Lords Spiritual (Women) Act 2015 (Extension) Bill [HL]
Tuesday 10th September 2024
(3 days, 3 hours ago)
Lords ChamberLords Spiritual (Women) Act 2015 (Extension) Bill [HL] View all Lords Spiritual (Women) Act 2015 (Extension) Bill [HL] Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Smith of Basildon
That the Bill be now read a second time.
The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Smith of Basildon) (Lab)
My Lords, this is a rather straightforward Bill that does not seek to make any fundamental changes or reforms to the composition of your Lordships’ House. Its only effect is to extend by five years the arrangements in place for the appointment of Lords spiritual contained in the Lords Spiritual (Women) Act 2015. Like the 2015 Act, the Bill has been introduced at the request of the Church of England and I look forward to hearing today from the Convenor of the Lords spiritual, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby. I think all noble Lords will agree that we are grateful to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans for the letter about the Bill that he sent to all Peers who are speaking today.
As your Lordships are probably well aware, the 26 bishops in your Lordships’ House are determined under a process set out in the Bishoprics Act 1878. Five seats are automatically allocated to the most reverend Primates the Archbishops of Canterbury and York and the right reverend Prelates the Bishops of London, Durham and Winchester. The remaining 21 seats are filled on the basis of seniority—that is, the length of tenure in post. As your Lordships also know, changes to allow women to become bishops were made in 2014. Because of the rules of seniority, we would have had to wait many years before these women would have been eligible to receive their Writs of Summons, become Lords spiritual and be welcomed into your Lordships’ House. As the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury pointed out in 2015, this would have created a situation whereby women were prominently involved in the Church leadership but unrepresented in your Lordships’ House.
While the pre-2015 rules of seniority would have eventually enabled female bishops to receive their summons to our seats, the process would have taken an unacceptably long time. To address this, and at the Church’s request, the House passed legislation in 2015 to fast-track female bishops to these Benches. Since its passage, the 2015 Act has helped to deliver, in a timelier fashion, the greater balance of voices that these Benches need. This has complemented the Church’s own efforts to diversify its leadership over the years, particularly since it agreed to the consecration of female bishops in 2014.
As Ministers, the noble Baroness, Lady Garden of Frognal, and the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, spoke eloquently on the merits of the 2015 Act when the House debated it almost 10 years ago under the coalition Government. Since it was enacted, its value has been demonstrated. We have seen the benefits of the 2015 Act materialise by way of the six female bishops who have sat in your Lordships’ House earlier than they otherwise would have done. Within six months of the commencement of the 2015 Act, the House had the pleasure of welcoming the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester. She broke new ground in two important respects—by becoming the first female diocesan bishop and first female Lord spiritual. I welcome her presence and that of the other female bishops who have since joined this House. I am sure that your Lordships will agree that they have all made valuable contributions to the role of this House.
While significant progress has been made through legislation, there remain only six female bishops on the Lords spiritual Benches today. The 2015 Act is due to expire in 2025, so the five-year extension provided for in today’s Bill allows more time for the original legislation passed in 2015 to operate. The Bill means that if any of the 21 Lords spiritual seats allocated on the basis of seniority become vacant between now and 2030, they will be filled by the most senior eligible female bishop if any are available at that point. Without the Bill, the provisions of the 2015 Act would expire in May 2025.
Five years represents an appropriate length of time to allow the positive effects of the 2015 legislation to continue. It will enable a longer period in which to accelerate the appointments of female Lords spiritual, while recognising the progress that has been made by the Church so far. This will help to ensure that we continue to address an historic disadvantage: the barriers faced by women with respect to the Church and, by extension, membership of this House.
At Second Reading of the 2015 Act, the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury said that the 2010 Parliament would be
“the last Parliament where any Bench of either House is occupied solely by men”.”.—[Official Report, 12/2/15; col. 1366.]
I am glad to say that his prediction was correct. I look forward to today’s debate and I beg to move.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
My Lords, I thank the Leader of the House for her clear introduction, which I will not attempt to repeat. Like her, I also thank the Church of England for making the request. I look forward to hearing from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans, Convenor of the Lords Spiritual, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby.
I say straightaway that we support the Bill on this side of the House. It rightly rolls forward the arrangements debated and agreed without a Committee stage in 2015. This is an even shorter Bill—it simply extends the sunset clause that was agreed then and provides that female bishops will join the Lords spiritual slightly sooner than they would otherwise have done.
Of course, the presence of the Lords spiritual reflects the enduring constitutional arrangement of an established Church of England, with our monarch and Head of State as its supreme governor. Since the last debate, we have a new monarch, following the sad death of our much-loved Queen Elizabeth II and the accession of King Charles just two years ago. I was delighted at church on Sunday to hear our vicar thank the Government for making a fine portrait of our new King available for free to his and other churches across the country. I pass on these thanks to the Minister and to those in the Cabinet Office, who I know have been working so hard on this appropriate memento of the new Carolean era.
We also thank all those women bishops who have served in our House since 2015, including the now retired Bishop of Newcastle, who became a friend. We are appreciative of all they have done, leading us in prayer as well as bringing a new perspective to debates.
Looking back at the debate on the last Bill on 12 February 2015, I see there was some discussion about whether it was right to leave untouched the five ex officio sees—those led from the historic cities of Canterbury, York, London, Durham and Winchester. I think it is right that these sees should remain open to a wider pool of experience and I note with approval that, since the last debate, these have come to include both a female Bishop of London and a former Archbishop of York.
