http://greenchristian.co.uk/2013/02/hospital-chaplaincies/

Green Christian is a blog run by Stephen Gray, a self-professed Evangelical Christian and member of Coventry Green Party. I have copied his post from earlier today below, after which I respond to his points.

Posted on February 11, 2013 at 11:18 am, One of the things about having this blog is that I seem to have become the go-to person when anybody is looking for Christians within the Green Party. The most recent example of this is somebody who was curious about a motion on hospital chaplains that is being submitted to the partys Spring Conference later this month. The motion is taken straight from the National Secular Societys position on the issue of hospital chaplains, and reads:

C31. Hospital Chaplaincy Services
Proposed by Andy Chyba (**), Anthony Young, John Evans, Owen Clarke, + 2 others
Synopsis
A National Secular Society survey has shown that over £30m of NHS money was spent on hospital chaplaincy services in 2009/10 in England and Wales; services with no clinical benefit. That such services are publicly funded, ahead of services such as Macmillan Cancer Support and Air Ambulances services, is indefensible.
Motion
Insert into the PSS new section HE 371 For some patients, hospital chaplaincy services offer an important source of comfort and spiritual support. NHS Health boards should facilitate a chaplaincy service. Chaplaincy funding should not come from a fixed health budget. Alternative funding streams should be used.

We will therefore:

I. Divert the expenditure being spent each year on the English and Welsh chaplaincy services into front-line health services.

II. Work with the leaders of all religious denominations in England and Wales to establish charitable trusts to fund hospital chaplaincy services.

The motion will make it Green Party policy that chaplaincy services must be privately funded, and so makes it less likely that they will be available. The last time I was an in-patient, I found the chaplaincy service an immense encouragement, even though I only saw them a couple of times. They may not have made a difference to my clinical condition, but they certainly made a difference to my overall well-being.

Sadly, I cant afford to go to Spring Conference this year. As I cant be there to argue and vote against the motion in person, I feel obliged to argue against it here. The motion should be voted down for the following reasons (listed in no particular order):

• This motion makes it Green Party policy to privatise a part of our health service.
• As a party we are opposed to the Governments austerity agenda, where government services are stopped for purely budgetary reasons, and it is left to charities (most often religious groups) to pick up the slack. The Green approach is to work out what government should be doing in principle and then making sure we find the money to pay for it. This motion assumes the austerity principle.
• It goes against Green Party principles. Our health policy starts by saying Health is the condition in which individuals and communities achieve their full physical, intellectual, social and spiritual potential. This motion sends the message that clinical/physical health is the only part of our health that matters.
• The supporting evidence is misleading. The call to privatise chaplaincy services is based on one study, which said that chaplaincy services provide no clinical benefit. But they arent there as a clinical service. Their role is to provide pastoral support for hospital patients. Its an important service that no other part of the NHS provides. Healthcare professionals rarely have the time to focus on the patient as a person, whilst chaplains do nothing but that.
• It paints the Green Party as an anti-religion party. We already have some policies that come across that way (one of our equalities policies would make it illegal to require that vicar be a Christian, though that was probably not the intent of the people who wrote it). We are a party that believes human beings have a spiritual dimension. The last thing we need is policies written by an anti-religion pressure group to advance an anti-religious agenda.

As the main proposer of the motion, my response to these points is as follows:

• It is a totally spurious point to argue that this amounts to privatising part of the health service. My main line of argument is that there are always competing demands for funding within the NHS budget and I would strongly argue that all NHS money should go to clinical services that have the potential to directly help everybody, rather than something of no clinical value and, at the very least, dubious value to anything but a small minority of NHS users.
• It is even more absurd to suggest this motion is sympathetic to the Government’s austerity agenda. Stephen does however hit the nail on the head when he says “The Green approach is to work out what government should be doing in principle and then making sure we find the money to pay for it.” In the same way that the Green approach to education is essentially secular and non-denominational (ED176 No publicly-funded school shall be run by a religious organisation.) it is unacceptable for public money to be used to support denominational services in hospitals.
• There is a world of difference between spirituality and religion. The sentence immediately following the one Stephen quotes from the start of our Health Policy is “Health for individuals is only possible in the context of a healthy environment and society” and one only needs to watch the news everyday to see how destructive religion is to a healthy society in the world today. I am a strong and passionate advocate of the need for greater funding of a more holistic approach to health. Mental health and preventative health care are most obviously seriously underfunded, and will hopefully benefit from the savings made on chaplaincy services.
• Stephen calls the supporting evidence misleading and then goes on to substantiate the fact it is not a health care service but a ‘pastoral support service for patients’. If some sort of pastoral support could be provided to everyone, there might be some sort of argument. My local hospital has three chaplains – an Anglican, a Catholic and a Baptist (all men in dog collars) – and one Christian Chapel. I would suggest it would be a more equitable (and virtually free) to have a directory of ‘pastoral’/counselling services of all denominations (and none) that could be contacted to arrange a visit. In my experience, good priests visit their regular parishioners when they learn they are in hospital anyway.
• Stephen says this motion paints the Green Party as an anti-religion party. I have not got a problem with that, although I do not think it is true. This motion is about priorities and equality. This demands the evenhandedness of being essentially secular and non-discriminatory. Our final core value states “The Green Party puts changes in both values and lifestyles at the heart of the radical green agenda”. This will assuredly respect spirituality, but will surely see the continuing marginalisation of organised religion that has been such a drag on societal progress for so long.

