THE M.E.N. has launched a campaign to help Manchester's world-famous Christie Hospital get back the £6.5m of charity cash it lost in the Icelandic banking collapse.
Take part in our online petition
here.
The hospital's attempt to reclaim the money through the Financial Services Compensation Scheme has been rejected and managers have pledged to take legal action to recoup the cash - most of it donated by patients and their families.
Now the M.E.N. has stepped in to back The Christie. We are calling on politicians, fundraisers and celebrities to back the Cash Back for Christie campaign. And we are asking you to sign our petition calling on Gordon Brown to step in and force the FSCS to change its decision.
Labour and Liberal Democrat groups have already pledged to raise the issue in the commons and the decision by the FSCS has been slammed as ‘heartless’.
Immigration minister Phil Woolas, MP for Oldham East and Saddleworth, called for common sense to prevail.
He said: “I will be making representations to the FSCS in light of their decision and I’ll be calling for common sense.
“The Christie Centre at the Royal Oldham Hospital is essential. We have the highest rate of cancer in the country in my constituency and we don’t want this decision to stop our fight against it.”
The money was lost when the Icelandic bank Kaupthing Singer and Friedlander (KSF) collapsed.
The bank held the highest possible safety rating and offered the best interest rates when The Christie was advised to invest.
Now hospital managers are planning a legal bid to overturn the decision by the FSCS – part of the Financial Services Authority. It is understood the hospital, in Withington, has been advised it has a strong case.
The lost cash was earmarked to pay for two new satellite radiotherapy centres in Salford and Oldham.
Bosses have managed to fund these schemes but say they will now be unable to pay for planned cancer research projects, including one with Manchester University.
Hospital bosses are also trying to recover a further £1m of public funding through the bank’s administrators.
Take part in our online petition
here.
Lib Dem John Leech, MP for Withington, said: “I am appalled by the decision. of the FSCS to reject The Christie’s claim.
"This is money that has been raised by the public to help the hospital in its efforts to fight cancer, and it has been lost through no fault of the hospital whose bosses were acting on the best possible advice at the time of its investment.
“I have spoken to hospital bosses and will be fully supporting them in their attempts to secure a judicial review of the case.
“The Christie is a world leader in cancer care and the FSCS heartless decision must be reversed.”
Manchester Central MP Tony Lloyd added: “Everybody around Manchester knows how important The Christie hospital is to the area. Many of us know people whose lives have been saved there.
“The Christie Hospital will likely have received a large proportion of this money through the generosity of ordinary people, who have a right to expect that their donation be spent on the noble work of the charity.
“I have personally written to the Financial Services Authority as well as the Chancellor of the Exchequer asking that this money be given back.”
Shadow Health Minister Mike Penning said: “This is a bitter blow to the hospital and means that unless the Financial Services Authority changes its position, we are facing less money for cancer care at one of the world’s leading hospitals.”
Caroline Shaw, chief executive of The Christie, said she was disappointed by the decision but added: “We must now move on to the next stage which is a judicial review aimed at overturning the decision and getting our money returned.”
A spokeswoman for the FSCS said: “The FSCS protects individuals and some small companies but we must follow the rules set for us.
“Our decision does not reflect a judgement about the importance of the work done by The Christie but it had to comply with rules set down by charity. The decision to reject the claim was upheld by the rules set for us by the Financial Services Authority."
Other organisations in Greater Manchester who invested in the failed Icelandic banks were affected by the Icelandic banking collapse. They are pursuing their claim through the administrators of the failed banks and have not yet found out whether they have succeeded.
They include Manchester Metropolitan University and Manchester University which invested £10m and £5m in the Heritable Bank; Bolton council which is trying to recover £6m from Landsbanki Group; and the Museum of Science and Industry which had £900,000 tied up in KSF.
Take part in our online petition here.
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Showing comments 1 to 25 and replies | View All
Voice of Sanity (11/03/2009 at 06:59)
Chris R, Irlam (11/03/2009 at 08:26)
Savage Mandarin, Manchester (11/03/2009 at 08:35)
Christies were not the only concern to lose money; and £50k to the guy in the street who's lost his savings is a damn sight more important than the Christies millions. Come to that, how much have they got salted away in other banks that we don't know about? They're hardly encouraging people to help them in the future by continually rubbing our noses into the loss of one of their overflowing funds accounts.
Bejjy ex Salford now Malta, Malta (11/03/2009 at 08:48)
littlelegs, Midlands (11/03/2009 at 08:58)
Black Flag (11/03/2009 at 09:07)
The FSCS doesn't conjure money out of thin air; it is funded by levying a charge on banks and building societies, with building societies being hit especially hard. It would be more honest to describe this as a campaign to force savers and taxpayers to give cash to an organisation which lost money in an investment which didn't pay off. Unfortunately, that doesn't make for a good slogan for a moral crusade.
Audenshaw Bob (11/03/2009 at 09:17)
I trained for four months to run a marathon. I work 70 hours a week so ran at 10pm or 5.30am four times a week in all weather to get fit and raise money. Old people stand in the freezing cold rattling collection tins to raise funds. I raised a piddly £400. The average amount raised per head is £270 for such a charity so that is about 24,000 people's efforts down the drain.
As I said yeserday whoever invested that should think about how that money came to be and the effort that people went to to raise it before playing around with it in offshore banks. Why not just stick it in government bonds until it is needed?
