VAT on alterations to listed buildings

The extension of standard rate of VAT on alterations to listed buildings was included in the recent Budget and will adversely effect many historic churches and chapels of all denominations. I have made the following submission to HMRC expressing my concerns:

" I am writing on behalf of the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches regarding the above consultation paper and would make the following submission.

We would wish to draw to your attention our concerns about one particular element, the withdrawal of the current rate VAT of zero on alterations to listed buildings. Although we are a small denomination probably at least half of our congregations possess church and chapel buildings that are listed. These are maintained almost entirely by volunteers and voluntary giving.

It is ironic that at a time when we have been working more closely than ever with English Heritage (for our English congregations) as part of their “Caring for Places of Worship” initiative that we find this undermined by these changes.

The consultation paper states that “the majority of the work covered by the relief consists of extension work which is not necessary for heritage purposes. The current rules therefore give a perverse incentive for change as opposed to repair… Removing the zero rate removes the perverse incentive to change listed buildings rather than repair them and ensures that all alteration work receives the same tax treatment”. There are major efforts to encourage the use of current and former church buildings for community use often and this often require alteration if that community use is to be widened – or even maintained. The consultation seems to assume that “repair” and “alteration” are mutually-exclusive alternatives: that is simply not always the case.

I note that it has been decided to extend the Listed Places of Worship Grants Scheme to cover alterations and the budget of the Scheme has been increased by £5 million for the current financial year. However, the LPWG Scheme is already under severe pressure and an extra £5 million will not meet the likely needs. There is no guarantee that funding for the Scheme will be maintained at that level in future years.

It is clear that the extension of the 20% VAT will place burdens on already stretched churches and chapels who have responsibilities to care for the nation’s heritage; in our case of the dissenting and nonconformist tradition of which we are marking the 350^th anniversary of this year and which has made such a contribution to the development of British society.

I would urge that you reconsider and that places of worship be excluded from this change."

Paul Parker's 8 Challenges for Religious Liberals

Paul Parker, Recording Clerk of Quakers in Britain. was asked to speak to the Unitarian General Assembly last week in Keele about the challenges for religious liberals in the 21^st century. The full text of his address is available, however, these are the 8 challenges he identified:

1. Understanding what's going on with our membership

2. Being confident about who we are, and what we have to offer

3. Speaking a language people can relate to

4. Actually living up to what it is we say we believe

5. Making sure people know we exist

6. Making sure people can find us and feel welcome

7. Being effective, vibrant communities

8. Recognising the variety of ministries

Nothing here should surprise or shock Unitarians; the challenge for us is to respond to them in our own context, nationally and locally. These 8 challenges should shake us to the core. They go to the depths in how we see ourselves. They provide the questions for us to envision and then chart a future. 

Church Schools - a view on the Church of England Report

The Church of England published a significant report today on its role as a provider of education. Indeed the Church is responsible for more than 4800 schools and educates more than a million pupils.

The report asserts that Church schools stand at the centre of its mission.

• wants to strengthen its role as a major provider of provider of schools at a time of educational change.
• highlights that the Church has created a strong and distinctive “brand” and proved it can manage schools successfully.
• wants a wholehearted commitment to putting faith and spiritual development at the heart of the curriculum and ensuring that a Christian ethos permeates the whole educational experience, particularly high quality religious education and collective worship.

 In the accompanying news release the Bishop of Oxford, who is the national lead on education, indicates that he would not be surprised to see at least 200 more Church schools developed in the next five years.

Unitarians have always had major concerns about single faith schools funded by the taxpayer. In the early days of the General Assembly in 1929 the Assembly affirmed its support for a National System of Education, Free, Unsectarian and under Public Control. They opposed new facilities for sectarian teaching or ecclesiastical privilege and the imposition of any religious tests upon teachers in the employment of public bodies. In 1942 they welcomed better and more efficient teaching of religious knowledge by the use of agreed syllabuses and trained teachers provided. We should not forget that Church schools have special rights to discriminate in admissions and in the employment of staff.

