contradict it.

Good News on Cluster Munitions – US proposed protocol defeated

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Hucklesby) — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 14:50:00 +0000

Last week campaign groups, humanitarian agencies and independently-minded governments have achieved another step forward towards the elimination of cluster munitions. Two weeks ago Martyn Atkins, General Secretary of the Methodist Church wrote to the Foreign Secretary on behalf of the Methodist, Baptist and United Reformed Church to oppose the proposal by the United States for a protocol to be agreed at the Review Conference of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons. This Conference has been meeting over the past two weeks. The proposed protocol would regulate the use of some types of cluster munitions and ban others.

However, in 2007 our churches had worked hard with other agencies to bring about the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM) which bans all forms of cluster munitions. This treaty was ratified in 2008 and recognises that even cluster bombs with “fail-safe” mechanisms scatter unexploded bomblets around a battlefield and have been responsible for deaths of civilians, children and adults long after the fighting has ended. Over the past month humanitarian agencies have argued that the US proposal will serve to undermine the CCM. We have insisted that the CCM must be recognised as the sole universal standard on cluster munitions and all states must be encouraged to sign up.

At the Review Conference this week the stakes were high. There was united front from the US, Russia, China, India, Israel, the Republic of Korea and others to persuade States to agree to the protocol that would impose certain restrictions on those States that refused to sign the CCM. They were supported by some NATO members who have signed the CCM.

The UK government had indicated that they were giving consideration to the US proposal although only if it provided clear humanitarian benefits. With the help of an effective Parliamentary campaign the UK delegation chose not to offer support for the US proposal. A group of 50 States actively voted against the protocol and consequently the use of cluster munitions by the US military or others will become increasingly difficult to defend.

The remarkable strength and organisation of campaigners, particularly in the UK, has not gone unnoticed in these international negotiations. There are lessons to be learnt from the Oslo process that brought the CCM into being. It built a critical mass of international opinion on cluster munitions bringing together like-minded governments in a process running in parallel to the Conference of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons. It leaves us wondering whether alliances of humanitarian agencies, faith groups and more enlightened governments can be similarly mobilised for other objectives; maybe to introduce restrictions on targeted killings, automated and remote-controlled war fighting or even encourage progress on nuclear weapons and the road to global zero.

As churches we remain committed to working with our government on defence and security issues as we anticipate a time when nations ‘shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks;nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more’ (Isaiah 2)

Action on the Welfare Reform bill

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Stacey) — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 16:37:00 +0000

As you might be aware, at the moment one of the biggest changes to the benefits system since its creation is currently passing through the House of Lords. The Welfare Reform bill will introduce the Universal Credit and change many of the rules governing how the benefits system works. There are a number of changes in the bill that deeply concern us because of how they affect people in poverty. For that reason the Methodist, Baptist and United Reformed Churches chose to back a series of amendments to the bill.

We backed a group of amendments put forward by the Children’s Society which sought to protect children from the harmful effects of the government’s benefit cap. These amendments gained wide spread media coverage after several Church of England Bishops announced they were backing these amendments. There was also strong support for these amendments within the committee. In the debate the government argued strongly for the principle of a cap despite it costing more than it will save and forcing thousands of families out of their homes. We hope that due to the level of support for these amendments that the government may be forced to give some ground in the next stage of the bill.

The second group of amendments which the three churches backed were put forward by Z2K to prevent vulnerable people from having to repay money they don’t have when officials have made a mistake. These amendments despite tackling seemingly technical issues are important because they can have a drastic affect on claimants’ lives. There was a strong debate in the committee where the support of charities and Churches on this issue was specifically highlighted as showing its importance. In the end, the government agreed to meet representatives from concerned organisations and look at the detail of our concerns.

The bill will continue onto report stage on the 12^th December where these issues will be debated and voted on. After the report stage there will be another reading of the bill, and then both chambers of parliament will consider amendments made to the bill with it likely to become law some time in the New Year. A copy of our briefing on the Z2K amendments can be found here and the Children’s Society’s briefing on benefit cap can be found here. The website will be shortly updated with a less technical summary of what these changes mean for people in Churches. You can also keep up to date with developments through this blog.

Who is Work Really For? And Who are the Real Scroungers?

noreply@blogger.com (James North) — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 16:53:00 +0000

On the eve of George Osborne’s pre-budget report, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation published the report "White working-class views of neighbourhood, cohesion and change” This important testimony of an often neglected and despised group in society should not be overlooked through the divisive, false assumption that the interests of white British workers are fundamentally different from workers as a whole.