There was also concern about fairness in the debate, particularly in relation to those senior clerics, such as the then Bishop of Lincoln, whose elevation to Parliament might be delayed. But there was agreement that there was a generosity of spirit from him and others that meant this would not be a problem in the event. I am so sorry that my noble friend Lord Cormack, who was taken from us so suddenly, is not here to contribute and bear witness to the success of the changes that he was very concerned about. On a wider note, he loved Lincoln Cathedral and helped to get it to the top of a national poll of favourite cathedrals. My own favourite, Salisbury Cathedral, also did well. One of my greatest pleasures as a DCMS Minister was to visit the many cathedrals for which the last Government provided funding under the First World War centenary cathedral repairs fund and to hear some of our wonderful cathedral choirs.
Other absent friends who spoke included Baroness O’Cathain, Baroness Perry and Baroness Trumpington. I mention them because all three charted an important path as female flag-bearers and mentors. They understood the vital role women priests have played in keeping the Church of England afloat in challenging times, making the position of women bishops in the House of Lords particularly important.
It was agreed at the time that the 10-year span of the previous Bill was sufficient to provide the space needed to look at how well this legislation was working and what would happen thereafter. In the event, this was insufficient, and the result is today’s Bill, which I fully support; hopefully, this is the last such request. With six women bishops now in our House, fewer I suspect than expected, my only gentle question to the noble Baroness the Lord Privy Seal, and to those speaking for the Church, is why a five-year extension has been chosen rather than 10. Does this presage work taking place on some alternative pattern of reform and, if so, what is envisaged? I feel we should be told. Certainly, it would be wrong to find ourselves being asked for another extension in just five years’ time.
Baroness Brinton (LD)
My Lords, I remember with real excitement Petertide in 1994, because my school friend Angela Berners-Wilson was ordained and, because of the timing of the ordination service and the fact that her name began with B, she was the first woman ordained that day and is deemed to be the first woman ordained in the Church of England.
I was equally excited the day that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester joined your Lordships’ House as the first woman diocesan bishop. Rachel Treweek started a new part of history for women in our country. However, it would be more correct to say that women spiritual returned to your Lordships’ House because, even before Magna Carta and the King’s Council, it was noted by Gurdon, in his antiquities of Parliament, that
“ladies of birth and quality sat in council with the Saxon Witas”.
In Wighfred’s great council at Becconfeld in AD 694, abbesses sat and deliberated. Five of them signed decrees of the council, along with the king, bishops and nobles.
More significantly, during the reigns of Henry III and Edward I, four abbesses were summoned to Parliament. They were from Shaftesbury, Barking, Winchester, and Wilton. Noble Lords may wonder why I go back so far in history. I grew up near Shaftesbury and my mother was involved in the archaeology at Shaftesbury Abbey around that time and we, as a family, were brought up on the story of the Abbess of Shaftesbury.
It is important to note the contribution of our women Bishops. I believe they strengthen the Spiritual Benches and your Lordships’ House through a combination of wisdom and bringing their own worldly experience to the House.
It is such a shame that the Church of England has to revisit this issue, as it was hoped back in 2015 that 10 years would be long enough to ensure that there were enough women diocesan bishops that the Lords spiritual would have some semblance of a gender balance. As somebody who had to organise gender balance among parliamentary candidates in my party, I realise that it is never an exact science. While there is welcome progress, the Lords spiritual still have the lowest proportion of females in the main groupings, at 24%.
It is a most unusual situation and arrangement to have places in a nation’s legislature determined by a process within a Church and by an external organisation, albeit one whose rules pass in this Parliament. Gender balance of the composition of the legislature is reliant on that process working, so unusual is perhaps a bit of an understatement.
My concern is that one has to reflect on whether extending the law will work or could in fact be a perverse incentive not to appoint women as diocesan bishops. Is this one of the reasons that only two of the last 11 appointments have been women? Without the extension, only men on the Lords spiritual waiting list would join the House, but even with the Bill we could end up with only men. In the next five years there are 14 retirements due, and the replacements—bar the Bishop of Peterborough, who will replace the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Worcester—would be men. Surely that would be unfortunate, to say the least. Two of the last three vacancies have failed to appoint.
Surely this is also avoiding the well-overdue question of how many bishops, if any, should be in Parliament—a matter last considered in 1878, which is recent history for your Lordships’ House. One cannot also ignore that there are 31 Church of England bishops if one includes the retired archbishops and bishops on the Cross Benches: one of Oxford, one of London, two of Canterbury and one of York. A possible solution might be to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the 1878 Act with either a sunset clause of this Bill in 2028 or a review, which would give the Church time to sort out the process. It has 10 years under its belt; another five might help.
Also, frankly, given the aims of the current Government, it is a good point to review the composition of the Lords more generally. If His Majesty’s Government achieve their aim, the hereditary Peers will no longer be here and perhaps it will be time to move on to the next stage of reforms for your Lordships’ House.
The Lord Bishop of St Albans
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for her opening remarks. I put on record my personal thanks and those of the Church to His Majesty’s Government for securing time to bring this Bill forward, and to the Opposition for giving their support to the proposal. I hope that this will be a relatively simple and straightforward piece of business and that we may not need to detain the House for too long.
