International Women’s Day

Lord Bishop of Portsmouth Excerpts

Thursday 7th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Portsmouth]

My Lords, I rise with some caution, conscious of the considerable risks as a man speaking on International Women’s Day. But dwelling in ambiguity is perhaps the lot of those occupying these Benches. I am acutely aware, for instance, that as a Lord spiritual speaking on defence matters, I interest myself in swords and in ploughshares.

It was sporting those two hats that I recently watched the RAF’s current recruitment advertisement. Its images depict the reality of women in a service in which every role is open to everyone. We see women readying themselves for combat, as engineers and pilots. The voiceover, alas, articulates a more familiar reality, in which women are told, predominantly by men, that their concerns centre on lip gloss, skincare and the contents of their wardrobe. The disparity between voice and image strikingly expresses the distance travelled, but also the many miles we have yet to traverse. I sensed some of this while listening to this week’s Questions and debates in your Lordships’ House. We have reflected this week on FGM, on consent, on pay and abuse, on how much has been done, on how much we want to do and on how much there is to do.

I cannot avoid reflecting that the same is true of the Church. Next Tuesday sees the 25th anniversary of the ordination of women to the priesthood in the Church of England. The fruits of the hundreds of women who have followed their call are all around us, including in this House, with the right reverend Prelates the Bishop of Gloucester, the Bishop of Newcastle and the Bishop of London sitting on these Benches—shortly to be joined by the Bishop of Derby. In the College of Bishops, women represented around half of appointments made between 2014 and 2018. Among the clergy, I was particularly struck by the comments from a first-year ordinand, Hannah Barr, at a recent anniversary service at Lambeth Palace. She said that, in preparing for priestly ministry, she stood on the shoulders of giants, inspired by the first great generations of women in ordained ministry. They have made the Church better; they have made society better; they were, and are, pioneers.

We can look to the promise of the years to come. At Ripon College Cuddesdon, where I serve as chair of governors, half the academic staff are women. On Cuddesdon’s different pathways to ordination, we see a clear majority of women. The same is true of a subset of that group, the ordinands on my own diocese’s training programme, the Portsmouth Pathway. That pattern is replicated more widely.

And yet. Your Lordships might have noticed that I refrained from describing women in ordained ministry as “women priests”, nor would I describe female colleagues on these Benches as “women bishops”. That risks suggesting that there are priests and bishops—and then there are women priests and women bishops. No. There are priests and there are bishops, all of whom have been obedient to their call. Similarly on numbers, a majority in training does not translate into equality. We are decades from that. Even at that distant point, much will depend on who sits where.

Our culture, in the Church and in society, has some distance to travel before we can confidently say that we are inclusive. As one ordinand, Jo Winn-Smith, put it, equality happens only when men start doing what women do, not when women do what men do.

We have much about which we must be humble, perhaps even penitent. I wonder therefore whether this is a moment for celebration; it is rather more an occasion to mark, to take note.

I end with this thought. Christians, or more exactly theologians, are fond of the word “eschatology”. I risk the ire of those same theologians for grossly simplifying a complex notion, but we might say that eschatology is interested in progress towards the end time and anticipates that time—the time when all things are made new. That is a helpful concept for today’s debate. There is progress, yes, but we have much more progress to make before we reach one particular eschatological moment. That is our arrival in another country, a country in which we find it no longer necessary to mark International Women’s Day or the anniversary of the ordination of women. In that other country, equality is so embedded in our lives, our practices and our very beliefs that what is right is what is normal, unexceptional and natural. We are still far from that New Jerusalem.

Economy: Spring Statement

Lord Bishop of Portsmouth Excerpts

Thursday 15th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Portsmouth]

My Lords, my first duty today is one of great joy: to welcome on behalf of this Bench, and I am sure the whole House, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lincoln, and to congratulate him on a fine maiden contribution. Its quality was no surprise to me. He is remembered with great respect in the Diocese of Portsmouth, which I now serve and where my colleague and friend was parish priest and archdeacon. I know that his erstwhile congregation in Petersfield was delighted that he was able to visit them last year.

