Welfare Reform Bill - You Can Act!

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.

A sickness in society – I blame the politicians (and their parents).

The knee-jerk call to remove social housing from people who were involved in recent rioting may be populist but is a great example of why the poorest continue to get poorer and are badly served by politicians. A further call to remove benefits from rioters has not been implemented - yet - but is receiving a sympathetic ear from government

The plan has many obvious flaws. Should the innocent brothers and sisters be made homeless because of the actions of one member of their family? Should the sins of the son really be visited upon the father (or even the single parent)? But the truly discriminatory aspect is that this extra punishment is meeted out only to those in social housing, by definition some of the poorest in society. Should you own your own house you are exempt.

There are two ways to live securely in one house indefinitely; a mortgage or a social tenancy. Both involve keeping up regular monthly payments for a prolonged period. The difference is if you have a good credit rating and enough money for a deposit (for 4 out of 5 new house buyers this means having parents wealthy enough to give them the cash) you can buy a house using a mortgage with the massive advantage of only needing to pay for a limited amount of time and having an asset to sell at the end. If you can’t get a deposit or have a poor credit rating then if you are very lucky you might get an indefinite social tenancy. You will have to pay every month indefinitely and you won’t have an asset to sell – but at least you will be secure.

Removal of a social tenancy is the equivalent of forcing a person with a mortgage to sell their house and smearing their credit rating such that they will never get a mortgage again. Will such equal punishments be dealt to both rich and poor – Not a chance.

To make matters worse the government plans to stop new secure social tenancies next year - so if you lose yours now you will probably never have a secure home again.

A society which taxes the poor more than it taxes the rich – is sick. A society which responds to having the lowest social mobility in the developed world by stigmatising the poor and cutting their support and benefits – is sick, and a society which punishes the poor more than the rich – is sick.

Why do I blame the politicians? The “sick” level of economic injustice in the UK requires that thousands of small discriminatory decisions such as this one be taken. Most politicians don’t come from these communities and are able to make these thoughtless decisions because they lack any real understanding of this entire sectire section of society. Nor do they make effective efforts to bring them into decision making processes either as politicians or as community representatives. Until every community is listened to the sickness will continue.

Poverty, the Credit Trap and Legal Loan Sharks

Church Action on Poverty (CAP) launched its Close the Gap campaign on Monday 31 Jan. Running for three years, this campaign is calling on participants to Give, Act and Pray, to bring about a more equal society.

Representatives of churches and charities involved in Close the Gap delivered CAP’s new report based on a survey of local Christians’ concerns to 10 Downing Street, as well as over 1500 postcards capturing respondents’ messages for the Prime Minister on poverty and social justice, collected by CAP, and by the Joint Public Issues Team at Greenbelt 2010. The Methodist Church was represented by current Youth President Christy-Anna Errington and President Designate of Conference Leo Osborn (second from right and far right in the front row) and the Baptist Union by Sivakumar Rajagopalan, Regional Minister (Racial Justice) at the London Baptist Association.

One of the first calls to action was to email MPs and invite them to participate in this morning’s parliamentary debate on credit, one of two significant debates on debt and lending that took place in Parliament this morning. Labour MP Stella Creasy (pictured) and Conservative Justin Tomlinson are initiating the discussion of Consumer Credit Regulation in the Commons. In the Lords, Lord Kennedy of Southwark raises the question of interest charged by loan and credit companies.

Unusually for an industrialised economy, the UK sets no legal limit to the total cost of credit. In the wake of the Government’s spending cuts, there is widespread concern that increasing poverty may lead the vulnerable into an ever greater spiral of borrowing and unsustainable debt, and tempt lenders to exploit the increasing need for funds.

The Methodist Church has urged all MP’s to turn up and support Thursday’s motion to cap the cost of credit to consumers. Revd Alison Tomlin, President of the Methodist Conference, said: “One phone app offers to pay an urgent heating bill within the hour at a rate of 4214% APR. We have welcomed government proposals to regulate “excessive” store card interest rates, which David Cameron estimated would be any charging around 25% and over. It would be ludicrous and unfair to call 25% ‘excessive’ for one set of customers while allowing more vulnerable customers to pay 4214%.”

Deacon Eunice Attwood, Vice President of the Methodist Conference has also said “Working in Newcastle I have seen the damage debt and especially debt at high interest rates can do. The sight of people legally exploiting vulnerable families year after year, cannot be allowed to go on”.

Politicians and the poor. A sliding scale of respect?