The Bill, if passed, will extend the Lords Spiritual (Women) Act 2015, due to come to an end in 2025, for a further five years to 2030. In our view, this is a reasonable extension to a successful piece of legislation. Prior to the 2015 Act, the 26 bishops who sat in this House were determined by the Bishoprics Act 1878: the most reverend Primates the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, the right reverend Prelates the Bishops of London, Durham and Winchester, followed by the 21 longest-serving diocesan bishops in the Church of England.
The 2015 Act altered the operation of the 1878 Act, providing that, for the next 10 years, any time a vacancy arose among the 21 Lords spiritual whose places are determined by seniority, the vacancy would be filled by the most senior female diocesan bishop available, effectively allowing women to jump the queue ahead of men.
The General Synod approved legislation allowing women to become bishops only at the end of 2014. If the usual operation of the 1878 Act had continued, it would have been a considerable number of years before any female diocesan bishops—having had to wait a long time before they were able to take up these senior roles—had been able to enter this House. That was the rationale behind the introduction of the original 2015 Act, which we are now seeking, with the support of the Government, to extend for a further five years.
As a result of the original legislation passed in 2015, we now have six female diocesan bishops sitting as Lords spiritual in this House. Apart from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London, they have all come in under the existing Act. We have been able to benefit from the exceptional insights and wisdom of the likes of my right reverend friends the Bishops of Gloucester, Bristol, Chelmsford, Derby and, most recently, Newcastle. My right reverend friend the Bishop of Newcastle’s predecessor, Christine Hardman, whom I am sure many noble Lords will remember, became a bishop quite late in life. Had she had to wait in the queue, as per usual rules, she would never have come here at all. We are now awaiting the arrival of another woman, Debbie Sellin, Bishop of Peterborough, within the next few weeks.
To come to the point, which is the five-year extension of the Act, I think it prudent to confess that we in the Church have made slower progress than we had hoped when it came to ensuring that our senior clergy are representative of the diverse congregations we serve. This is true both of women and of ethnic and racial minorities. We do not yet have proportionate representation of female bishops on these Benches, or in our diocesan bishops. Were the provision in the Act to come to an end next year, as was the original plan, I fear we would not have achieved our goal of corrective action when it comes to the long delays to women’s ministry and appointments to senior positions within the Church of England.
At the time of the 2015 Act, the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury commented that the duration of the Act’s provisions was a matter of judgment and that we could not entirely predict or foresee the pattern of appointments over the coming years. Unfortunately, that pattern has not consisted of as many female bishops as we had hoped, and we humbly ask this House to grant us a little longer to ensure that our excellent and qualified women bishops have enough time to overcome this barrier.
However, the pipeline is crucial. If you look at the statistics, the number of women incumbents in our parishes has been steadily increasing. The numbers of women archdeacons, cathedral deans and suffragan bishops are increasing. Like many professions, we have the problem of getting the pipeline right when making these changes. If the pipeline was going in a different direction, I would be very concerned. It is, at the moment, going in the right direction.
The view of the Church is that we intend this to be a one-off and do not anticipate needing a further extension to the Act, although of course we are at the service of this House. Personally, I strongly hope to see in five years a proportionate number of our female colleagues in post as diocesan bishops and in the pipeline for vacancies in this House, and the usual rules of the 1878 Act to resume.
Lord Birt (CB)
My Lords, no one will stand in the way of promoting greater gender equality in any grouping in this House, but I would like to express my disappointment that a new, and so far decisive, Government are not preparing a comprehensive, holistic and long-overdue approach to the overall reform of this House, including the representation of the established Church—a process hinted at by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton.
I support the plan to end the birthright of hereditary Peers to sit in this House—it is a feudal anachronism. That said, many individual hereditaries reach here on personal merit, as we all know, and I hope that a way can be found to retain those who make a most distinguished contribution to our proceedings.
The guaranteed representation of the Church of England in this House is a second feudal legacy, embedded centuries before the notion of democracy gathered pace. Its representation produces many peculiarities. For instance, it is essentially the Government who appoint bishops. I used to work at No. 10 alongside a most delightful and extraordinarily able civil servant, one of whose jobs, when a bishopric fell vacant, was to take soundings in the diocese—and more widely—and recommend who should be appointed as its bishop. Accordingly, No. 10, not the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury, announces the appointment of a new bishop. Church and state are very definitely not separate.
As this proposed legislation underlines, Bishops take their turn to sit in this House—except in the case of what I think is a bizarre anomaly. We heard the example earlier: if you are appointed the Bishop of Winchester, you are automatically and immediately entitled to a seat in this House. That is extraordinary.
Moreover, the Anglican Church may be represented in this House but it denies its clergy the right under law passed in this House and enjoyed by the rest of the citizenry to enter a gay marriage. Thus, that charming and witty national treasure, the Reverend Richard Coles, was denied the right to marry the man he loved. That is a shocking, unholy, indefensible anomaly.
There are other and very fundamental reasons why embedding representatives of a single church in this House is no longer appropriate. In the 2021 census, almost everyone—56 million people—answered the question about their religion. Less than half of the UK’s population declared themselves even to be Christian, and 22 million people declared themselves to be of no religion. In other surveys, more people say that they do not believe in God than believe in one. Of those who identify as Christian, only 21% are Anglican. More claim to be Catholic than Anglican.
The reality is that we are now an incredibly diverse society—a society comprising people embracing many faiths and none. We should not embark on a long-overdue radical reform of this House without recognising that fact, and that embedding the Church of England in our legislature is an indefensible, undemocratic anomaly.
