Episode 12 The Big Questions

Good morning, I'm Nicky Campbell. Taxing wealth, making amends for

slavery and is praying to be jawed. Welcome to The Big Questions.

Today we're live from King Edward VI school in Southampton. Welcome,

everyone, to The Big Questions. This week the Chancellor delivered

his fifth budget speech with good news for soon-to-be pensioners.

Those retiring next year will be able to do what they want with their

pension pots, worth up to ?1.5 million for some, instead of having

to buy a low yielding annuity. Add to that the rapidly escalating value

of homes, especially here in the south, and suddenly more people are

quite a bit richer. But at the other end of the scale,

the poor have been getting poorer and for the first time there are

more working families living in poverty than non-working ones. So

Oxfam is campaigning to reduce the gap between rich and poor and one

way they're suggesting is to have greater taxation of wealth. Should

wealth be taxed more? We are not talking about income here

at 45%, 50% what it might be. It is about assets, houses about land.

James Sproule, good morning. This whole idea of this so-called mansion

tax, if somebody has a ?2.5 million house which is amazing for many

people outside London and people looking at these figures. RUC richly

saying they cannot afford to pay what would amount to ?5,000 a year

in tax? I think in London, very often that mansion will be a

worker's cottage from Victorian times. If we look at how much the

rich are already paying intact, and it is key here in the United

Kingdom, less than 1% of the people are counting the people accounting

for 25% of income tax. And if you had a business, you would make sure

you are nice to those people and make sure they stayed. The people at

the top, we don't care if you go somewhere else and for all of us

sitting in this audience, we do care. The last thing we want to do

is drive away these very high taxpayers. As an economy we have a

skewed system. We need to appreciate where we are right now. Also, a

couple of things that have come out on this proposal, there are a couple

of things but am to mind. One of course is it has been put on the

total value of your home. If you have a big mortgage, you don't own

it all yet the tax is applied to the whole house. But inflation on houses

has cautioned that hasn't it? It is like in 1997, I don't think Ed Balls

and Gordon Brown put a tax on pensions in order to ruin them, but

that is what happened. The UK pension system was well funded up

and other point and attacks ruined it. What we are saying is they are

happy to see the capital value of everybody's house across the country

crumble and that is a poor policy. Dr Faiza Shaheen, you heard what he

says. Is this an economic case or is it a moral case you making? We're

talking about assets. It is both. We talk about skewness taxes and wealth

inequality is very high so the top 10% have 500 times what the bottom

10% have. Often a third of the population have nothing and are in

negative equity. We need to be doing something about inequality and we

need to do something about the unfair burden in which public sector

and austerity is being paid. How much would this race, how much would

you tax of those oligarchs, tremendously wealthy people, what we

do take from them? I think the mansion tax is a good idea, the land

value tax. From an economist's point of view, these are valuable because

they don't skewed incentives to work harder. Economists would say land

and housing because... Not all economists would say that. But in

terms of wealth taxes. Those people who had these assets would not

choose this at all. Let her finish. There is plenty of time. People who

have those assets would not choose them, this is a small proportion of

the population who have gained the most from growth, have suffered the

least from austerity. This needs to be balanced. There are a number of

consequences for our society. It is undermining our ability. Health

problems, crime and all kinds of issues and our economic stability

relies on lower levels of inequality. How much, Daniel Hannan,

how much is that holding us back? Wealth taxes don't read this --

re-dispute wealth as much as they read dispute people. In France they

had a higher rate of tax, people left they went to Belgium, they came

to London and paid their taxes to the UK Exchequer instead of the

French Treasury. The rest of the French population has had to pick up

the tab. That was income tax, this is about wealth. As James said, you

have 1% of people paying, according to the Treasury figures 29.8%, you

want to make sure they are paying taxes in the UK so the rest of us

don't have to pay taxes instead of them. If you have lower, flatter,

simple tax rates, the proportion paid by the rich increases. The

point here on tax, tax is not the only thing we need to do. I don't

agree that actually by not having the tax would seem more tax being

raised at the top. What we need to do, a lot of people on low pay, they

get tax credits instead of paying tax back. We have to do something

