"WHEN debts are remitted, lives change," the Bishop of Bath & Wells, the Rt Revd Peter Price (above), said last week.

He was speaking at a reception in the Houses of Parliament to promote a letter to the Prime Minister calling for a "renewed Jubilee" ( News, 25 January). The letter has been signed by more than 30 bishops.

Bishop Price said that the Jubilee Debt Campaign, which was launched in the same room in 1997, had been a "movement of people. . . Change always comes from the grassroots; it never comes from the top down. . . It's not just a question of cancelling debt; it's a question of making life possible."

Also at the event, the President of the Methodist Conference, the Revd Dr Mark Wakelin, criticised "the appalling shift in policies which starts to blame the poor for their poverty, rather than see what is going on as a consequence of poverty."

The Archbishop of York, Dr Sentamu, wrote in the Yorkshire Post on Monday of last week about "Jubilee 2000 all those years ago": "We said, 'Cancel all unpayable debts so that we can eradicate poverty.' That is the vision we need to embrace again today."

www.jubileedebtcampaign.org.uk