Final autumn statement

On Wednesday 23rd November 2016, Philip Hammond delivered his first and last Autumn Statement.

This is one of the two annual statements the Chancellor of the Exchequer makes to Parliament, the other being the Budget and it will not have been an easy one to make. 

Our national debt is already £1.7 trillion and growing at £5000 per second.

As the principal steward of the nation’s finances, he has a duty to be prudent and yet he is faced with numerous demands for increased spending but limited scope for increasing taxes or more borrowing. 

Brexit has also made his task more difficult. 

Whilst there is uncertainty about the outcome of the negotiations to leave the EU, companies are cautious about new investment. 

The value of the pound has fallen sharply, which helps exporters but makes imported goods and materials more expensive. Inflation is still low but has risen 1% which is reflected in food prices.

Notwithstanding these constraints there are some real pressures on the Chancellor to be generous. 

The Prime Minister has urged him to do something to help those who are ‘just about managing’.

He raised the income tax threshold from £11,000 to £11,500 from next April and increased the National Living Wage from £7.20 to £7.50 per hour. 

He also froze the fuel duty and tinkered with the Universal Credit taper rate. 

They are modest measures and will help the ‘JAMS’ a bit but didn’t satisfy the Shadow Chancellor who said some working families would only see £150 returned to them from an original cut in benefits of £2,500 a year.

The Chancellor’s two priorities were to prepare the economy to cope with the effects of Brexit and invest in strategic infrastructure projects. 

The independent Office of Budget Responsibility admits there is uncertainty about what Brexit will do to the economy but forecasts that the economy will grow less than would otherwise have been the case, upsetting the hard line Brexiteers.

 Mr Hammond’s response was to allocate £23 billion over the next five years for major infrastructure projects to help stimulate growth. 

That includes £2billion for research and innovation, £1.4 billion for 40,000 affordable homes together with the £2.3billion already announced for a new Housing Infrastructure Fund to build up to 100,000 new homes in areas of high demand, as well as major road and rail projects. 

He also allocated £1billion for a digital infrastructure to speed up broadband.

A shocking part of the Statement concerns poor productivity in Britain, we lag well behind the US and Germany but also France and Italy. 

Hammond said “It takes a German four days to produce what we make in five; in turn that means that too many British workers work longer hours for lower pay than their counterparts”. 

Changing that will include investment in new technology by firms, better training for workers and smarter management.

The biggest concern about these plans is that they increase the budget deficit instead of bringing it down. 

George Osborne had planned to eliminate the deficit by 2019/20, Hammond has postponed that into the next parliament.  

This means that they have failed to keep their promises in the 2010 and 2015 manifestos, damaging their credibility as reliable stewards of the nation’s finances and voters may feel a decade of austerity was for nothing.

This really is the last autumn statement after the 2017 Spring Budget, the Budget will be in the autumn. 

Whenever it is it will affect all of us in some way and prayer for everyone involved in its preparation and delivery need our prayers.

European Union (EU): In or out Britain's three options

The Government has spread around a pretty booklet as to why it believes that voting to remain in the European Union (EU) on Thursday 23^rd June 2016, is the best decision for the UK.

Nudge nudge wink wink. Some of the Government believe this, others – a very substantial proportion – believe otherwise.

But those others haven't had the option of sending a booklet to every house in the country, funded by the taxpaying recipients.

Nearly all the arguments are economic, there’s just one page on a different topic.

Well, there aren’t many pages and some of them are just pictures; but the different topics are ‘Controlling immigration and securing our borders’.

The economic arguments are completely spurious, Britain would be worse off if we exited, apparently.

Nobody knows this, but even if it was certainly true it would be irrelevant as Britain is one of the richest countries in the world.

We could easily feed the hungry, house the homeless and provide enough hospitals and doctors so that there were no health care waiting lists.

In or out of the EU, we’ve got more than enough wealth to meet all our needs.

Instead we’ve spent 40 years taking from the poor and giving to the rich – who don’t need it and It’s been the British Government of various political persuasion own choice, regardless of EU membership.

As long as we are in the EU we have to abide by various regulations, some are to protect the environment, some to protect employees.

The regulations may not be nowhere near enough, but some of the leading Brexit campaigners want out because they want to abandon these safeguards.

