Social Security
“Do to others as you would have them do to you.”
Luke 6:31
Social justice
The Christian Party promotes social justice as the most important arbiter of the effectiveness and application of Christian teaching and principles in society. Many non-Christians will agree that if people lived as Jesus taught, the world would be a better place.
The Christian Party offers a fresh approach to social security along with its radical approach to taxation and national insurance contributions.
While accepting the role of profit in business generation, Christian contentment promotes sustainable development and Christian conscience restrains the pursuit of extortionate profit. Boom and bust cannot be eliminated, but Christian prudence has enabled many individuals and businesses to sustain profitability and growth without boom and bust. These Christian principles need to be brought into public life and the Christian Party will promote this.
Our Christian concern for ordinary people will expose extortion and exploitation. The Church of England declared war on the extortionate rates of interest charge by pay-day lenders, with some success. There is plenty of scope for a Christian broom to sweep over corporate Britain.
The Christian Party does not intend penalising business nor telling business how to run its operations, but we do intend exposing what we consider to be unchristian, when their spirit is avaricious and selfish, exploiting consumers. Concern for the consumer is at the centre of Christian Party policy.
National tax receipts are insufficient for current welfare payments. The Christian Party taxation and banking policies will aim to balance the books.
Universal credit
The Christian Party welcomes the principle of Universal credit as a way of streamlining social security benefits payments
Any welfare initiative must ensure that there is a smooth transition from unemployment and associated benefit claims to sustainable paid employment. Our ‘back to work’ strategy works in conjunction with the Christian Party’s tax-free threshold policy and exemption of both employer and employee from national insurance contribution, thus removing an impediment to employers taking on new staff.
Child benefit
We will limit child benefit to the first two children living in the UK.
Housing
The Christian Party is not convinced that the first time buyer scheme is a solution for First Time Buyers. We will review housing policy and address teenage parental responsibility.
Poverty and the responsibility and contribution of churches
As of 2017, 20% of people live in poverty in the UK, including 8 million working-age adults, 4 million children and 1.9 million pensioners.
The rising cost of food and fuel combined with static income, high unemployment and changes to benefits are causing more and more people to rely on foodbanks. The number of food banks continues to increase and food bank charities report package increases in the hundreds of thousands reaching into the millions. This is attributed to various causes but it demonstrates the reliance upon the Third Sector.
Christianity has always provided social care from its own resources, and in recent times this has been taken over by the state through its taxation and welfare system.
The gross value to the economy of the voluntary sector is £17.1bn in 2017, less than 1% of the UK GDP.
Government should support churches and the voluntary sector in assisting those who are socially excluded or at risk of social exclusion. At present, 25% of welfare payments are made to such people as cash or cash equivalent.
However, the inequalities in the current Equalities legislation will impact upon the charitable status of churches and adversely interfere with the role that churches play in assisting low-income earners, immigrants, indigenous people, refugees, widows, orphans, alcohol and substance abusers and victims of violence, etc.
Christian party members of parliament will:
- Reform the benefit system to eradicate the risk associated with leaving the welfare system and entering work. This could be accomplished by suspending benefit claims for a period of 9 months rather than closing them when an unemployed person gains employment. Within the 9-month period an unemployed person will be able to audit three jobs before their claim is liable to closure.