Again yesterday I likened it to inheriting money from my Grandparents. I appreciated that it was money that they had toiled all their lives to earn and I respected what the went through to amass it. So I therefore kept it safe and spent it wisely i.e. towards my house. I respected that money.
Now if I won the same amount then I would view it differently. I would spend it on holidays, clothes, drink etc but no way would I have done that with my dear Grandparents money. Christie's should have treated the money raised by fundraising in the same manner.
No doubt people will be out doing marathons so as to pay off the legal bills should this avenue be pursued.
We have Red Nose Day on Friday and we have our canteen at work and the cooks are dressing up and we will donate some money. Other such schemes are happenning tooand no doubt we will raise about £200.
However, when you see celebrities begging you to give over your hard earned and then they fly back from Kilamanjaro on a private jet at a cost of £50,000 and the husband of one of those got fined two weeks wages (£180,000) it makes a mockery.
I have raised money for charity and still will but Christies took a risk with the money and the risk backfired. If you go to a casino tonight and lose then canm you sue for your money back? No.
Bean B4, manchester (11/03/2009 at 09:27)
The only people not being helped at the moment are the savers who remained prudent during the last 10 years of dash for cash.
Tezza, Tyldesley (11/03/2009 at 09:31)
“Let's hope that all of you that have negative comments for the Christie never need their help”
I just knew that someone would have to bring sentiment into the debate, yes Littlelegs we all now what great work they do but this was a business venture that unfortunately went wrong.
The powers that be at Christies put there money where they think they can get the best return knowing that there is always some sort of risk.
Black Flag (11/03/2009 at 10:14)
One bad decision does not justify continual bad decisions, but irrespective of that, the two situations are different. The government has put money into the banks to stabilise them with the intention of the money being repaid at a later date. Christies want money to be given to them with no strings attached and no expectation of repayment.
"The only people not being helped at the moment are the savers who remained prudent during the last 10 years of dash for cash."
The government has guaranteed that no ordinary saver will lose money in a UK bank, so a lot of savers are being given major bailouts. In any other business, companies in the same position as failing banks would have been wound up and savers would have been treated as unsecured creditors and left to share out what was left.
dessie, manchester (11/03/2009 at 10:22)
Bean B4, manchester (11/03/2009 at 10:27)
Interests rates have been slashed, thus assisting the borrowers - the people who got us into the mess, whereas the investors and savers are paying the real price.
Al Capone of Atherton, Atherton (11/03/2009 at 10:46)
Black Flag (11/03/2009 at 10:46)
Savers are just as much to blame as borrowers for the situation, as they are two sides of the same coin. The profit for savers comes from interest charged to borrowers. Without borrowers, savers wouldn't have been able to enjoy the interest in the first place.
FRANK N FURTER, RED/PLANET EARTH IN A WEB/BERLIN (11/03/2009 at 10:49)
selfexiled (11/03/2009 at 10:49)
Your comments on savers needs some clarification please let me assist.The clown Brown said no depositers in the british banks would lose money the reasons for thet are obvious, there would have been wholesale rioting if any bank had gone down and a total collapse of the financial system in the UK.To say no one investing there money in british banks as not lost money is very much a different case There are millions of people in the UK who were given shares by the former bldg societies (turned bank) who reinvested that money as peps and isas( government tools to induce the ordinary man to invest in stocks and shares )in those banks as long term investments (nest eggs)on the promise of rock solid securty.
Those people are now forfiet those funds as a consequence of the Government's failure to police the banking sector adequatly.With regard to the comments on Christies ,We are all human and as a consequence fallable there is tremendous fortitude for the individual derived from the existence of this organisation and fortunatley I have not have needed there services ,so this hiccup, and money is only a tool after all, that can be replaced should not stand in the way of saving any single person's suffering.
zarquon, bramhall (11/03/2009 at 10:52)
STONEY Mancunia (11/03/2009 at 11:13)
MPs gravy train, UK (11/03/2009 at 11:16)
Had most of the people that sent their momey Icelandic banks left in the UK based banks then some (but not all) of our problems with shortfalls in deposits to support the lending could have been avoided. The UK plc has already paid the price for losing these funds to Iceland, why should it pay twice by refunding them too?
Christies is a national health hospital. It will survive. Yes some of its research work will suffer and many people that donated the money will feel cheated, but somebody made some poor decisions and should pay the price like hundreds of thousands of brits are doing today.
Savage Mandarin, Manchester (11/03/2009 at 11:16)
Black Flag (11/03/2009 at 11:24)
People need to take more responsibility for their own actions instead of always looking for someone else to blame. If people go looking for profit, they should be grown up enough to accept that they may end up making a loss instead.
Ace Shakespeare , manchester (11/03/2009 at 12:32)
Diggler (11/03/2009 at 12:32)
Bob Hope (11/03/2009 at 12:40)
selfexiled (11/03/2009 at 12:53)
You seem to say a lot before digesting what other people are saying if you read my post I did,nt say shares were a rock solid investment I said the banks were or rather we were always led to believe they were. and as regards" making a profit " .Your grasp on how economies and the whole economic structure seems a bit niave .if there were no profits made and people did'nt put their money in investments exactly the scenario we have at the moment would evolve .as I said earlir money is a tool and used wisely brings all the things we wish for in life.your view leads me to believe we should stick it under the matress or should that be the bundle of straw in the cave we would all be living in .