Had it not been for the EU regulations and safeguards, Europe would have gone to war again by now; but we do know that xenophobia is once again growing.

Other European governments are, like Britain, increasingly determined to keep people out.

We’re told that ‘the Government has negotiated a deal regarding immigration that will make our benefits system less of a draw for EU citizens.’- at a time when there are millions of refugees seeking a home anywhere they can get one! - future generations will look on us with horror at our callousness.

It looks as though we are all increasingly uncaring about other people if Britain leaves, the EU will be severely weakened and it will not be the same again, other countries may follow suit.

So do we identify with foreigners and seek to cooperate with them, or do we see them as alien and turn our backs on them?

Are we bound to be at daggers drawn, or is there a unity to humanity?

Historically, the idea of humanity as a unity came from Christianity.

Christianity inherited from Judaism the idea of a single god of the whole universe, and abolished the idea of a chosen race, the good news is for everyone.

Whoever you are, wherever you come from, you are a child of God. 

God loves you, and has provided enough resources for your needs to be met, along with everybody else’s.

If they are not met, the fault lies with human authorities, not with the meanness of nature.

So in this ‘in or out?’ referendum there are actually three positions:

• One is to leave.

• One is to carry on as we are, with a self-congratulatory pat on the back, despite the worsening trends.

• The third is to stay in the EU and change it. - Greece, to its credit, tried but was crushed by the neoliberal system.

Other countries are also losing out the way Greece is, it can be changed and Britain could help.

If we are to be more of a help than a hindrance, we’ll have to reaffirm the solidarity with humanity that our parents and grandparents believed in when they set up international agencies like United Nations and the EU.

Everybody needs somewhere to live, everybody needs something to eat and it can be done.

HM Queen's Speech 2016

It wasn’t really her speech; it was David Cameron’s, but the tradition maintains the constitutional principle that it is Her Majesty’s Government and this is its legislative programme for the new parliamentary year that began on Wednesday 18^th May 2016.

It was an interesting Queen's Speech which listed 25 Bills plus 5 carried over from last year, it included measures to reform prisons, promote community integration and tackle extremism, and to give us a Bill of Rights.

This is the most controversial measure, it means scrapping the Human Rights Bill and replacing it with a Bill of Rights.

This was a manifesto pledge in 2010 but was blocked by the Liberal Democrats in the Coalition Government.

The Conservatives are critical of the power of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to over-rule the judgements of the UK courts, as it did when it blocked Home Office moves to deport extremist Islamic preachers.

Whilst the new Bill will incorporate the rights in the European Convention on Human Rights, it will give the UK Supreme Court the last word, not the ECHR and the Bill will also take account of UK common law tradition which the ECHR doesn’t

The Prisons and Courts Reform Bill is another significant measure.

Too many of our prisons are overcrowded Victorian relics, the prison population has grown alarmingly and violence and drug abuse are rife in some of them.

Justice Secretary Michael Gove has brought his reforming zeal to turn prisons from warehouses of criminals, to places where change happens.

More education to develop inmates’ skills so that they can find jobs and not re-offend would help to cut prison numbers and bless their families.

Six ‘reform’ prisons where the Governors will have more autonomy as to how they spend their budgets have been identified and the most run-down prisons will gradually be replaced by new modern buildings.

Courts and tribunals will be reformed to deliver faster and fairer justice. The use of tags with satellite tracking for low risk criminals will offer the option of non-custodial sentences, helping to cut prison numbers.

Another potentially controversial measure is the Counter-Extremism Bill.

This aims to give the Home Secretary powers to ban extremist groups, restrict the behaviour of individual extremists, close down premises used for extremist purposes, give Ofcom powers to censor extremist content on the internet and enable employers to check on employees for evidence of involvement in extremist activity.

Whilst preventing terrorist acts is welcome, a clear definition of what constitutes extremism will be essential.

Some Christian street preachers and campaigners on issues such as abortion are concerned that these powers could be used against them.

Other Bills will create a right for every household to access high speed broadband, give powers to directly elected Mayors to govern local bus services, place the National Citizen Service on a permanent statutory basis, and strengthen the accountability of the police service in England and Wales.

All these Bills will be subject to detailed scrutiny in both Houses of Parliament.

The Government does not have a majority in the Lords and has rebels on its backbenches so there is no guarantee that all its Bills will become law.