Camp Frack 2.

WE NEED A STRONG PRESENCE FROM SOUTH WALES IF AT ALL POSSIBLE – CHECK YOUR DIARIES!!

(I have just checked mine and it is my wife’s 50th birthday weekend – tricky, or what! – Andy)

NO to fracking – YES to One Million Climate Jobs!
https://www.facebook.com/events/124894184355311/?notif_t=plan_user_joined

Mere Brow, Lancashire – 10th, 11th & 12 May
A weekend of activity in opposition to fracking and other forms of extreme energy & in support of the fight for ONE MILLION CLIMATE JOBS.

Including live music, Presentations, Film Showings, Discussions on Campaign Strategy, Poetry, Protest Action, .. And a Beer Tent

Organised by a Coalition of Anti-fracking and Environmental Groups including REAF, RAFF, FFF Merseyside Against fracking, Friends of the Earth & Gtr Manchester Assoc of Trades Unioin Councils.

Supported by a range of other organisations. Further information to follow including details of live entertainment, national speakers and celebrity guests

The original Camp Frack was a big success: http://www.campaigncc.org/campfrack

Industrial fishing fleets are vacuuming up so many fish, they are driving them to extinction! But in 24 hours, the EU could vote for a bold new plan to end overfishing. Big fishing interests are going all out to scupper the deal, so our messages now to key MEPs can make all the difference:

The world’s oceans will soon run out of fish, unless we rein in ruthless fishing fleets! Luckily in 24 hours, the EU Parliament could vote for a bold new plan to save our seas.

Many MEPs support the historic deal that would end overfishing. But a group of countries in bed with powerful fishing interests — led by France and Spain — are bullying ‘undecided’ MEPs to vote no or abstain. If we build a huge wave of public support now, we can convince parliamentarians to ensure science, not greed, determines the fate of our fish.

The vote is in 24 hours — if we win, it’ll set in motion one of the strongest global crackdowns on overfishing! Send an urgent message to the 23 MEPs who can make the difference:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/eu_save_our_fish_a/?bqsmtbb&v=21663

Overfishing has already wiped out 90% of the world’s large predatory fish like tuna, sharks and cod. Europe’s fishing policy has been a colossal failure and has contributed to the collapse — 88% of Europe’s seas are overexploited, so monster boats must venture ever further to plunder the seas from Africa to the Pacific.

The stakes are high. Changing EU’s policy from one based on ministers haggling for national quotas to one based on science and long-term sustainability could start rebuilding healthy oceans everywhere. Yet not only are MEPs from France and Spain scheming to gut this deal, the vote could be buried in a sea of other proposals and some MEPs might abstain simply because they’re unaware of the issue. But experts say our voices count! A tidal wave of public support to key MEPs is exactly what we need to save our fish.

The European Fisheries Committee has already agreed to a progressive plan — all we need to do is get behind it and give it a massive push. Send an urgent message to key European MEPs now — we have 24 hours!

http://www.avaaz.org/en/eu_save_our_fish_a/?bqsmtbb&v=21663

We’ve already fought and won for our oceans. Avaaz members were pivotal in British and Australian government decisions to create the world’s two largest marine protected areas. But we’ve still got a long way to go in our struggle and right now, our fight is here in Europe, one of the world’s biggest catchers and the largest consumer of fish. Let’s make sure we win this!