within the pay structure to make sure this wealth cannot be

accumulated at the top in the wake it is. That is another income, but

we're talking about what people have. What about land tax? Land tax

is helpful because you cannot avoid it. How would it work? People will

avoid paying tax, we don't celebrate people avoiding tax or say, because

you avoid payments, we're not going to charge you for that any more. I

am persuaded by taxes on property rather than income. We should have

lower taxes that everybody. What about public services? The great

thing is to lower the rate to the extent you start generating more

revenue, which happened here in the 1980s and it happened in the US. I

know it is a counterintuitive idea, but you get to the level where taxes

are lower so people are working longer and they stay here. The most

common forms of tax avoidance or early retirement, working shorter

hours or emigration. And that is in nobody's in trust. A lot of women

out there who are mothers will not say working fewer hours is to do

with tax avoidance. This is not about income it is about liberating

money into the economy. In Germany, a lot of this money goes into

industry. It is about Ferraris, Ming vases and land. It is a fair thing

to say, if we have to raise some money, where do you get it from? We

know tobacco tax disincentive rises smoking, if you're for an

alternative, taxes on consumption, I am up for that but Dr Faiza Shaheen

wants more taxes in general on the rich. The danger of that is the rest

of us end up paying more because the rich find clever accountants or

move. We used to do that with rates, and we have not revalued since the

early 90s. I am sure the man from Oxfam, you are dying to come in

here, what is your response? Oxfam figures showed five families own

more wealth than 13 million people. Five families own more wealth than

13 million people. At the top is the Duke of Westminster whose wealth is

rooted in owning Mayfair. We are not too worried about Mayfair being

flown to Switzerland, we think it will stay here. Those at the top

already get treated very nicely, thank you. We are concerned about

half a million people using food banks. We say, in these tough times,

it is those with the broadest shoulders who should make the

greatest contribution. I have heard this phrase a lot of times, the

broadest shoulders. Right now I see nothing stopping moving back towards

some sort of tax until the pips squeak type motion. We tried that in

the 70s and did not work very well. You disagree with Christine Lingard

from the IMF who says will come and -- wealth and income has got out of

control. You are disagreeing with mainstream economists who point out

that inequality has got out of control. Is there any limit to what

you would place on levels of inequality? 50% tax is the maximum

amount it should be. Nobody should be working more for the state and

for themselves. What about the Duke of Westminster, could he contribute

a bit more, he probably could without queueing in a foodbank? Does

he contribute a lot, the answer is yes. We have a situation in this

country where we have a high deficit and debt. The way to get out of it

is to build and invest. If we take money out of the economy in the form

of taxation and spending now, is short-term spending. Move money out

of property, this is the argument? I don't know where it all come from.

People will sell their house, they cannot sell a room. We will see an

economy that cannot invest for the long-term and get of deficit problem

it will not be an economy or society. Some of the people in that

top five are self-made, they have worked really hard. There are

brothers who started in their factory in Mumbai. Does this kill

aspiration or ambition, you don't buy that? No, and neither does

Warren Buffett. It is wonderful to make wealth, but it is wonderful to

give a little back. And in a decent society, we don't allow people to

fall into desperation. It is not the politics of envy, it is the call for

a better world. The Pope was right when he said it is time to tackle

the inequality crisis. Kevin Byrne, self-made man, agreeing with that? I

am agreeing with some aspects of it. When we talk about incentive, it is

a big thing to me. Most self-made people, entrepreneurs, they are

doing it for money, but most people are doing it for recognition or

something else. What the government is doing is, it is understanding

most people are not doing this for money and they are abusing people.

Why should I and someone who has worked incredibly hard... You don't

become an Olympian by getting up at 9am every morning, you don't become

a successful businessmen by putting yourself under huge burdens to

become successful. Why should I or my children have to put it on the

table, disproportionately so for people who haven't worked as hard as

I have? I don't understand that. Kevin? To some extent I sympathise,

but my father held three jobs down. He had a day job as a salesman, he

worked in a bar and a third job. We lived close to the edge of poverty.