Legislation ought to reflect the nation’s values so there is always a need for discerning prayer by Christians

European Union (EU) the truth

The referendum on British membership of the European Union (EU) is probably the most serious national decision voters will be asked to make.

The campaigns for and against our membership are inevitably heated and add to the pressure on us all to check the accuracy of the claims and counter claims.

Advocates for remaining in the EU have been accused of a fear campaign whilst their opponents are accused of lying about what membership does to the UK.

The challenge for voters is to control our prejudices and check the facts before prayerfully casting our votes on Thursday 23^rd June 2016.

One claim is that leaving will give us back control of our borders and halt the pressures of immigration on our jobs, housing and public services. We need first to ask whether the immigrants really are coming here only because we are members of the EU.

Second, would we be able to trade with EU countries post exit if we reject free movement?

Norway and Switzerland are not members but have to accept free movement in order to trade with EU states.

On trade, the leavers argue that the EU needs us more than we need them.

Actually our exports to the EU represent 12% of our GDP but EU exports to the UK are only 3% of their GDP and there are other growing markets around the world but the EU’s market is the biggest in the world.

In any post exit negotiations, this will surely give them the stronger hand.

Business leaders who back Brexit say that the EU ‘red tape’ is a burden on British firms and costs us £600 million a year.

There is no doubt that EU regulations do affect smaller firms but some regulation is necessary.

For example, the measures to protect workers’ rights would hopefully remain even if we leave the EU. However, the image of Brussels as a huge bureaucracy is a myth, as it’s half the size of one Whitehall department such as HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC).

The leavers claim that EU membership costs us £55 million a day, but that is simply wrong as the net cost of membership, taking account of the grants and farm subsidies they pay us, is only £17 million per day or 30p per person.

This gives us access to the 500 million EU markets which the CBI estimates to be worth £3000 to every UK household.

It is true that the UK is the fifth largest economy in the world and currently growing faster than those of our neighbours, but Brexit could mean our exports would be less competitive in Europe with tariffs added.

Often forgotten are the implications of leaving for Britons resident in EU nations. Brexit advocates say they are far outnumbered by the EU citizens living here; in fact, the numbers are nearly the same, as they are close to 2 million.

The advocates of staying have to answer criticisms that the EU is democratically weak.

The Commission is unelected and the EU Parliament weak compared with the Westminster Parliament.

Subsidiarity would partly compensate for this, but has not been applied as extensively as the founding fathers intended.

The outcome of the referendum will affect us all so it would be foolish to shirk our own democratic duty or to vote without prayerful reflection on the implications of our choice.

The 2016 Budget and three items that were missing

George Osborne delivered his eighth Budget speech on Wednesday 16^th March 2016, describing it as “Putting the next generation first”.

The new levy on soft drinks with a high sugar content to save children from obesity captured the headlines, but eliminating the budget deficit would be a more significant way of putting the next generation first.

The deficit is two-thirds down but achieving his latest target of a budget surplus by 2019, will require luck as much as judgement.

The Office for Budget Responsibility warned that there is only a 55% chance of hitting the 2019 target.

The UK might have the fastest growing economy in the G7 group of nations but the global outlook is gloomy and three weaknesses in the UK economy could frustrate the Chancellor’s plans.

The promised increase in the personal tax allowance was reiterated with a staged increase to £11,500 which will be welcomed by low earners and raising the threshold of the higher income tax rate to £45,000 will similarly be welcomed by middle income earners.

But, it was not welcomed by the Opposition who focused on the £3.5 billion of savings in department spending, including cuts in the benefits to severely disabled people and it remains to be seen whether the electorate view this as another Osborne gaff.

Strategically, important is the Chancellor’s commitment to long term infrastructure projects.

These include £60 million towards initiating the HS3 rail link between Leeds and Manchester and £80 million for planning Crossrail 2 to ease congestion in London.

Other measures include £100 million to help homeless people to move on from emergency hostels and £10 million for projects that offer refuge to rough sleepers.

Tax support for the oil and gas industry and measures to prevent large companies shifting their profits overseas to escape UK taxation are positive, and drinkers will welcome the freeze on duty for beer, cider and spirits.

Similarly freezing fuel duty for a sixth year will please motorists, cutting business rates for small firms will help them and abolishing Class 2 National Insurance contributions will please the self-employed.