With hope and determination,

Jamie, Alex, Lisa, Ari, Iain, Ricken, Maria Paz, Luis and the whole Avaaz team

MORE INFORMATION

No more seafood by 2050? (New Scientist)
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn10433-no-more-seafood-by-2050.html

Davos 2013: Iceland slams Europe over fishing policy (BBC News)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21206881

Q&A: Reform of EU fishing policy (BBC News)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14143606

UK cod collapse due to overfishing and political failure, says fisheries expert (Guardian)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/sep/30/uk-cod-collapse-overfishing

OCEAN2012: A coalition of over 100 organisations, working for a brighter future for our oceans
http://ocean2012.eu/

Support the Avaaz Community!
We’re entirely funded by donations and receive no money from governments or corporations. Our dedicated team ensures even the smallest contributions go a long way.

See: http://populationmatters.org/

As there is likely to be significant debate on this issue at the forthcoming Conference, I am interested in hearing people’s views.
I am particularly interested in hearing from people that feel that Population Matters views in any way conflict with Green Party policy ( http://policy.greenparty.org.uk/pp ) as I am struggling to see it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=puvftbEp1wM

Our motion appears on the agenda as follows:

C31. Hospital Chaplaincy Services

Proposed by Andy Chyba (**), Anthony Young, John Evans, Owen Clarke, + 2 others

Synopsis

A National Secular Society survey has shown that over £30m of NHS money was spent on hospital chaplaincy services in 2009/10 in England and Wales; services with no clinical benefit. That such services are publicly funded, ahead of services such as Macmillan Cancer Support and Air Ambulances services, is indefensible.

Motion

Insert into the PSS new section HE 371 For some patients, hospital chaplaincy services offer an important source of comfort and spiritual support. NHS Health boards should facilitate a chaplaincy service. Chaplaincy funding should not come from a fixed health budget. Alternative funding streams should be used.

We will therefore:

I. Divert the expenditure being spent each year on the English and Welsh c

haplaincy services into front-line health services.

II. Work with the leaders of all religious denominations in England and Wales to establish charitable trusts to fund hospital chaplaincy services.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=NPBHkByx_T4

Well done FoE!!

The Coalition of Resistance has launched this petition along with the list of initial signatories in a letter to the Guardian on 18 October. It will be handed in to Downing Street in June 2013 when we will be hosting a Peoples Assembly Against Austerity. Full details to come soon. Please ask everyone to sign. Click here to download a printable version for street stalls, to take around your workplace, friends family etc.

The failed policies of the politicians and the bankers caused the financial crisis. Spending cuts are driving us into poverty. An economic alternative is essential to protect ordinary people, and to save the NHS and welfare state.
The government should:

1. 1) Stop cuts and halt privatisation;
2. 2) Tax the millionaires and big business;
3. 3) Drop the debt, and put the banks under democratic control;
4. 4) Invest in jobs, homes, public services and the environment.

We know there are alternatives:

https://bridgendgreens.wordpress.com/2012/06/07/making-sense-of-the-national-debt-and-associated-ideas/

https://bridgendgreens.wordpress.com/2011/12/06/remember-how-iceland-went-bankrupt-why-no-news-since/

About us

What is the Coalition of Resistance and what does it do?
The Coalition of Resistance

1. Is a broad united national campaign against cuts and privatisation in our workplaces, community and welfare services, based on general agreement with the Founding Statement issued by Tony Benn in August 2010.
2. Is linked to no particular political party, but committed to open working in a non-sectarian way with all organisations seeking to co-ordinate resistance; and is dedicated to supplementing, rather than supplanting, trade union, student, pensioner and community opposition to austerity measures.
3. Is based on thousands of individual supporters, together with national unions, union branches, anti-cuts campaigns, student, pensioner, unemployed, youth and other organisations which affiliate.
4. Seeks to provide a national umbrella for a network of local and sectoral campaigns; and aspires to support, encourage, coordinate, and facilitate a transfer of experience rather than to command.
5. Invites affiliation from functioning local campaigns championing public services or fighting the cuts; encourages the establishment of new local campaigns where there are none; and offers local campaigns the opportunity to call themselves local Coalitions of Resistance if they wish.
6. Organises newsletters, a website www.coalitionofresistance.org.uk , meetings, conferences, lobbies, rallies, marches, demonstrations and other events.
7. Vehemently opposes all proposals to solve the crisis by discrimination or scapegoating on the grounds of disability, race, religion, ethnic origin, gender, age, sexual orientation or identity.
8. Liaises closely with similar opposition movements in other countries and has issued a call for international resistance to austerity measures.
9. Encourages a wide debate on how to protect the welfare state and develop an alternative programme for economic and social recovery in line with its founding statement.
10. Is run by a steering committee meeting on a weekly basis and advised by periodic meetings of activist supporters of the founding statement until the Founding National Conference on 27th November 2010.