More recently in 2001 the Assembly affirmed the value of education taking place in a multi-faith and non-sectarian environment and opposed any moves to support an increase in the number of schools with a religious foundation. Such moves were seen as socially divisive and impeded the growth of genuinely pluralist communities. It did not mean no faith in schools but a respect for all faiths and where pupils could be encouraged to explore issues of ethics and religious belief in an open and unbiased way. I would be concerned that the Church of England has a goal of expanding the number of schools when all the evidence points to a rapidly declining number of those claiming to be members of or associated with the Church of England.

The fact that Church schools, and a very small number of those of other faiths, exist and won’t be disappearing has encouraged Unitarians to support the AccordCoalition; a campaign group for inclusive education in faith and non-faith schools. Rabbi Jonathan Romain, their chair, has described this report as a missed opportunity. I would concur.

The report in particular wishes RE and collective worship to allow pupils to engage seriously with an develop an understanding of the person and teachings of Jesus Christ. This is a much too narrow view of religious education. It should be education about religion not about one religion. I would see a contradiction between "collective" and "worship" when a degree of compulsion is involved.

If you wish to explore one Unitarian view on school education there is a chapter by Dr Melanie Prideaux in “Unitarian Perspectives on Contemporary Social Issues” available free from Unitarian Headquarters. 

Asylum Campaign Meets Oldham MPs at Westminster

I was very pleased yesterday to give my support to the asylum campaign for Abdoulaye Diabete and Taha Ghasemi yesterday when they met Oldham MPs, Debbie Abrahams and Michael Meacher at Westminster. Their campaign has been supported by members of Oldham Unitarian Chapel led by their minister, Rev Bob Pounder.

The two MPs received petitions containing 2000 signatures to be presented to the Home Office. Both men are seeking leave to remain in the United Kingdom on compassionate grounds.

Abdoulaye Diabete also took the opportunity to present Debbie Abrahams MP with a copy of his fresh appeal prepared by the Manchester immigration solicitors, Latitude Law. The new legal appeal was completed on 16 March 2012 and contains expert witness evidence.

The campaign has received great support from the MPs, from supporters and members of Unitarian churches throughout the country. The legal work can only be funded by generous donations from individuals, churches and through fund-raising.

Meeting these two individuals puts real faces to the Resolution on destitute asylum seekers approved by the General Assembly last April.

The campaign visit to Westminster has been covered in the Oldham Advertiser

Photo above (from left); Jim Corrigall, Rev Bob Pounder, Abdoulaye Diabete, Debbie Abrahams MP, Michael Meacher MP, Taha Ghasemi and myself pictured on Parliament Green

Quakers "Pushing at the Frontiers of Change"

Personal stories are often most influential inpushing forward social change. In this new book, “Pushing at the Frontiers ofChange: a memoir of Quaker Involvement with Homosexuality” David Blamirescharts that history. It starts with the publication of “Towards a Quaker Viewof Sex” in 1963 and the response it provoked, to the challenges in the lead-upto 2009 when Quakers in Britaindecided to seek a change in the law to see same-sex marriage as equal to opposite-sexmarriage. It was a joyful and profound moment in Quakers’ history, but one thattook decades to reach.

Throughout, legal issues and attitudes in society are describedalongside personal accounts and an exploration of Quakers’ wider input into theconversation about homosexuality. What emerges is a frank perspective on howsmall but committed groups of Quakers – their actions, meetings, publicationsand belief in equality – have contributed towards vast social change for gayrights in the UK.

On Tuesday 20^th March 2012 at5.30pm at the Quaker Meeting House in Mount Street in Manchester David will bereading from his book, talking about his personal journey and how the book hascome about. Ben Pink Dandelion, Professor of Quaker Studies, will also becontributing.

David has been a close friend of my partner’s parents since they met inthe Young Friends at university and it is a joy to see the publication of thisbook.

Unitarians responded promptly to the publication of “Towards a QuakerView of Sex” with the General Assembly in April 1963 approving the followingresolution, proposed by Martin West of the Unitarian Young people’s League,unanimously:

“That this Annual Meeting ofthe Ministers and Delegates of the General Assembly of Unitarian and FreeChristian Churches considering it essential for religious liberals to givetheir continuous attention to changing moral standards, commends to its membergroups and churches, for their sympathetic consideration, the recent Towards aQuaker View of Sex, published by the Home Service Committee of the Society ofFriends”.