Additionally, more funds for flood defences in areas flooded this winter are another positive move.

That said there are three issues that were barely addressed in the Chancellor’s speech, if addressed at all.

The first is our poor record on productivity, he mentioned it but offered no thoughts about how to improve it.

The second issue stated that the UK has a balance of payments deficit of £17.5 billion, we import more than we export and it would have been prudent for the Chancellor to do more to stimulate exports.

The third was the economic growth lauded by Mr Osborne depending too much on consumer credit and debt.

The current low level of inflation makes it easier for individuals and households to live with debts, but nationally, this is a potential hazard if global recession returns.  

The Chancellor must be aware of these weaknesses and it is frustrating that he preferred to say and do little or nothing to address them whilst ‘the sun is shining’, to quote his own past criticisms of Gordon Brown’s Chancellorship.

The controversial Investigatory Powers Bill

On Tuesday 1^st March 2016, the Government introduced the Investigatory Powers Bill to parliament, which is highly controversial and promises to amplify the already divisive passions roused by the EU Referendum.

The Bill would give new powers to the security services and police to protect us from terrorist plots and the activities of criminal gangs, but some see these powers as unnecessarily draconian.

The Government want to push the Bill through before December when the existing Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act expires.

The Bill requires those who provide our web and phone services to preserve records of our browsing and phone calls for 12 months, for the security services and police to access and it allows them to hack into our computers and telephones.

The safeguard against abuse of these powers includes a ‘double-lock’ of ministerial authorisation and a panel of seven judicial commissioners who can veto specific applications to use these powers, exceptionally in urgent cases the veto does not apply for up to five days.

A senior judge will serve as an Investigatory Powers Commissioner and the Prime Minister must be consulted if MPs communications are to be intercepted, similar safeguards will be included in relation to journalists and other ‘sensitive professions’.

The case for this legislation is obvious in relation to the threats posed by terrorists like those who attacked Paris last November, that involved at least three groups coordinated by phone, email and social media.

Islamic State uses social media a lot to communicate with its supporters and hundreds of Britons have gone to Syria to fight with them and some have returned, possibly to engage in terrorist acts here.

The Security Services can only prevent these acts if they have fore-knowledge of them from close surveillance of the communications of suspected terrorists.

Similarly, the police want to be able to counter increasingly sophisticated criminal gangs which hack into telephone services, like “Talk Talk”, to access our bank details.

Whilst its critics recognise the need for strong surveillance powers, they want more safeguards and question the need to push the Bill through whilst the nation is pre-occupied with the EU referendum.

The timetable for the Bill aims to complete its legislative passage before the summer recess and the critics argue that this haste is unnecessary and suggest that the sunset clause that will expire the existing legislation in December could be extended for another year to give more time for a debate to address their fears.

They want the Bill to be divided into two Bills, with the data retention provisions to be separated from the investigatory powers.

They are concerned about the pressures on Apple by the US Government to over-ride encryption protecting emails from hacking and don’t want the UK to follow that lead.

Three separate Parliamentary inquiries into a draft version of the Bill made 123 recommendations and critics say that the Bill does not take full account of them.

The tension between personal privacy and national security is a real one, some will say if one has nothing to hide the Bill is fine but others fear the potential abuse of these powers.

If our communications can lawfully be intercepted by public guardians, they can also be unlawfully intercepted by criminals.

We all need wisdom, individually in terms of what we do online and on our phones, and communally in the use of the proposed powers to protect us and maintain the rule of law.

Bradford Council's financial plans up to 2017/18

The ruling Labour group, which has a narrow majority on Bradford Council, pushed through its revised budget plans on Tuesday 25^th February 2016.

This despite failing to win the backing of Councillors from the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, Greens, UKIP or Bradford Independent Group.

In Adult Services the key changes are:

• Higher home care charges for those who can afford it;

• 15 minutes’ welfare checks on elderly people at home will be replaced by a phone call;

• An extra £1.5m will be spent on social care in 2016-17, rising to £3m in 2017-18, to help increasing demand;

• £1m cut to housing support for the homeless, ex-offenders and people with mental health issues;

• An extra £400.000 spent looking after people who have no right to claim benefits and are facing destitution, such as failed asylum seeker.

