The Fair Play for Children’s Hospices campaign seeks to put pressure on the UK government to commit to long-term funding for these worthy institutions.
Campaigners say there are around 20,000 UK children with life-limiting conditions, many of whom will never make it to adulthood. These conditions put a huge physical and emotional strain on families, but hospices can give practical help and advice, and provide physical care when families need a break. About 4,300 children are being helped in these ways.
A very worthy cause indeed. Surely it needs government support and is right to campaign for it? No, and No.
The hospices complain that support from fundraising is fickle: when donations drop, they have to cut back. Maybe. But nothing is more fickle than government funding. It comes in huge lumps – campaigners boast they have already pressured the government to cough up £27m - so the ups and downs, when they come, are even greater.
And the downs do come. Politicians’ priorities change - not always on the basis of rational needs, but in response to the political pressures of the time. If the public demands more spending on immigration control, new schools, or anti-terrorism measures funds for worthy but less visible causes dry up.
Moreover, contributions from political sources always come with political strings – not just the endless form-filling, but the demands that you operate in various ways to comply with the political correctness fads of the moment.
As I reported here earlier, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) stations lifeboats all round the coast, almost wholly crewed by volunteers. A century ago, when fundraising was tight, it decided to take money from the government. But it found that for every £1 of government money it took, it lost £1.50 in private subscriptions. People did not see why they should dig into their pockets when the government’s own were far deeper. Now it makes a principle of not taking government money.
I worry that the children’s hospices may discover the same. They would be better off rejecting state aid and striving to build up a large and loyal group of supporters, as the RNLI has done. I myself would gladly contribute to that.
From Adam Smith Institute
Tags: Libertarian, Politics, Liberty, Freedom