He worked from morning till night to try to keep food on our table. It is

not about working hard. It is social inequality is what we have to

address. You are a Christian, what about the Bible, Jesus giving wealth

away and the eye of a needle and all that? You must have looked at that

and thought about them? It is very challenging, I am not an incredibly

wealthy person, I have aspirations to get to that and I work hard and

people who work hard should deserve the reward. But it is a delicate

situation because as a Christian you look at people in poverty and am I

saying shouldn't everyone contribute towards the well-being of other

people? Course we should. If you take away from people like me who

want to work hard and have great ideas and ambitions, if you start

saying, we will not reward you, we will Pina lies you, Pina lies you

and Pina lies you and then take it away from your children, where is

the incentive for me to go and generate wealth? Where is the

incentive to go and generate jobs? They are saying it is a big mess

about that end, but I think it is a mess at the bottom end as well, the

benefit system. I don't earn anything like a benefit amount of

salary, but I feel strongly that they should not have 50%, not

knowing what it's being spent on. Often it's not being spent on

anything useful. Some people that are on benefits, they just don't

want to work and can't be bothered. Why should those people, who really

can, be taxed so highly? I think it's really wrong. Is that

significant, the percentage? I don't know. Some ladies agreeing with you.

Any more hands up? There is a very simple stick solution. That is if

the G8, the G7, that they agree to lower taxes globally, that would

empower the individual, the wealthy and those that are not so wealthy

and cause the economy to grow. That is what we really want in recession.

The G8 agreeing on something? There is a point alluded to by the lady up

there, all of this tax is paid, it is not what they would call ring

fenced into people that need it, it is put into more government IT

schemes, it is put into bonds, it is put into HS2, they feel it just

disappears into a big Larkhall. -- black hole. That's the problem,

isn't it? Except up the road you have a fantastic kids psychiatric

unit. It costs ?750 a night. If you have a kid with schizophrenia, it

will keep your child alive and keep your family together. This is what

we are paying for with our taxes. The Duke of Westminster is a very

good example, what we have lost is the habits and the culture of

philanthropy that were there in the 19th century. If 0.5% of the people

of the South watched four hours less television a week and gave that in

volunteering, that would be 25,000 new full-time volunteering jobs. If

we all gave 1% more, that would unlock ?4 billion worth. If we can't

but that standard, Christian or not, taxes, taxes, and taxes again. It is

much better morally to make a decision yourself to dispose of your

assets, there is no morality and having it confiscated from you.

Oxfam, if you took away the wealthy people, you would have a more equal

society, but it would not be more equal because anyone was better

off, it would be because the wealthy have gone somewhere else. Surely

what we should be doing is raising the standard of the majority of

people, not worrying about the very rich. If we all believe that wealth

taxes would make the worst of better off, that would be the case.

Everywhere it has been tried in the world, you look at these third World

countries that have very high tax rates, you find that the poor are

much worse off than in countries where they don't. I think a lot of

myths are perpetuated on this subject. Of course, it depends what

level you place taxes, the idea is not to simply take all your wealth

suddenly, it is to have a progressive wealth tax system. In

terms of incentives, we can talk about incentives, there is a low

incentive problem with wealth taxes. We are also thinking about the

aspirations of young people growing up that don't live in a great

neighbourhood, that don't have a parent that happened to have a good

idea and make a lot of money. We do have to think about the trade-offs.

You have to think about the kind of society that we want to live in.

Last word? Most of the poor people in Britain work. Most people

claiming benefits work. So we are talking about the dinner ladies, we

are talking about cleaners that wake-up earlier than the

stockbrokers to clean the offices before the stockbrokers arrived. We

want to give them a fair shout. If you have something to say about

that debate, please do so. Log onto bbc.co.uk/thebigquestions and follow

the link to where you can join the discussion online. You can also

contribute on Twitter. We are also debating if we should pay

reparations for slavery and if illness can be cured by praying.