In Regeneration the key changes are:

• There will be a review of community organisations getting subsidised rents or rate relief, before cuts are made;

• Some street lights will be turned off in the early hours;

• Winter gritting routes will be reduced;

• City Park’s maintenance fund will be replaced with a £500.000 reserve;

• The council’s Jacobs Well office will be closed with staff moving to Britannia House.

In Environment and Sport the key changes are:

• General waste bins will only be emptied fortnightly;

• New charges will be brought in for garden waste collections, library book reservations and some car parks at woodlands and parks;

• The Bingley Music Live festival will have its subsidy removed;

• The youth service would be cut;

• Some sport pitches would be transferred to clubs;

• Civic Christmas trees would no longer be put up, unless private sponsors can be found

• Around two-thirds of libraries will become run by volunteers or close if no volunteers are found;

• The council would stop funding police community support officers, saving £770.000

• The tourism budget would be cut, with the possible closure of visitor centres.

In Children’s Services key changes are:

• Special needs services to be moved from a central hub to individual schools;

• A contract with Connexions to help young people into training and jobs will be cut by £450.000, or 30 per cent;

• A ‘community resolution’ service which sees low-level young offenders making amends to victim rather than facing court will be axed;

• An extra £1.5m a year will be spent on children in care, to meet rising demand;

• An extra £483.000 will be spent on the delayed remodelling of the management of children’s centre.

The Council tax will go up by the legal maximum of 3.99 per cent, which includes a new two per cent levy to raise cash for social care.

But, once again the Bradford Council’s Labour Group on Thursday 25^th February 2016, showed at full council that they would prefer to pay the wages of trade union official rather than spend it on the most vulnerable people in the Bradford District, but what else do you expect from a party funded by the trade unions.

They have also shown recently that they don’t care about wasting public money after they took the decision and agreed at an executive meeting previously to the fitting of 60 colourful, flashing lights at a cost of £235 per light bulb on the top of Margaret McMillan Tower the former central library, which is now the home of children's services. but what purpose do they serve?

It’s about time that councillors at Bradford Council stop blaming David Cameron and the Government.

It seems we all need to be remind of Jesus words in John 8:7, ‘Let him who is without sin cast the first stone’

Only those who are faultless have the right to pass judgement upon others, no one is faultless and that, therefore, no one has such a right to pass judgement.

Sunday trading debate returns

Last year the Government announced its intention to legislate and enable Local Authorities to extend Sunday trading in their localities if they wished.

They have tabled amendments to the Enterprise Bill which would enact this and the Bill, which had already been given a Second Reading (330 for and 62 against) is now in Committee for detailed scrutiny.

Currently shops are allowed to open for six hours, usually between 10.00 am and 4.00 pm.

The amendments would empower Local Authorities to extend those hours and give retailers the freedom to flexibly adjust hours to match local opportunities such as a seasonal tourist trade.

Supporters of this measure argue that they are a response to changing social attitudes and behaviour that make Sunday just like any other day as only 6% still regularly attend churches and even some of them shop afterwards.

USDAW,the shop workers union, has been one of the strongest opponents of Sunday trading because its members want one day a week to be with their families.

The amendments recognise this by protecting their right to opt out of Sunday work for religious or family reasons.

Employers will have a duty to notify their employees of this right and the latter will have to give only one month’s notice of their intention not to work on Sundays, previously they had to give three months’ notice.

One argument against extended Sunday opening is that it will draw trade away from small High Street shops with less than 3000 square feet of floor space, that are currently exempt from the restrictions, to the big out of town supermarkets that are limited by the six hour provision.

The amendments would allow Councils to zone any relaxation they adopt to prioritise the High Street shops but not the out of town supermarkets.

The Government claims that it has the support of local councils that see this as another expression of devolution and 76% of leading retailers and business leaders.

The Business Minister Anna Soubry claims the changes will help shops to compete more effectively with online retailers who legally trade 24/7 and last year took 13.8% of all retail spending.

Sunday trading has long been a difficult issue for policy makers and opponents united in 1986 to defeat the Thatcher Government’s Shops Bill at Second Reading.

The present compromise was established by the 1994 Sunday Trading Act.

Proposals for further relaxation were considered in 2006 but rejected by the Business Secretary, Alistair Darling.