That said, the greatest strength of this House is its diversity—its range of expertise, perspectives and experience. I have the greatest possible respect for the individual qualities and inherent goodness of the many leaders from many faiths whom I have met in my time. I think, for instance, of the outstanding and sensitive work of Bishop James Jones in leading the inquiry into the Hillsborough tragedy. I hope and expect to see faith leaders of every kind represented in a reformed House, but appointed on individual merit, not as exercising a right existing in one form or another for half a millennium.
Finally, I say to the new Leader of the House, another person whom I greatly respect, that piecemeal reform in any domain does not produce effective and enduring solutions. May we please consider the many ways in which this House needs reform, and consider them all together and in the round?
Lord Scriven (LD)
My Lords, I wish to bring a secular voice to the debate on this Bill. If 26 of the established Church’s Bishops continue to get automatic rights to sit in the UK Parliament then, as a matter of principle, equality for women to sit here has to be central to that to deal with the institutional misogyny that has created a lack of equality and opportunity for women in the Church of England, and to which new Bishops are appointed to this House. But what a fascinating and interesting position the country finds itself in that the Parliament of the UK must give legislative time to deal with the established Church’s centuries of discrimination against women taking senior roles and the slow progress it has made in ensuring that women Bishops have equal rights in this House.
We need to look a bit further at why the established Church has been so slow to deal with this discrimination, to see whether it is really committed to equality for women within its structures and to ensure that it is really committed to dealing with the misogyny and believes in the true equality of women within its structures, which is the basis the Bill is established on.
I ask noble Lords to imagine if a colleague of theirs, due to his deeply held beliefs, refused to follow this manager’s instructions simply because that manager was a woman. What would happen? In almost all cases, this would be unacceptable. Places of work would not tolerate it, and would probably find themselves on the wrong side of the law if they did. Although both sex and religion or belief are protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010, the law is clear that individuals cannot discriminate against their colleagues just because their religion says they should.
However, that discrimination still exists within the established Church, with a whole system that allows this to happen. The language used to describe and hide it is almost poetic. The CofE calls it “mutual flourishing”. Does that not conjure up a warm and sunlit world, one of equal relationships where all sides are equal and can flourish and reach their full potential based on mutual respect regardless of their sex or who they are?
In practice, it is far from that. There has been a total abdication of responsibility by the leaders of the established Church since 2014, when women bishops were agreed to by the General Synod. A system has been set up to appease the misogyny—a system that is more about keeping the Church of England together rather than one built on mutual respect and equality for all. It is a system that the present leadership of the Church of England encourages and supports. It is not mutual flourishing but a system of institutionalised misogyny.
In practice, what “mutual flourishing” means is that individual churches can refuse to accept women as priests or vicars. The CofE also permits churches to reject the authority of a female bishop. So the state Church affirms women as equal while at the same saying that it is alright for some churches not to accept them. In fact, nearly 600 churches reject the authority of women and flock under the frocks of what are referred to as “flying bishops”. Individual churches are permitted to refuse female vicars and are given the right to be overseen by flying bishops who also oppose women’s ordination, instead of their local bishop, male or female, who ordains women.
In fact, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London, who has been in her position since 2018, was on occasions required to delegate her authority to the Bishop of Fulham, a more junior bishop. Women in London, as well as elsewhere in the country, have pointed out that churches will not accept their applications for the post of vicar, and it is almost impossible for women to be appointed vicar at some large churches in the capital of this country.
How can it be in 2024 that the state Church is still discriminating against women, who represent about two-thirds of its congregation and half the population of this country? Does the Leader of the House feel it is correct that, ultimately, the Church of England should end its exemption under the Equality Act and stop legitimising the theology that some of its churches use to limit women’s ministry and equality when this Parliament is giving time to ensure that women Bishops can sit in this House more equally as a matter of principle? The Church of England loves to give the impression that the battle over women’s ministry is all sorted now but let us be clear: there is a long way to go.
From a secular point of view, this raises the wider question of why in 2024, as alluded to by the noble Lord, Lord Birt, some 26 seats in this Parliament are in the automatic gift of the state Church. As the Reverend Canon Ian Gomersall said in an illuminating letter in the Times yesterday:
“The anomaly of having Church of England bishops in the House of Lords is compounded by the fact that the clerics in the Lords are from only one church of only one of the four nations of the United Kingdom. On top of this, the Church of England is not the largest worshipping community in the UK”.
In fact, less than 1% of the adult population attends a CofE service on a regular basis.
As the Reverend Canon Gomersall went on to say, removing the Bishops from the House of Lords
“would be not only an act of fairness and justice but also a step towards developing democracy in parliament. Their removal from the Lords would also give the bishops more time to focus on their diocesan duties at this time when the Church of England is in significant decline”.
Any serious proposals to reform the House of Lords must address the unjustified privilege of the state Church Bishops’ Bench. Indeed, 62% of the population, when asked, say that no religious clerics should have an automatic right to seats in the House of Lords. That would not stop the contribution of Bishops to this House, if they were appointed on their own merit as life Peers, but, after a century of decline in religious attendance in Britain, the claim that Bishops or any other religious representatives speak for any significant constituency is unwarranted and does not stand up to scrutiny.
