Episode 8 The Big Questions

Today on The Big Questions: inequality, fair trade,

evangelism and - nothing about the EU referendum!

Good morning, I'm Nicky Campbell, welcome to The Big Questions.

Today we're live from the Students' Union at Northumbria University

Welcome, everyone, to The Big Questions.

If you want to get on in the world choose your parents wisely -

the richer the more likely it is that you too will succeed.

This week's report from the Sutton Trust showed that

Britain's professional elites in the law, the armed services,

medicine and even journalism were predominantly privately educated.

And they were more likely to attend Oxford and Cambridge too.

Globally the gap between rich and poor is reaching new extremes,

The charity has calculated that just 62 individuals have the same wealth

as the 3.6 billion people who make up the bottom half of humanity.

The wealth of the 62 has risen by 44% since 2010, while the wealth

of those at the bottom reduced by 41%.

The question that must be asked is: Does inequality work?

Ian, does inequality work? Yes, we have no choice. There has not been a

situation where we have quality, we like inequality. Can you think how

boring the Olympics would have been if everybody had been the same? Mo

Farah absolutely excelled and it is the same with all sorts of sport.

But athletes are not starving. No, but we have a big problem in

industry and commerce and every time somebody is successful, we knock

them, and that is a British disease. We have levels of inequality which

means those types of incentive do not work any more, we have a level

of inequality where we have five of the wealthiest families who have as

much wealth as the bottom 20%, that is a type of inequality that hurts

our economy and society and it means that we don't see the full range of

talent we have in society. If you are born poor, you are likely to

stay poor. The rungs on the ladder which you can climb our widening and

that is not the type of economy or society we want. In the Victorian

era, I would say you are spot on and that is how it used to be, but I

went into a comprehensive school in Gateshead, and my father was raised

in poverty which would make you weep, and he did fine. We need to

make sure there is opportunity without any doubt but I don't think

you are stuck there just because of where you start. What about Bill

Gates, our wealth creator, should he be celebrated? If you cash in all of

its wealth and didn't earn any interest, and spent $1 million every

day, it would take 280 years to spend his wealth. I don't know what

the super rich are going to do. My charity is 125 years old this year,

we are set up in Newcastle and Gateshead, and the levels of

inequality are compatible to Dickensian levels. We were set up to

deal with children on the banks of the River Tyne and we are still

working with children and young people today who do not have food to

eat. The office is next to the biggest food bank in the UK and we

are back to epic proportions of inequality which are having a

detriment on young people's lives. We have the worst health chances

will young people in Europe. Health, infant mortality rates, it is having

a massive impact. A child born in Middlesbrough can expect to live

seven years less than one born in Buckinghamshire. This is the impact

that inequality has got how would you change it? There was a lot we

can do if we have the will to do it. Investing in a fairer education

system so we don't have this segregated education. Less pay

between top and bottom? Yes, reduced pay ratios and make sure it can be

is read. 3.7 million children in poverty, 63% are in homes that

actually work. What about reducing the ratio between the person at the

top of the business and the prison at the bottom? Putting a cap on

salaries would be a bad idea, for the economy as a whole, because it

would drive away your best talent and it would go to other countries.

Who? The best TV executives. Who would leave if their salary was cap?

If you are earning ?200,000 in this country and in Luxembourg the paying

unlimited salaries, it makes sense you would go there. Premiership

footballers, if there is a pay gap of ?50,000 a week, Lionel Messi

would not be there. We need to do something about the issue of

would not be there. We need to do high-paid and when you do ask them,

they don't want to move abroad and I have faith that people here wants to

stay here. In the 1970s, almost no have faith that people here wants to

country, they were living in LA or France. There is a value driven...

Only 200,000? That is a component of this discussion. As a rabbi, I

represent a faith tradition that represents scripture that stands up

for the poor. The Bible talks about the Jubilee year, in which debts are

renounced and society pushes the reset button, and we all know how

crippling debt can be and how it can be intergenerational. The Jewish

have a fantastic tradition of going to countries, being immigrants,

working hard, self-sacrificing, and massive achievement. You espousing

that or the other great Jewish thinker, Karl Marx? I am espousing

the Jewish tradition. Capitalist tradition, surely? It is not

political but it does have to speak on the issues of social justice and

that is an important distinction because when people supper God asks

us to speak up to that. Social justice, that is what you were

talking about, error, and the fact it is utterly unacceptable that in

the fifth biggest economy in the world we have so many children in

poverty, but what about this argument? That people would leave.

