Young and unemployed

Unemployment figures for young people have almost reached the 1 million mark. This means that youth unemployment has risen by 20.3%, which is the highest level it has ever been since 1992. Young people face an incredibly difficult entry into the job market, because they are competing for jobs with experienced workers who have recently entered the job market as a result of redundancy and job cuts.


Whenever young people remain unemployed for long, there is a societal and personal price to pay. A long spell of unemployment leaves permanent scars; it makes the prospect of entering the job market even harder and the likelihood of being stuck in low paying jobs more likely. At a societal level, disaffected youth is more likely to engage in crime and violence increasing demands on the police, social workers, hospitals and courts. Long-term youth unemployment is very expensive. It is also a tragedy.

The Coalition Government has proposed to attack youth unempoyment through a combination of apprenticeships, extra training places at colleges and work pairings, but in England it has allowed for the rise in student fees, the reduction of the education budget and the possible withdrawal of the £550 million education maintenance allowance, which was so vital for young people to remain in education. These actions seem paradoxical because many young people may chose to go back into education if they cannot find employment quickly. However, if entering education will merely sink you further into debt and there are no immediate jobs to be had, what are young people to do?

It is understandable that budgetary cuts need to come but I hope that Scotland can see through the fallacy behind cuts that affect the education, skills development and future employability of our young because innovation, R&D and ultimately jobs come from an educated work-force.

Almost 5000 incidents of domestic abuse in Scotland in December alone

Domestic violence in Scotland rose during the festive season. In December alone the police’s Violence Reduction Unit logged 4,783 incidents. Although most victims of domestic abuse are women, it can happen to anyone and affects everyone within the family;  women, children and men. Domestic abuse is very costly not only in terms of psychological harm and loss of self esteem, but also in terms of health service costs, police resources, legal costs and productivity due to absence from work. The Kirk has had a long tradition of highlighting social issues that might lead to domestic abuse and I have writen about the victim’s need for legal aid through this blog.


Over the past year, Scotland has invested heavily in combatting homelessness for victims of sexual abuse, and raising awareness of that fact that males can also be victims of domestic abuse. It is therefore somewhat disappointing, given the statistics and the work of the past year, that £7.5 million of direct funding from the Scottish Government to tackle frontline services in domestic abuse, might be scrapped. It is difficult to find the justification for cuts that will affect services that are supporting the most vulnerable within our society. Is this a case of false economy?

The Papal Visit

When Pope John Paul II visited Scotland in 1982, I was living in a small ecumenical community in West Pilton, then one of the poorest parts of Edinburgh, that was supported by both the local Catholic and Church of Scotland congregations. We were aiming to demonstrate on the ground that by being alongside people who were struggling we could do together what we could not manage on our own. So when the Pope asked, at Bellahouston, “Can we not walk hand in hand together?” we felt it was an affirmation that cut through much of the things that divided our denominations. Nearly thirty years on, there are a host of examples of ways in which that appeal has been acted on, significantly at the local community level, though it can also be seen in the much warmer relationships that exist structurally.

This time round, the challenges facing the churches are considerable. Transition is under way, and the environment is more hostile. The heart of the church, though, is found in service to others rather than in institutional survival. I hope that the current Papal visit brings another wave of encouragement for ecumenical – and inter faith – co-operation in the years ahead. In particular, that priority for the poorest will more and more be seen to be where people of faith are united and making a difference.

Notable examples of current co-operation include Faith in Community Scotland, of which the Church of Scotland and Archdiocese of Glasgow are co-founders, helping local churches to punch well above their weight in some of our poorest places. These efforts will be more needed than ever in the wake of expected cuts to provision and benefits. While the material resources available may be less than for some time, the vision of prioritising the poorest will remain, and the churches will not turn away from the challenge. Together we can do what separately we can not.

Who needs palliative care?

We might think that palliative care is for those with a terminal illness, during their last months of life; however according to the Palliative Care Bill currently discussed in Holyrood, palliative care is not just for cancer patients, or terminally ill people. This Bill proposes that palliative care be given for everyone with a progressive life-limiting condition as well as their families. This is a step in the right direction because the Bill recognises that palliative care is not just for people at the end of their life, but also for those with illnesses such as Alzheimer’s, heart failure, or Parkinson’s. These type of progressive illnesses are very stressful on the patient and on the whole family.

