Letter: Financial strife is no excuse to stop aid

Letter: I met our Ludlow Member of Parliament Mr Dunne at the House of Commons last week during a Christian Aid and Cafod lobby.

We were asking the Government to require large companies to publish yearly accounts, this change could begin to stop them cheating by using tax havens.

We also asked the Government to support recent legislation in the USA and suggestions in Europe about taxing the people who made money out of money. The other issue was commending the stand that Mr Cameron has made about aid to the poorest countries.

Many people have been encouraged by the tabloid papers to say that in a time of financial pressure, when many people's standard of living is falling, the aid budget should not be protected from cuts. Even some Star readers have made such comments.

There are millions of people who have no lavatories, millions with no clean water, billions without enough food. They are all human beings like us; surely for that reason alone we are asking for an increase in aid. But there are many other reasons.

It is the mining and oil companies of nations like ours who make vast profits in the poor world.

The empires of Europe were the cause of many of the changes in the global economy that have caused poverty, and the arrangement of the way money is organised in the world was agreed after the second world war and it favours the USA and the West.

One last point, the tabloid papers that twist justice also get twisted about immigration.

Here's a final thought about aid. It is the countries in the greatest need that provide the greatest numbers of people desperately trying to reach a country where life is worth living.

If there was greater equality, there would little reason for emigration.

The Rev Mike Plunkett MBE

Bishop's Castle