Leading Green energy suppliers – Ecotricity – are not impressed either:

(Extract from an e-mail sent by Lauren Harding, Home Moves Assistant at Ecotricity)

Ecotricity do not feel we are in a position to participate in the Green Deal given the current design and cost of the scheme. We believe our time and our customers money is better spent turning bills into windmills where profits are used to build new sources of green electricity and gas.

By helping to wean Britain off imported fossil fuels and onto homemade and sustainable sources of green energy energy will be cheaper for everyone in the long-term.

Dont energy companies have to participate in the Green Deal?

To ensure small energy companies are able to continue to compete against the Big Six energy companies, the Government have allowed energy companies with less than 250,000 customers to opt-out of the Green Deal because it would involve a huge investment that would be an unfair burden on small independent suppliers.

Does Ecotricity not think that energy efficiency is important?

Being efficient with energy is equally as important as making green energy they are two sides of the same coin. Ecotricity is in favour of the Green Deal scheme in principle if it was being done in the right way.

The Government has introduced the Green Deal in a bid to encourage energy efficiency measures to be installed into peoples homes, but Ecotricity believe there are elements of the Green Deal that are not well designed or cost-effective.

What parts of the Green Deal are not cost-effective?

Firstly, a major principle of the Green Deal is the Golden Rule, whereby any energy efficiency measures that are installed should not cost more than the savings they provide on energy bills.

The problem with the Golden Rule is that its based on estimates that are prone to big margins of error because of that for a lot of people the Golden Rule wont be upheld.

Secondly, the people providing the energy efficiency measures want interest payments and this just makes it more difficult to deliver the Golden Rule (I.e. The energy efficiency measures should not cost more than the savings on energy bills). Worse still, those interest payments are higher than traditional forms of finance such as bank loans.

When the Green Deal was thought up two years ago, the financing did stack-up. The interest rates available to finance the cost of insulating a house were far more (around 11%), but now you can actually get finance for around 6-8% which could turn out to be cheaper than using the Green Deal.

What parts of the Green Deal are not well designed?

The middlemen providing the Golden Rule estimates are often the same people that are selling the kit such as insulation. Yet theyve got no obligation or responsibility long term if the energy efficiency measures installed dont work to the level promised. This is a recipe for miss-selling.

Yet it is the energy company that takes on the risk of default for Green Deal payments not the middle-men that organise the energy efficiency measures. So Ecotricity doesnt make money from the Green Deal yet becomes liable for the debt.

How much would the Green Deal cost Ecotricity?

For a small energy company, like Ecotricity, the administrative cost of implementing the Green Deal would be immense, with the computer systems costing hundreds of thousands of pounds (up to half a million), yet the only return on this investment would be an annual fee of £7.30 per Green Deal customer.

The Green Deal is far more costly and complex to manage than, for instance, the Feed-in-Tariff system for solar panels. Yet the annual fees to administer FiTs (which only just about covers the cost) are four times higher that of the Green Deal.

We believe our time and our customers money is better spent turning bills into windmills where profits are used to build new sources of green electricity and gas.

By helping to wean Britain off imported fossil fuels and onto homemade and sustainable sources of green energy energy will be cheaper for everyone in the long-term.

Kind Regards,

Lauren Harding
Home Moves Assistant

Telephone: 0845 555 7500
Email: home@ecotricity.co.uk
Website: www.ecotricity.co.uk

It is published by London-based company ‘Control Risks’. They describe themselves thus:“Control Risks is an independent, global risk consultancy specialising in helping organisations manage political, integrity and security risks in complex and hostile environments. We support clients by providing strategic consultancy, expert analysis and in-depth investigations, handling sensitive political issues and providing practical on-the-ground protection and support.
Our unique combination of services, geographical reach and the trust our clients place in us ensure we can help them to effectively solve their problems and realise new opportunities across the world.”
http://www.controlrisks.com/Pages/Home.aspx

As such they are clearly not our friends, but allies of the industry. I am not sure that it is always true that friends of our enemies are necessarily our enemies; and in this case their comprehensive global review can possibly be more useful to us than the industry.