Would you like to raise wages at the bottom of society? Absolutely. In a

global situation, if you raise wages at the bottom of society, companies

will turn to lower wage economies, and we will suffer as a result, that

is the argument. Inequality is bad for the economy. We have to tackle

it and at the bottom, a living wage, we're not talking about huge levels

of pay increases but a living wage can make a phenomenal difference to

the lives of people. Over 60% of all children in poverty have a working

parent and they are still in poverty because they are not earning enough

to lift themselves out of poverty and surely that is unacceptable. If

people work hard they should be able to afford the basic rings to survive

all them and their families. APPLAUSE -- things. I am a supporter

of the living wage because as a civilised society, nobody should

supper but where I have a problem is how much is too much? For how much

people should be paid. When I was younger, earning ?100 a week, I

thought I was rich and then I met people who were earning ?150 and I

thought I could earn that. Is it envy? It is. At the end of the day,

too much is 30% more than I earn is what I think that is how we look

life. This is a conversation about inequality and what you are talking

about is really useful. Raising the minimum wage would be great but not

at the level it is, it is not enough. Talking about inequality in

terms of this therapeutic management is ridiculous. If we actually want

to tackle inequality then that is how capitalism works, if we are

talking about reforming and making it slightly better, it will not do

anything for working people. You need a conversation about poverty,

about economics, political conversation about people wanting

more, needing more, people don't want to just manage their minimum

wage a little better, I want everything they can have, so we

should not have any limits on what people should have or make. Saying

that is detrimental to being equal. Incentive? What you have in those

situations, you build a steep slope in society, forget about the level

playing field, you have a steep slope. It is difficult for people to

come up, so you have a situation where parents are putting their

children in top private schools, spanning ?35,000 a year, and then

you have state schools which have five grand per pupil and you cannot

compete. The economy is losing out through that, losing talent. Rather

than bringing... This is what the initiative does, it is rings the top

down to meet in some really rubbish middle. Rather than criticising the

level of education in private schools, I want that for state

schools. Ring everybody up to the top level.

APPLAUSE -- bring. An American woman married a guy from one of the top

public schools in England, and it is that self-confidence, the way he

presented himself, and they were married for ten years. It took ten

years or her to realise he was thick! Of course you want that for

everybody, the same confidence, but the truth is that we are telling

these people at the bottom they are an aspirational and lazy. It is hard

to fight against that. It is life or death for some people. Look at the

inequalities in health and the life expectancy, you are looking at maybe

15 years difference across places like Glasgow train the rich and poor

areas. It is developing world level. Some people will not live to get a

pension in the UK. If you're looking at the inequality between the top

and bottom, by every measure when you look at other countries, those

who have less inequality, people feel more of a stake in society,

they trust society more, they are happy within that, there is less

obesity, less teenage pregnancy, there is more sense of humility,

surely it is a no-brainer? I know that is true, I know the book you

are referring to and it is nonsense. -- none of that is true. Inequality

is irrelevant. We are nearly always using it as a proxy for something

else and you have talked about social mobility, education, poverty

especially. If we want to deal with those things as we should do, we

need to spit it out and say that and not go round the houses talking

about inequality because if we talk about it we just end up saying we

need to level it down, tax the rich. It is all about the rich. Damaging

the rich will not help the poor. Chris, if the rich elites of Africa

did not have 500 billion dollars worth of their wealth scribbled away

in offshore tax havens, we would have lifted 200 million more out of

poverty across Africa over the last 30 years. We do need to have

mechanisms to make sure there is some redistribution of wealth. You

are talking about inequality as a proxy for something else. We're

talking about endemic corruption in the third World, that is the issue.

We are talking about our accountancy firms who have allowed that to

happen, they have advised companies and created incentives. We will move

onto the global situation with shopping and fair trade our next

debate. People have been lifted globally out of poverty by

capitalism at record rates. People are being lifted out of poverty and

economies are growing and that is great but we would have lifted

hundreds of millions more people out of poverty if we had had their

economic systems, redistribution of wealth mechanisms. On top of that,

there are inequalities within the countries. If women had had the same

opportunities as men, we would have grown the world economy by 10% more

than we have done. We do need to make sure women and men have equal

opportunities. I am working until the 3rd of March when women earn 80%

of what men do. There are two things here. Women are suffering from

inequality in the jobs market, gender inequality there, and also

because of inequality in society in general, they are suffering because

disproportionally, they are looking after families and they are carers.

