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SUNDAY, JUNE 30, 2013 No: 6183
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Archbishop says action is needed on payday lenders THE PROBLEM of payday lenders charging “usurious” interest rates has grown so large it can no longer be ignored, the Archbishop of Canterbury has said. Archbishop Justin Welby also called for the Church to take a key role in the credit union movement, helping to provide people with alternative sources of finance. In a House of Lords debate, he said: “The payday lending industry has grown at a vast speed, as we all know, and alternative sources of credit are few and far between, particularly for those who have had their applications for credit turned down by a high-street bank. “Payday lenders lead to people being assured, through impressively slick marketing campaigns and targeted advertisements, that the process of taking out a loan is quick, simple and safe. “However, once the loan has been taken out, it is difficult
to get out of the cycle. With the rates offered, simply paying off the interest becomes a struggle.” He said interest rate caps were needed “at a sensible level that does not choke off supply and send people into the hands of loan sharks”. He said interest rates were “typically more than 2,500 per cent on an annual basis”. “We need to look at reasonable limits that cut out legal usury from our high streets,” he added. Archbishop Welby said that the problem was not only faced by the very poor as five million people in the country used payday loans. “The situation is becoming too big to ignore,” he added. He said the Church was in a “unique position” to help with credit unions. “For the credit union movement to be successful and
sustainable, and other forms of local finance to develop, we need a bottom-up movement of local organisations working to change the sources of supply,” he said. “It will take many years - 10 to 15 years - but it must start now. The new institutions must develop flexibility in order to demonstrate their ability to meet the new needs.” He added: “We can use local institutions that have places of work and skills that can be brought in through volunteers. Church members - not just those in the Church of England - give more than 23 million hours of volunteer time every month outside the regular work of the church. Volunteering comes naturally to us. “Unlike some other things, it is something that we are very good at. Many who sit on the pews each Sunday have expert knowledge in finance, human resources, communications, marketing, debt counselling and all sorts of areas.”
Anger over Guiding decision to drop God ‘EVEN THOSE who are glad to see God go must be embarrassed by what has replaced him’ was the verdict of the Bishop of Bradford, the Rt Rev Nick Baines, on the decision to take God out of the Girl Guide Promise and replace it by a promise that the Guide will be ‘true to myself and develop my beliefs’. The Bishop was writing on his blog, ‘Musings of a Restless Bishop’. He commented that the new Promise “will please anyone who thinks there is such a thing as ‘neutral’, or content-free or assumptionless language or worldview. It beggars belief.” He warned that the new oath ‘opens the door to little Hitlers’. Gill Slocombe, the Chief Guide, has defended her organisation’s decision to drop God from the Promise but keep the Queen. In a newspaper interview she said that ‘all the essence of what we do is still in the Promise. It has just been reworded to make it more easily understood by the girls of today’. She claimed the move was designed to make it possible for girls of any faith or none to be members of the Guides with-
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out having to take a promise in which they did not believe. Dismissing fears that Guides could be ‘true to themselves’ and go and rob the Post Office she said that the Promise has to be read in conjunction with the Guide Laws and everything else the organisation is trying to do ‘which clearly do not say its OK to rob the Post Office’. Alternative versions of the Promise taken by Hindus, Muslims and people of other faiths will go when the vow changes. The Scouts are to retain alternative vows and add one for atheists. According to the Chief Guide: “If people believe in God, within the new wording there is still plenty of space for them to continue to worship God and develop their beliefs.” The new Guide Promise has been widely mocked in the media, even by those with no commitment to Christian belief. In his ‘Sunday Times’ column Rod Liddle mused whether the new words are ‘sufficiently meaningless, emetic and narcissistic for today’s young people?’ At present the Girl Guides claim half a million members.
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