Church resources & new campaign: ENOUGH

Dear friends,

 

You may have seen that the House of Lords has asked the Government to think again on its proposals for radical reductions to tax credits next April. The Churches informed the debate with briefings and careful reflections from the Bishops. The role of Churches and churches members in ensuring that the circumstances of poorest are at the forefront of lawmaker’s minds continues to be vital.

 

Monday’s vote was about short-term cuts. The Welfare Reform and Work Bill going through parliament contains much larger cuts, as well as important changes to the core principles of the benefits system.

 

Benefits were intended to provide families that need support with enough to have a basic standard of living. The Bill proposes that for many – mainly families with children – this link between their basic needs and the support offered is broken.

We know that children raised in families without enough money are more likely to die as infants, do worse at school, experience more disease and illness, and go on to die younger.

 

Together with our partner Churches, we will be asking the Government to reconsider its proposals and we’d like to invite you to join us.

The campaign and report will be launching very soon, but in the meantime we have created a set of resources for Church use, which are available to view and download here. These include:

• An introduction to the campaign and information about how you can help
• A short video explaining why this matters right now
• A bible reflection on the theme of ‘enough’
• A prayer
• A specially-written hymn

Please check out the resources, share them and use them as widely as you can.

Thank you again for your support and please don’t hesitate to email us if you have any queries.

Best wishes,

The Joint Public Issues Team