Bishops do not have any special insight. The idea that Bishops or any other religious leaders have a monopoly on issues of morality is offensive to many non-religious citizens. Those of us who profess no religion are no less capable of making moral and ethical judgments. Furthermore, tell the victims of child abuse in the state Church—whose most senior leaders turned away from them, refused to believe them, told them to move on and systematically did not deal with the perpetrators of such abuse—that senior Bishops in the state Church have a superior moral compass.
In a democracy, no religion or its leaders should have a privileged role in the legislature. If the Government are serious about reforms to this House, then the Bench that dare not speak its name in such reform—the Bishops’ Bench—has to be part of that reform. I ask the noble Baroness the Leader of the House whether the Bishops’ automatic right to sit in this House will be part of the consultation that the Government are going to undertake on Lords reform.
Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)
My Lords, about 12 years ago, when I was a Member of the House of Commons, I spoke on the Bill that brought in women bishops for the Church of England. In fact, I went to the Library earlier today to ensure that what I said 12 years ago would chime with what I shall say today and that I had not changed my mind in that decade—and I have not.
It was unusual for me to take part in that debate at that time for two reasons, one of which still is the case. The first is that I am a Roman Catholic—my mother’s family were Anglican, but I am a practising Catholic—so what business is it of mine to take part in a debate about whether the Church of England should do this or that? The other reason was that I was an MP representing a Welsh constituency, and the Church in Wales has been disestablished for over 100 years. There are no Welsh bishops represented in the House of Lords. As a Catholic Welsh MP, I decided over a period of nearly 25 years not to take part in debates on these issues because of those two reasons.
However, I decided 12 years ago that I should do so, not necessarily because I agreed with women bishops, although I think I agree with women priests. It will take an awfully long time for my church to get to that position; it needs to get married priests before it gets women priests. I once talked to an eminent Catholic archbishop who said to me, “Well, if you have women priests then the logic says you will have women bishops after that”, and I agreed with that. So, when that Bill came before the House of Commons, I supported it, as I support this one and as I support the right of the 26 Bishops to be Members of this House.
I could not agree less with what the noble Lords, Lord Scriven and Lord Birt, said. I respect their views, but I do not agree with them, for a number of reasons. In the first instance, the contributions made to our House by our Bishops are first-class. No, they do not have a monopoly on morality—no one has that—but they talk on issues that are important and they bring a perspective that is different. Women Bishops in particular give a certain perspective that we ought to listen to. Our debates on whole areas, including international affairs and national affairs, are excellent when it comes to the contributions made by our colleague Bishops.
I believe that the Anglican Church is a force for good in our country and in the world. I recall when I was the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, and before that when I was helping to chair the peace process in Northern Ireland, that the churches—which had over the years a lot to answer for for what happened in that part of our country—were making a particularly important contribution to the peace process. I pay tribute in this place particularly to the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, who was then the Archbishop of Armagh, and whose contribution to peace in Northern Ireland is second to none. So I do not agree that the contributions are not good; they are good and benefit the people of our country and benefit this House as well.
I also believe it is right to bring a Christian perspective to this House. I suppose when I entered the House of Commons in 1987 more people classified themselves as Christians than they do today, but nearly half of our population still does. I also think that, in the same way that non-Christian people from other faiths attend Church of England and Catholic schools because they believe that there is a moral education that they can get from those schools, so it is that the religious point of view can be expressed through the 26 Bishops on these Benches just below me.
I classify myself as a Christian Socialist—both designations can be unfashionable these days, but they do go together. It was Morgan Phillips, a great Welshman and secretary of the Labour Party, who said that the Labour Party owes more to Methodism than it does to Marx, and I believe he was right. When I joined the Labour Party just 60 years ago next month, there were Labour Party branches in south Wales which opened with a hymn. I am not going to pretend to sing “Cwm Rhondda” in the House of Lords before we conclude this debate, but what I will do is wish this Bill well, wish our Bishops well and wish them continuing membership of this House in the years to come.
The Earl of Devon (CB)
My Lords, it is an honour to speak on this short Bill, which seeks to extend by five years the period in which vacancies among our Lords spiritual are filled predominantly by female Bishops. I support the effort to increase the gender diversity of Lords spiritual and agree that we should seek to increase the diversity of this House more generally so that it better reflects the nation and allows a breadth of opinion to be brought to our legislative efforts.
I should note my own interests. I was a one-time Cambridge theologian, I am patron of a number of Anglican parishes in Devon, I am an irregular churchgoer and I am a member of a family with long clerical connections. We count many churchmen—and indeed, I can tell the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, that my research suggests a couple of churchwomen, including Adelicia, the foundress of Forde Abbey—in the family tree: there are Bishops of Norwich, London, Exeter and Winchester, and even an Archbishop of Canterbury, whose coat of arms as Richard II’s Chancellor appear just to the left of the Throne.
I thank the Convenor of the Lords Spiritual, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans, for his letter, which was received last night; the detail and background were instructive. Along with him, I wish to put on record my appreciation for the contributions of those female Lords spiritual who have made it into the House as a result of the provisions of the Lords Spiritual (Women) Act 2015, which we are extending with this Bill. The right reverend Prelate’s letter also provided helpful statistics, including the fact that 33% of ordained ministers were female in 2020—a number that I hope has increased since. I wonder whether the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby could confirm that.
I also agree with the right reverend Prelate’s sentiments when it comes to the number of female bishops as a whole. He states:
“it is my view that the overall number of women appointed as diocesan bishops since 2014 remains too low, and there is continuing work to do to rectify the longstanding historic imbalance”.
