The Government has announced a new jobs “mission”. The headline policy in this mission is to say to people who lose their job that after four weeks they will also lose their choice about what jobs they should apply for. If they insist on having a choice in how they earn a living, they will be …
sanctions
At last the Government is Rethinking Sanctions: Now let’s do it properly
This is a blog which contains joy and danger in equal measure. The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has decided to stop imposing three year-long benefit sanctions as a punishment for not obeying the instructions of the Jobcentre. Such sanctions meant that people had no support for …
Meet Your MP: Using our voices
In a guest blog, Revd Katy Thomas, a Methodist minister from Wilmslow in Cheshire, writes about her experience of arranging a meeting with her MP last month. At the Methodist Women in Britain Conference earlier this year, Rachel Lampard from the Joint Public Issues Team spoke about Universal …
Should the government’s power ever be used to create destitution?
Twenty Church leaders have written to Home Secretary, Sajid Javid, to call for an end to the Government’s hostile environment immigration policy because “it is inhumane to use destitution, or the threat of destitution, as a policy tool to encourage people to leave the country.” As we outline in …
Pulling the plug on the Iran deal
The complete collapse of the Iran deal would be disastrous[1] but could the Trump administration still score a foreign policy success with Iran? Donald Trump takes personal credit for Kim Jong-Un’s recent decision to halt missile and nuclear warhead testing. He was backed by most of the …