I know, too, that serving in Lincoln is a particular delight for him, not just because the diocese is full of wonderful people, but because his grandfather played football for Lincoln City. As a Black Country boy and lifelong supporter of Wolverhampton Wanderers, I understand the ups, which I am presently enjoying, and the more frequent downs of being a football fan, but I strongly suspect that playing and indeed supporting Lincoln City demands a very special kind of fortitude, resilience and above all hope. That, I also know, is the state of mind with which 18,000 ever-hopeful souls travel to Fratton Park, Portsmouth, of a Saturday. I applaud that, because hope is of course central to Christianity, anchored as it is in our sure and present hope in Christ.

The Chancellor’s Spring Statement was certainly characterised by hopefulness. In his own words, he is “positively Tigger-like” about our prospects, yet I cannot help but recall that Tigger’s boundless optimism does not match the facts before him. Tigger might even be accused of wishful thinking. As we have heard repeatedly, the Chancellor spoke about seeing light at the end of the tunnel. That, I think, was in relation to managing the deficit. If we achieve that then he held out the possibility that more money might become available for hard-pressed public services. That is an “if” of some considerable magnitude, and it is before we consider what sort of impact relatively modest increases would actually have, let alone the impact of the vast unknown unknowns of Brexit. Moreover, it relies on assumptions about the short term; the medium-term figures for the economy are less hopeful by a country mile, with the OBR expecting UK growth between 2017 and 2022 to be a full quarter, 24%, slower than growth in the euro area.

Furthermore, it is hard to see where the light at the end of the tunnel is for many people already struggling to make ends meet. The Chancellor said that wages were going up for those on the lowest incomes, but forecasts for pay and living standards are terrible. The OBR now expects pay to grow next year, albeit by only 0.4%. It does not expect any real pay growth ever above 1% a year during the forecast period, nor does it anticipate it reaching pre-crisis levels until 2025. Household incomes are little better—forecast to grow below 1% a year right through to 2023, leaving average incomes in 2021 £1,400 lower than forecast just two years ago, in March 2016. That is against a backdrop of significant cuts to working-age benefits yet to be implemented.

This is grim stuff. The facts and figures are stark, but it is on the impact for people, their well-being and dignity that we should properly concentrate. Some 1 million food parcels are given out by food banks every week. In my see city of Portsmouth, a quarter of children live in poverty. On the Isle of Wight, the figure nudges towards 30%. In some areas of the nation the numbers are worse.

I fear I risk sounding like one of the doom-laden prophets of the Old Testament, but I am, in fact, ever hopeful. Some of the consultations announced on Tuesday promised much, if they can be delivered, in terms of securing our tax base, not least by making companies that for all intents and purposes earn here pay tax here; that is a matter of simple justice. So too with the call for evidence on how we can achieve very necessary increases in productivity: the fact that we are only now calling for evidence does not suggest that we should expect to see anything concrete any time soon on what is a very pressing matter.

I am, however, as hopeful as any Lincoln City supporter. I hope that the commendable decision to return to a single Budget each year will result in properly worked out policies to ensure that work does not just pay but pays well enough to ensure a decent standard of living, as it should. That is truly a hope we can all embrace. I hope that business will be enabled to create secure jobs, that public services will have the resources they need to provide the services we want and, perhaps especially, that those who are vulnerable will be treated with decency and compassion. I hope that there is indeed light at the end of the tunnel, but we continue to travel this very long tunnel towards a light spotted at some unspecified distance ahead. I hope the end is close, but, with regret, I question whether the possibility of small increases in public expenditure, alongside depressed growth and flat-lining pay, offers much hope to the millions already struggling to make ends meet.