Aware of this history his successor has taken past objections very seriously and sought to avoid them, a consultation found that 76% of the 7000 respondents backed the proposed changes.

Nevertheless, opposition from the faith communities and the shop workers’ union remains strong and there is no certainty that the Government will have a majority for the amendments when the Bill is reported back to the Whole House.

Rumours suggest that at least 20 Conservative MPs will join the Labour Party and the SNP to vote against the Sunday trading amendments.

Even if the changes are approved all is not necessarily lost for their opponents.

They can try to persuade their fellow citizens and Councillors of the case for keeping Sunday as a much needed day for rest and family time.

It is time to get the refugee issue in perspective.

In 2015 a million refugees risked their lives to cross the Mediterranean to enter Europe and a further 34,000 came overland.

Globally there are 13 million refugees and 86% of them are in developing nations, not the EU.

Britain has fewer than 200,000 asylum seekers and the Government is committed to taking another 20,000 from the camps in Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon by 2020. 

These desperate people are fleeing religious persecution, tyrannical government, civil wars and the possibilities of imprisonment, torture and even execution.

Some are economic migrants seeking a better future for their children, than is likely in their homeland and they come hoping for religious freedom, physical safety, a peaceful way of life and a better standard of living.

Despite the fact that most of us want and expect the same, UK public opinion is less than welcoming to refugees.

Britain is the most densely populated European country and immigration is a vexed political issue, we have a housing crisis and more incomers will only make it worse.

NHS waiting times are already too long and school class sizes are generally too big.

Most asylum seekers don’t have a right to work here so the taxpayer must provide minimal financial help for them and currently this means £36.95 per person per week or £5.28 a day, they will be housed but have no choice as to where they live. 

Often this means a ‘hard to let’ property that Council tenants refuse to live in, most likely in the poorest neighbourhoods with higher incidences of unemployment, dysfunctional families and criminality.

Refugees can present a real challenge to local communities where they are placed.

They may not be fluent in English, have cultural differences in what they eat and won’t eat, and how they dress.

Orphans will also need to be placed with people whose suitability has been tested and approved.

Equally, UK secular culture may challenge their religious beliefs and customs, they will also have to cope with the racism of the English Defence League and the BNP and the xenophobic tone of some British newspapers.

So, what can we do to make these needy people welcome?

The words of Jesus, ‘I was a stranger and you invited me in’ (Matthew 25:35) challenge the Christian churches to reach out to refugees settled in their communities and help them to cope with the problems they face. 

Help with learning English, coping with government bureaucracy, finding the best shops to make their limited resources go further, registering with a doctor and a school for their children, are obvious examples but simple friendship is the most important response.

If ‘love your neighbour as yourself’, is at the heart of the Christian faith, second only to loving God, failure to welcome the strangers in our midst would be a disaster for the church’s credibility and mission.

Beyond this, it is necessary to challenge the selfish attitude that we should keep our prosperous way of life for ourselves and shut out the desperate refugees who were also made in God’s image.

This is not about politics or attacking the Government’s plans for refugees but it is about being salt and light in society.

Acute shortage of housing

One reason the Government is limiting the number of refugees we will accept is an acute shortage of homes in the UK.

The National Housing Federation (NHF) says we need another million homes and not enough are being built.

Successive Governments have failed to act and the excess of demand over supply has pushed up house prices and made home-ownership beyond the means of young couples, especially in London which has the biggest problem.

Government inaction is only one of the causes.

Shelter cites a shortage of land as another and Greenfield sites are protected but it is suggested that there are enough brownfield sites to accommodate 1.8 million new homes.

The slowness of the planning process is another factor, changes in 2012 saw the number of applications approved annually increase from 158,000 to 240,000.

Developers are also blamed for sitting on land for which planning has been approved to maximise their profits as house prices rise and for the same reason developers sometimes build expensive properties rather than affordable homes first time buyers can afford.

The increasing house prices have forced many to rent rather than buy and in some instances to have to cope with private landlords who do not always offer secure long term tenancies.

This can mean families with young children forced to move every six months with all the emotional harm that causes, especially to their children.

Also, there is estimated 635,000 empty properties in England alone. 

This is a complete and utter waste of housing when there are so many homeless families looking for somewhere to live and a large number of these (200,000) have been left empty for over six months.