In considering this Bill, we should be provided with a better understanding of why the Church has not done more to promote female bishops since 2014. For example, it is notable that, of the five episcopal sees with automatic seats in this House—namely, Canterbury, York, London, Durham and Winchester—only one is currently held by a woman. It would be helpful to know what particular efforts the Church of England is making to ensure gender equality amongst its own leadership and what the barriers that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans references actually are.
I would be pleased if the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby could provide us with an update on that issue when she speaks. It should not be for Parliament to spare the Church of England’s blushes if it is not able to promote female leadership within its own ranks and of its own accord.
Secondly, while I support the efforts to increase gender equality within the Lords spiritual, this Bill does nothing necessarily to increase the diversity of thought or belief within our House. All bishops, be they male or female, as we have heard, will still be Anglican bishops and the voices of other religious faiths will be no louder as a result of this Bill. Do the Government, given their passion for Lords reform, have any plans to broaden the creed of those sitting in the spiritual seats of your Lordships’ House, or do they otherwise intend to increase the presence of non-Anglican Church leaders upon our red Benches?
On equality and diversity through Lords reform, it is obviously appropriate to increase female presence amongst the Lords spiritual. At the same time, the Government are undertaking other elements of reform that will result in better gender parity in this House. I refer to the Government’s ambition to abolish the remaining 92 hereditary Peers, all of whom, since the retirement of the great and noble Countess of Mar, are now male. Therefore, there is a hereditary Bench occupied only by men, which is unfortunate. This is a valid and very real criticism of the hereditary peerage, but it is the fault not of the hereditary Peers themselves but of the arcane rules of succession to which we are subject. Here I note my interests as an Earl of Devon.
For a number of years, I, along with honourable Members in the other place, have been seeking to introduce by way of a Private Member’s Bill a Bill to permit female succession to hereditary peerages, but we have been unsuccessful in our efforts to date. I am the youngest of four children, as was my father before me, and my grandfather was the only boy among six siblings. The law of succession to the Crown was changed without incident over a decade ago and, as we have heard, female bishops have been allowed since 2014. So at least two of the three feudal mainstays of our constitution, the Crown and the Church, have been permitted to embrace gender equality. It is therefore shocking that, in 2024, the heirs to hereditary titles remain subject to such explicit gender discrimination, both the eldest daughters, who might wish to inherit a title, and younger sons, who might have had something better to do with their lives.
It would appear to be grossly discriminatory of Parliament not to act upon this, leaving us to wallow unwillingly in patriarchy. Noble Lords may suggest that such a move would be a waste of time, given hereditary Peers’ impending abolition, but I am mindful that hereditary titles will retain some presence and status within Britain even after we are no longer active legislators, particularly in those parts of the country, often rural, which have retained a traditional social fabric—our much-loved rural parishes, for example, where the local baronet retains social and economic significance. I expect also that hereditary titles will long remain a fascination for popular culture, as a focus of fashion and social magazines, popular film and literature. If the Government can find legislative time to promote gender equality among the Lords spiritual, could it not also find time to change the rules for hereditary succession so that within a generation, half those titles would be held by females in their own right? It would be a lasting legacy upon which to depart your Lordships’ House.
I end by reiterating the importance of diversity to this Chamber and to our work, and regret that the abolition of a hereditary presence in Parliament will remove some notable diversity that is not found amongst Lords spiritual, nor among many of the appointed life Peers, who tend to be people of excellence either in politics or society more widely.
Recent hereditary additions to the Cross Benches have included a veterinary practice manager, an inner-city state schoolteacher, a nuclear engineer and even a modest American IP litigator, none of whom are necessarily leaders in their fields nor the most ambitious. They are here to serve, in the way their forebears have done for centuries, with neither fear nor favour. The irony of removing the purportedly elitist hereditary peerage is that we will lose some of the more normal and perhaps modest Members of your Lordships’ House. I hope the Government will reflect upon that.
The Lord Bishop of Derby
My Lords, I feel I should declare an interest as the only speaker in this debate who has benefited from the provisions of the Lords Spiritual (Women) Act 2015; thank you.
I know something of the challenges of being a woman in senior ministry, not least as I hold the distinction of being the first woman to be appointed and consecrated as a bishop in the Church of England, as Bishop of Stockport. I subsequently entered the House under the terms of the 2015 Act when I became Bishop of Derby, the fifth woman to sit on these Benches.
On balance, I support the Bill to extend this provision, and I add my thanks to those of my right reverend friend the Bishop of St Albans to the Leader of the House and to the Government for making time for it. I trust that this short and time-limited Bill to enable the existing Act to continue for a further five years will receive the same cross-party support that enabled the original Bill to progress through both Houses swiftly and without amendment in early 2015.
It has been a privilege to contribute to the work of your Lordships’ House for five years. I was introduced in 2019 and made my maiden speech during Covid lockdown, being beamed into the Chamber from my diocesan office by the magic of Zoom. That speech was, and much of my work in the House since has been, informed by my role as vice-chair of trustees for the Children’s Society, a charity doing significant work for children and young people at risk and on the margins. I remain a trustee.