Budget Statement

Lord Bishop of Portsmouth Excerpts

Monday 4th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Portsmouth]

My Lords, one of the duties in which I take particular pleasure is chairing the governors at Ripon College, Cuddesdon, just outside Oxford, a theological college at which men and women are prepared for ministry. It is known by those associated with it more colloquially as a vicar factory. Notices around the college remind the residents that, after night prayer or Compline, they are expected to abide by what is known as the great silence. It is not, I suspect, adhered to with the same severity as in years past. Indeed, one has a sense that the silence masks all kinds of feverish activity, all of it associated with theology, of course.

Last week’s Budget was characterised by a great silence on two issues, and that silence too hides, I suspect, feverish activity and fevered discussions on social care and defence. On defence, I cannot help but think that behind the silence, titanic struggle is joined. We hear an echo of that struggle in the media. The new Secretary of State kept his cards close to his chest at defence Questions. My anxiety is that others will determine what cards he holds, and that he will not be dealt the hand he, or we, would hope for.

I comment on just one area on which I have touched before: capability. I endorse the Government’s rhetoric and aspiration on defence but remain concerned that we do not, and will not, have the resources to deliver on that rhetoric. We have responsibilities as a force for good in the world which we may not be able to meet. That is bad in itself for those we seek to assist and bad for our ability to combat evil, but it is just as bad for how Britain is perceived in the world, especially by those who would do us harm. This will be thrown into stark relief on Thursday: we will all stiffen with pride as HMS “Queen Elizabeth” is commissioned by Her Majesty in Portsmouth. Many of us will also be concerned that we do not and will not have sufficient capability to support this great ship.

My second point concerns social care—the subject of another great silence. I did not hear a syllable on it pass the Chancellor’s lips. The status quo is bad enough. The decision to link business rates to CPI, not RPI, is no arcane statistical recalibration. It may be good for business; it is surely bad for hard-pressed local authorities, reducing their already highly pressurised ability to fund social care. It goes without saying that the losers will be those who need, and deserve, care. The Government have committed to publish proposals on social care in the summer, and thereafter to consider responses. Action is not on the horizon. Somewhere over the rainbow is a long time away for a situation that is already unsustainable.

My third point is on an issue about which I have spoken before: universal credit. Here my point is also about a silence although not one, I fear, which betokens feverish activity. I recognise the care that the Government are taking over universal credit and once again confirm my support in principle for a coherent system that enables and encourages work. However, I have, alas, a degree of scepticism that the Government’s confident statement that people are moving into work faster and staying in work longer can be justified, since rollout of benefit currently covers 9% of those it will eventually apply to, and the basis for the claim is data from three years ago, albeit only published this September. Perhaps the Minister will confirm that later. This is an extrapolation too far, based on modest—to say the least—rollout and out-of-date evidence.

I also urge the Government to be careful as they consider responses to their consultation on eligibility for free school meals. One of the welcome attributes of universal credit is to encourage work and remove cliff-edge changes in support. An arbitrary, and probably low, earnings threshold for free school meals entitlement would be a return to the bad old times.

Finally, I remain animated by the moral injustice of the taper rate. I acknowledge the Government’s action in reducing it by 2% last year and that under universal credit it is lower than it was. The issue is one of equity. It is surely wrong that those on universal credit who are on the lowest incomes and are doing the right thing by going back to work are subject to a clawback or withdrawal of a minimum of 63%. That rises if you pay national insurance, to a 75% marginal rate if you earn over £11,500—a figure which is soon to rise—and are liable to income tax, and more still if housing benefit is factored in. We are invited to believe that the bulk of the population, like many in this House, behaves one way with marginal tax and national insurance rates of 32% or 42%, but those on low incomes behave in another, facing much higher rates.

The Government are showing commendable thoughtfulness in seeking to get universal credit right. These are areas where they should think again. I trust that the silence to which I have pointed will be a prelude to a burst of activity.