Proverbs 31:4-9 (ESV)
Occasionally my two main areas of work, helping people relate well to the power of money and the legal enforcement procedures to recover debt, coincide. Earlier this month, the UK’s Ministry of Justice published the new fees that enforcement agents (currently called ‘bailiffs’) will be able to charge for enforcing courts orders for debt.
The fees are pivotal to the reforms to this area of law to in April because one of the chief aims is to incentivise agents to accept payment, rather than seize property that could be sold to pay the debt.
For the first time, agents will be allowed to make a reasonable profit by taking payment but, after that, the financial incentives are less if they attend premises to ‘take control of goods’ and to remove them for sale.
The people in debt are being encouraged to take the opportunity to pay by the prospect of punitive action that follows if they don’t.
The procedure to ‘take control of goods’ is punitive because it is prescriptive. This was thought to be in the best interests of the people in debt, because it was clear, but it is a two-edged sword. As the agents’ use of discretion is very limited under the procedure, and as the new fees offer them reduced profitability the further along the procedure they need to go, the most cost effective option for them faced with debtors who can’t pay may be to remove what goods they can at the first visit.
Historically, bailiffs have preferred not to take and sell goods, often seeing it as a sign of their failure to persuade people to pay. But, inevitably, there is always a need to take some people's goods. I have heard estimates of up to 75% of people in debt taking the opportunity to pay under the new procedure. Perhaps. But what of the rest?
As bailiffs deal with millions of cases each year, most on behalf of central and local government, 25% - or, even, just 2.5% - represents a great deal of money owed to central and local government, which cannot simply be allowed to go unpaid. It also represents a great many people, among whom the poor and vulnerable will suffer the most.
Although the new law makes some allowance for certain categories of vulnerable people, such as those who are pregnant, disabled or elderly, it overlooks the vulnerability that debt itself causes. People who are well able to pay what they owe but simply evading their responsibility, and therefore not victim to the vulnerabilities and mental health issues suffered by those struggling to make ends meet, will be best able to resist the enforcement agents until action ceases to be profitable. But the rest could well have their predicament exacerbated by agents working in the most cost effective way.
The poor and vulnerable are also disadvantaged by the absence of accessible remedies when things go wrong. For years, the Government has refused to create a regulator for this important area of public service. If debtors want to take action against erring or unreasonable agents, they must start legal action in the High Court or a county court; if a third party who has no responsibility for the debt wishes to take action because their property is taken by mistake, they must first put up the total amount owed. The poor and vulnerable will be the least able to use these remedies.
Why did the writer of the Proverbs quoted at the start of this Reflection, who may have been King Solomon’s mother, recommend offering ‘strong drink’ and ‘wine’ to the poor and destitute? The answer is, I think, to be found in something her husband, King David, may have written about ‘wine to gladden the heart of man’ (see Psalm 104:15).
Although a gift of alcohol in the right circumstances may distract people from their poverty, and cheer them up for a while, there’s no doubt about its devastating ability to pervert the rights of those less well off in society when indulged in by kings.
I’m not trying to make a political point but a moral one. ‘Judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy’ is a universal obligation that falls to all legislators and public servants.
In my view, law enforcement for profit and paid by results is a fundamentally flawed concept in a capitalist society. The legal obligation on businesses to maximise profit will always trump the desire to act in the public interest, as we know from the scandals about passing off horse meat as beef, phone hacking by journalists, artificially forcing up petrol prices, banking malpractice and the mis-selling of PPI and identity theft protection. Ambitious financial incentives are always fraught with difficulty and when there’s so much at stake, it is the poor and vulnerable who most need the protection of a regulator and accessible means of redress.
I have dedicated a page on my blogspot to an expanded version of this Reflection, which explains in more detail my concerns with the England’s new debt law and its impact on the poor and vulnerable. Click here for the full article England’s New Debt Law.
© All Souls Clubhouse Community Centre & Church and Philip Evans 2014.
