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The Jubilee 2000 campaign clearly represents "good news for a change". Although its success is still (in early July 2000) incomplete, a great deal has been achieved by the churches and partners in persuading people, from street level to 11 Downing Street, of the injustices of international debt and the urgency of action to tackle the problem. And, remarkably, the campaign has been rooted in a Biblical imperative from Leviticus that remained fairly obscure to all but specialist Biblical scholars until about ten years ago. The jubilee is, of course, by no means the only sign that the Bible takes debt seriously (see the "theological context" below). The Scottish Parliament has also taken debt seriously, not only in expressions of support for Jubilee 2000 but also in responding to debt problems closer to home. Indeed, some have seen this as a piece of "good news, for a change" about the Parliament. In a process that shows many of the distinctive features of Holyrood, a Bill to abolish warrant sales has been approved in principle by Parliament and will continue its detailed scrutiny after the summer recess. Proposed by Tommy Sheridan (who would not have been elected but for the proportional representation system of election), it is a "Member's Bill". Unlike Westminster where individual MPs only get a chance to propose a Bill if they win a lottery, any MSP can table a proposal for a Member's Bill; if another eleven MSPs sign up their support for it, it can be introduced to Parliament and time must be found to debate it. Before this Bill was debated, three Parliamentary Committees took evidence on it from a range of experts, from sheriff officers (who carry out warrant sales) to people who had personal experience of being on the receiving end. Crucially, their stories persuaded the Committees to support the Bill, and this cross-party consensus forced the Executive to back down from its intention to halt the Bill's progress. Not everyone will necessarily agree that this is indeed good news, and there are ongoing concerns to be addressed. This briefing is intended to provide background on this Bill and other debt-related issues in the Scottish Parliament, and to introduce the "Debt on our Doorstep" campaign co-ordinated by Church Action on Poverty. It is written broadly from the perspective of the Scottish Churches Social Inclusion Network and the CofS General Assembly (which have both given general support to the campaign and to steps taken in Parliament to tackle debt problems). 1. Background on Debt "It's a vicious circle when you've not got enough, so you borrow. Then when you get your money on a Monday you've got to pay it back, so that week you're short. Then you borrow again and it's a vicious circle". Debt is a soul-destroying experience for many people, around 100,000 of whom approached their Citizens' Advice Bureau last year with multiple debt problems - and they represent the tip of a large and painful iceberg of debt problems The debtors who make headlines are the spectacular credit-card "junkie" who goes wild buying consumer goodies with money he will never have and the shrewd bankrupt who seems able to manipulate the system and walk away unharmed from debts that leave creditors struggling.
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