I listened to the proposals for Welfare reform last Thursday seething with anger. A one stage my heated discussion with the BBC Parliament Channel was loud enough to wake my 6 month-old baby in the next room – something any sleep deprived parent will avoid in all but the most extreme circumstances.
The announcement talked again and again of those who refuse to work, while refusing to address the question of where that work will come from. A Spending Review that leads to between 1 million and 1.5 million job losses has just been announced and welfare proposals talk of threats to the work-shy and preparing the willing for the job-market. How can this circle be squared?
More importantly as Job Seekers Allowance is less than £3500pa to cover every expense but rent, who can seriously think that people on this standard of living are not already well motivated to seek additional income?
Church groups from Joint Public Issues Team to Rowan Williams (possibly a greater authority – I will ask Faith and Order) are clear that forcing the long term unemployed people to do “manual work” for the equivalent of £1.73 per hour on pain of losing all their income is not a serious way forward. The proposals will unhelpfully merge the worker employed to do the valuable job of cleaning our public spaces, the enforced worker who is doing this to keep his/her benefits - working for 1/3rd of the minimum wage, and the person doing community service who has committed an offence.
Recent government announcements would lead the casual observer to believe that the coalition values people a similar sliding scale - Private Sector wealth creator, Public Sector worker, unemployed and then offender. The government’s repeated exaggeration of benefit fraud statistics is just one example of this stigmatisation of the least well off.
For the avoidance of doubt the Church’s position is simple: - all are equally valuable, all do not suffer the same level of need and assistance should be provided on the basis of need. And to my surprise in a meeting with Phillipa Stroud, Ian Duncan-Smith’s special adviser, last week it would appear to be her position too.
While I personally disagree with her and the Government’s position on Welfare Reform, and I believe the Church will take a negative view of many of the proposals, it was clear she is a concerned, intelligent and committed Christian working to do what she feels will improve the lives of the poorest. The lesson for me is to listen even when I don’t want to, to respect the views of those I disagree with and to avoid personalising arguments about policy. The people who do not agree with me, the Methodist Church or even Rowan Williams about an issue central to social holiness as welfare reform are still as worthy of respect and consideration as the poorest who we should all be fighting for.

The Joint Resolution of URC and Methodist Councils on Poverty

Earlier this month the Councils of the United Reformed Church and the Methodist Church held a unique joint meeting. Among other business, the two Councils had a lively debate on poverty and inequality, and agreed the following resolution as a joint basis for further work in each denomination.

The Methodist Council and URC Mission Council meeting together note that:

• despite being the 5th wealthiest country in the world, in the UK almost 1 in 4 adults and 1 in 3 Children live in poverty
• income inequality in the UK has risen to its highest level since the Second World War
• all are created to experience life in all its fullness, and that for those in poverty lack of resource is an often insurmountable obstacle to this
• relative poverty impacts on life chances, in terms of lower educational attainment, health, and life expectancy
• inequality is increasingly a barrier to the relationships within society and it is clear that the impact of inequality makes us all poorer economically, socially and spiritually
• 20th October 2010 the government will announce reductions in spending expected to have lasting effects on the poorest and most vulnerable in society.

The Methodist Council and URC Mission Council meeting together resolve:

• to promote just distribution of income by confirming our commitment to the Living Wage and by calling for benefit and wage policies that provide the opportunity for all to live and work in dignity
• through the work of the Joint Public Issues Team and others, to challenge the causes of poverty and inequality inherent in our society
• to stand alongside those worst affected by the government spending review and to demand that the burdens of the current economic situation are not unfairly put on the poor and the vulnerable
• to challenge those who would stigmatise the poor and portray those in poverty as “lazy”, or “having made a lifestyle choice”, or being “scroungers”
• to listen to and tell the real stories of those who struggle on low incomes.

Addressing poverty and inequality is one of the Joint Public Issues Team’s core priorities for the year ahead. It will form a key theme at the Public Issues Conference on 22 January 2011. More information about the Conference will appear in later postings.

Ask the Chancellors?

Perhaps strangely for someone in my job I really can’t abide political debates on television. I have never even managed to watch Question Time all the way through. I find these debates merely serve to reinforce my existing prejudices, and the shallow point-scoring makes me wince. I was convinced that the recent decision to televise a debate between the three main party leaders was a step backwards for democracy.

Or that was the case until I watched Ask the Chancellors on Channel 4 last night. Alastair Darling, George Osborne and Vince Cable lined up to make their pitch to be the next chancellor. There was nothing revolutionary about the format and I admit I initially watched it out of duty. But it made for fascinating television.

So why the change of heart? The point-scoring was still there, and I haven’t changed my mind about how I’ll vote. But it started to mine the complexities of some of the political debates around the economy and the faultlines between the parties. The leaders’ debates won’t be so “free”, but will hopefully be equally compelling.

But most of all the programme reminded me where so many of the voters’ concerns lie. Whilst the post-Crunch/pre-election messages of the Churches are focused on inequality and the need to ensure that those who didn’t benefit from the boom are not the ones who are made to suffer most in the bust, the studio audience appeared almost wholly concerned about the impact of economic decisions on individuals’ and businesses’ income. It was left to the moderator, Krishnan Guru-Murthy to ask whether the government was responsible for tackling inequality.

I still believe that the Churches are called to go to, in the words of John Wesley, “not to those who need you but to those who need you most”. But how should we meet the challenge to get these messages across to politicians and voters alike?