The main thrust of the Bill focuses on the delivery of care within a hospital environment. In all fairness, palliative care in Scotland has been delivered through churches, charitable organisations and hospices. It must therefore be recognised that palliative care can be delivered not just in hospitals, but in hospices, churches, GP practices and in the home. The Church of Scotland has a long tradition in providing spiritual help to patients and families afflicted by progressive and life limiting illnesses and has been actively involved throughout the consultation processes of the Bill.

Integrated palliative care is not just about alleviating physical conditions; it should also involve spiritual, psychological and social elements. This type of integrated care requires resources beyond currently available charitable funding. Throughout the consultation processes, the Kirk has pushed for a clear financial commitment in support of integrated palliative care. In the current economic climate, a Bill without a carefully considered financial commitment will become just idle, empty words

Regressive or progressive emergency budget?

We heard yesterday discussions about whether the emergency budget is either progressive or regressive. Fancy wording for fundamental questions? It might be better to simply ask whether the budget is equitable and protects the most vulnerable in our society ?

The Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS), not a “radical” organisation, considers that the poorest families amongst us will be proportionately bearing the brunt of the cuts. It is tragic that in spite of previous efforts by a number of organisations to eradicate child poverty by 2020 it is now apparent that this goal will not be met. A quarter of the children in Scotland live in persistent poverty and most of them are part of single parent households. According to the IFS, this is one of the groups that will be the hardest hit. Only those able to bear a load should help carry the burden. The challenges are understood; but why does it have to be those least able to withstand the brunt that carry the biggest share of the load? In other words Mr. Cameron and Mr Osbourne, why does it have to be our children?

General Assembly will discuss advances on Synthetic Biology

Part of my job is to guide the Church into new areas of policy making which, as you can imagine, is a dangerous journey at times! At this years General Assembly, (only 10 days away!) one of the reports from the Society, Religion and Technology Project. is on something called synthetic biology. No, I had to look it up the first time too!

It brings together the two disciplines of biology and engineering . It is essentially about redesigning life through the redesign and reassembly of biological systems. The biologist wants to understand living systems better, and the engineer wants to create new things . The biologist identifies the individual bioparts of the living organism and the engineer then standardises the bioparts. Some organisations, like the BioBricks foundation  are already doing this redesigning into a biological "chassis".

This might sound like science fiction, but synthetic biology potentially has direct application in health, energy, the environment and agriculture. Sme parts of the production of the anti-malaria drug Artemisinin have already been developed applying synthetic biology techniques. The development of advanced biosensors for detection of urinary tract infections can be adapted to detect the hospital superbug MRSA (Methycillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus). Another biosensor can detect arsenic in drinking water which is a major problem in Bangladesh. Another example of synthetic biology based biomaterials is a synthetic version of spider silk. Because of its strength and light weight it can be used in a wide range of applications.

It is astonishing and awe inspiring it its creativity and potential for good…. But as is often the case, scientific progress also raises important ethical questions. What is the right relationship between humanity and nature? How far is far enough, and to what extent should our God-given ability to be creative be hemmed in by moral and ethical considerations? What are the risks in creating what are new living beings, even though they are only micro organisms?

The Kirk is the first church which flags up the ethical and moral questions raised by this important new area of scientific knowledge. I hope the debate is not hindered by the technical words but also see past the “are we playing God?” which is also a theological red herring. This is too important to simply say “No” to, but that doesn’t mean we should just say yes either.

Suicide is everyone's business

Suicide is one of the principal causes of death for young people in industrialized countries, including Scotland. An advertisement will be aired in prime time television highlighting the need for everyone to support individuals contemplating suicide. The ad mentions that help might be as close as your nearest cabbie or your hairdresser and goes on to propose that people from all walks of life can be trained in providing help to potentially suicidal people. The ad is part of the Scottish Government’s Choose Life Programme, which is a 10 year plan aimed at reducing suicides in Scotland by 20% by 2013.