Women are inequality and are taking the brunt of it. Women are not

suffering, that is not true. On average, with like-for-like work,

women and men get paid exactly the same. Women in their 20s and 30s are

earning more than men. I don't understand why we need to have this

conversation about inequality and say women are so put upon when we

are in a good position. We do need to do more after childbirth where

they suffer inequalities in the workplace. That needs to be

addressed. When you're talking about redistribution and making everything

equal, it is a conversation with a ceiling. It is not about letting

people learn and do as best as they can. Sharing out the measly cake is

not making more. It is not a progressive conversation.

Currently we have a situation where we have endemic elitism. We have a

situation where the poorest people and people in the middle class

cannot do as well as they can do and the talent they have got. Inequality

is so high. We are not just asking for equal pay. This is a

misconception. We're not saying we should have exactly the same. We

have a situation where TV executives are earning 200 times that of

others. We can even it out more, it is a matter of teamwork. It could be

50 times more. APPLAUSE

50 years ago that might have been the case. Now the corporate world is

different. We want the best in the corporate world. We do not care what

age, colour or sex you are. Are you saying that people that go to

private school are not as smart? It is a matter of opportunity. It is

owed, and equality of opportunity. How do you do that? You have got to

invest more in education, without a shadow of a doubt.

THEY ALL SPEAK AT ONCE Where do we get the money from, how

bottom? If this was working, it bottom? If this was working, it

Market fundamentalism bottom? If this was working, it

working for a tiny minority of bottom? If this was working, it

fundamentalism? We need to address this. The more you try

fundamentalism? We need to address everything, we're left with this

situation. We need to invest that money. That is where the

reinvestment comes from. It is about fair taxation. If people pay the

taxes they are supposed to pay, we could invest that in education and

level the playing field. You're at the bottom of the lead, you are at a

bad school, you're never going to succeed. We should give people hope,

you can succeed and do it. People who believe they can deliver will do

it. I really do not like this idea that the working class are all these

kind of put upon idiots, who, if you tell them, they are consistently

being told they cannot do anything. They are consistently downplayed.

People are ambitious. It is wrong to say that. The anti-equality I'd it

makes out like the working class, we are victims of society and we cannot

do anything. No. Yes, it does. I have been out talking to young

people this week and a very aspirational. People from humble

backgrounds, very ambitious. The odds are stacked against them. They

are losing hope. Society is telling them that they are scroungers. I do

not want to live in that kind of society.

APPLAUSE Chris, let me take you back to what

Sarna said about fair taxation. Making sure that people pay the

taxes they are meant to pay. Is that desirable, and is it practical? In

the 1970s, when we had the kind of policies the class think-tank would

like to bring back, we had 83% income tax. As a result, we had

basically exported talent. From the 1980s, we started bringing rich

people back. Rich people are flocking from all over the world to

come and live in London. Oligarchs? It is not a bad thing. I do not see

how it affects the Baloy middle It is not a bad thing. I do not see

Laurel Lincolns. In real terms, incomes have doubled since the

1970s. An 80% increase since 1977 in real terms. These are major steps

forward in terms of real living standards. I do not think we should

be sacrificing increases in living standards in England for a rigid

thing that little gap. Saller, you use the word Dickensian. It is

ridiculous hyperbole. In the Victorian era you had genuine

poverty. Come and work with me and meet some of the families that we

work with and see the conditions they are living in. You're detached

from reality. When the wealthy have such concentrated wealth, not only

do they have mass wealth, they have power. You can employ teams of

lawyers, get tax loopholes, pick your money in offshore accounts. If

you want money to be moving in the economy, you need to give it to

people who are poor, who will spend that money in the local area and get

the economy shifting again. The best way for them to do that is to have a

job. 60% of children in poverty have a working parent. If you scare them

out of the country, they will be worse off. In your mind, that is

inequality working? Yes. Those jobs need to be a proper living wage. Not

this you don't living wage that is about to be introduced by the

government, a slight improvement on the minimum wage. We need proper

living wages that cover the cost of what people need to live on. That is

not the case in Britain, not for many of the things we buy. She is

right. We need to raise wages as well as making more jobs. This is

why it is not what you are arguing, this emotional like him and about

the mini Vac that are put upon. -- this emotional argument about the

poor that are put upon. There is consensus now from organisations

like the IMF and the World Bank. They say that inequality is hurting

the economy. It is hurting growth. We do not want to cry and twinge.

