Support for East Cheshire Hospice

It was a pretty bad day yesterday - the "media crackdown" wasted an hour or two and I wasn't really firing on all cylinders due to a thumping headache (swine flu, I'm sure of it). I'm going to follow it up by indulging in my least favourite pastime - saying no. I can guess that it won't make me popular, but I hope that I can make my reasons clear.

An idea popped up on the Macclesfield Forum that Cheshire East council should increase council tax to give more support to the East Cheshire Hospice.

It's a popular idea, and I can understand why. It's a very worthy charity and they have to do a huge amount of fundraising to continue to help the number of people that they do. Essentially, the thinking was that somewhere in the region of £15 per household per year would put an end to endless hospice fundraising.

I've been considering this for a while, and after following up a few avenues and thinking hard about the policy implications, the short answer is that it isn't an idea that I can support. I'm sorry if that disappoints you.

The long answer goes like this...

You firstly have to take the Hospice out of the equation. Some of the arguments make sense by themselves but get easily clouded by the context of an excellent and worthy charity such as the Hospice.

Next, consider the concept of giving money to any Charity that's raised by taxation. Essentially this is a collectivist / socialist idea. It's a way of engorging government and making more people reliant upon your hand outs. It means that 51% of politicians who are elected by 51% of the people get to decide where the money goes. And it's an all or nothing thing - if you're supported by the 51% you get 100% of the money, if you're supported by 49% you'll get nothing.

I've said lets take the Hospice out of it - but now I want to bring them back in. But I'm also going to bring in Crossroads, the Carers support organisation. When I visited them a couple of weeks ago I learnt that many of the carers they support are 8-18 yearolds who are caring for parents with drug and alcohol problems. These children have to deal with the emotional stress of caring for a family member in this condition, as well as dealing with angst and growing pains of being a teenager. On top of this we need to them to get an education. Life has dealt these Children a terrible hand.

Crossroads are in a similar position for funding. They can't help all the people that need help because there's not enough money. If we support the Hospice, then we'll need to support them as well.

And where does it end? We could build an endless list of worthy Charities that need more support.

The truth is that fundraising is a market system. Like any market system it is imperfect, but it's the closest to perfection that we'll ever get. By it's very nature it is democratic. It's like spending money in shops - each one of us gets the opportunity to support who we want and ignore others. It means that Charities who are supported by 49% of the population, get 49% of the money.

I appreciate that forcing donations would result in more money overall, but the correct way to solve this is to encourage people to give more. Not to force them to.

I will continue to support the hospice. I hope they can further raise their profile, and I'll try and get a bigger team of Scouts doing the Bikeathon next year. I'm even happy to pursue avenues with the NHS as there's a case for them funding more as beds occupied at the hospice save beds in a hospital or staff doing home visits.

But I don't think forced taxation for Charity is the answer.