By Ruth Peacock
Faith groups worked closely with the government during Covid lockdowns, recognised for their work on the front line in communities across the country.
They were — and still are — engaged in delivering food, giving health messages on vaccinations, finding lonely people and looking after them.
Post lockdown, as the country faces a cost-of-living crisis with rising energy prices and inflation pushing up the cost of food — causing fear and anxiety among millions of people —faith leaders came together in a Religion Media Centre briefing to offer their list of urgent priorities that the new prime minister must address.
Alleviating poverty came out top. The picture they painted of utter deprivation was stunning.
Pastor Mick Fleming from Burnley featured in a hard-hitting, BBC news film on his work with people at the margins, often on the streets, during the Covid lockdown. He told the briefing that the situation was now much worse and still deteriorating.
His “Church on the Street” works with people who have fallen through every crack in the system. He had found a homeless mother with children and helped them; he sourced an electric wheelchair for someone who was living on the streets despite their disability.
“We are seeing a new kind of poverty. Basic needs are not being met. People struggle for food, warmth, accommodation.” He has seen the “pension poor” and the working poor, helping to provide bus fares for them to get to work when they have run out of money at the end of the month.
The trickle-down economy has left the bottom empty: “In the history of the world, I’ve never seen anything grow from the sky down. We need investment at the lowest level,” Pastor Fleming said.
His appeal to the new government was to invest in small local organisations, not drop money on large organisations and expect them to know what to do with it.
He was concerned that political leaders, as shown in the leadership election, fall back on a set of tools that are broken. They did not listen, he said, and they were holding onto systems that were broken. Something more radical was required: “We need a consensus of common sense not party politics,” Pastor Fleming said.
Community was at the heart of it. If people know they belong, the community will never let them go hungry.
The Rev Joanne Thorns, regional officer for North East Churches Acting Together, told similar stories, with teachers having to step in to provide food, clothes and underwear for children, in one of the wealthiest countries in the world.
She was concerned that food banks were now the norm. “Faith groups are just consistently picking up the pieces without questions being answered or asked. This is not acceptable. In today’s world, we should not have to do that”.
No government ministers or MPs had engaged in conversations with them, she said, and she appealed for the government to listen. “Sometimes it feels like we’re completely forgotten about … We’re just this place at the top of the country that everybody ignores.”
Daniel Singleton, national executive director of Faith Action, a network of faith organisations engaged in frontline services across the country, said action was clearly needed: “If the Conservative Party wants to wrap up those red wall voters, they have to do something,” he said.
His message to the government was not to assume that faith groups exist only for a crisis. Instead, he said, they created a social infrastructure able to offer support and enact change. There was nothing outside faith that was sufficient to do the same.
Outlining the hopes and demands on the new government, he said: “If the Tories want to stay in power, they have to work with faith.”
Laura Marks, interfaith consultant with Common Good, said Liz Truss needed to have a mindset about understanding the faith communities. “The people who conform to some sort of religious of faith community is huge,” she said. “Communities are integral to the running of this country.”
She was particularly concerned that Truss, as the third female prime minister, should see the issues with a fresh pair of eyes. Women, Ms Marks said, were often at the grass roots of solving the problems, running the community action, looking after refugees, ensuring children had coats, and being volunteers. Liz Truss should listen to the women, she said.
Laura Marks was also concerned that the economic turmoil in the coming months would divide communities further and very often the minorities would be blamed. It was important that the new government found ways to focus on similarities between the groups. For example, they were all united on tackling poverty, as a way to confront prejudice and hatred.
It was put to the panel that fine words from politicians were one thing, but was there any realistic chance that anything would be done on all the issues raised?
Gareth McNab, external affairs director for Christians Against Poverty, said his faith demanded doing good in the community and challenging injustice.
Joanne Thorns did hold out hope and said: “I think the majority of politicians that I’ve worked with want to do good because they want to change things.” She hoped they would move away from party politics setting one against another, but worked together with all faiths to help those who needed it most and created a more cohesive society.
Pastor Fleming said there was no choice but to change, because things are getting worse. It was a painful time and he prayed for a change of heart, a spiritual revolution for honesty, unselfishness, purity and love.
View the media briefing on our YouTube channel here