THEY ALL SPEAK AT ONCE Working-class people do not have the

same access to the resources of society as those. We live in an

unequal society. Rather than crying about the situation, do something

about it. Argue for more economic growth, which would help everybody.

Yes, but lower inequality would help economic growth. Social engineering

means that the top have locked it up. We do not have the kind of free

markets and talent that you guys should be supporting. The

fastest-growing economies have growing inequality. Globally,

inequality is falling, and it is falling primarily because China is

growing. In China, inequality is increasing. If you're concerned

about inequality, IOU worried about increasing inequality in China, or

inequality worldwide? China is becoming a rich country.

THEY ALL SPEAK AT ONCE We have to leave it there. Faiza, we

have other things to talk about. Thank you for your contribution to

that debate. Do not worry, I will come to you.

If you have something to say about that debate,

log on to bbc.co.uk/thebigquestions, and follow the link to where you can

We're also debating, live this morning from Newcastle,

can ethical shopping change the world?

And later, should religions tout for business?

So get tweeting or emailing on those topics now or send us any other

ideas or thoughts you may have about the show.

Tomorrow is the start of Fairtrade Fortnight,

an annual campaign to get better prices, decent working conditions

and fairer terms of trade for small-scale farmers and workers

Newcastle has been a Fairtrade city since 2003 and Northumbria

University, where we are today, is a Fairtrade university.

Both have pledged to sell products in their offices and canteens

which meet the social, economic and environmental standards

Can ethical shopping change the world?

This debate is not unrelated to what we have beans beating about. We are

moving to a global situation. Let's establish what ethical shopping is.

It is difficult, Barbara, we heard edge and of China, workers' rights

in China, the trade unions are crushed. Is that ethical? If you buy

a packet of biscuits which has palm oil in it, the deforestation and the

destruction of the rainforest for palm oil plantations, that is

destroying orangutans, it is destroying species. What is ethical?

Ethical is about trying to think about those issues. OK, one more, if

I may. Think about those global issues. If you walk down a high

street, and go to a chicken outlet, what about the way that those

animals have been treated? Another example closer to home. Exactly. If

you had a cup of tea this morning, chances are, one in three children

in tea producing areas around the world, going hungry, are suffering

malnutrition and are at risk of stunted growth. In Malawi, it is one

in two. If we want to enjoy a nice cup of tea, how do we make sure that

the farmers who grew that they can lift themselves out of poverty and

earn a decent income, can form Firkin -- with concern for their own

local environment, and adapt to climate change? It is thinking about

the connections we have every time we shop. Martin Luther King said

that before you finish your breakfast in the morning, you have

depended on half the world. Bananas from Columbia, copy from Nicaragua.

We spend billions of pounds every day in the UK. How do we make sure

those shopping choices make a positive difference and do not

perpetuate problems? Is it more expensive? It does not have to be.

It often is. You can buy a fair trade banana in Sainsbury's today

for the same price as a non-fair trade one in Tesco. People want to

buy things as cheap as possible. Middle-class morality would say that

things have to be more expensive. You have created a double standard.

If you take the price of bananas today, ten years ago we were paying

?1.10 a kilo. Today it is ?60. The banana industry around the world is

dependent on migrant labour, very low wages, because there is not

enough value going into the supply. Doctor Caspar Hewett, you have

described this as moralistic imperialism. There is a phrase. I

believe it is. Yes, I think there are real problems with the fair

trade movement. A lot of the time, it is people in the West, making

decisions about what they consider ethical, what they consider fair.

Are imposing that are in -- on people in the third World. It is not

democratic, the people in the third World are not deciding how they want

to form, what they want to do. If a farmer in the third World wants to

grow GM crop that is pesticide resistant and high yield, that would

be seen as unethical by the fair trade movement. They would not be

able to sell that crop through those means. There are massive problems

with it. It is imposing values on people that should not be imposed.