The review starts with this introduction:

“Unconventional natural gas is often described as game-changing and transformative, a revolution heralding a golden age of cheap, plentiful energy for a resource-constrained world. But only if it makes it out of the ground.

As shown by local bans in the US and Canada, national moratoriums in France and Bulgaria, and tighter regulation in Australia and the UK, the global anti-fracking movement has mounted an effective campaign against the extraction of unconventional gas through hydraulic fracturing (fracking). Meanwhile, the oil and gas industry has largely failed to appreciate social and political risks, and has repeatedly been caught off guard by the sophistication, speed and influence of anti-fracking activists.

As unconventional gas development spreads worldwide, and becomes more central to government energy policy and corporate investment strategy, a better understanding of the anti-fracking movement its goals, structure, methods and trajectory is essential for companies, policymakers and other observers of the emergent energy boom.”

Its perception of what ‘fractivists’ want is fair enough, as they would appear to have been infiltrating social media (at the very least) with shills, as well as comprehensively reviewing online postings. (I will be disappointed if they do not read this at some point – so )

They categorise us as follows:

“The specific agendas of anti-fracking groups vary according to local priorities and group composition. Public consultation is critical in France, for example, while rural conservation issues dominate in Australia. However, the movement as a whole falls into four broad camps: those desiring a better deal from the gas industry; those advocating further study into the environmental and economic impacts of unconventional gas development; those demanding a complete ban on hydraulic fracturing; and in the majority those demanding tighter regulation of gas development.” I can recognise that elements of the fractivist camp fall into all four categories – but my feeling is that the longer people stay involved, and the more they learn about what is at stake, there is a gradual drift towards demands for an outright ban. And I firmly believe they are seriously under-estimating us when they say:

“2012 is likely to set the high-water mark for the anti-fracking movement.”

We are only just getting into our stride and, as they themselves point out, there are various ways that the movement is likely to develop – into broader issues (the whole range of extreme energy threats for a start); into wider territories (as more an more places become targets of the frackers); and into greater radicalism (in the form of much greater direct action). I wouldn’t argue with any of that!

There then follows a section that offers suggestions to the industry on how they could respond and counter our threat; very worthy of our attention.

Finally, there is a global Anti-Fracking Risk Register that we certainly need to respond to. It acknowledges that Anti-Fracking Activism in the UK is “Significant“, but rates the UK as merely LOW in terms of Political Risk and Security Risk.

I would suggest that we are going to have to force them to re-assess this if their overall predicted outcome, that ultimately the industry will prevail in most parts of the world, is to be confirmed to be the sop to the industry that sells their services to the industry, that I think it is, rather than a complete misreading of our determination to achieve Vanessa’s ultimate clarion call:

NOMP!

Not On My Planet!

THE GREEN Party has criticised the government’s home insulation scheme as being insufficient to encourage meaningful change.

The government’s Green Deal, in which a loan is provided to meet the costs of home insulation, is meant to cut the carbon emissions of 14m homes. However, the scheme provides no guarantee of any financial incentive for each household, as the loan repayments offset falls in energy bills.

Cllr. Andrew Cooper, Green Party energy spokesperson and Councillor for Newsome, Kirklees, said: “The lack of foresight on the Green Deal will earn it a place in the public policy textbooks as a perfect example of how to get it wrong.

“The Green Partys 2010 manifesto proposed a straightforward energy efficiency programme, genuinely free at the point of purchase, which would have clearly incentivised households to sign up, and would have created in the region of 80,000 jobs.

“Instead we have a Green Deal in which a home insulation loan is repaid through your energy bill, so the effect upon fuel poverty, jobs and emissions is likely to be negligible.

“The Green Party has real experience of planning a successful free home insulation scheme. From 2007-10, the Kirklees Warm Zone (KWZ) was the largest local authority home insulation scheme in the UK, and the first to offer free loft and cavity wall insulation to every suitable property. Cllr Cooper proposed the amendment that made the scheme free.

“In Kirklees, the Warm Zone scheme saw over 50,000 homes insulated, £3.9m of fuel expenditure saved per year, and over 300 jobs created directly and indirectly.

“Friends of the Earth and the WWF have used the KWZ as a model of best practise, and both the London Assembly and Scottish Assembly have requested our help to make their own insulation schemes work.

“The governments energy policies are all headlines, but no coherent content. How can they talk about carbon efficiency with a straight face while cutting feed-in tariffs for micro-generation and giving tax breaks to shale gas?”