It is commendable that help is being provided to train ordinary people to spot suicidal tendencies, and it is very good that a problem that is affecting young people in Scotland, particularly young men, is highlighted. While such a complex issue as suicide can be most effectively tackled by professionals such as counselors, psychologists and psychiatrists who undergo years of training for their help to be effective by evidence-based standards, it is also true that hairdressers are privy to many a confession, and in many cases just having someone to talk to can help- at least initially.

Research suggests that suicide is a response to a number of factors affecting an individual’s life. Unemployment, divorce, mental health difficulties (particularly depression) and addictive behaviours are just some of the reasons why young people contemplate suicide. According to a study by the University of Aberdeen and NHS Scotland, although Scotland at the turn of the 20th century had lower rates of suicide than England and Wales, suicide rates for young men in Scotland have increased every decade since, while they have progressively decreased in the rest of the UK. In times of economic crisis, with high levels of unemployment and a gradual disintegration of family values and community life in favour of the cult of individualism anything that can be done to help in tackling the social and economic causes that make life so difficult for our young people is to be welcomed. And perhaps we in the church need to learn to listen a bit more, as well as talking.

Children are paying for the imbalance in the supply and demand for public housing

Shelter Scotland made a plea yesterday for Scottish Ministers to prioritize the housing needs of children in their guidance to councils and other agencies. Their report states that 22,000 children were made homeless in Scotland last year, amounting to 60 children a day. The release of this data is particularly ironic, considering that in 1946 the Committee on Homeless Children in Scotland was hailed as a landmark in the creation of a child welfare policy. Since then, a series of government initiatives like the Housing (Scotland) Act of 2001 and the Homelessness etc (Scotland) Act of 2003 have tried to tackle the effects and causes of homelessness. In 2001, as a result of a debate on the Scottish Parliament on the principles of the Homelessness Bill, MSP Tricia Marwick asked Ms Margo Curran Minister for Social Justice whether “ B&B or temporary accommodation was suitable for families and children”? The answer from Ms. Curran, was that that type of accommodation was indeed inappropriate but “ The committee reports on the bill are littered with quotes… saying that it is probably the most progressive legislation in western Europe and that the Executive has delivered for homeless people in a way that has not been possible before”.

Delivered? Nine years after the 2001 act and 2 years away from the target set in the Homelessness etc (Scotland Act of 2003) of entitling “all unintentionally homeless people to permanent accommodation” the equivalent of 3 classrooms of mostly less than 5 years old children are made homeless every day. The impact of homelessness on children has been amply documented and covers psychological and emotional problems, health and nutritional issues as well as lower than average educational attainment. These are just the problems related to the children; there are also all the problems homelessness brings to the family as a unit.

According to the Key Trends Housing summary statistics produced by the Scottish Government the level of public authority housing has been steadily decreasing since the 1980’s and since the 90’s it has hovered between 3 and 4% mostly due to the right to buy policy. While it has been beneficial that some households have become home owners, overall the level of public ownership of housing stock has decreased. Statistics show that in March 2008 public authorities owned 599,000 units amounting to 55% of the stock. This contrasts sharply with public housing ownership of 777,000 units (90%) in the 1990’s. the situation in 2010 has not changed much; as public authority housing decreases the role of registered social landlords within the area of social housing has increased dramatically.

The imbalance between demand and supply of social housing is quite evident. According to the Government’s Housing Statistics for Scotland Bulletin in 2008 there were 16,471 dwellings built by the private sector, 4,577 dwellings built by housing associations and only 336 dwellings built by local authorities. It is clear that public authorities are not building housing, and that the level of building by housing associations amounted to 28% of those built by the private sector. In March 2009 (the latest statistics available) there were 199,554 applicants on the housing register. It would not be presumptuous to estimate that amongst them were many families with children. Only 28,038 applicants got re-housed by the same date.

As public housing becomes scarcer, house prices dearer, and most dwellings built for profit, a nagging question crops up… Who is responsible for housing the neediest of our children?