That is nonsense. In the fair trade system, the farmers' organisations

have every say. We are 50% owned by those farmers' organisations. GM

puts them in the hands of multinational companies, that is why

they do not want it. They want to be able to use their own seeds and

reuse them and have possession of them, and not be in the hands of

those companies. I think this is about farmers wanting to earn a

decent price. I have never met a farmer who says, yes, give me the

cheapest price and give me charity when I cannot live. Nobody wants

charity. If you look at the reality, nobody wants to live with the

grinding poverty of working on a small scare -- small-scale farm in

developing countries. Why do people flock to cities the world over? Why

do people want development? People across the world want to live the

sort of life that we live. That is because it is much better. It is the

growing pains of capitalism and industrialisation. That is what

happened. Small agricultural systems, people wanted to get out of

there and go to the city and make a life. Are we restricting them

through the fair trade movement? This is about opportunity. Renee and

ethical consumer means we're connected with the people in rural

growing and things we are eating it every day. When you meet with the

smallholders, as I have, we trade with people in 35 developing

countries around the world, and have done that for 35 years, they do not

see this as Western imperialism. They are looking for an opportunity,

a chance to be a smallholder, to grow crops, to go -- to do a good

job and work hard. Sustainable? To develop their families and

communities. Is it sustainable? This is all about sustainability. The

world gets 70% of its food from small family farmers. Do we want to

secure source of food for future? If we do, we need to be senior is about

this and make sure that the smallholders have a sustainable

livelihood. Would fair trade feed the world?

Fair trade has increased dramatically. As consumers, we spent

?200 billion a year on food in the UK, a significant amount of

?200 billion a year on food in the all have by making ethical choices.

We can play a part in changing the world. Kasper does not agree with

that. Ella Eyre? There was a report in 2014 that showed fair trade was

doing nothing for workers in developing countries and the premium

was often misspent by giving special toilets for managers that workers

could not use. A lot of people have taken issue with report. Fair trade

makes middle class people in the UK and USA feel better about themselves

and does nothing for people in developing countries. It is about

maintaining a low level of sustainability. We are all here. We

don't want that. For the sake of us feeling a bit better, falsely, for

buying false trade, it is doing absolutely nothing. I can cite you

are universally report that showed Ugandan coffee farmers had increased

income by 30% or a Swiss university that showed Lumby and farmers were

50% less likely to be in poverty and have a 30% uplift in their household

income. Let's not trade reports. -- that showed Colombian. Why not? I

was in Bangladesh last year meeting smallholder farmers in everything

from this kind of work and I saw their incomes had increased by seven

or ten times. It is fairly simple for that to happen. With the right

opportunity, to grow, with the right agricultural methods, to have a

better market where you are at least guaranteed a minimum for your crop.

It is possible. We won't pay in extra one or 2p for our own milk

from our own dairy farmers. I completely disagree with that. Who

said that? A disembodied voice! What you disagree with? I think it is an

allusion that we can have this free unregulated market. Looking

historically, there has always been regulation of market forces and a

push for fair trade. If we look at the Bible, the Bible already talks

about using equal weights and measures. We had market inspectors

checking the markets, making sure trade was happening fairly. The

Jewish tradition has a lot to say about trading fairly, and it is a

delusion to think we can do without it. It is a moral and economic

necessity. People don't seem to be willing to pay an extra couple of

pence to our own dairy farmers. Would there come a time when people

see the global situation, see the deforestation, and say, yes, I need

to look on the label and making ethical choice. OK, it is only ?10

but I need to know how it was produced and pay a little bit more

for something produced epically. Will it happen? Maybe, but that is

not how you bring about change and if you believe in change and

progress and a better future, which I do, then making choice is about

what food you eat what products you buy, and it puts it all in the realm

of consumption, and I don't buy that. You can't argue for an

electricity grid for the whole of Africa by choosing not to buy a

certain goods. I work in water resources, and you can't argue for

irrigation networks and the best technology for our country by saying

I'm going to buy a product from here or there. I agree with that. As

consumers, what we do is important because our choices are not just the

things we are buying for ourselves but they are sending a signal to

markets and companies about what kind of business we want them to

practice. It sends a signal to government about what kind of rules

we want in the way we trade. The modern slavery and was brought in

here in the UK to end trafficking, illegal activity, and within that,

businesses themselves lobbied for transparency measures where all

businesses over a certain size have to report. That is right, we need

that combination of what we do as consumers, what we do politically.

Who is prepared to pay more? Rabbi, you do surprise me! The lady in the

blue. What about people who cannot afford to? Well, particularly in

this particular climate, my opinion on this was, yes, I would love to

think it would create a massive change, but global companies and

money is going to ruin it. What would you like to say? I am 17 years

old and my mum works full time so we just eat what she manages to put on

the table, but the real question about this debate is whether our

choices as consumers can change the world, and we saw when Sainsbury's

decided, because of bad publicity, they win no longer going to sell

genetically modified crops, and the other supermarkets were shocked by

this negative publicity that they had to change as well. If that does

not prove that consumer power can change the world, I don't know what

does. APPLAUSE Hello, yes? Good morning.

