Lords Spiritual (Women) Bill

Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts

Thursday 12th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote (CB)]

My Lords, I, too, should declare an interest as a vice-president of WATCH—Women and the Church—which has campaigned for women clergy and bishops for more years than most of us care to remember.

I, too, congratulate the Government on bringing this Bill to the House so quickly after we debated the Bishops and Priests (Consecration and Ordination of Women) Measure in October last year. During that debate, as we have already heard from him, the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury—the right honourable Justin Welby—assured us that the swift promotion of women to this House was a matter close to his heart. He has clearly shown us that. Even better, the Government have fully supported him, and one gathers through the usual channels that so do all sides of the House.

I gather that some in the church and the press—and even, it would appear, in this House—are concerned that the pressures on a new woman diocesan bishop in managing the role of being a bishop and Member of the House of Lords would be too great. I should have thought that the vast majority of your Lordships are in no doubt at all that the talented and long-serving senior women in the church are more than capable of undertaking those roles. They have long faced scrutiny, criticism and worse, and will no doubt be well prepared by those experiences for their duties in both their diocese and in Parliament.

I particularly congratulate the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York—the right honourable Dr John Sentamu—on the wonderful service of consecration of the new Bishop of Stockport, the right reverend Libby Lane, on 26 January in York Minster. Many of us watched the service, although most of us may have done so from a distance. It was an overwhelmingly joyful occasion in which both the archbishops and virtually all the bishops of the Church of England laid on hands, as well as a large number of retired bishops, along with visiting women bishops from the Anglican Communion overseas and from the Porvoo and Meissen churches. The number of bishops present must have exceeded 150—almost as many as we have here with us today.

Given the great pleasure of seeing the first female bishop consecrated in the Church of England recently, it was sad that within a week the underlying divisions within the Church of England had begun to emerge once again. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester will remember that in October last year I asked the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury in this House whether archbishops would continue to consecrate all bishops in their respective provinces. From his response and further debate in the other place I understood,

“that in the normal course of events, archbishops will consecrate all bishops, but … there will be circumstances when an archbishop is ill or overseas”.—[Official Report, Commons, 20/10/14; col. 724.]

Then, he might delegate.

Yet only one week after the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York had consecrated the first female bishop through the laying on of hands, he chose not to put his hands on the new Bishop of Burnley, although he was present at the time. He invited, as noble Lords will know, other bishops who were “acceptable” to the new bishop to lay on hands in his place. There were only three such bishops. Thus, the contrast between the two services in that sense could not have been greater.

This is still an important matter. Indeed, the issue of whether archbishops would consecrate all bishops in their provinces was a key issue for the General Synod when it considered the legislation on women bishops. It was not able to agree on that, or even to reach a compromise. The archbishops then issued a statement that they would take each consecration on a case-by-case basis. Put simply, there are those in the Church of England who hold that once a bishop has laid hands on a female priest in ordination or on a female bishop in consecration he is no longer acceptable to consecrate members of the self-styled “traditional Catholic” wing of the church. This is a notion of “taint”, however it is described by those who propose it.

We should not forget that it has been a source of anguish among all women in the church since alternative arrangements were introduced for ordination under the Act of Synod 1993. The risk in all this is that, far from achieving the “highest degree of communion” between those who accept and those who do not accept the priestly or episcopal orders of women, the church may find that it has created two quite separate genealogies. There is a further risk that the precedent set in York Minster may become the new normal when consecrating traditional Catholic bishops.

Finally, in this context, I hope that as I am lucky enough to be speaking just before the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester, he could give us his views on what level of confidence women and their supporters can expect in relation to the first primate who is a woman—in particular, whether she will truly be free to take each consecration on its particular merits in the way in which the archbishop and the Second Estates Commissioner described last October. Or might her discretion, in effect, be fettered by precedent? If the archbishops are willing to refrain from consecrating traditional Catholic bishops, might they not be creating a reasonable expectation on the part of the traditional Catholic wing that this practice will continue? I hope that if he has time, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester will be able to reassure me on these points.

In conclusion, I pay tribute and give particular credit to the nearly 8,000 women priests up and down this country who serve their parishes and communities brilliantly and will no doubt take inspiration from finally seeing female bishops take their place in your Lordships’ House. May we wholeheartedly support the Bill to enable this day to come soon.