Armed Forces Chaplains (Licensing) Measure

Earl of Effingham Excerpts

Tuesday 9th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Effingham (Con)]

My Lords, we welcome this Measure to further enable the important work of Anglican chaplains to His Majesty’s Armed Forces. Chaplains provide unique pastoral care and the 195 Anglican Armed Forces chaplains are there for the benefit of service men and women of all faiths and none. His Majesty’s loyal Opposition are extremely grateful for their service and recognise the need for forces chaplains to be able to move with and minister to military personnel with greater ease.

This Measure, moved by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Winchester, proposes that Anglican chaplains are no longer required to obtain a licence or permission to officiate from the bishop of each diocese within which they are called to serve. Instead, it allows chaplains to exercise their ministry outside of the parish context under the licence provided by the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury. We fully support reducing the administrative burden for dioceses and the Ministry of Defence, which will better enable front-line ministry. I extend our thanks for the thorough work that has gone into this sensible Measure. The moral, pastoral and spiritual leadership shown by chaplains to His Majesty’s Armed Forces can form a bedrock of stability when it is most needed.

We welcome the Abuse Redress Measure to bring forward the Church of England’s national redress scheme for victims and survivors of Church-related abuse. We understand that this Measure has the overwhelming support of the General Synod. His Majesty’s loyal Opposition recognise the extensive work, deliberation and careful reflection that have been undertaken to finalise this Measure. However, it is of crucial importance that we never forget and pay tribute to all victims and survivors of abuse, particularly those who supported the development of this Measure throughout the lengthy and at times, no doubt, incredibly painful process to reach this stage.

As so well put by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Winchester, this Measure will provide victims and survivors with a consistent single point of access to apply for different forms of redress, ranging from acknowledgement and apology to therapeutic and financial support, guided by the crucial principle that every applicant and every person entitled to apply should be treated with dignity, respect and compassion. It is reassuring that financial support as a form of redress will be provided up front by the Archbishops’ Council to successful applicants and that, being cognisant of the sensitivities involved, requests for voluntary financial contributions from a Church body will be made by an accountable third party rather than in-house from one Church body to another.

In addition, the process outlined for reviewing the Measure after the end of the third year of the five-year period appears both sensible and workable. This will ensure that sufficient data is available to properly assess its implementation and operations before a report is produced by the Archbishops’ Council to inform the General Synod’s decision over the Measure’s extension by a further five years. We consider this a reasonable timeline and hope that other bodies and organisations can learn lessons from the scheme as a model of best practice.

It will be a great relief to many that this Measure is coming before your Lordships’ House to ensure that victims and survivors of abuse can begin to apply for and receive redress in this way. We are in debt to all those individuals who have supported the development of this Measure thus far and will no doubt continue to contribute to its successful implementation.

[The Lord Bishop of Winchester]

My Lords, I am grateful for the various points raised—I was going to say questions too, but I am not sure there were any. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, for her helpful summary and to her and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, for their support for both Measures. I entirely take the point that redress cannot come soon enough for many survivors, but I want to assure the House that I genuinely believe we have taken great care in developing this scheme. The board, which I had the privilege of chairing for a number of years, took more than 160 separate decisions in the scheme’s design and development.

I echo entirely the positive affirmation from the noble Earl, Lord Effingham, of the work of Armed Forces chaplains and thank him for his support for both Measures. I echo entirely his thanks to the remarkable victims and survivors who have given themselves selflessly and generously to the development of this scheme. From the word go, survivors have been integral to the design and development of the scheme. I am also grateful to him for highlighting the wisdom of the review of the scheme.

With my thanks to the House for those very helpful contributions, I commend the Measure to the House.