The report found that “Residents emphasised the importance of values based on hard work, reciprocity and support. This was very different from the popular stereotype of being stupid and benefit dependent, which residents resented”. Many in power evidently fear that, given the choice, ordinary people would idle their days away like Onslow from Keeping Up Appearances (pictured left) rather than toil in virtuous servitude.

Yet all the evidence is that most people need work for self-respect and meaning. Many are cynical when employers or other authorities preach the value of work. The misunderstood ‘Protestant Work Ethic’ has played its part in creating the idea that the best years of our life ought to be spent in backbreaking work, to be compensated later by eternal heaven and/or ‘retirement’!

It is a different if people view work as intrinsically valuable. A country or culture with a strong work ethic is not superior to one that prioritises different values, but its Government should reflect its character. Britain has long been a country associated with hard work, innovation and the personal sense of achievement that goes beyond racial and religious boundaries and has been enriched by centuries of immigration.

But what is the use of a culture of hard work if there are no jobs? Or if society forgets that work is meant to express humanity's material and spiritual needs and creative aspirations. Instead, business leaders seem to prize efficiency and 'growth' which benefits only the elite and is little better than wage slavery.

In all the wrangling over the budget, two key facts are liable to be ignored because combined they do not serve the self-interested ideologies of the three main political parties.

Contemporary technology and society mean there is enough to go around. The richest could easily share their wealth to enable all UK citizens to have – not just a punitive ‘dole’, but a Basic Income or Citizens Income. Perhaps the discontent of Occupy and even the London riots testifies to the inescapable fact that there is sufficient wealth for all to have a tolerable life, and this is withheld by choice, by those who would lose so little in enriching others so much.

On the other hand, all the evidence suggests that the British people want to work, and believe that work should be rewarded. Yet this does not mean that many value the absurdly unequal system capitalism currently promotes.

We urgently need to separate work from the struggle not to starve, first conceptually and then in reality. A Living Wage is an essential step. But a Citizens Income– a basic right to adequate resource – would free people from the need to take a job - any job - or starve. Who knows what creativity and innovation could then be released? When wage slavery is no longer a reality for most people in the world, talk of the dignity of work will lose its false ring.

People could still have the right and opportunity to earn more. Some would choose to subsist, others to amass wealth. Some might even work longer and harder but keep less personal wealth. This decoupling of work and money-making, which some call ‘scrounging’, is already routine for the rich – through tax evasion and avoidance, living on interest and speculative banking. But most people need meaningful work for their fulfilment and self-esteem.

But there is an even more fundamental issue than rethinking economic distribution. If Government recognised meaningful employment as a full human and legal right, decisions about industry and employment would start from maximising the quality of life of citizens. In the UK, this would mean rebuilding work culture to serve the many not the few. It would mean asking people, not a minority of bosses, what makes work valuable and fulfilling. We might predict workers' cooperatives and John Lewis-style mutuals to inform fresh thinking about how work should be organised. But even more important is what work we do, why, and for whom.

The consequences of breaking the taboo on people having a say in the meaning of their lives could be radical. Most likely this would mean reversing all the major economic decisions of the last 30 years: rebuilding industry neglected for financial services and services industries, no longer allowing private multinational corporations in effect to set national policies, not using liberal immigration policies as a cover for importing cheap (often illegal) labour.

Rather than Welfare Reform, and a society whose consumerism is enabled by sweat shops somewhere in the world, social justice campaigners should prioritise policies that promote jobs worth doing. Politicians would need the courage to stand up to corporate blackmail, and their success would be bad news for international capitalism, but it would be good news economically and socially for the 99%.

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Hucklesby) — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 18:17:00 +0000

Tomorrow the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will launch a report detailing further evidence of clandestine nuclear activity in Iran. For example, we will be told that Iran has obtained designs for triggers for nuclear bombs suggesting that it might have an active weapons programme. If Iran did develop a bomb it would join an exclusive club of a very few countries with such capacity.

The Iranian Government will restate its claim that uranium enrichment is a civil programme for the development of nuclear power for civil purposes. Although President Ahmadinejad’s popularity in Iran is heading for the rocks, his support of an indigenous nuclear programme appeals to a widespread sense of national pride.

Similarly it is ultimately national pride and status (not national security considerations) that causes the UK, USA, Russia, China and France to reject practical steps towards achieving zero nuclear weapons. In May 2010 these five nuclear powers declined an offer from the UN Secretary General to host a conference on negotiating a path to global zero (although the offer was supported by a great many other countries). Our isolation on disarmament is damaging. To effectively tackle Iran and demand greater accountability we will need a stronger global consensus than currently exists.

