Civil Society

Lord Anderson of Swansea Excerpts

Thursday 11th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

My Lords, I commend the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans. He and his fellow bishops have made a valiant effort to set out broad principles that might guide, in their words,

“the people and parishes of the Church of England”.

It is clear from the speech of my noble friend Lady Uddin and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger, that it has a much wider relevance. I am not wholly convinced, however, that the man or woman in the pew confused about voting would necessarily have emerged after reading this report with anything other than a higher level of confusion. Why? Because all the mainstream parties in this country claim to follow those Judaeo-Christian principles. Perhaps the only errant part of the election campaign was the leader of UKIP, who claimed that immigrants should have limited access to the NHS. That put him somewhat outside the pale and was immediately repudiated by his one MP.

Essentially, the aim of the letter is not to provide answers but to encourage Christians and others to think in a Christian way, as Dr John Stott did so well for all of us. The bishops give a set of principles in paragraph 120, emphasising identity and community. I come from the same city as my noble friend Lord Griffiths of Fforestfach, where we define our city, Swansea, as a series of villages held together by gossip. Perhaps I romanticise a little, but it is important.

Yes, the intermediate bodies and the suspicion of power that comes from,

“Put not your trust in princes”,

puts up barriers, checks and balances, but let us remember that it is not just from voluntary effort. It is the church that has been behind much of the effort of institutionalising that welfare provision. It was Adolph Kolping in Cologne, the great Catholic priest, and, of course, Lloyd George, who relied very much on his Scotch Baptist principles, who led the proposals for a welfare state in their countries. I confess that at times the principles enunciated by the prelates come rather close to Tony Blair’s third way, although they probably repudiate that. No doubt their brave efforts will be attacked from several angles. “Politics is a dirty game”, they will say, “Be separate. Bishops, keep out of politics and minister to the spiritual needs of your flock. Cobblers, stick to your last”. John Milton gave perhaps the best answer to this:

“I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue … that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race, where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat”.

Obviously, the powers that be would like a quiet life and prefer not to be challenged by the church—or they enlist the church, as Putin has done in Russia. However, as we saw in apartheid South Africa, Christians will embarrass politicians on human rights issues. I think of the work of Archbishop Tutu and Catholic Bishop Hurley, who were leaders in this field. Perhaps the civics, the small platoons that proliferated under the apartheid regime, are one of the reasons why there are barriers to the tyranny of the majority in South Africa. They must be praised. Michael Cassidy, the Christian leader from Pietermaritzburg, says that after a long discussion with Botha, the then state president, the state president loftily read to him this:

“the powers that be are ordained of God”—

scant comfort for persecuted Christians in the Middle East and elsewhere. But even those of us who are in the comfort and security of the United Kingdom must avoid the politician’s temptation to agree with everyone, to take the easy way out and to avoid values by relying on focus groups.

Who, then, is my neighbour? Christ’s answer was clear. He told a story about a Samaritan—a stranger from a despised group—who helped someone in need. The problem with the bishops’ letter is, of course, that it sets out basic principles, and in so doing avoids some hot potatoes such as the population problem and its effect on God’s creation in the environment, although I concede that it cannot be wholly comprehensive. However, it is not for bishops but for politicians to implement those principles in a world of limited resources, half-loaf compromises and competing pressures.

A current example raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger, and my noble friend Lord Judd concerns the migration pressures in the Mediterranean, where there is obviously a clash of values. The moral response is easy in the short term. If we have the capacity to save drowning individuals, it would be wholly immoral to fold our arms, pass by and fail to save them, so we applaud the humanitarian work of HMS “Bulwark”. But having rescued these people in the Mediterranean, is it moral then to wash our hands of them and say that they must be the responsibility of Italy or the overcrowded island of Malta?

Yet we cannot accommodate in Europe all those who would like to come here—those who wish to escape from the awful countries of Eritrea and South Sudan, let alone Iraq and Syria, however nasty their Governments are. Politicians have obligations to their own people and way of life, and it is obviously not moral to have an open-door policy. But there lies the key moral dilemma of where to draw the line. In the medium and longer term, politicians will choose a mix of policies such as destroying ships, targeting traffickers and safe-haven deals, perhaps also opening agricultural markets.

The church and politicians must work together. When Ahab was challenged by Elijah, he called him a troublemaker. May our right reverend prelates continue to be noble troublemakers. Niebuhr had it right when he referred to the,

“relevance of an impossible ideal”.

Bishops and politicians should strive together, imperfectly, to achieve the best attainable outcomes.