My LBC show: a staggering response to the Child Protection Agency

On this week’s show we had a staggering response to a discussion about proposed changes to the Child Protection Agency.

Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Minister, has defended the idea of charging to use the agency, which secures maintenance for children from absent parents, and levying a tax on each payment the department processes before it reaches the child.

He claims that these charges are an attempt to reduce the number of people who use the CSA and instead would encourage more parents to solve their disputes privately.

However, many of you who rang in (and there were so many – I am really sorry I couldn’t get to you all) said not only was turning to the CSA a last resort, but it is a poorly run department which you would never be willing to pay for.

It sounds as if Duncan Smith needs to focus on reworking the CSA as it stands before charging to use a system which seems plagued with problems.

After a great chat about another public sector strike on the cards for March 1, we had an equally fascinating debate about whether homosexuality and the church can ever properly co-exist in the 21^stcentury – when its leaders, Lord Carey (the former Archbishop of Canterbury) in this case are doing crazy things like championing psychotherapists who try and ‘cure’ gay men of their sexuality.

Peter Tatchell, the human rights campaigner, called such sessions cruel and extremely ‘un-Christian’ – which summed up what I and many of you were feeling about the case. Listen here (for free) to our conversation on this topical matter.

One caller aptly said: “Religion is not meant to sanction prejudice” and I couldn’t agree more.