Last week a first report from the Trident Commission (to which our three churches submitted evidence) suggests that far from the rhetoric of disarmament, the nuclear powers appear to be embarking on a new nuclear arms race, developing longer range missiles and smaller nuclear warheads designed for ‘tactical’ use.

If we want to get tough with Iran we have to demonstrate the direction of travel. Gone are the days when five nations could claim special status. This logic of our special status has been tested on the streets of Tehran and elsewhere and has been found wanting. We should seek to build an effective global alliance to require responsible behaviour from Iran. Many indications would suggest that this is achievable if the nuclear powers succeed in unlocking the deadlock on crucial issues that have been debated in the dysfunctional Conference on Disarmament over the past decade. Herein lies the challenge. Encouragingly, some of these issues are being debated in the UN General Assembly at the moment, and pressure brought to bear on nuclear powers to demonstrate their preferred direction of travel. But ultimately it is transparency and public engagement in the debate that will surely bring change - which is why processes such as the BASIC Trident Commission are so important.

Occupy LSX and Corporate Greed!

noreply@blogger.com (Frank Kantor) — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 11:08:00 +0000

Forget the Big Society (or Big State for that matter), its the Big Market that is still calling the shots! Research conducted by Incomes Data Services (IDS) into directors pay released on Friday reveals that FTSE 100 directors have seen total earnings increase by as average of 49% in the last financial year, and are now averaging £2,697,664 per annum. Following the pattern of bankers bonuses announced earlier this year, the increase in earnings of the directors of blue chip companies bears no relation to the level of profits, social value or overall benefit to the economy of these companies. They also bear no relation to the increases of other employees in these companies who on average only received increases of 3.2% whilst inflation has peaked at just over 5% for the year. Commenting on these findings, Steve Tatton of IDS said: "At a time when employees are experiencing real wage cuts and risk losing their livelihoods, without further explanation it may be difficult for FTSE100 companies to justify the significant increase in earnings awarded to their directors."

FTSE100 companies will be quick to point out that market rates dictate what they have to pay to attract and retain the right calibre director for a blue chip company. However, at an average ratio of 262:1 of top to bottom earners in these companies (compared to 15:1 in the public sector and 10:1 in the voluntary sector) this argument is both fallacious and immoral! In addition, the Independent on Sunday reported that a highly critical report into the moral standards of bankers has been suppressed by St Paul's Cathedral amid fears that it would inflame tensions over the Occupy London tent protest. The report, based on a survey of 500 City workers who were asked whether they thought they were worth their lucrative salaries and bonuses, which was due to be published last Thursday, is understood to raise profound concerns about the banking sector's willingness to accept responsibility for the financial crisis.

These reports highlight the fact that despite the key role that St Paul's Institute has played in facilitating debate on key issues and concerns about the excesses of the City of London (including recent debates on executive remuneration and the introduction on a financial transaction tax), that these debates do not appear to have any significant impact in changing the behaviour of City executives or the financial institutions they represent. This calls into question the Cathedral's earlier proposal to facilitate another debate with key stakeholders from the City and a delegation from the protesters on specific issues of concern (on the condition that they agree to leave the Cathedral precinct voluntarily), as it would appear that City of London executives are either totally out of touch with the social realities in the UK, or quite frankly don't care!

The two week protest outside St Paul's Cathedral by Occupy LSX has become a prophetic drama involving the Church, the protestors and the City of London (both officials and bankers) being enacted before a watching world! The Church has not fared too well in this drama thus far and it is incumbent on us as Christians to begin to ask some fundamental questions about our prophetic and pastoral roles in a society where poverty and inequality is rapidly increasing and appeasement of the financial services sector remains the Government's default position (despite the assurances of fairness and that we're all in this together)! What Would Jesus Do? remains the fundamental question not only for St Paul's but for all of us who claim to be followers of the one who taught us that you cannot love God and Mannon!

Our churches are part of a coalition which has launched a campaign called Close the Gap which is seeking to address the disparities in our soceity though prophetic, pastoral and prayerful action. The first focus of this campaign is on closing the Tax Gap and on Monday, a delegation from five of the UK's major Christian churches and organisations delivered an open letter to Chancellor George Osborne at the Treasury demanding that the government take action for Fair Taxes to Close the Gap between rich and poor. You can join our church leaders in calling for a fairer tax system by emailing the Chancellor at http://action.church-poverty.org.uk/ea-action/action?ea.client.id=128&ea.campaign.id=12401&forwarded=true

The United Reformed Church and the Methodist Church are also members of the Robin Hood Tax campaign calling for the introduction of a Financial Transaction Tax (FTT) and have called on the Prime Minister to support the call for an FTT to be introduced at the G20 Summit in Cannes on 3-4 November. You can also support this call by means of an email to David Cameron ahead of this crucial summit. See http://robinhoodtax.org/ for details

Plugging the Tax Gap

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Stacey) — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 11:26:00 +0000

Today in the Daily Telegraph representatives from our three churches along with several other organisations are calling on the government to tackle tax evasion. The letter calls tax evasion morally unacceptable and is removing funding which could otherwise go to the poorest in our communities. This is a part of the wider Close The Gap campaign which is seeking to narrow the gap between the richest and poorest in society.