Coming into your Lordships’ House as you take on responsibility as a diocesan bishop is not for the faint hearted. The Act has required it of the women who have come here under its terms, and it has meant getting to grips simultaneously with the demands of diocesan episcopal leadership and learning the wonderful ways of Westminster. As we have heard, that is not unique to us. The five senior Lords spiritual, the archbishops and the Bishops of London, Durham and Winchester, also take on membership of the House at the same time as they become bishops of those sees. It can be done, and as many of my colleagues have shown, be done very well.
This House has benefited greatly from the wisdom and service of those women who have been Lords spiritual under the term of the Act. There have been six in total so far, with my right reverend colleague the Bishop of Peterborough very soon to become the seventh. My right reverend friends have sought to speak for a wide range of people and causes. I note my right reverend friend the Bishop of Gloucester’s work on prison reform and the treatment of women in the criminal system, my right reverend friend the Bishop of Bristol’s work on the victims of modern slavery, and my right reverend friend the Bishop of Chelmsford’s work on refugees and good housing.
Had the original Act not gone through, I would have only just joined and still be finding my feet. As we have heard, the contribution of Christine Hardman, the former Bishop of Newcastle, would not have been available at all. Without that provision, most of the women serving from these Benches now would not yet be among us or, like me, would have only just been introduced. Instead of this, since the Act was passed the total number of years of service offered to this House by women on these Benches has exceeded two decades-worth. This is a cause for celebration. I look forward to what a further five years might bring.
I am really glad that this debate has provided an opportunity for us to hear from colleagues across the House about wider issues, including the role of the Lords spiritual and the place of women in public ordained ministry. Although they are not within the scope of this narrowly drawn Bill, they are none the less important.
I am not going to respond in detail to the arguments about the continuing place of the Lords spiritual; that may come in future debates when we consider the questions of membership of the House and future reform. We see ourselves primarily as servants of this House, in an extension of our vocation as bishops in the established Church: to serve the nation and all its communities. It is for Parliament to decide whether and in what capacity we continue to serve here. For my part, I recognise the privilege it is to occupy this space; I will continue to do so to the best of my ability, in and beyond this Chamber, as long as I am summoned.
There are mixed views on the Lords Spiritual (Women) Act among my colleagues, the women and men on these Benches, and across the wider College of Bishops. That is partly for the practical reasons I have named and partly because of the concern, which I share—it has already been touched on in this debate—about the wider landscape for the appointment of bishops in the Church of England. In the decade since the General Synod and Parliament passing the legislation to enable women to become bishops, many remarkable women have followed in my footsteps, but the overall number remains too low. At the beginning of November, there will have been a total of 36 women appointed as bishops, with five retired. I was asked about percentages— I am sorry, but I cannot do the maths in my head that quickly, though somebody else may be able to work it out.
Attention is being given to how the Crown Nominations Commission deliberates and selects candidates to senior posts, given the rate of appointment of women to such roles and our intent on greater diversity overall. My right reverend friend spoke of the pipelines we now have of gifted, experienced women in ministry; there are real questions about why they are not being appointed to diocesan roles more quickly. Although these matters concern me, and clearly others in your Lordships’ House, they are separate from the matter before us today.
I conclude that this Bill to extend the Lords Spiritual (Women) Act for a limited period is welcome for the effect it will have of continuing to improve gender diversity on these Benches, which will be to the wider benefit of this House and a small correction to a long-standing inequality. It will also bring greater prominence to the excellent contribution made to our shared national life by women in senior roles in the Church of England through this particular public ministry. I dare to hope it might mean that the time comes more quickly when women sometimes are in the majority on these Benches. I therefore commend it.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, the Church of England moves slowly, but not as slowly as the reform of the House of Lords.
I grew up in the heart of the Church of England, as a chorister at Westminster Abbey, when it was very much a male Church. I then found myself taking my children to a local church with a very traditional vicar who did not believe that women should be allowed in the chancel during a service—something that shook my daughter to the point where she has not gone to church since. Happily, we have slowly moved forward. We have also moved forward on the Church working with other Churches and other faiths.
When I sang in the Coronation as a small boy, the cardinal archbishop who had been invited to attend the service in the abbey refused to give his recognition to what was going on in this Protestant ceremony by coming inside the building and sat in a gallery outside. At the 50th anniversary service, his successor for cardinal archbishop read the first lesson, with representatives of other churches sitting behind him in the chancel and representatives of Britain’s other faiths sitting in the lantern. I have attended services in the abbey in which there have been readings from the Koran by an imam, and another in which the choir for a Sunday evening service was provided by the Belsize Square Synagogue.
We have managed to move forward in a number of ways. One of the most difficult things for the abbey, which I have been involved in through conversations over many years, has now at last been resolved, and we have a girls’ choir, the St Margaret’s Choristers. One of the young women who sings in it is the daughter of a senior member of the Lords staff. I have heard them once and look forward to hearing them again.
I am an antidisestablishmentarian, unusually for my Benches. I believe, as Tom Holland’s recent book suggests, that a Christian culture and our national identity are deeply intertwined, and that the Church of England, in all its messy uncertainty, represents the sort of consensus that we need. The noble Lord, Lord Murphy, called himself a Christian socialist. I call myself a liberal Christian. Doubting Thomas is my patron saint, and the Church of England in that sense represents doubting Thomas’s view of Christianity —that we should not be too sure that we know what is right and what is wrong, and that we should always be questioning everything. That is a liberal faith.
I have happily watched the progress of women in the Church of England. The quality of the women priests we now have is remarkably good. It has strengthened the Church, which continues to do very valuable local work—I see it in Yorkshire, as well as in London—and to hold the community together.