Another Coal Power Station

Ayrshire Power has confirmed its intention to build a £3 billion coal-fired power plant in Hunterston. This proposal has been in the pipeline for over 2 years. Peel Energy logged in 2008 an environmental impact assessment for its proposed state of the art multi-fuelled power plant. The plant would be fuelled by coal and up to 14% biomass, such as wood making it very efficient. Their report states that “the proposed power station would utilise carbon capture and storage technology when viable, enabling it to provide secure, low carbon energy and capture up to 90% of the CO2 produced by the plant. This Carbon Capture Ready (CCR) 1,600 MW power station would to help meet the energy needs of up to 2 million homes throughout the UK”. So far so good. However, there is never a free lunch.

According to a document produced in 2005 by the UK Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology in order to store CO2 it first has to be captured, transported and then stored for many hundreds of years. Storage alternatives mentioned include the ocean; injection into geological structures or transform the CO2 into a solid carbon precipitate. It is very logical to ask how much energy will be spent capturing, transporting, storing or transforming the CO2?

The new application rests on the assumption that the new power station would use carbon capture and storage to reduce the emission of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere but this technology is still in its infancy and has never been proven at the scale required to work effectively in a power station of this size. There are grave reservations from environmentalists on the viability of this technology but the concerns are not only from organizations such as Greenpeace, but also from local people. The congregation at Fairlie Parish Church lives close to the site of the proposed power station and have been worried about its implications for some time. The Church of Scotland backs the concerns of this local congregation.

This proposal represents the first real challenge for the Scottish Government’s much applauded Climate Change Act which was agreed by the Scottish Parliament in 2009. The Church of Scotland, as part of the Stop Climate Chaos coalition, strongly supported the Climate Change Bill in its passage through the Scottish Parliament.

Unless carbon capture can be made to work effectively and quickly the new power station would seriously compromise the targets included in the Scottish Climate Change Act and put the credibility of Scotland’s world leading position would be put in doubt. For this reason I feel great concern about the wisdom of this application and call upon the Scottish Government to do nothing that places its climate change targets at risk.

Temperance in the application of immigration law

Within the last few days Glasgow has witnessed two children being taken into prison, for the crime of being Nigerian, and three people from Eastern Europe plummeting to their death under the possible threat of deportation. These are tragic examples of the way people facing desperate situations react when placed against the wall. In 2007 Glaswegians demonstrated their distress at the imprisonment of children by immigration authorities and the unease in the city is just as palpable now.


The onus is on the immigration authorities to apply the law with justice and temperance, exercising the judgement required by each particular case. If asylum seekers behave in the way which is expected of them by our immigration authorities and they present no risk of flight, there is no real reason to place them in prison prior to deportation, particularly if children are involved. Since 2004 The Church of Scotland has opposed the imprisonment of children.

Scotland has long prided itself on its democratic and Christian values. Should we not remind ourselves that we need to treat others as we would like to be treated?

The March against Racism

Last week I was at the march against racism in Scotland. It was really good to sense the energy coming from all participants united to fight against corrosive influences that seek to divide our society. What is important is to fight against all the elements that work against the cohesion of our communities.


The census of 2001 stated that Scotland is home to 43,000 Muslims concentrating in Glasgow, Dundee and Edinburgh. The age profile of this population is much younger than that of the white population. Immigrants from Central Europe have followed. It is clear that Scotland is now a place of many cultures and it is vital that our different communities do not live parallel existences feeling segregated and polarized.

We must work to develop a common vision and a sense of belonging for all communities, where diversity of background is appreciated and valued and where everyone, regardless of religion or race gets access to similar life opportunities. This is really just another way of saying “ Love your neighbour as yourself”.

On the effectiveness of torture

Is information extracted under torture reliable? The evidence seems to be contradictory. Prisoners under torture might give away any kind of unreliable information, just to provide some respite from the pain. The inadmissibility of information obtained under torture was upheld by a unanimous decision of the House of Lords.

The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 2009 affirmed that the use of torture or ‘enhanced interrogation’ is to be deplored under any circumstance. The awareness of the British Intelligence Services of some of the conditions under which the interrogation of Mr. Binyam Mohammed were taking place abroad, leads to an important question. Is it morally justifiable to be aware of the conditions under which certain information has been extracted and do nothing? Eliza Manningham-Buller former Director general of MI 5 stated when questioned by the House of Lords on the use of information acquired in other countries by torture stated 'We're not going to ask, because that would make things difficult.’ David Milliband stated that the UK “is firmly opposed to the use of torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment”. It seems clear that no UK officials were involved in torture, but does silence in the knowledge of the abusive and illegal conditions under which certain prisoners are interrogated not make us morally co-participants? Where does our moral integrity stand?

