Time for a Fairness Council
by Rob Merchant
When you think of ‘fairness’ what comes to mind? I consider fairness to have at its root a commitment to an equitable act, seeking a balance of justice containing the benefit and risk of opportunity and harm in decisions that affect community. To ask “What is fairness?” is an endeavour full of nuance and complexity, it demands careful analysis, great wisdom and the ability to admit fault when something is demonstrably not fair.
Our coalition government appears to have recently cornered the market in ‘fairness’. The Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) has ushered in this age of austerity and it is necessary to ensure that the pain that is to be endured in the UK, with the removal of £81 billion of public spending from our economy and the loss of more than 450,000 public sector jobs over the next four years, should be shared out fairly amongst people. Apparently we can be confident that fairness is at the heart of the CSR as the media has presented us with various stories of the battle at the heart of government as coalition government ministers have wrestled with the mighty beast called ‘deficit’ and have sought to slay this threat to our credit worthiness as a nation.
We know that fairness is at the heart of the CSR because the Chancellor made it the CSR’s second principle when he stated, “Fairness means creating a welfare system that helps the vulnerable, supports people into work, and is affordable for the working families who pay for it from their taxes.” Furthermore, the Chancellor explained that fairness means that higher taxpayers and banks will pay as well.
You may have noted a hint of cynicism in my comments so far… perhaps betraying me as a frustrated supporter of the previous government. Therefore it is at this moment that I should offer a formal confession and a plea for clemency. I am a Tory voting, fiscally conservative evangelical who doesn’t believe in big government – forgive me, please. I am supposed to be leaping with an existential political joy at the thought of almighty chops in the size of government. However over the last fortnight I have been shocked and dismayed at the scale of change about to affect the lives of people who are some of the most vulnerable in our society, and angry that it has been wrapped up and presented with the dainty ribbon of someone else’s concept of ‘fairness’.
Preparing a sermon for Bible Sunday I read again the passage from Luke’s gospel where Jesus reads from the scroll of Isaiah, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.” Jesus declares his manifesto of intent in the midst of a time of oppression. It was a declaration of hope then, and I believe we need a declaration of hope now for the many people whose lives are going to be profoundly changed by the reduction in public spending.
Therefore, I propose a new development, the “Fairness Council”, bringing together charities and faith groups to hold our coalition government to account in its commitment to fairness in the application of the CSR. In a letter to the Church Times (29th October 2010) I have suggested that the Church of England is well positioned to lead such an initiative, as the Archbishop of York has stated, the church has been ‘doing’ the Big Society for the last 2000 years. We know what fairness and justice means. We are blessed that churchgoers overall contribute 23.2 million hours to voluntary service in their local communities each month. We have thousands of community projects around the country receiving funding from the state. We have a Cathedral Group of Universities with historic links to the Church of England who will be affected by the severe reduction in public funding for Higher Education. We have much to talk about and a responsibility to protect.
The Fairness Council is not a call for yet another quango, this time rooted in the voluntary sector, but a call for key groups to work together to campaign against the wall of silence presented by the media who seem to have swallowed the coalition government’s definition of fairness. Therefore I suggest that the Fairness Council statement of intent be that, “We will not abandon the vulnerable or fail to hold our government to account in its commitment to fairness”.
Yes, there needs to be change in our society, but at whose cost? Fairness is complex, nuanced and presents opportunities and risks – it also comes with great responsibility for those who claim to know how best to implement it on behalf of others. Currently those who hold power are making decisions for the powerless, fairness demands at some point the powerless are given the right to make decisions for the powerful. We are entering a time of great change for many people who are the most vulnerable in our country; it will be a mark of the state of our society the level of harm we cause or the opportunities we create as we seek a fair society for all.
Rob Merchant is Rector of seven rural parishes in the Diocese of Gloucester. He is co-Chair of the Centre for Faith, Science and Values at the University of Gloucestershire and holds an honorary academic position with the Centre for Ageing and Mental Health at Staffordshire University.
