A SWANSEA MP has endorsed the Archbishop of Canterbury's suggestion that the rich and powerful should be legally required to spend time helping the poor and needy.
Rowan Williams made the comments on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme's Thought for the Day slot.
He said: "What about having a new law that made all Cabinet members and leaders of political parties, editors of national papers and the hundred most successful financiers in the UK spend a couple of hours every year serving dinners in a primary school on a council estate, or cleaning bathrooms in a residential home?"
Swansea West MP Geraint Davies agreed. He said: "Business leaders and some political leaders have become out of touch with the hard and often crushing life of ordinary people.
"It's important that they are brought back into contact.
"I think there is a case where people should spend a couple of hours mentoring and supporting people less well off."
Woes
He added: "Such a law would be a wake-up call to those who have had a life without any financial woes."
Swansea Council leader Chris Holley, said he felt that the passing of such a law could be counter-productive.
"There is in this country an enormous amount of people who volunteer — they give the one thing which money can't buy," he said.
"I think passing a law would be the wrong thing.
''It would be far better to ask people do it rather than force it."
Mr Holley said one way of ensuring privileged people were more aware of those who had less, would be to inform youngsters at school level.
"Some of the more exclusive public schools could encourage their pupils to spend 20 hours a week in secondary comprehensive schools," he said. "There's elements of society who have no concept of what state benefits are.
"There should be a way of informing them and I think the way to do it is when they are younger."
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