Intellectual property allows people with money to patents various

consumer items, depriving farmers who can't afford it, and then the

banks can lend money at extortionate interest rates. These are unethical

and as consumers we have the power to change the world. The way to go

about this is a quality at work, in education, opportunities, work-life

balance and all of these things we have to consider, and we can do it.

APPLAUSE Rabbi? It seems strange that just because there might well

be the ultimate solution to the problem by buying fair trade

bananas, that we should not Ed Leigh 's try and make a difference. We

have kids packing food parcels. That is because it is the right thing to

provide for poor families who don't have that. There was an inequality

in society and we can't solve every problem but we have power. Its

shelves were empty of certain products, the supermarkets would

understand where consumer power is. The right wing to do is not changing

the world but changing yourself. -- at least try. Don't we have a moral

responsibility to think globally and ethically and what is good for the

planet and our fellow inhabitants? Whether they be human or nonhuman.

Arguing against fair trade is not arguing for the continuation of

poverty and inequality. Absolutely not. In fact, the opposite. Arguing

against fair trade and essentially keeping and sustaining countries

like Africa on this kind of low, bumping along level that we are

happy with because it makes us feel better, God forbid Africa or are

developing country becomes industrialised and have the lives we

have. Fair trade is uninterested in that. It is interested in making

everything seem equal and making everything seem like people are

having better lives. There are not. Is there a nostalgia to it? A golden

age of small-scale agriculture? The point was made before, who wants to

live and work on a farm that is just above the poverty line? It is not

about nostalgia, it is about opportunity. What we see in practice

is fair trade is that it provides opportunities for people to become

entrepreneurs, business people. It is not just about slightly better

working conditions on IT farm. People can become really successful

business people. -- a tea. They can create enterprise and become dynamos

for enterprise in their community. It is from a business point of view,

not just a do-gooder thing from the UK. There is a strong business

arguing from the UK. That is why businesses are embracing it. Surely

you have a moral responsibility to intervene and stop children of nine,

ten, 11, 12, 13 or 14 years old working in factories? My maternal

grandmother started work at the age of 13. My grandmother. Think about

that. We have advanced stop some countries have not and they want to

get to where we are. Do we all have to say they have to be 16? It would

not happen, it would not work. Who draws the line and says what we

should or shouldn't eat or where it should come from? If you are a

vegetarian, you should not eat at all, that is your ethical

standpoint. When I was 13, I had a paper round, and nobody is saying

that children should not be able to do appropriate forms of work,

support their families on-farm. Fair trade farmers have invested in all

kinds of mechanisation. They have invested in processing their own

copy for local markets because they have earned more. This is about a

process of development. It is aspirational. If you are a farmer

with four children, really only one of those children is able to take

over the farm, and you want your other children to get an education

to be able to train as lawyers and accountants. If that is not the case

because you are on poverty level wages all the time, you're not going

to have that opportunity. I would rather they train as engineers than

lawyers or accountants! We can agree that trade is a great thing and

increases the wealth of people. Just going back to our earlier debate, we

are now agreeing that wealth creation is of an plastic thing.

Isn't that wonderful? -- a fantastic thing. Wealth creation is ultimately

about everyone having the chance. This debate is more about power.

This is about those people in parts of Africa, those farmers, the people

who are benefiting from fair trade, saying something back. In the past,

they had no power. These programmes and initiatives give them power. We

need to do much more, it is not solve everything. Fair trade is

usually restricted. You have to meet certain kinds of environmental

things. You can only use specific ways. It is extremely restrictive

and that is how it is keeping developing countries at this bumping

along level. Chris, you have been quiet. It is not terribly important

and it is a small part of total trade, and it makes middle-class

people trade, and it makes middle-class

shopping then it is worth the extra pence they are prepared to

shopping then it is worth the extra trouble is when it causes

disincentives in the market. If we drop tariffs and allow free trade.

Thank you very much, thank you for that.

APPLAUSE -- You can join in all this

morning's debates by logging Or you can tweet using

the hashtag bbctbq Tell us what you think

about our last Big Question too - And if you'd like to be

in the audience at a future show, Glasgow on March 13th and Brighton

the week after that. Just up the coast from here

at Lindisfarne, was one of the earliest centres of

Christianity in the British Isles, These days Christianity is no longer

on the rise in Britain So last week at the General Synod

of the Church of England, the Archbishops of York

and Canterbury invited all their churches to "pray

for the evangelisation And their Evangelism Task Force has

come up with new ways to connect to children and young people

with the aim of bringing them Canon John, you want people to hear

the message of Jesus, you want to go and get them for Jesus. Absolutely.

