Church leaders have welcomed the passing of the Debt Relief Act in the final hours of the current Parliament sitting on Thursday.

The Methodist, Baptist and United Reformed Church said the Act signified the end of “vulture culture”. It welcomed measures in the Act to prevent private companies that buy up unpayable debts from taking poor nations to court in the UK to force payment from them.
They said the practice only forced developing countries into greater poverty.

Dr Richard Vautrey, Vice President of the Methodist Conference, said: “This bill clips the wings of the vultures who prey on vulnerable nations and who drive them deeper into debt and poverty.

“We are pleased that our politicians have woken up to the injustice of private companies using UK courts to make a profit out of the poorest people in our world.”

Rev Jonathan Edwards, President of the Baptist Union of Great Britain, said the passing of the Act was a key moment in efforts towards a world free of poverty.

He said: “So many Christians and people of goodwill worked hard through Jubilee 2000 and MakePovertyHistory to ensure that politicians took action on debt relief. But this action was undermined by the action of vulture funds in our own courts. This act will bring an end to vulture culture and stands as testament to our belief that no one deserves to live in absolute poverty.”

The Churches warned that a “sunset clause” in the Act could lead to the legislation lapsing after a year unless it was renewed by Parliament.

The Rev John Marsh, Moderator of the General Assembly of the United Reformed Church, challenged politicians to use this opportunity wisely.

“The debt relief granted to Haiti after the recent earthquake shows that debt remains a major challenge to countries that struggle to lift their populations out of poverty,” he said.

“We’ll keep watching and campaigning to ensure the ‘sunset clause’ is used to appraise the policy, not as a back-door method to scupper a bill that offers real hope to nations trapped in cycles of debt.”