The Coalition Government introduced a ‘Help to Buy’ scheme to help first time buyers but more was needed to increase the supply of homes for purchase.

The present Government aims to transform ‘generation rent into generation buy’ and set a target of one million new homes by 2020.

Its Housing and Planning Bill currently before Parliament is intended to make this target attainable.

It will give local authorities powers to apply banning orders against rogue landlords and establish a proper process by which landlords can repossess properties abandoned by bad tenants.

Controversially, the Bill also establishes a Right to Buy for housing association tenants.

The housing budget has been doubled to £8 billion and £140 million has been set aside to transform the worst 100 sink estates.

The Opposition questions whether this means established communities will be broken up and whether those who have bought their homes in these estates will be guaranteed homes in the rebuilt estates.

The Prime Minister wants to offer people on sink estates something better and accuses Labour of trying to prevent this. 

The key issue will be the cost of the new homes and whether the poorest will be able to afford them.

The Government certainly wants to charge tenants paid more than £30,000 p.a. and still living in Council houses, to pay higher rents than those on the national living wage.

Their critics are concerned that Government policies will shrink the rented sector and make it difficult for people on low incomes to live.

A home is crucial for settled family life and policies that affect the availability, cost, location and quality of appropriate houses are important issues.

Nobody wants people to become homeless, families to be broken up or to live in squalor but some have to and that is a moral as well as a political issue that challenges how seriously we ‘love our neighbours’ as Jesus expects.

Some curious developments at the beginning of a new year in both the Government and Opposition recently.

The most curious was Jeremy Corbyn’s attempt to reshuffle his front bench, where he took three days to sack two Shadow Ministers – Michael Dugher and Pat McFadden.

This had nothing to do with their competence and everything to do with their disagreements with him, which were deemed to be evidence of disloyalty.

Three other less senior members of the Shadow team resigned in response, one member of the Shadow team, Stephen Doughty resigned publicly on the BBC, well done to the BBC for their impartiality, independence and excellent journalism.

Clearly, the Labour Party and those who criticise the BBC have once again and continue to keep showing that they do not understand the meaning of impartiality and independence.

Maria Eagle, the Shadow Defence Secretary, was moved to the Culture, Media and Sport brief and replaced by Emily Thornberry, who shares Corbyn’s views on defence.

Underlying these changes were differences of opinion about Trident and the decision to authorise air-strikes against Daesh in Syria.

Current Labour Party policy, published in the election manifesto, supports replacing Trident but Corbyn wants to scrap it altogether and he has said that if he were Prime Minister he would never use nuclear weapons so there is no point in having them.

That is a principled position but if he wants party policy to be changed he should initiate an open debate with the many Labour MPs who disagree.

In his party conference speech Mr Corbyn said his election as leader was ‘a vote for change in the way we do politics’ and he wanted ‘politics that’s kinder, more inclusive’ and he hoped for ‘real debate, not necessarily message discipline all the time – but above all, straight talking’.

He was right, which makes sacking those who disagree with him on specific issues totally inconsistent.

Some commentators are suggesting that Corbyn is more interested in the party’s grassroots which is the powerbase that voted him into leadership, not the Parliamentary party many of whom did not vote for him.

It is alleged that he wants to shift the primary responsibility for policy making away from MPs to the party’s National Executive Council (NEC), where he has stronger support.

The big problem with this is that MPs are democratically elected by their constituencies whilst the NEC is not and it doesn't matter whilst the party is in Opposition, but it would if it ever could win office again.

The other curiosity was David Cameron’s announcement that Ministers could campaign for Britain leaving the EU without resigning from the Government.

This breaches the long established convention of collective responsibility which requires Ministers to resign if they disagree with Government policy.

Some reports suggest that Cameron was forced into this announcement but Downing Street denies this.

It is no secret that a significant number of Conservative MPs and a handful of Ministers want us to quit the EU, but their election manifesto promised renegotiation of Britain’s EU membership and a referendum before the end of 2017.

If they now back leaving regardless of the outcome of the negotiations, should they not have the courage of their convictions and resign before campaigning against Government policy.

Cynicism about politicians is widespread and these developments do nothing to change that.

A stronger culture of servant hood by those who govern us, would help to breathe new life into British democracy and encourage more of us to take our civic duties seriously.