Since the beginning when Jesus walked along the beach and said to

be but, follow me, and people followed him, that has been going

on, and people have been sharing the jury and transformation of life of

being a Christian, a follower of Jesus. You want to take a leaf out

of the book of Mormon. You can't walk a railway station in this

country without seeing the Jehovah's Witnesses, Harry Krishna, are you

following that rail? I want to follow the trail of Saint Aidan when

he went and walked around the countryside and he asked people when

he met them, you wanted to meet people on their level, the king had

invited him, he asked them to questions. Are you baptise? In other

words... He was walking around? He was walking around. -- baptised.

Somebody gave a horse and said he would get around much quicker on a

horse. He had much more of a need then he did. Are you going to do

this on a bus? There is a campaign on at the moment in Newcastle where

there are these prayer campaigns on the bus but what we try and do in

Newcastle is encourage people in their local context to connect with

their community, and to just not whack people over the head with a

Bible, but to gently share the fate they have discovered. If people are

having our faith gently shared with them, they feel they are being

whacked overhead. Humanist. You want to spread the message of humanism.

Praise the non-Lord! There has to be a fair way of doing

it. In this country, we have all of the Faith schools, which tap into

this market, as they see it. They use our money, our state funding to

get their message across. It is desperately difficult to get the

humanist message across. Last week, we got the first ever humanist

pastoral care in the NHS. We have been battling for years. We cannot

get through. Touting for business? You need good information behind

you. You need a good trade union behind you, I bit like the Church of

England, the strongest trade union in the clergy in the world, 26 shop

stewards in the House of Lords. You need to get yourself a horse and get

the message out. Touting for business is not what we are doing.

What are you going to tell him about Jesus? What he said himself, I have

come, I have life. It is about motivation. Someone said, if your

motives are just to save the Church of England, or to grow your church,

that is not the motive, the motive is about love, sharing, the love of

God. The love of your neighbour. Rabbi, what do you tell the children

at your school about Jesus? It is a very dangerous approach. History has

been full of those who say that if you do not share my faith, you do

not share my humanity. From that, we have had programmes and Johansson.

-- we have had conflict. Do you want more Jews? No, I find it irritating

when I am shopping, and someone is standing there with a Bible. They

say, get to the Jews. The way I teach, you can get to Heaven being a

good person, you can live life as a good person, you do not need to be

edgy. It is a complicated lifestyle, it involves lots of restrictions and

problems. You're not selling the product ex Commissioner Mark for us,

this is not the salvation issue. The rabbi is not right. We do not

require non-Jews to become Jewish to go to heaven. We believe that the

writers of all nations have a share in the world to come. We are a tiny

minority. 0.05% of the British population, .02% of the world

population. We have a fantastic way of life. As a rabbi, I would like to

welcome sincere spiritual seekers, to explore the option of becoming

part of our community. That is completely unnecessary. Live a

decent and moral life. Your clothes shop? You do not need to be need to

live a good life. I bring into my school assemblies members of the

humanist Association. People who do not believe in the God.

THEY ALL SPEAK AT ONCE In north London, you have the Jews

for Jesus, handing out leaflets. There is a lovely dustbin opposite

their sharp, and as I walked past, I'd just dump it. You need to tell

people that Jesus was not the Messiah, he was... Are very naughty

boy. We do different traditions. Faith schools are there to educate

within the faith, to teach responsibility, that religion has

responsibility to the world. Religion came into all those

previous discussions. Wealth and charity, we have responsibilities.

We do not marry out. We marry within the face. -- the faith. What if you

follow in love with someone? You can plan that. Of course you can. I was

in my early 20s when I was getting married. I found a beautiful woman

to marry. She said my desires for unorthodox lifestyle. You look

within a community that shares your values. Then you do not have the

challenges. What about the gene pool? I have lovely jeans. I have

four children. When I went to get married, I was not part of the

church, I did not have Christian parents, and I went to the church

because I met this woman, we fell in love at school. We went along, I

thought the victor would be pleased, touting for business. He said,

really, you're taking advantage of the church. It will look lovely and

photographs. He said, you should come. It was awful, it was boring,

deadly. I thought, how can people do this for a hobby? It was horrendous.