Send us any thoughts you might have about programmer Crow. -- The Big

Questions. Earlier this month, the Caribbean

nations approved a plan to seek reparations from former slaving

nations, including Britain, for the victims of slavery, slave trading,

genocide and racial apartheid. As a first step, they have engaged a

British firm of solicitors who won ?20 million compensation for the

Kenyan victims of torture during the rebellion in the 1950s. Should we

pay reparations for slavery, for the evil of slavery? Let me ask you,

first, what is really fascinating about this, what a lot of people

have not really focused on, the ongoing effects. There is something

you have spoken about before, intergenerational transmission of

trauma, tell me about that. Yes, basically, slavery and genocide has

impacted not only the historical populations that were kidnapped from

Africa, but also those of us who are the descendants of the enslaved

today. It's not only about trauma and multi-generational oppression,

the whole discussion around wealth, there has been unjust enrichment to

Britain and there has also been unjust impoverishment that has been

passed throughout generations. Part of the legacy is this huge

inequality that we see today between the descendants of the enslaved us

and the descendants of the enslaved. And psychological scars that have

had societal effects, ongoing economic affects. What are the

psychological scars? It is not knowing who we are. It is a lack of

connection. It is a lack of identity, a lack of nationhood which

makes us human beings, essentially. It is not being rooted. It is being

considered minority populations when we come from global majorities. It's

about having a second-class status and citizenship wherever we have

been located as a result of this dispersal and the population that

happened, originally in Africa. There is a phenomenon as well that

you believe really does exist, post-traumatic slave syndrome? To

something I have not coined, but many of our social theorist 's,

psychologist some psychiatrists have been looking at some of the negative

legacies that we have internalised. The internalisation of racism, self

hater, anti-African sentiment, prejudice and discrimination, a

loathing of ourselves. Self-loathing? A lack of esteem,

self-loathing, not being proud of who we are and our heritage, not

being proud of our African ancestry, changing our looks to emulate

Caucasian beauty ideals. These are some of the real legacies today in

terms of the psychology. We also have to look at the rates of mental

health illness. Is all routes back to slavery? Can I ask you, as well,

you don't know each other, but it is wonderful you are both on the

programme, how is it affecting you, Fernne, slavery? A woman in 2014? It

is very important, what Esther has been saying about post-traumatic

slave syndrome and the trauma it has caused through the ages. It has

affected me. I have needed people to help me to get to where I am today.

I think if they hadn't done that, I would not be talking to you today.

You have been lucky? I've been very lucky in love I have been helped to

be where I am today by people -- I have been very lucky in that I have

been helped to where I am today by the people that are aware of the

problems that Esther has raised. You have had to battle against that?

Against racism in particular. As a result of slavery? Absolutely.

Daniel Hannan, one of the things which is most egregious about this

is the fact that the slave is at the time of abolition were paid enormous

amounts of money, huge amounts paid to slave owners, the equivalent of

at least ?15.5 billion today. So, why shouldn't the people that are

still suffering have reparations? Because I am descended from slaves,

you are descended from slaves, everybody here is and everybody

watching at home is. Slavery was universal. We are also all descended

from slave owners. Slavery was practised in China, India, Arabia,

Africa, by the Aztecs, by the Pacific Islanders, Muslims enslaved

Christians, Christians enslaved Muslims. Therefore, if you are

looking at paying reparations, anyone whom you choose to pay is

statistically certain to be descended both from the owners and

the slaves. There were 3000 black slave owners in the US on the eve of

the Civil War. We are, if you like, all in this together. Therefore it

is very difficult now to look at a population, I am not talking about

continuing slavery, which is a huge issue and where we could be doing a

great deal, but if you are looking at past slavery, it is a question of

how far back you want to go. We are all slavers. Yellow rattle we are

not all descendants of enslaved peoples and enslavers. I think that

is falsifying history and minimising the seriousness of what we're

talking about. Enslaved and has happened to African peoples and

people of African descent, that is something that is different and

unparalleled in human history. That is the starting point for this

conversation. It's very cheap to say, well, we have all been

enslaved. Right now, I don't have the same life chances and life

experiences of many people who might even be sitting in this audience. I

feel we need to understand this history. I am not saying we haven't

all been impacted, but just to say we have all been impacted the same

is really not the starting point. Bernadette? I am going to play

devils advocate. I think we really need to be careful here. Has all

that got to do with slavery? Being in a mental institution? I a

champion of volunteers, I am a motivational speaker that visits

prisons twice a week. Some of the lads in there, their crimes are not

because I was a slave 150 years ago. At some point, yes, of course we all

know about slavery, bad things happen, bad things happened to me,

but you don't walk around with it. You have to move on. We have to rise

above it now and start moving on and thinking, OK, what are we going to

do in the next 150 years so that our children can say, this happened to

my great, great grandfather but wow, look what they have done now.