The Open Letter calls for specific action by the Chancellor in three areas:

Ending the anomaly that when goods are bought by internet or mail order from a company based in the UK they attract VAT, but if they are bought from some off shore territories they are entirely tax free. A tax avoiding industry has sprung up, routing purchases though these territories purely to avoid tax. The £130million that this costs the UK exchequer is small in comparison to the total loss, but for instance would be enough to largely protect the Sure Start programme and children’s services from the 11% cut in the Early Years Intervention Grant.

Urging the Chancellor not to proceed with the draft proposals on Controlled Foreign Companies announced on 30 June. Whilst advocates of the policy claim that it will increase the UK’s ‘business competitiveness,’ what it actually offers is big incentives for companies to shift their financial operations to ‘off-shore’ tax havens as a means of avoiding paying UK taxes. Even on the Treasury’s own estimates, this will cost £840 million in lost taxes a year.

Urging serious consideration of the need to introduce a General Anti-Avoidance Rule into UK domestic law. Whilst we all await the outcome of the Aaronson inquiry, due to report today (31 Oct), we are convinced that such legislation could be framed to meet the objectives of deterring and countering tax avoidance in a fair way, whilst at the same time providing certainty for business.

You can add your voice to this action by emailing the chancellor and calling for tough action on tax evasion.

Justice for All

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Lampard) — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 21:32:00 +0000

Early advice and help can stop people becoming homeless, be consumed by debt or be treated unjustly at work or by landlords. The Baptist Union of Great Britain, the United Reformed Church and the Methodist Church are supporting the Justice for All campaign. This campaign is needed because community legal and advice services which help the most vulnerable in a community get treated fairly are under threat through the Government's Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill and through spending cuts.

The President of the Methodist Conference, Revd Leo Osborn, said recently:

"It is clear that over the coming months and years the
numbers of people in living in poverty will increase. Decisions regarding benefits and housing will become
increasingly crucial in people’s lives. Sadly there are people that seek to exploit those who have fallen on hard times. This is a time when legal advice and access to justice for the poorest will become increasingly important and it is vital that the government recognises
this priority.

"Justice should be available to all, it is not a commodity to be bought and sold. Any system which makes just treatment dependant on a person’s income is profoundly at odds with Gospel values."

Research by Justice for All suggests that under the new arrangements, a third of the country may not have face to face employment, housing or debt advice.If you would like to write to your MP in advance of the report stages debate in the House of Commons, find out more information from the Justice for All website or use their online tool to write directly to your MP.

Digital first, Benefit claimants last

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Stacey) — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 11:10:00 +0000

In 2013 the Government will introduce a new benefit called Universal Credit which will replace a long list of existing benefits and tax credits in an attempt to simplify the benefits system. The amount of Universal Credit a person receives will depend on the size of their family, the cost of their rent, how disabled they are, and how much they are earning. As a part of introducing this new credit the government is creating a massive IT project to join together the computer systems of the DWP and the HMRC. The idea is that this new system will be able to automatically update the amount of benefit a person receives from the DWP as their earnings increase or decrease as seen by the HMRC. Large scale government IT projects don’t have the best record but this one appears to be on time and on budget at this stage.

The problem with this IT project only really appears when you look at how the public are supposed to interact with it. Benefit claimants are supposed to check their online accounts to see how their UC has been calculated and why it has changed from the previous months amount. Extending this “digital first” principle the DWP is exploring how smart phones can be used by claimants. In theory this sounds like a really good system and if the government’s prediction that 80% of claimants accessed benefit online were true, it would be. However at the moment only 17% of claimants apply online and they mostly don’t use smart phones.

Although the government says that “we do not underestimate the challenge of changing customer behaviour to use new channels,“ they seem to be missing the point or greatly overestimating their ability. Benefit claimants are the one of the least likely groups to have internet access and in the general population only 73% of households have internet access. This makes it extremely unlikely that 80% of benefit claimants will access benefits online. Job seekers allowance claimants are the most likely to have internet access and only 60% of them have home access. For claimants who don’t have home access their main point of access for free internet is through public libraries which are closing across the country due to cuts.

