Bishop battles against council's 'Catholic tax'

BY CHRISTINA FARRELL
BISHOP THOMAS McMahon of Brentwood has stepped up his campaign against a controversial "Catholic tax" in Essex.
The bishop met senior Essex County Council officials last week to protest against plans to levy school bus charges against pupils at religious schools. The proposal, pan of the Tory-led council's cost-cutting efforts predominantly affects Catholic families.
The bus service is free but Essex wants to charge £100 per term per child. Protestors say the charges are discriminatory, unacceptable and will put a Catholic education beyond the reach of many families.
When the plans were made public this summer, Bishop McMahon wrote to all the MPs in Essex asking for their support in opposing the proposal.
Alan Whelan, headmasterof St Benedict's College, a Catholic secondary in Colchester, was part of a lobby group of five headteachers that accompanied the bishop last Friday.
The meeting should have been chaired by Councillor Iris Pummel!, the driving force behind the proposals. In her absence her deputy, Councillor Nigel Eady, chaired the meeting.
Mr Whelan described the meeting as "very heated". Twothirds of the pupils at his school will be affected by the proposed scheme.
"Bishop McMahon spoke in very forceful terms about the effect of these proposals," Mr Whelan said. Some families have already taken their children out of the school. 1 have pupils who are on anti-depressants because they are worried about the future. The councillor who chaired the meeting expressed 'surprise' at this but if parents think this is going to happen and there are limited places available in local schools then they have no option but to act now."
The council estimates that 1,900 children will be affected by the proposals. Mr Whelan said the overwhelming majority would be Catholic.
"1 make no apologies for calling this a tax on Catholicism. Over 500 children at my school alone will be affected. The vast majority of families who will bear the brunt of this tax are Catholic — that's incontrovertible. The Conservative councillors who have taken this decision have no idea of the vast sums of money the Catholic Church in this country already puts into education. We are already massively subsidising the state education system."
He added: "This is an attack on the poor and an attack on families with the most children."
He said parents' anger would translate into votes.
As The Catholic Herald went to press an extraordinary meeting of the Schools Policy Development Group was to be held to consider the plans. A vote will be taken at a full council meeting on November 21. To date over 1,000 responses to the council's proposed bus charging have been received, The majority oppose the scheme, only five are in favour, including one submission from The National Secular Society.
A council spokesman admitted there had been a high level of response. He said: "Free transport for grammar school pupils was withdrawn in 1996.
'The charge will he imposed for those attending secondary denominational schools. It will not be imposed whcrc the school is the closest school to where pupils live. Budget cuts mean that we are, unfortunately, focusing back on our statutory obligations."