Then something happened. I was in this for a hobby? It was horrendous.

explain Christianity and it seemed to make sense. The fact I was loved

by God. It had not been in my consciousness before. I saw the

lives of other people transformed, not by saying that you need to do

this are you're not going to get to heaven. Would you like to be a June,

because I have got the red person? You get a day off on Saturday every

single week. Are you a man of faith? Yes. Is it about getting out there

and touting for business, or is it about deeds, what you do for society

and your community? For me, as a Christian, it is about living out

your faith in a real and genuine way. The organisation I work for has

a Christian response to poverty. At the beginning of the show we were

talking about the massive inequalities in the world. How do we

as Christians respond to the fact that 100 million people are living

in poverty? If you look at the teachings of Christ, he says, love

your neighbour as yourself. How do we live that owed on a global stage?

THEY ALL SPEAK AT ONCE Do not start our son Leviticus. --

start us on. Would you start a conversation with someone on a boss

and tell them about Jesus? I would have a normal conversation about me

and what my values are. If that goes into the realms of religion,

and what my values are. If that goes You might slip it in on a bus

journey? I am not looking to sell a product, I am looking to live

journey? I am not looking to sell a life in an authentic way and have

real conversations. Christianity spreads from one person to another,

and it is not on the bus, spreads from one person to another,

buy a pair of trousers, and you say, make sure they have strong knees,

because I spend lots make sure they have strong knees,

praying. That is not the approach. You have to have a real interest and

love of people. This is the point. I wish faith groups would be more

honest. They have got these beliefs, beliefs based on no evidence, but if

you have a different approach to life, you get blocked out. The faith

groups have life, you get blocked out. The faith

and yet they abuse that by touting for business. The

their parents have been blackmailed to get to those schools. That

the early Christians did it. They got out there and spread the

message. They did not downplay the achievements of Jesus. They may have

hyped it up. Who knows? The lady there, what would you like to see?

You have got a microphone. In Islam, by the Koran, it is said that by the

end of time mankind is not lost except for those who believe. It

sought one another. If you do not believe, are you doomed? No, this is

a re-occurring theme that one applies to not only yourself, but

those around. The reward is not upon the other person, rather so the

benefit is upon them. Sorry, the reward lies with Allah, being God.

This is how we Muslims see it. It is our duty to share the beautiful

message of Islam. We live in a multicultural UK. It is

important to nurture that. I have a conversation, if I have time. What I

find so intriguing about this whole debate is we are willing to accept

the marketplace of products, but not values. This is not about Foss, who

is right or wrong, we have a world that is craving for meaning, craving

for deepening in, religions, including my own. In the Jewish

community we can be shy about it. We have so much wisdom and joy to

offer. We should offer it in an open-minded way. There is nothing

wrong with that. We can learn from each other and build great

communities. Hello. If you believe in a product, service or ideology,

it is your right to promote it, particularly if you believe it can

benefit others the way it benefits you. I am a Muslim and proud of my

faith, it benefits me immensely. I believe it can benefit other people

as well. Given the right opportunity and contacts, I would promote my

faith. Now, more so than ever before, it is imperative to promote

the right message of Islam. There is a rise in Islamophobia, a

misconception about Islam, Jude to the media. It is important that

people speak out the true message of Islam, so people can have a better

understanding and build their own judgments. Thank you very much. The

gentle Mandera. I agree with the gentleman that if you have a strong

religious belief and you want to spread the word, get out there. If

you step out into the marketplace and speak out, you should be

prepared to accept criticism and be challenged, and sometimes religion

likes to spread the word, but if it is challenged...

APPLAUSE Good morning. You do not need

religion to be good. In this day and age, I do not see why it should have

a special role. There are plenty of other organisations where the money

could be spent, art projects, work projects, things to promote society.

It is not a Christian country any more. With respect to the more

liberal religious people, there is plenty of socialist humanism. I go

to many events where people are atheists and they are decent people.

I have been treated better there than by the clergy. The last 30

seconds. 30 seconds for Jesus, what is the message? The messages that

God loves you, add Jesus said, people will know you by your works.

We have had discussion today about inequality, and we are just a few

miles away from the biggest food bank in the country. It is shocking

that people are hungry and children go to school tomorrow morning and

they will be hungry. We should be looking after each other. God loves

us and we should love each other. Canning John Sinclair, thank you

very much. Thank you all very much. Next week, the Big Question will be

in Cardiff. Goran spread the word. Goodbye, have good Sunday, and

goodbye from everyone at The Big Questions.