Unsurprisingly research has shown that there is a strong link between a person’s social disadvantage and their access and use of digital services. Long term unemployed and disabled claimants can have multiple barriers to accessing the internet including poor literacy and English language skills, often with health problems that limit their mobility. These claimants lack the type of computer literacy which is needed to use the internet navigate complex websites and in some cases are illiterate, (one in six people in the UK struggle with literacy) which rules out internet usage entirely. It is unrealistic to expect these vulnerable claimants to be accessing their benefits online. According to the DWP’s own report a number of Jobcentre plus staff lacked familiarity with the Internet and were unaware of the government’s online services. The idea that in two years the government will have: trained its staff in using the internet and its online services; then trained them to teach others; then ensured that benefit claimants are literate enough to use the website; then trained them to use a computer and the internet; and finally provided free access to the internet whilst simultaneously closing the main free public internet access points; is a little bit optimistic.

Considering all these difficulties it seems odd that the government have not fully outlined their offline strategy for benefit applications and keeping benefit claimants informed about their benefit. They have suggested that the majority of offline claimants can use automated telephone services (which is extremely difficult for users for whom English is a not their first language) and a small minority “who really need it” will have face to face contact.

Every Week's a Chocolate Week, but at what price?

noreply@blogger.com (Rosemary Kidd) — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 09:12:00 +0000

The Joint Public Issues Team is a unique ecumenical relationship which enables our three churches to have a social and political voice. This is my last blog before retiring, and I don't doubt that I shall miss the stimulation of working in the Team! For example, I didn't know it was Chocolate Week until URC colleague Wendy Cooper led us in reflection and prayer for the growers. I love the stuff, but I shall never again eat chocolate in ignorance again.

Of course we all know that Tradecraft, Divine, and the Meaningful Chocolate Company produce Fairly Traded chocolate and why. It was fantastic to hear how growers in the Dominican Republic have used their Fair Trade increments to buy better machinery, new storage sheds, and so increase their yield. Their raised profits have enabled them to build schools for their children and improve their standard of living.

But for five years, Methodist Colleague Steve Hucklesby has monitored the campaigns against the illegal use of child labour by chocolate growers in the major producing countries: Ghana and the Ivory Coast. Unless we only buy Fairly Traded chocolate, it is highly likely that we will be eating or drinking chocolate from huge African plantations supplying Western companies, and Western sweet teeth - on the backs of children.

African farmers should be free to grow food for their children, and sell the surplus produce in order to send their children to school and on to higher education, or at the very least being paid a Fair Trade price for their crop of cocoa beans. I think I know what Jesus would have said about it!

This week is also Archbishop Desmond Tutu's 80th birthday, and you may have heard him speaking on the Sunday Programme on BBC Radio 4 (09.10.11). His prophetic voice speaks condemns injustice. On this occasion he said, "I shall never keep quiet. It isn't because I am a political animal. It is all to do with my understanding of the God who is revealed in the Bible; this God who has this notorious bias in favour of the downtrodden and the despised."

We do wish Archbishop Desmond Tutu a very Happy Birthday, and thank God for his spiritual leadership which continues to influence so many lives.

Twenty years his junior, I shall continue to read the Joint Public Issues Team's newsletter and vote, and lobby my MP on issues which threaten the livelihoods of the millions whom God cares for the most.

http://www.jointpublicissues.org.uk/jpitnewsletter.htm

Populism and Party Conferences.

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Morrison) — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 13:46:00 +0000

Under the policy of Localism - who is responsible for these?

Party Conference season has come and gone. All the parties attempt to walk the line between pleasing their members, who hold strong and often politically inconvenient views, and the wider public. Sadly the result of this seemingly unsquarable circle is often superficial populism. All parties do it but it particularly unedifying when public spending commitments are unveiled in an attempt to feed populist demands.

The introduction of the principle of localism was intended to mean councils had responsibility for spending their budgets, and take both the credit and the blame for those decisions. In a time of reducing budgets there is a great deal more blame than credit to be had. But last week ministers announced £1billion of spending by local government. The intention is to say that ministers of the governing parties - and not your council - are responsible for the frequency of your bin collections and the size of your council tax bill.

This week sees Eric Pickles find a quarter of a billion pounds to get the English weekly bin collections. I walked round a deprived estate in Bradford recently where the council was cutting community transport, youth training, back to work schemes etc, etc. At no point did I think “what these people need is weekly bin collections”. My feeling is that if Bradford Council were given the choice how to spend their share of this money that might be their view too. But there is a group in society for whom this is an obsession and a quarter of a billion pounds was found to please them.