We've got to start rising above this and get away from you only this, you

owe me that, going back. Of course, every black person knows that it is

really difficult in certain areas. What about the families that have

profited from it, the families that are still enriched, the tobacco and

sugar millionaires? And I going to knock on all of the manor houses in

Dorset? Hello, give me this. Where does it end? Yes, some of them are

named and shamed, they are all in Google, they have been named and

shamed, almost an apology by Tony Blair. But no British Government is

going to apologise because it would open the floodgates. Almost an

apology, it was not made by Tony Blair. He expressed regret. There is

a reason why, I'm a realistic person, let's be honest, it will be

another 150 years before they apologise and hand out checks. How

are they going to do it? We are not asking for checks to be handed out,

it's not about money, that cheapens the debate. You do realise the

applications of if they apologise. The legal indications? Yes, the

compensation, my great, great-grandfather, how are going to

do it? That is not we are asking for. They asking for the first time

ever that the Western nations involved, the UK, France, Portugal

and so on, they sit around a table with 15 heads of government and talk

about the issues that plague us now. Then what? The issues that plague us

now, what has that got to do with slavery? My dad died last year, he

was a millionaire, that never stopped him, he worked hard. This is

why we need education. It's very important. One of the things they

talk about is education. But what has that got to do with education

150 years ago? My dad educated me, five girls, not one of those has

gone wrong. All five of us have done well. I don't understand. We are not

talking about something that happened 150 years ago, we are

talking about the current impact of slavery, colonialism which rings as

here into the here and now. That is what we are talking about. Hands up

in the audience please. In times of discussing whether African Caribbean

countries should get reparation, saying we have all been enslaved,

why can't you correct it and show it is not right by doing that and also

the money can go into development schemes. It is insane to assume

slavery has not got an impact. It is like saying, I made it and say, why

didn't you. You could lock up people in domestic bile and is in say, I

have made it out, why can't you. So what happened to your forefathers?

100%. If you are in an environment where there is self-hate, you

brainwashed Caribbean 's and told them they were slaves, then you did

not take it out of them. It is as rebuilding ourselves to remove that

mindset. You need schemes, things and economic power. Anyone else who

wants to make a quick point? Gentlemen at the back. The economic

legacy, talking about Jamaica spending more money repaying debt

repayments than education and health. How will the Caribbean

countries expect to move out from that when they are expecting to do

that. The cancellation of debts is one of the demands? It is one of the

things we are asking for. It goes beyond that, because the debt is

illegitimate. The people of the Caribbean did not owe anything and

the reason these debts where imposed on them is a legacy of colonialism

that must be collected. But Britain was distant -- difference, we are

all descended from slaves, the Greeks did it and between 11 and 17

million Africans enslaved. What makes Britain different is we

excavated this disgusting business. We were pouring energy, not just

into the abolition of our own territory but wiping out the slave

trade. Even in a life and death struggle against Napoleon we were

trying to stamp out the transatlantic trade from which we

derived no gain. Written is different in a very good way. It is

not. We talk about abolition but not Britain's commencement into this

whole process. We did not commence it. All the wealth generated that

help to make Britain great, the British Empire, all of this came

from enslavement and colonialism and ill gotten gains. It links to this

modern discussion about inequality and the huge gap between nations,

not only in terms and Europe but the rest of the world. In particular,

Africa and the Caribbean. There was a exist in slavery going on in

Africa which had been going on for ever. No, it was not the same. It is

a falsification of history. What we had in Africa was systems of Abbas

Khan it was very different? This is such a fascinating debate when

people have it, but one of the things always brought up, those of

Irish extraction for example, 1000 years of British history. Do they

have an inter-generation and transmission of trauma? And the

British working classes, the Highland clearances, the Mills, the

dark Satanic mills and the working-class struggle in the mines.

Do those have intergenerational scars? Yes, there are people in

those communities who argue that. Do you think they are right? It means

we have to understand our distinct history and what has happened to

specific groups. It is not about putting it all into the pot and

saying we are all oppressed, we are all oppressed differently. It is not

about victimhood it is about recognising what happened and how do

we repair the damage, which is what the term, reparation means. It is

not about compensation, it is how to repair the damage. Francis Davis. I

was thinking about the Irish situation and the difference between

America well claiming in Irish people, we need to be careful

because Britain's track record in some areas is good. 100,000 Croats

and Bosnians are left to rot as they came out of Vienna. And people 's

bodies on balance sheets in diamond mines in South Africa. We don't have

a good record. Who has a perfect record? Nobody, but compared with

other countries, and you can think -- include Africa in that. Then you

have Pol Pot, which we forget about here. We need to step back and say,

this is over now, yes we are sorry and we regret it. We cannot sort it

out financially except by overseas relief, debt remission and other

ways of looking forward and rebuilding the global economy. But

keep looking back and saying this passes down 15 generations does not

do anybody any favours. The worst possible reason to embark on

overseas aid is to make yourself feel better, the reason to do it is

to make things better on the ground. If you do it to assuage your gills,

it will make things worse. That is why we should be in Europe backing

the Ukrainians and pushing back against your argument! James, I can

see from your facial expressions you have been engaged in this debate. It

is extremely interesting, we started this off in the car coming here.

