Lord Bishop of Rochester
Main Page: Lord Bishop of Rochester (Bishops - Bishops)Pensions (Pre-consolidation) Measure
Lord Bishop of Rochester Excerpts
The Lord Bishop of Rochester
That this House do direct that, in accordance with the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act 1919, the Pensions (Pre-consolidation) Measure be presented to Her Majesty for the Royal Assent.
The Lord Bishop of Rochester
My Lords, this is my last prepared speech, because it will cover the other two Measures which are also in this final group.
The three Measures in this group each contribute to bringing the statute book up to date. The Pensions (Pre-consolidation) Measure makes amendments to various Measures and regulations as the first stage in a process of consolidating the large number of Measures and regulations which deal with Church of England pensions. The amendments are mostly of a minor or technical nature.
Perhaps the only exception to that is a provision that will permit the Church of England Pensions Board to transfer the Clergy (Widows and Dependants) Pension Fund into the Church of England Funded Pensions Scheme—the main scheme that covers current service by clergy. That will mean that any excess sums in the widows and dependants fund can be applied to clergy and their dependants under the funded scheme, while at the same time providing increased security for the beneficiaries under the much smaller widows and dependants scheme by bringing them within the larger scheme.
The Statute Law (Repeals) Measure repeals a number of ecclesiastical enactments that are spent, obsolete, unnecessary or otherwise not now of practical utility. Such an exercise is the first that has been undertaken since 2004, at which time some 40 ecclesiastical enactments were repealed as a result of recommendations from the Law Commission. On this occasion, the Legal Office of the National Church Institutions has undertaken its own exercise to identify enactments for repeal. Following a consultation, the final list includes some 62 enactments for repeal, either in their entirety or in part, beginning with an enactment dating from 1534 and concluding with one from 2001.
Finally, the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and Care of Churches Measure is a consolidation. It consolidates, with corrections and minor improvements, some 36 enactments relating to ecclesiastical jurisdiction and the care of churches and other places of worship. The oldest of the enactments consolidated in the Measure is the Parochial Libraries Act 1708. I do not know whether anyone has a grand attachment to it—maybe they do, but that is the oldest one. The newest is the Care of Churches and Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction (Amendment) Measure 2015. The result is that all the statute law relating to ecclesiastical jurisdiction, other than the disciplinary jurisdiction over the clergy, and all the statute law relating to the faculty jurisdiction and associated matters is contained in a single Measure. That will make it much easier for anyone who needs to use this legislation to find out what the law is and thereby to apply it.
Again, I am grateful to the Ecclesiastical Committee for its consideration of this Measure and the other two which will follow. The committee has reported its opinion that all three Measures are expedient. I beg to move.
Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)
My Lords, these three Measures were much simpler to deal with and took very little time. I simply point out that the third one is purely consolidatory. Unlike the other Measures with which this House is concerned, it makes no changes at all; it simply puts things under one umbrella. The Ecclesiastical Committee had no hesitation in finding all three Measures expedient.
Lord McKenzie of Luton (Lab)
My Lords, it is with a degree of apprehension that I rise on this issue, but I spotted the word “pensions”—and I even spotted the word “Europe”, but I do not propose to go there this afternoon.
Can the right reverend Prelate confirm that at the moment there are three pension arrangements? There is the Church of England (Pensions) Measure, for service before January 1998, funded by the commissioners; the Church of England Funded Pension Scheme for service from January 1998, which is funded by the members; and the Clergy (Widows and Dependants) Pension Fund, which was closed to new entrants a long time ago, and there are no current contributions being made to it. I think that the proposition here is to transfer resources from that fund to the other pension scheme. I understand that, if it is a consolidation. What I was looking for was the requirement for the Church of England Funded Pension Scheme to take on the mantle of the obligations that previously would have rested with the widows and dependants scheme.
The Lord Bishop of Rochester
My Lords, I am grateful for the contributions and grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, for his encouragement to us in the stewardship of that priceless inheritance we have in our parish churches across the land. I hope that the consolidation of this Measure might make it easier for those who wish to engage with that to discover the frameworks within which that happens. We also, of course, have responsibility not just for those historic buildings but for providing forms of Christian presence in areas of new housing. In my diocese we have a huge housing development which will have a population of 40,000 new people in a few years. The responsibility extends there and we seek to fulfil it. Many of these legal frameworks are to help us to do that.
In relation to the specific point about pensions, the noble Lord is absolutely correct that the historic scheme is funded by the commissioners out of their general funds and was non-contributory. There is the funded pension scheme, which is not funded by the members, but in effect by the dioceses on behalf of the members, as part of the clergy remuneration package. The Clergy (Widows and Dependants) Pension Fund, as the noble Lord said, has no new entrants, and is now being brought within the larger funded scheme, which will, we hope, give it more weight. The responsibilities transfer absolutely from one to the other. Therefore, those who are the beneficiaries of that scheme will continue to receive the benefits to which they are entitled under that scheme. The lawyers are nodding to say that I can give that assurance.
This will be the last moment that I am on my feet for any substantial time. It gives me the opportunity to reiterate my thanks to the Ecclesiastical Committee and especially to the noble and learned Baroness for chairing that committee, and to its members for their careful consideration on this occasion, as on others. I am very grateful. Can I also express my thanks for the support that I and my fellow Lords Spiritual receive from our legal team and our parliamentary advisers, not least in relation to technical matters such as we have before us today? In relation to this Measure, I encourage your Lordships to approve the Motion.