Adoption by same Sex-Couples

The Church of Scotland was quoted in yesterday’s Daily Mail as saying, in response to a story about adoption by a Lesbian couple, that homosexual relationships were “profoundly unstable”, when in fact the quote came not from us but from somewhere entirely different. When the General Assembly debated this issue, it was quite clear that what matters are the best interests of the child concerned, and therefore was not in principle opposed to adoption by same sex couples if those interests were best served – though it reaffirmed that traditional marriage remains the Church’s preferred option for the bringing up of children.

Some papers contact the Church when they are looking for an easy quote to support their own position. This time the Mail got it wrong. I wait with bated breath for their apology. The wellbeing of vulnerable children is much more important than papers with an axe to grind. Long may that continue, and let’s hope more children who need adoptive parents find the right people volunteering for the job.

The Plight of Asylum seekers

I read today about changes to the asylum system. Asylum seekers who want to claim “in-country asylum” will need to travel to Croydon to do so, instead of having the option of Liverpool or Glasgow as before. This is another scandalous attack on very vulnerable folk. The mark of any society is how it treats the stranger, especially the destitute. The BNP may think that anyone who claims asylum is at it but the truth is that the vast majority are escaping violence and persecution. Sadly, we seem to want to continue that persecution rather than alleviate it.

Credits
The photograph was taken by Gareth harper.

The faces hidden in the numbers

Today statistics show that unemployment has continued to rise. There are now close to a million people claiming jobseeker's allowance. Wide-spread unemployment is one of the ugly faces of an economic crisis. The danger is that we forget that behind every statistic there is a person and a home. This is the real story of the credit crunch. Forget green shoots of financial recovery; until these numbers representing real human stories start going down,  we will remain in a desert which all of us have helped to create.

Credits

Photograph taken by Le Haricot.

Return to Sender

If I was an MP I’d be getting someone else to open my mail today. The letter to MPs from independent auditor Sir Thomas Legg  may well be the last nail in several more political careers.  It's right and proper that MPs should pay what they owe and no-one can claim Sir Thomas is anything but independent as he’s even pulled up the man who appointed him, Gordon Brown. My worry however, is not the reaction of MPs, but of those watching for the opening of those envelopes. I worry that these letters will have an unintended consequence – like picking a scab that needs now to be left alone to heal. We need a new political era. We need a new untainted political generation. But if every time we do something to help clean up we feed the idea that all of politics, not just politicians, is corrupt, we do ourselves a disservice, one that we may struggle to recover from for a very long time.

Teacher numbers are a serious miscalculation

I heard about a vacancy for a primary school teaching post in North Lanarkshire that attracted five hundred and six applications. Five hundred and six - for one job! Yet record numbers of students are still being recruited to follow them, even though  there are currently a thousand less teachers employed in Scotland than in 2007.

Today's teachers have the opportunity to make a huge difference - maybe especially to the lives of disadvantaged children in Scotland - but they can't do it if they don't have a job. This debate is not just a matter of statistics or numbers - it's about changing the world by getting these well trained and committed teachers together with the children who need to be inspired.

Jesus said 'the last will be first' and set the bar as to how we treat what he called 'the little ones'. What he didn't do was fight about how many go here or can't go there! He just knew that good teaching changes lives. The trouble is that chance for that change to happen is being restricted and unless that changes we will all be poorer.

Credits
Photograph taken by Anirudh Koul

Trident reductions are not good news really

The announcement by Gordon Brown that he wants to reduce the number of trident subs is sadly not all it seems. It may be a sign that we are heading in the right direction for nuclear disarmament but  it is little more than a baby step. This reduction won’t mean fewer warheads, only that we won’t have so many out at sea. That’s a bit like saying “I’m on a diet – I don’t have any less cake, I just keep it in the cupboard for longer.” In May the Church of Scotland said at its General Assembly that nuclear weapons were “inherently evil”. They remain so no matter which cupboard they are in.

Credits
Photograph taken by Gerald Simmons.