Address to the Throne

To the Queen’s Most Excellent Majesty. The General Assembly of the United Reformed Church, meeting in Manchester, sends its greetings.

Earlier this year, our Moderator of General Assembly and other representatives were present with Your Majesty at Westminster Abbey, to mark the bicentenary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act. However, our pleasure at being part of that commemoration was qualified by our concern that slavery still exists in many forms. Child labour, forced marriage, the employment of immigrant workers in poor conditions, and the trafficking of women and girls for prostitution are all manifestations of this. We welcome the higher priority now given to these issues by Your Majesty’s government and suggest that work done in Italy and Sweden in addressing demand for trafficked prostitutes, might be used to inform good practice.

We are also conscious of the grave humanitarian consequences of the policies of Your Majesty’s Government in respect of those people whose applications for asylum in the United Kingdom have been turned down. Unable to return to their country of origin through a well-founded fear of persecution, large numbers of men and women are forced into destitution. Our Christian faith teaches us the fundamental importance of treating all God’s people with respect and dignity. Our General Assembly has declared us to be a Multicultural Church, recognising the importance of the contribution we are making in the areas of Inter Faith Relations and Multicultural Ministry.

During the past year, together with the Baptist Union of Great Britain and the Methodist Church, we have expressed our opposition to renewal of the Trident nuclear weapons programme. We live in an uncertain world, but we believe Britain’s chances of reversing the proliferation of nuclear weapons will not be helped by Your Majesty’s government further developing nuclear capabilities. There are other, more effective, ways of improving security, and many other demands on the billions of pounds that the new deterrent will cost.

We remain concerned about the conflict in Iraq and, increasingly, by the suffering endured by the people of that country and the danger to which British military personnel are exposed. We contrast the involvement of Your Majesty’s government
and the American administration in Iraq, with the less energetic attention given to conflicts elsewhere, for instance in Israel/Palestine, Darfur and Zimbabwe, where Britain might use its influence more constructively. We pray for reconciliation, and for a just and lasting peace, in these theatres of conflict.

We applaud the decision of Your Majesty’s government to take a lead in addressing climate change. We entirely support the statement in the draft Climate Change Bill, when it says: The UK ... is clearly unable to address the global problem of
climate change alone. However, this should not be used as an excuse for not taking further action. We wish to play our part in being good stewards of God’s creation and will be developing plans to monitor carbon emissions across the Church, and to implement cuts, year on year.

We are sure it saddens Your Majesty, as it saddens us, that in this, the 56th year of Your Majesty’s reign, the gap between the richest and the poorest in the land is as wide as it was in 1952. The facts are harsh: our country has one of the worst rates of child poverty in the industrialised world, a child from a poor family is more likely to die in infancy than a child of a rich family, and around ten million people (two million of them pensioners) live in poverty. This situation exists in Britain, not the developing World. In 2008, the United Reformed
Church will embark upon a campaign, led by Church Action on Poverty, with the ambitious target of creating a just and fair society, free from poverty in all its forms. We believe it is entirely what Christ himself would ask of us, his followers.

We have the assurance that our Christian faith will sustain us in answering our calling. We pray that Your Majesty’s own faith will continue to be both strengthening and sustaining in the year to come.

Ends.

 

  

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