Daniel, these are terrible evils and Britain was the country that stood

by, the Royal Navy which was instrumental in stopping the trade.

It is important and should be celebrated. No country was perfect,

but Britain was probably better than a lot of other countries. So for us

to be the first port of call in demanding reparation is strange. It

is not. Slave trade is not a term that comes from us, in the same way

Jewish people talk about the Holocaust. It is not a victimhood

thing. There are two dimensional as to reparation, internal and

external. Internal is what we owe ourselves how we reclaim our agency

and self-determination. Then do what the Jewish people do, light candles.

There are billions of dollars in maintaining it in compensation, it

wasn't just about lighting candles. Should we feel guilty? No, it is not

about white guilt. If you have intergenerational transmission of

trauma, the was a story about Dominic Cumberbatch, his great,

great who was a slave owner. Is there a translation of guilt? I

think so and that is why this debate gets closed and minimised. What we

want is a conversation so there can be greater understanding in British

society as to how we have come to be where we are. What we need to tidy

up history is put things that were deleted back in. It is about our

community helping one another and passing the world on rather than

keep going back, you owe me this, you owe me that. We need to sort

ourselves out first. It is both, not one or the other. It is the fact

there are people and families today, institutions in Britain today that

are basically surviving on ill gotten gains, capital, wealth,

assets. Can you see a moment when it is over? Only when there is justice

and there hasn't been justice. What does that look like? Why is it hard

to recognise the justice cause of African descent? Are we less buying

human beings? You are confusing this. Does everybody have a right of

recognition of their experience but we just had to forget it and move

on? For a long time and people from minority communities fought

heroically for everybody to be treated the same. Equality under the

law is what defines this country. That is why I find it very sad that

you are arguing to be treated differently. That is on paper,

statute. Why do we still have inequality, wealth inequality.

Should this be, given the horror of it, I don't know that much about it,

I have read a couple of books on it, and they are evil and horrific.

People being thrown off votes because of insuring 's purposes. --

boats. It is wicked in the extreme, should this be a priority? It was an

evil part of history. The reason the boats had to keep going is because

the women could no longer give birth because they had been so ill

treated, they were no longer fertile. And even today, the poorest

parts of Africa are those parts from which the slaves were taken. The

West African coast, remain the poorest parts. The consequence of

this horrible history is still felt today. So anything that people can

do, both to acknowledge that injustice, but also to make the

world a better place, a fairer place is a good thing to do. Aid is

right, in part because we are atoning for our history. And also

because it means kids in school and who are alive would otherwise be

dead. So the work towards a just world and history, is important.

Esther has set it out very well today. Thank you all very much

indeed. You can join in all of these debates

by logging in: Tell us what you think about this

last question, can illness be too awed by praying? We will be in

Glasgow next week, Bristol on April six and then after a two-week

break, we are down Singh back from York on April 27.

On Tuesday it will be the Feast of the Annunciation which celebrates

perhaps the greatest miracle of all time, the impregnation of the Virgin

Mary by God, resulting in the birth of Jesus nine months later. On a

more humble level, some Christians have claimed to witness miraculous

-- miraculous events believing people to have been short of

physical or mental owner -- illness through the laying on of hands and

the simple power of prayer. And we have people here with us in

Southampton who said they have witnessed events like this. You have

seen this? Yes I have. We believe in spiritualism that healing is brought

through the forces and the energies from the spirit world. What have you

seemed? A young gentleman who came from Australia, was originally born

in Bournemouth, moved to Australia and came back a few years later. He

was about 23, came into our church for healing. He looked horrendous.

When you look at somebody and there is no colour in their face and they

look like they are coming to the end of their lives. What was the

diagnosis? He had cancer and he had been sent from the hospital by one

of the surgeons. They said there was little if anything they could do. So

you prayed? Yes, he came to one of our healers once a week and reported

back to the church on a monthly basis. As he reported back to his

doctor in Bournemouth hospital, each time he went back, they said to him,

the cancer was receding. Now, we truly believe we can work hand in

hand with the medical provision. Only spiritual healing healed him.

