End this tax on the poor LAST week a report showed that taxes paid by the richest people in our society have fallen from 37pc to 35pc while the taxes paid by the poorest have risen from 31pc to 38pc of their income.

In other words, the rich pay less in tax than the poor. This is a terrible injustice that should never be tolerated.

Another piece of bad news was also recently published. A survey of social deprivation has just been completed for the whole country.

Bolton Central is 51st from the bottom. This means that it is in the worst 1pc in the country.

Perhaps there is some good news. Tony Blair is thinking of having a Minister for the Poor in the Cabinet to address some of these problems. At one level that is good. The people of Bolton Central, and all the other wards where poverty is rife, need help. But what they do not need is special help. It is no good simply setting up special schemes to help those who are in distress. We do not want a whole range of new schemes to help the poor. What we need is social justice. It is no good simply giving the poorest families special help and then taking it away from them in taxes.

What the Government should do is raise the higher rates of income tax to 50pc and take lowest earners out of taxation altogether. Only a radical redistribution of wealth away from the rich and towards the poor is good enough. Anything less is simply like giving a dying man a sticking plaster! Indirect taxes such as VAT must also be cut if there is to be justice for the poor.

I have said similar things in this column before. Some people have said that a minister of the Gospel should stick to religion and keep out of politics. But I cannot do this. Jesus himself had a concern for those who were socially excluded.

When Jesus healed the sick, he was doing much more than simply making people better. In his day and age, sickness was often seen as a visitation from God for a person's sin. This meant that the sick and the demon possessed were often counted as sinners and excluded from society. Jesus' ministry was about bringing them back into society.

Jesus' ministry was about social inclusion. As a minister of the Gospel, I must follow his lead and call for a society which is socially inclusive.

Calling for justice for the poor is also following in the footsteps of many of the Jewish prophets. They called for justice to be restored. I call for justice to be restored -- the rich should pay more in taxation than the poor, not the other way round. Michael Williams

Vicar of Bolton Parish Church.