When radical reform finally reaches this House—perhaps when my grandson is middle-aged—I have no doubt that we shall have to reconsider the role of the Bishops. I note that we already have some representation of other Churches and faiths in the House. I remind the House that my very distant cousin, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, was Moderator of the Church of Scotland last year. We had the Chief Rabbi on our Cross Benches, and we have had those who speak for the Sikh faith as well. That is also, perhaps, in a reformed House, part of what would then be the appointed element, in what I would hope will be a predominantly elected House. I hope that we eventually move that far, but I fear that we will move towards reform only by a series of shuffles, rather than by radical reform. Having said that, I welcome this small shuffle and hope that the Bill will pass easily.
The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Smith of Basildon) (Lab)
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their contributions to this debate. I loved the phrase about the shuffle to reform; we have become aware of that in many areas of life.
I take on board the comments that noble Lords across the House have made about the diversity of your Lordships’ House. I think we all welcome increased diversity, but diversity comes in a number of forms: it is about age, about gender, about class, about skills, about ethnicity, about background, about experience and about those of faith and those not of faith, who we welcome to bring different views to our debates.
I was interested in what was said about members of the Church of England speaking for certain faiths. I thought the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby made a particularly powerful speech, and I am grateful to her for that. She was clear that she does not speak in this House for the Church of England and that, as a representative of the Church of England, she is speaking with her experience for the nation, and she looks to represent a particular constituency. I have listened to the words from the Bishops’ Benches on many occasions, and I think we should be proud of the contribution they make.
This is a very narrowly focused Bill. The debate has stretched more widely than the content of the Bill, but that is not unusual in your Lordships’ House when we are discussing anything internal to the House of Lords; there is a tendency to have a wider debate. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, for her support for the Bill. She has heard quite significantly from the bishops themselves about why it is five years, and about the work they are undertaking. The Bill was brought forward at the request of the Church of England, and the point she makes is valid: show us the progress you are making. Other noble Lords made similar comments, and we heard their determination and commitment about wanting to see progress and why five years seems to be an appropriate time.
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, for the historical context. She spoke about her friend Angela Berners-Wilson, who was the first woman Church of England priest to be ordained in 1994. I understand her pride. She will understand the pride on these Benches when the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, was ordained into the Church of England in 2019. It is important that we recognise, within your Lordships’ House, that we all have different faiths and values. I have to say that I take issue with the noble Lord, Lord Scriven: I do not think anyone is suggesting that those who have a religious faith have a monopoly on values, commitment or morality. I do not think that our bishops or those of other faiths in the House would suggest that. We all bring our values and our concept of morality to the debates we have, and I think it is right that we do so.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, said, the onus of responsibility to make this work is on the Church of England, which is the established Church. We all welcome those who come into your Lordships’ House who are of a religious faith, or not of a religious faith, and the values they bring. To comment on other points that were made during the debate, I thought it was interesting that the noble Lord, Lord Birt, in talking about the diversity of society, used the phrase “undemocratic anomaly”. One thing we did not touch on was the retirement age of your Lordships’ House. In fact, the only Bench that has a retirement age for its members is the Bishops’ Bench, which has a retirement age of 70. We are getting ourselves into a tizz over 80—or 86 at the end of a Parliament—yet the Bishops’ Benches have quite smoothly moved towards that retirement age. I am sure that when that debate comes, and when we are consulting on that issue in this House, their Benches will have something to say on it. The noble Lord, Lord Murphy, made an interesting comment, as a Welsh Catholic, about how much he supports the Bill and values the contribution of those Benches.
The noble Earl, Lord Devon, raised the issue of diversity more generally. He has raised the issue of succession with me previously, in other meetings, and I have some sympathy. I have had an initial look, and it is quite complex. It is not just about membership of your Lordships’ House; it is a complex issue and not at all something we can deal with in the Bill, but I hear what he has to say and I know he spoke about it some time ago. I have to say to him that I do not think this House is comfortable with the fact that at the moment there are no women on the hereditary Peers register to come forward. We greatly miss the Countess of Mar, who made an enormous contribution, including making sure that new Members did not transgress the rules of the House. Those who did, as I found to my expense— I received a sharp tap on the back on one occasion—were reminded of exactly what the rules of debate are.
All noble Lords—perhaps with some exceptions—have been supportive of this piece of legislation. I note the two noble Lords who have more concerns. It is right that we respect the debate we have had and recognise that the Bill is a small step forward that allows the Church of England to continue its progress towards more women bishops. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby should take back to her colleagues how much support she has from Benches across the House who want to see more women bishops.
Those of us in political parties should not get too complacent about this. We have all had challenges about women’s representation in Parliament, in councils and, indeed, in your Lordships’ House. We should be proud that, since 2000, seven of the Leaders of this House from across the parties have been women and only four have been men. Sometimes progress happens without being noticed, but it is good that it happens.
I am grateful for noble Lords’ contributions. I think there are a number of comments that the right reverend Prelates will take on board. I hope the House will want the Bill to go forward—I get the sense that it will. It has been a privilege to be engaged in this debate. A number of issues around Lords reform have been on the agenda since I have been Leader, and I welcome hearing from noble Lords on a range of those issues. I am grateful to those who have already engaged with me in a very constructive way. This debate has been a privilege, and it is with pleasure that I beg to move.