The debate, as reported in “The Inquirer” (4 May 1963) “called forth an impressive volume of vocalsupport from all generations represented at the meeting" and saw a call forpressure on the Home Office to implement the Wolfenden proposals on reform ofthe law on homosexuality (which was not to be until 1967).

More generally, however, as reported by Rev Dr Ann Peart “Unitariansfollowed in a rather lukewarm fashion. Several resolutions to the annualmeetings concerning homosexuality and the age of consent failed to winapproval.” It was not until 1973 that more substantial work was initiated witha report produced for the 1974 annual meetings. This quoted and recommended thepamphlet “Homosexuality from the Inside”, edited by David Blamires. TheUnitarian report was, according to Rev Dr Peart, for its time “a brave attemptto advocate more just attitude to homosexuality.” It paved the way for theground-breaking 1977 resolutions that Unitarian ministry was open to all and expressingan abhorrence of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. It was in2008 that the annual meeting, with little public attention, approved theresolution seeking the right to perform civil partnerships in religiouspremises; infact one year before the Quaker decision on equal marriage.

David’s book is available from the Quaker Bookshop, or on Kindle.

Accord Coalition Inclusivity Award 2012

Unitarians have a strong concern for inclusive schooling and have been working  with like-minded partners in the Accord Coalition. Accord today named Lammas School and Sports College in Leyton, East London as the winner of this year’s Inclusivity Award.

The Inclusivity Award, open to all schools in England and Wales, recognises and celebrates those schools that do most within the legal framework and community that they find themselves in to promote inclusiveness, the growth of mutual understanding and forge links within and between different communities.

Lammas School won strong praise from the expert panel of judges for its use of inclusive assemblies to forge shared values, the importance assigned to community cohesion, the popularity of its Religious Education, which was the school’s strongest subject at GCSE in 2011, its sensitivity towards the diverse backgrounds of it pupils, who speak over fifty languages and its ability to adapt to the changing cultural and religious profile of its student body

In second place is St George’s Voluntary Aided School, a Christian faith school in Harpenden, Hertfordshire which earned high praise from the judges for its outstanding work in tackling homophobic bullying. The Independent had an article today which focused on the exceptional anti-homophobic bullying work of the second placed St George’s School.

In third place is Crown Hills Community College in Leicester. The College, which is in the top 4% of schools for Oftsed’s Value Added Score, was praised by the judges for its effort to challenge prejudice and the dangers of stereotypes, such as through focusing on conflict in Israeli and Palatine, and for its attempts to broad the horizons of its pupils through a range of external and extra curricula activities.

I was pleased to be invited to be one of the judges for the 2012 Award earlier this year. The others on the panel of judges were:

• Baroness Kishwer Falkner (Liberal Democrat Spokesperson for the Ministry of Justice in the House of Lords)

• Lisa Nandy MP (Labour MP for Wigan and member on the House of Commons Education Select Committee)

• Manzoor Moghal (Founder and Chair of the Muslim Forum)

• Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain MBE (former Chairman of the Assembly of Reform Rabbis and Minister of the Maidenhead Synagogue)

For more information on the Award and the Accord Coalition

LGBT History Month: A Unitarian Hero - Dudley Cave

I occasionally come across references in the media to people whom I know were Unitarians. This month it was in BBC History magazine 9, Vol 13, no 2 February 2012) in an article by Stephen Bourne on how, during a rare period of tolerance, homosexuals served with distinction during World War Two. One of those quoted was Dudley Cave, a well known Unitarian who died in 1999.

Dudley Cave was a pioneer for gay rights within the British Unitarian movement and much more widely as well as being an advocate for peace and reconciliation. I recall seeing him on television on one of the early “gay” programmes in the 1990’s. We should remember him in Gay History month.

