Christians part of new coalition to challenge UK poverty

|PIC1|Churches and Christian groups are among the organisations coming together to form a new coalition challenging poverty in the UK.

The Get Fair coalition, which launches this Thursday, includes the Church of England, the Baptist Union of Great Britain, the Methodist Church, the United Reformed Church, Church Action on Poverty, Church Urban Fund and Housing Justice.

The 50 member organisations also include other faith bodies, including the Muslim Council of Britain and Islamic Aid, as well as household charities such as Shelter, Oxfam and Help the Aged.

The launch of the coalition comes not long after the Joseph Rowntree Foundation published research which asserted that "the public are currently a long way from supporting an anti-UK poverty agenda. They are not aware of the problem and do not believe that it is a legitimate issue."

Get Fair is being launched to drive forward efforts to close the gap between rich and poor in the UK and to transform public attitudes towards poverty.

Get Fair coalition members will lobby the major political parties to ensure they remain committed to ending child poverty by 2020 and seeing poverty eradicated across every generation in the UK.

Niall Cooper, National Coordinator of Church Action on Poverty, and coordinator of the Get Fair campaign, said: "Why is it that in the fifth richest country in the world, poverty continues to blight the lives of far too many people? Why is it that too many have failed to share in our increased prosperity as a nation?

"Ultimately what is lacking is the popular pressure and political will to bring change about.

"In the fifth richest country in human history there is no excuse for allowing the gap between rich and poor to continue to grow.

"It's time for politicians of all the major parties to sign up to a goal of ending UK poverty: Its time to Get Fair."

Cooper said that churches had a crucial role to play in eradicating poverty in the UK.

"Make Poverty History showed the power of the churches to take action to end global poverty. Our task, and our challenge, is now to bring this hope back home."