There were rumours that the Chancellor wanted to announce an end to the top rate of income tax, but was thwarted. Instead he announced that councils will be given £805 million to freeze council tax. Strictly this is a matter for Eric Pickles’ department but presentation means the popular policies must be divvied out. As Council Tax is regressive we should welcome the fact it is frozen. We also need to remember the people who have been hit the hardest by housing benefit and other cuts do not pay Council Tax – so this freeze is good especially for households in the lower middle, but the poorest won’t see any of the £800million. The policy will be popular – but possibly not because of its effect on the injustice of the poor paying more tax than the rich.

This post sounds a bit world weary – because it is. The headline popular policy is always revealed with a flourish come Conference time. The eye catching policies will get enthusiasts talking endlessly about positioning, the fate of different factions within the parties, how this will play in opinion polls..... Journalists will produce many stories about how these policies will affect their idea of a worthy family, or how it will help the economy.....I think the rest will be pleased or annoyed depending on their point of view but be united in losing another little bit of respect for a process which make decisions based on populism and cheering party faithful.

My - perhaps naive - view is that populism is transient but respect is more important, longer term and built from things more substantial than giving away tit-bits at Conference time.

Statistics note (I refuse to do a blog post without some): a common trick is to announce money twice. So the £805million announced by the Chancellor may include the £250million announced by Pickles or it may not - the detail won’t be announced until well after the news story has faded away.

Drone Wars

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Hucklesby) — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 09:44:00 +0000

BBC Radio 4 - Sunday 25 September - 1:30pm (and Methodist Conference)
Pilotless drones armed with missiles and bombs are the next big thing in war-fighting. This 30 minute programme on BBC Radio 4 explores the ethical dilemmas of these new weapon systems that give us the capacity to kill soldiers or militants with no risk to our own troops.

The UK is using pilotless aircraft in to target militants in Afghanistan. Each aircraft is controlled by three operators based at an airbase in Lincolnshire who fire missiles at people identified by the planes video camera. In a telling interview the radio 4 programme talked to one such operator who describes how he has to learn to cope with killing a group of militants in the morning (with his joystick and fire buttons) and then go home to his family for supper.

The US use of pilotless drones in Pakistan is particularly disturbing. Rt Revd Humphrey Peters, Bishop of Peshawar addressed a Methodist Conference debate on armed drones and described the turmoil that these attacks are causing to communities in northern Pakistan. In his estimation, for every terrorist killed, 15 to 20 civilians die.

The Radio 4 programme concludes that the use of remote killing machines raise new ethical issues that need to be examined. Methodist Conference has asked us to undertake such an examination and the Baptist Union of Great Britain and United Reformed Church have asked to be a part of this. We will meet with experts in the field and plan to publish a report in the Spring of 2012. If you would like to know more or contribute, contact me at hucklesbys@methodistchurch.org.uk.

Two reports on who is being affected by the Cuts: One extremely unjust message

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Morrison) — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 13:13:00 +0000

Today sees the publication of two important reports about who will be affected by the cuts and by how much. As a nerd who enjoys graphs this is a reason for joy; as someone with a care for social justice there is absolutely no joy to be found at all.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) shows conclusively that the poorest will be hit hardest. The bottom fifth of earners will lose about 6% of their income in lost benefits and government services and around another 6% in real terms wage cuts – a 12% hit. Taking a 12% cut is bad for anyone, but for those already facing hardship - how can this be just?

Well maybe it could if we were all in this together but we most definitely are not. The top fifth of society (basically all higher rate tax payers) are facing a 4% reduction. The highest 1% (£150,000+ tax band payers) are facing higher taxes, due mainly to changes in pension tax relief, but a combination of high pay rises and tax avoidance strategies will probably mean their real incomes will actually increase.

The second study released today is from the Children’s Society and looks at the effect of the arbitrary benefit cap of £500 a week on any household. The sad but unsurprising fact is the poorest are disproportionately affected, and the poorest children even more so. Here are just the headline findings.

Children will be 9 times more likely to be affected than adults.
69,000 adults and 206,000 children will have their household incomes reduced (by an average of at least £92 a week).
27,000 adults and 82,400 children will be made homeless.
Children in poverty will move into severe poverty – an internationally recognised definition of poverty where lack of resources leads to serious impacts on children’s health and wellbeing.

There is a lot of interesting detail given in the study which I won’t go into but it is important to realise this work takes as its base the rather optimistic Department of Work and Pension estimates of the number of households affected, and uses very optimistic assumptions to avoid exaggeration. The related housing benefit cap will be introduced for everyone in January, and the total benefit cap will be introduced in April 2012.

