All government policies will have to pass a ‘family test’, David Cameron has announced. He argued that parents and children were too often overlooked and could be left worse off by reforms. He said online music videos could be given age ratings and more money would be put towards relationship counselling services. Labour said he did not understand families' needs, as more households were now dependent on food banks. From October, every new domestic policy ‘will be examined for its impact on the family’, the prime minister said. Mr Cameron told BBC Breakfast that no politician wanted to be ‘accused of being judgemental’ over people's personal relationships, but added that government would ‘help people who come together to stay together’. In his speech he said: ‘I want every government department to be held to account for the impact of their policies on the family.’

The debates surrounding the future of the UK and Scotland are increasing and heating up. At last weekend’s festival of politics academics explored the theme of 'What next for Scotland?' The latest Oxford Review of Economic Policy featured the work of Professor David Bell and his University of Stirling research team who focused on the economic dimension of the independence debate, 'Taxing and Independent Scotland.’  Also last week The Commission on Strengthening Local Democracy published its proposals on rebuilding Scottish democracy, regardless of the outcome of the referendum. Although there is considerable public interest in the referendum campaign, almost seventy per cent (69.5%) of voters do not believe that either the Yes or No campaigns can predict the consequences of independence. Many voters are relying on their own research and reaching their decision based on what they consider to be certain key risks. See:

A man has died. He was one of 35 adults and children found in a shipping container at Tilbury Docks. The former head of UK Border Force said those inside the container were victims of international organised criminals. They want to migrate to the UK or to Europe but they're being exploited by criminal gangs who are probably taking their entire life savings away on the promise of a passage to the West. We really need to get a message out to migrants that if they want to come to this country there are legal routes that they need to explore and they need to apply for visas and permits. The chairman of the Human Trafficking Foundation said people are desperate to improve their economic situation, leaving their own homes and countries, hoping to arrive somewhere that's more accommodating, more kinder and offering them a better quality of life. Usually, they're sadly wrong.

2,255 potential victims of human trafficking were encountered in 2012 in the U.K. Recent statistics from the Human Trafficking Foundation released on 22 April 2014 stated that ‘14,000 visas are issued each year to migrant domestic workers accompanying employers to the UK. There is little evidence as to what happens to the majority. Research since the 2012 visa changes warns that tying Migrant Domestic Workers (MDWs) to employers facilitates their abuse. Most recently the Report of the Joint Committee on the Draft Modern Slavery Bill recommended that the 2012 changes be reversed. Many victims come from countries in Southeast Asia and indebt themselves to an agent in order to secure a job in the Middle East. MDWs then accompany the employer to the UK, live Live in their employer’s house and depend on them for all information about the UK as well as their immigration status. They are vulnerable to abuses of forced labour and servitude.

Growing numbers of young people are admitting to self-harming behaviour, according to a leading charity in the field. Rachel Welch, director of Selfharm.co.uk, a project dedicated to supporting young people impacted by self-harm, said: ‘It's fair to say we are seeing a trend of increased self-harm. More and more young people - from all walks of life - are coming forward and making disclosures. It may be that we are on the edge of a horrific epidemic, but it's important we look at things more objectively. The recent increase of media reporting means that we are getting better at talking and more familiar with finding terminology to describe what's happening.’ She was speaking as new NHS figures released to The Times showed self-harming among children as young as 10 has surged by 70 per cent in the past two years.

The number of Children worrying about their parents’ divorce or separation dramatically increased last year, according to ChildLine in Scotland. NSPCC Scotland, which runs the ChildLine service, reported that they gave almost 600 counselling sessions to children about the issue in 2012-13, – a rise of 171 per cent. A child affected said she felt ‘stuck in the middle’ and as if she had to ‘make everyone else happy all the time’. NSPCC Scotland said the figures revealed the ‘huge impact’ of difficult family relationships. ChildLine Service Manager, Susan Dobson, said there were many family issues raised by children: ‘Some of these children need somewhere to vent, but for many they’re facing a really difficult time at home and are desperate for reassurance and a safe space to share their fears.’

The most senior figure in the Church of Ireland has strongly rejected a former Archbishop of Canterbury’s arguments in favour of ‘assisted dying’. Archbishop of Armagh Richard Clarke said that he found Lord Carey’s comments in support of allowing the terminally ill to have help to end their own lives ‘perplexing’. Writing in a News Letter on Friday, the Primate of All Ireland, whose wife died from cancer five years ago, said that support for helping the terminally ill to end their lives was neither in keeping with Christian teaching nor even some secular understandings of the sanctity of life. Last month the generally conservative Lord Carey stunned Anglicanism when he said that he had changed his mind on the issue and would support a bill brought forward by former Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer which would allow mentally-capable adults with less than six months to live to get help to end their lives. (See also Prayer Alert 27-2014

The Spending Plans Task Group of the Church Commissioners and Archbishops' Council has awarded £4.6m to projects from five dioceses from the new stream of Strategic Development Funding. Birmingham, Chelmsford, Leicester, Liverpool and Sheffield have all received grants for growth and change projects in their diocese. The funding is being awarded in several stages: the first applications for a pot of £7.5m were restricted to the poorest dioceses in the Church of England. The aim of the funding is to sit alongside existing funding distributed to dioceses each year, so they can benefit from a one-off injection of money to make a significant difference to their long-term mission and financial strength, by supporting major projects. The funding was awarded after a competitive process, in which dioceses were invited to put forward initial applications to the Task Group. Those proposals which met the criteria most strongly were then invited to submit detailed project plans. 

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has banned an offensive advert featuring a digitally altered image of the Christ the Redeemer statue in Brazil. The image depicted Jesus with his arm around a bikini-clad woman, holding a champagne bottle and celebrating a gambling win. The advert was placed by Sporting Index Ltd in the City AM newspaper. The ASA received 25 complaints - including one from the Evangelical Alliance - and found the advert ‘was likely to cause offence to a significant number of Christians, regardless of this humorous intention... because it depicted the person of Jesus in a context at odds with commonly held beliefs about the nature of Christ’. The ASA ordered Sporting Index Ltd not to use the image again and not to use ads in future which link gambling to sex.

Councils are to be given powers to stop funding early-years providers with links to extremism, Education Secretary Nicky Morgan has announced. The move, in England, follows a letter-writing campaign by the British Humanist Association. Members wrote to MPs and responded to a nursery funding consultation, raising concerns about extremist links and creationist teaching in some nurseries. The Department for Education said the change closes ‘a technical loophole’. Mrs Morgan said that toddlers must learn ‘fundamental British values’ and that schools and nurseries that do not ‘support this aim’ should not receive public money. The move comes after allegations that hardline Islamists tried to take over some Birmingham schools in what was dubbed the Trojan Horse plot. Announcing the measures, Mrs Morgan, who replaced Michael Gove as education secretary in last month's Cabinet reshuffle, said there is no place for extremism ‘anywhere in the education system’.