In the article it explains he was conscripted into the Royal Army Ordnance Corps, in 1941, aged 20. “He later recalled a conversation he overhead between two of his comrades. One referred to him as a “nancy boy” while the other protested that Dudley couldn’t be because he was “terribly brave in action”. Dudley understood that in their minds he could not be brave and homosexual, that the two were incompatible”.

It seems that homosexuality was unofficially tolerated in the armed forces for the duration of the war. Dudley reflected “They used us when it suited them, and them victimised us when the country was no longer in danger. I am glad I served but I am angry that military homophobia was allowed to wreck so many lives for over 50 years after we gave our all for a freedom that gay people were denied”.

Cave was posted to the Far East. During the fall of Singapore in 1942, he was captured by the Japanese. Marched north in a prisoner-of-war labour detachment, his unit was put to work on the Thai-Burma railway, 10 miles beyond the bridge on the River Kwai. He ended up in Changi Prison, Singapore where be began to accept his homosexuality. A British army medical officer gave him a copy of Havelock Ellis's "enlightened, eye-opening" 1920 book Sexual Inversion. It made him feel "much better about being gay".

In an article in The Inquirer (19 March 1994) entitled “A Gay Man in a Liberal Congregations”, based on an address to Golders Green Unitarians, he describes the reality of being gay in the 1950s; “Being gay, having a love that dare not speak its name, was disabling. I knew that I was a second-class citizen, perhaps even sub-human; my self-image was very low. I had to conceal my real feelings with every action, every word”. In 1954, Cave was dismissed as manager of the Majestic Cinema in Wembley after it was discovered he was gay. In the same year, Cave met the man who became his life partner, Bernard Williams, an RAF veteran and schoolteacher. They lived and campaigned together for 40 years.

In 1971 he decided to “have another look at the Unitarians” having been previously disappointed with their traditional worship. Things had changed and an “Integroup” was being launched as a “straight-gay integration” society at Golders Green Unitarians with Rev Keith Gilley. Within the denomination he has been described by Rev Dr Ann Peart (1.) as one of the “comparatively few people” active in promoting lesbian and gay rights and of openness and toleration in acceptance of LGBT people for ministerial training and ministry, recognition of same sex blessings in churches and support for homosexual human rights.

As secretary of Golders Green Integroup he was invited on to the launch committee of “London Gay Switchboard”. A gay bereavement support group at the church developed into the Lesbian and Gay Bereavement Project in 1980. This was the first organisation with the word “gay” in its title to win charity status, and not without a struggle. Drawing upon his bereavement skills, he was a consultant to the National Funerals College, which was important as the tide of deaths from AIDS grew. Although shy his ability as a speaker blossomed and he appeared increasingly on the media. He was also prominent as a Unitarian lay preacher and contributed to “Daring to Speak Love’s Name: a gay and lesbian prayer book”.

For 20 years, he battled against the Royal British Legion's refusal to acknowledge that lesbian and gay people served and died in wars defending Britain. He also challenged the Legion over its opposition to the participation of gay organisations in Remembrance Day ceremonies.

Dudley was a leading figure in the promotion of peace and reconciliation with Japan. "I will never forget what the Japanese did to us, but the time has come for forgiveness," he wrote to a friend. He was involved with the Buddhist Peace Temple near the River Kwai, and lectured extensively on the need for rapprochement between former adversaries.

Rev Keith Gilley summed up his life: “He embodied the Unitarian principles of Freedom, Reason and Tolerance, not only with these two issues with which he will always be associated but with so many others – equality in terms of colour, race, sex and in relation to disabled people signified almost as much with him as gay rights and peace issues” (Obituary, The Inquirer, 19 June 1999).

Peter Tatchell wrote of him as “Anti-Fascist, soldier, prisoner of war, advocate of peace and reconciliation, gay rights pioneer, Dudley Cave was above all a Humanitarian” (Obituary, The Independent, 31 May 1999).

A true Unitarian Hero in LGBT History Month

(1.) “Peart, Ann (2003) “Of warmth and love and passion: Unitarians and (homo)sexuality” in “Unitarian Perspectives on Contemporary Social Issues” (Chryssides, George D. (ed)) . Lindsey Press. Available from Unitarian Headquarters.