These are all choices and do not let the Government rhetoric on deficit reduction fool you into thinking there is no other choice. The rate at which the deficit is cut is a choice, the proportion of cuts and tax rises is a choice, who will be most affected by the cuts and tax changes is a choice.

Alison Tomlin stated on the eve of the Comprehensive Spending Review to Westminster Central Hall full of TUC and social justice activists, that the Government should be judged on the choices it made around how it treats the poorest and most vulnerable. My own judgement on the direction of government policy in general and the arbitrary benefit caps in particular is clear: - Unjust, unfair and unacceptable.

The Housing Crisis

noreply@blogger.com (James North) — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 12:13:00 +0000

The word 'crisis' is overused, but the National Housing Federation's warning of a coming housing crisis is not so much alarmist, as inevitable unless a fundamental change of policy takes place. Beyond the lesser crisis for party politics and middle-class aspiration, there is a growing threat of increased poverty and homelessness due to the shortage of affordable housing.

There are nearly 5 million people on social housing waiting lists in the UK, homelessness is rising and cuts to housing benefit are tightening the screws on those on low incomes. On 2010 Government figures, 48% of Local Housing Allowance claimants, i.e. private sector tenants in receipt of housing benefit, experienced an average shortfall of £23 per week between their rent and the benefit they received. £23 is a serious sum to have to meet from a low wage or unemployment benefit. And these figures were before the cuts announced in the Comprehensive Spending Review of October 2010, which have begun to come into effect from April this year: preliminary studies suggest things are going to get much worse.

The single main cause of the pending crisis is the ongoing failure of successive governments to build sufficient social housing in combination with the 'right to buy' scheme introduced by Thatcher in the 1980s. This led to a chronic and unsustainable loss of social housing stock especially following the previous Labour Government's wasted opportunity to invest in social housing during the boom.

During an economic downturn, with home ownership set to fall to 1980s levels, the increased difficulties in getting mortgages, along with benefit cuts, make the need for social housing acute. Yet Government has announced an approximately 50% cut in its social housing budget from £8.4bn to £4.4bn from 2011-2014.

Whilst the Keynsian attitude that a country must spend its way out of an economic crisis is not universally valid, it arguably applies to housing, which is on a par with national infrastructure. History shows that the cost of investment in good social housing is soon recouped. Increased investment in social housing would also create jobs and incentivise the housing and related sectors.

It would also offset the net result of this and the last Government's housing policy which is an ever-increasing transfer of taxpayers' money to private landlords. According to the (aptly-named) housing charity, Crisis, the average private sector rent rose from £79 per week in 1997/8 to £129 in 2007/8, while the average housing benefit award in 2007/8 was £109.25

The current housing benefit bill is estimated at £21bn - this is a massive sum. But the most significant cause of the last decade's increased bill is the steep rise in private rental prices. One of the many damaging effects of the way housing became bound up with global financial speculation and irresponsible borrowing and lending was that house prices in the UK appoximately trebled in the last decade. The persistent high value of property not only prices many out of home ownership, but contributes to landlords charging higher rents. Contrary to popular opinion, this is not merely an issue for the unemployed: 2010 figures showed that more housing benefit claimants were in work (26%) than out of work (22%). The net result is that private tenants struggle to pay the rent while their money drains away instead of serving to support social housing stock.

It is fundamentally scandalous that average wages (and benefits) are so low that people need the current high levels of housing benefit. But the Government's housing benefit cuts look set to increase pain for the growing proportion of the less well off in the UK without resolving the problem. It has justified setting the Local Housing Allowance at the 30th percentile instead of the median, and an 'affordable rent scheme' allowing housing associations to charge tenants up to 80% of local market rates, by claiming that landlords will reduce rents to accomodate falls in benefits. In view of the high demand for accomodation and ongoing property values, this remains an unlikely scenario.

The other solution would be for Government to cap rents. That this policy is politically unpopular is a sad reflection on how property and the land it occupies have been equated, mistakenly, with the market. This leads to property speculation and high housing costs and works agaist communities. From a Biblical point of view, it ignores the theological view of the earth as God's creation and a field not just of opportunity but stewardship and moral action. Housing is not a lifestyle choice and land not a 'possession' in the way a car is; they are more fundamental should be guarded against being made subject to concepts of profit and 'value added'. Until our society revisions the concept of land value and the malpractice of exploiting people's basic need for shelter and a context in which to thrive, property will continue to enshrine a feudal attitude of enclosure and landlordism.

To Remember and Reflect - a meditation on the 10th Anniversary of 9/11

noreply@blogger.com (Frank Kantor) — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 13:21:00 +0000

   Too long have I had my dwelling
   among those who hate peace. ⁷ I am for peace;
   but when I speak,
   they are for war.

