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Public Issues

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Working with the Westminster Parliament

Quakers, at all times, seek to balance active campaigning with constructive dialogue with government and MPs, in the United Kingdom.

This dialogue takes the form of responses to government consultations, submissions to government and Select Committees and meetings with MPs.

All submissions and responses are listed below, and also included are Briefings for Quakers on matters of topical interest.

2010 General Election

Upcoming General Election: One practical way in which Friends may contribute to democratic renewal at the time of the General Election is by working with other Churches and faith groups locally to organise hustings at the time of the election. A guide to the 2010 General Election issues is available on the Churches Together in Britain and Ireland website or can be downloaded as a PDF from here.

CTBI Conference

UK churches including representatives of Quakers came together on 20th January 2009 to address the global economic and environmental crisis in a recent CTBI conference at Methodist Church House.

Michael Bartlet, QPSW Parliamentary Liaison Secretary, in summing up for the conference, said: 'We have falsely separated the economy from the environment in which it is rooted and sustained. We need to rebuild the link….we face a stark choice between a political economy, based on greed, acquisition and consumption and one based on sustainable and just relationships with our neighbour and reverence for life.”

http://www.ctbi.org.uk/357

Still Human, Still Here

Still Human, Still Here is a coalition of 30 organisations that are campaigning to end the destitution of refused asylum seekers in the UK. The coalition believes that the current system is inhumane, expensive and ineffective. It also negatively impacts on other areas of policy such as building community cohesion and challenging social exclusion. QPSW has recently joined the coalition as a partner in its work of seeking to build a more compassionate asylum system. 

Living Ghosts Campaign

The Living Ghost Campaign aims to change the government policies that are making people seeking asylum destitute. QPSW signed up to the campaign in July 2006. For more information visit the Church Action on Poverty webpages on this issue. [offsite link]

Briefings

Current briefings and documents include:

Submissions

Articles

Recently published articles from The Friend, giving more background on the issues.

Some useful governmental and inter-governmental website links