It was a great asset and help to him. People always ask this, why is

it never amputees? Can you cure amputees as well? No, we can't.

Cancer is pretty impressive. You make an incredible claim. But only

so far? This young gentleman was healthy and the cancer had left his

body and he was killed. -- cured. Your church group is working with a

leading NHS Trust, together, to use the power of prayer and give people

a feeling of well-being and peace, that may help their convalescence?

Yes, Leeds University we have a joint research project with them and

it is in relation to one aspect of healing that is about listening to

people. It is about hearing their story, and allowing them to both

understand that and authentically live it. Asking the question, can

prayer cure illnesses? The answer is yes, but not always. I think the

truth is, and I have prayed for people personally... And it has

worked? Yes, people have been healed. I have also buried two of my

friends, who were dead, but I have buried two of my own friends...

That's a relief! I would pray for them. Listen, when it doesn't work,

why doesn't it work? If I could ask that question, I could write a book

and be quite wealthy and then be taxed. It isn't a magic bullet. It's

not a magic thing that you can say, if you do this, this and this, you

will end up with this. The way human people work, body, mind and spirit,

it is an integrated thing. They have to believe? No, no. Jesus healed

people that were not engaged in... We said in the Bible, he made the

blind see, he made the deaf here, is that possible? He had a slight

advantage as the son of God, that was a help, but one of the key

issues for us is that if we never... Say for instance I pray for

ten people, two of them are healed, eight of them are left with a sense

of wholeness and well-being, is that not a good start? Kevin, is it? It's

a great starting point. I pray quite often, I pray for traffic lights to

stay green when I drive down the road, for BMW drivers to behave

themselves for a few minutes. Sometimes it happens and sometimes

it doesn't. In this question, there are two elements of this question

and we need to split them out. There is the question, can prayer cure

illness? Inherent in that, can prayer cause God to cure illness?

Let's take those two things separately. God does not exist,

there is no God, there is no fairy being in the sky. The prayer exists.

People over there were hissing Prayer as a placebo can work very

well. I'm a psychotherapist, and in my psychotherapy work, what I am

doing some of the time is placebo and it works very well, persuading

people they feel better. At the end of this, I feel better. Elaine,

Spiritualist National Union, Ukraine healers? It's quite rigorous? Very

rigorous training, Jeff is an approved healer that has gone

through training. What are you training, to be a transmitter? To be

a transmitter, the energy that comes from infinite intelligence, that we

call old. Healing and prayer may not always heal, but they may heal the

person that is transcending from one dimensional existence to another, in

that they ease their pain, distress and anxiety. You can call that a

placebo. I am also a registered nurse and I pray for my patients

every day. NHS? No, within industry, but I pray for my patients every

day. Some people might say that is like going to the dentist and he has

a voodoo dolls. If we believe there is a force in the universe, and

energy, we can transmit that energy through thought, prayer or physical

actions. There is an excellent book written in the late 1960s called

persuasion and healing by an American psychotherapist, Jerome

Frank. He voices that view that persuasion is the key bit in healing

and persuasion to heal. He's not talking about God or religion, he's

not talking about prayer, he saying that people have the ability, if

they believe they can heal themselves or be healed, it can

help. It's a useful addition? It's interesting, when religious people

get on side with this, it tends to be that self limiting illnesses they

seem to be able to cure, rather than other things. People do

spontaneously recover from cancer. You can't call cancer self-limiting.

What was it you have? EU chronic sarcoidosis. It was a prolonged

disease, not psychosomatic. I am not really meant to be here now.