(Psalm 120:6-7)

The 10^th anniversary of the 9/11 tragedy provides a salutary opportunity to remember the victims of this attack and to reflect on the issue of human security in a world of increasing poverty, inequality and conflict. Firstly, we need to remember the victims and families of those killed and injured during the terror attacks on the Twin Towers and Pentagon and to reassert our condemnation of all forms of terrorist activity in any part of the world. We particularly condemn the callous and cowardly indoctrination and deployment of suicide bombers by extremist groups who indiscriminately kill men, women and children for their perverse ends! Their abusive and destructive actions have destroyed the lives of tens of thousands of people over the past decade and despite their propaganda they are to be counted among those the Psalmist identifies as haters of peace!

However, we also need to remember the multiple thousands of casualties – both armed forces and civilians – and countless number of maimed, injured and emotionally traumatised victims (and their families) of the so-called ‘War on Terror’ in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past decade. The pain and suffering this has caused the civilian populations in these countries has been immense and continues to foster resentment and hatred towards the West despite regime change and greater political freedom. We pay tribute to those in our armed forces who have paid the ultimate price in seeking to secure our national security in the UK and pray for those who continue to struggle with the enormous pain of the loss and void of the death of a loved one in military conflict. However, the critical question that begs answering in the light of all this pain and suffering is whether the UK and the rest of the world is a safer and more humane place after ten years of conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Ironically, this decade of violence and mayhem coincided with the WCC’s Decade to Overcome Violence which recently culminated with the International Ecumenical Peace Convocation in Jamaica in May where an impassioned call was made for a Just Peace in all areas where violence and conflict continue to prevail. In the closing message from this Convocation in the section entitled Peace among Peoples it says:

“History, especially in the witness of the historic peace churches, reminds us of the fact that violence is contrary to the will of God and can never resolve conflicts. It is for this reason that we are moving beyond the doctrine of just war towards a commitment to Just Peace. It requires moving from exclusive concepts of national security to safety for all. This includes a day-to-day responsibility to prevent, that is, to avoid violence at its root. Many practical aspects of the concept of Just Peace require discussion, discernment and elaboration. We continue to struggle with how innocent people can be protected from injustice, war and violence. In this light, we struggle with the concept of the “responsibility to protect” and its possible misuse. We urgently request that the WCC and related bodies further clarify their positions regarding this policy.”

The tenth anniversary of the 9/11 tragedy affords us a sombre opportunity to remember and reflect and commit ourselves afresh to the urgent task of peace-building in our hearts, homes and communities. For as TS Elliot reminds us: “If humility and purity be not in the heart, they are not in the home: and if they are not in the home, they are not in the City” (Choruses from the Rock, Book V).

Frank Kantor

Today's War brings Tomorrow's Refugees

noreply@blogger.com (Rosemary Kidd) — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 15:50:00 +0000

Today, as I write, innocent Libyan people, young and old, are still dying. The propaganda war seeps around the world. The tenor of the media reporting, however, has become more hopeful. Green Square has been renamed Martyrs Square. Peace cannot come soon enough.

We British people will surely be relieved to hear that is all over, and we will be able to “tick that one off”. Unless we are also Libyan, or have family in that country, Libya will simply disappear from our television sets for now.
There is no doubt that our personal and societal attitudes are heavily influenced by snippets of information. We are all guilty of constructing our reaction to foreign people from a matrix of extraneous suppositions.

Today’s war brings tomorrows refugees. As a nation we are not prepared to receive these hurting people. “It is alright, as long as they stay where they are.”
People seeking asylum from terror in the UK have been demonised by inaccurate reporting. They are too often regarded as sponging migrants, rather than folk fleeing from violence, including torture and rape. Our government is pursuing a policy of excluding as many foreigners as possible, which includes many of those who desperately sought safety in the UK.
The asylum system works by assuming that all claimants are lying, until they can substantiate their story. That takes time, (which is often not granted), and access to specialist lawyers, and unbiased translation. Meanwhile, amidst the political culture of cutting every aspect of our social fabric, the number of asylum specialist lawyers has dwindled, and the organisations which support those seeking sanctuary in British cities have lost their funding.
This is why, as Christians amongst other people of faith and humanity, we need to care for the refugees who arrive in the UK. It is not uncommon for asylum seekers to have to ask ‘what country they are in?’ and ‘what language is being spoken?’ They need help with all the most basic things of life, just to survive, and many church folk are doing just that. The Churches Refugee Network can be accessed through the Joint Public Issues Team, and exists to support anyone in our churches who is serving the sanctuary seekers.