Basically, someone prayed for me... It went away? They can't even find a

trace of it in my blood system. We spoke to a doctor who said it can

just go away. But yours went away because of something else? OK, if

you Google it, there is a 10% where does not go, it is basically

incurable and irreversible. The scarring on the lungs cannot just

disappear in that sense. Just to add one little thing, I believe that it

is proof that Jesus is real and Jesus is alive. Right. Francis? Is

the Jesus you pray to an interventionist? Does he intervene

in peoples lives? I think he does it in that so things are so

coincidental that they could not possibly be coincidental, rather

than sending laser beam kind of things. What do you mean by

coincidental? If there were no coincidences, that would be the most

monumental coincidence. I was once on top of a hill above the CC, an

overwhelming need to pray for a friend of mine that lives in

Liverpool that I had not thought about for five years. I came down

the hill and sent him a card because I was so that about him and out his

boss had come to save the I'm going to suck you in the middle of a wood,

I was in the middle of the word, and that cannot be coincidental. But

there is something much more significant, no matter how much

training you have got, if you are not a qualified psychiatrist you do

not want to be playing with religious symbols and language with

somebody with a severe mental health challenge because you have no idea

what you might be getting into. That is true in every area of life,

whether you are a Christian or not about mental illness. When we are

talking about if it is possible for the ministry of Jesus to continue,

through an ordinary Christian, who has integrity and has compassion, I

think... You have been healed as well? I had a really bad back pain

for quite a few months. Roll to roll -- Voltorol. I took ID -- are two

stops summary prayed for me, I felt a heat in the base of my spine, and

I haven't had it since. If you want to say it is a coincidence, let me

have another one. I think it's not unreasonable to believe that if

there is a God, and some of us will believe there is, he is an

interventionist. At the heart of the miracle John -- genre is compassion.

Hayley, tell us your story. I have also been cured myself, by evidence

-based medicine. A while ago I was walking through the city of Bath and

I came upon some faith healers who were handing out literature that

said they could cure everything from cancer, AIDS, asthma, MS. I sent

that to the advertising standards authority because I felt it was

misleading and potentially dangerous. This group of people did

not know who they would come into contact with. A lot of people have a

mistrust of their doctors. I was worried that it could turn people

away from conventional treatment. They agreed and said they could no

longer make the claims they were making on their leaflet. I am glad

they agreed, because I think it is potentially dangerous. To be fair,

you are not suggesting that people do not use conventional methods? You

are the icing on the cake? The lady of idiot? I kind of believe that a

lot of what you are talking about is actually positivity. Both me and

Sarah have a debilitating illness. I have MS, and arthritis. Being

positive? Just being positive in my mindset. Yes, sir? This gentleman

said he believed in something like the BMWs in the traffic lights, you

have to believe in something. But personally, a friend of mine, his

mother-in-law was ill, and he asked me, because I am the secretary of

the biggest mosque there, she is a practising Christian herself, to

pray for me. We prayed, Christian prayers, and believe me she is much

better now. The interesting thing is that she believes it was the

prayers. That's great, Mohammed and Jesus working together! I just want

to say that healing and miracles mainly depend on faith. I am a

Christian, in the Bible there were times when the apostles and even

Jesus himself were surprised at the lack of faith, and no miracles

happen. I believe that, Jesus heals. More than intervening, he is

the one that performs miracles. So I think that faith plays a key role in

the healing. It's not required, you do not have to believe in God to be

healed. It is lovely if you do, it adds another dimension to the

energy. Another...? Another dimension to the healing if you have

faith. But it is provided by the God force to be used for the betterment

of mankind, whether they are Christian, whether they are not,

whether they are spiritualist or not, it does not matter. There is a

beneficial energy in the universe for us to use for the good of all.

Do you want to come in? You know, if we had total answers, there would be

no faith. Do you have faith in the European Union? It is evidence

-based about the European Union, it is making us poorer. Kevin? One of

the sad things about this is, given the state of the NHS at the moment,

even the way the government has demolished it, it is no wonder that

some people are sadly turning to prayer. The inequity of this. What

happens with some of these issues around can prayer cure illness,

people turn away, they devalue it. Can prayer cure illness? I

absolutely believe it can. I think the sad element of this is that our

hearts have grown callous towards God. In this country, in the modern

developed countries of the world, if you have a headache you turn to a

pill. I've been to third World countries where I have laid my hands

on cataracts and they have cleared in front of me. You are a healer?

I'm not a kilo! -- healer! I declare they are healed in Jesus's name. And

I have seen miracle after miracle. Miracle? What miracle have you seen?

Once we went down, in India, me and a guy called Mark, we went into a

High Street and there was a guy bandaged from here to hear, or a

rickshaw, designed for his hands. I said, let's pray for this guy.

Everybody was saying, no, all gods are the same. He said, you call upon

your God to heal this man and they didn't. We prayed for this guy and

he was jumping up and down. More than that, three days later, he came

and sought this out to show he was still healed. Give yourselves a

round of applause. The debate will continue online and on Twitter.

Extra week we are in Glasgow. Join us then. Goodbye, thanks for

watching. Enjoy your Sunday.