Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 (Consequential and Contrary Provisions and Scotland) Order 2014

Lord Bishop of Wakefield Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2014 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Wakefield]

It would seem odd to me if I were to just sit here silently after people, particularly the noble Baroness, have said what they have. First, I am sure that no one in the House of Bishops would have approached with anything other than irony the fact that the statement was issued on 14 February. Secondly, I entirely associate myself with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Alli, about Uganda and other countries where such repressive measures have been taken. I am fairly certain that no one in the House of Bishops would want to say anything different.

The next thing to say is that, without any sense of disloyalty to the college to which I belong, there was a variety of opinion on how we should approach the problem. It is a problem because we are dealing with a very long tradition, set out in the Book of Common Prayer. For a church that has a tradition that now goes back 450 years in what it has been saying about marriage, to move in a significantly different direction is a significant shift. There will be a variety of opinions, but that is an issue.

The second issue refers to what the noble Lord, Lord Alli, was touching on. We are part of a worldwide communion. One very difficult thing for a worldwide communion is somehow to balance being sensitive to different cultural values in different places. By different cultural values, I do not mean repressive measures being passed in Acts by Governments, which none of us would support. That puts us in a particularly difficult position, because all the time we are trying to ensure that we listen to what people here are saying and what people’s consciences here are saying but, at the same time, to stay with the communion.

Back in the 1988 Lambeth conference, when there was a fairly heated debate about polygamy in some African countries, the western provinces in the Anglican communion worked very hard, saying, “We understand that you are in a different place from where we are, and we are not going to take a hard line on this at the moment”. We have not yet got to that position in the communion. For me to stay other than loyal to the House of Bishops’ statement would be more than irresponsible, because I know that one real concern is that it is not just about us and the Church of England, it is also about the Anglican communion. That is a key issue, and may not have been made quite as clear as it might have been when the statement was issued.

As your Lordships will see, I am not speaking from a prepared text. I think that there is universal concern in the Church of England that we move away from any sense of homophobia and do all that we can to affirm people in different sorts of relationships, but, at the moment, that is where the house finds itself, because it had to respect the consciences of people bringing very different opinions.

I hope that that makes it clear to the House that that was not being done in an unthinking, hardhearted or insensitive way—it was certainly not intended to be—but your Lordships will be very pleased to hear that every Bishop, as far as I know, who is a Member of the House received an envelope last week with a note reading, “With compliments for your pastoral sensitivity”, and the envelope included a humbug.

[Baroness Perry of Southwark (Con)]

My Lords, as one who was blessed with more than 50 years of a very happy marriage, I think it is appropriate just to pause for a moment to give tribute to marriage itself. I am so very happy for my many gay friends that they will be able to participate in something which is one of the great blessings to human beings. I join in the congratulations to my noble friend and her colleagues on having brought this legislation forward, and on speeding up the timetable and the processes. I know how very much it means to so many of my very good friends. I know that at least one of the couples who are very good friends of mine, and who are in a civil partnership, like the noble Lord, are eagerly waiting for the point at which it will be possible to translate that into a marriage.

Gaza

Lord Bishop of Wakefield Excerpts

Monday 27th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

I pay tribute to the noble Baroness for the work she has done on ensuring that the Holocaust is never forgotten. I was pleased that my daughter asked me this year to take her to Auschwitz, which I did. I mark Holocaust Memorial Day—it must never be forgotten. The UK Government keep a very close watching brief over what is taught in schools both in Israel and the Occupied Territories to see what is put into textbooks. There have been improvements there, and in lessons, but there is still a long way to go. The noble Baroness is clearly right that trying to ensure that children in all communities respect each other and other communities is vital.

[The Lord Bishop of Wakefield]

My Lords, following Egypt’s closure of the tunnels, which has already been referred to, will the Minister give an assurance that the Department for International Development will adjust its aid package accordingly, to try to address some of the terrible suffering to which we have already heard reference?

Human Rights

Lord Bishop of Wakefield Excerpts

Thursday 21st November 2013 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Wakefield]

My Lords, I, too, am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for securing this debate. It follows on very helpfully from a short debate that I secured two weeks ago on the situation with regard to religious freedom following the events of the Arab spring.

The all-party parliamentary group’s recent report on international religious freedom, Article 18: An Orphaned Right, to which a number of us in this Chamber contributed, accurately shows that over the past decade every region in the world has seen marked declines with regard to religious freedom. Christians in Egypt and Syria, Baha’is in Iran, Shi’ite Muslims in Indonesia, and Sunni Muslims in Thailand and Burma face serious threats to their viability and even survival. We have heard other examples today, including comments by the noble Lord, Lord Patten, on the situation in Turkey.

If freedom of religion and belief is a primary barometer of the social health of a nation, the palpable decline in recent years in respect of this most fundamental right suggests a worrying state of affairs regarding the health of the global common good. Despite this trend, Governments the world over—ours included, I fear—still assign it too low a priority than the scale of the crisis at present requires.

Part of this reluctance, I imagine, is that Governments and opinion-makers are hesitant, perhaps even reluctant, to acknowledge the connection between levels of religious freedom and the basic health and well-being of societies. This is not about protecting the rights of one religious community over another but about providing for the human flourishing of all, irrespective of whether they have a religious belief—as was hinted at by the noble Lord, Lord Alton. It is about being confident of one’s core values in our society, so that a variety of different communities may prosper.

Like other noble Lords, I applaud the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, for the careful attention she has devoted to this issue. I noted in an earlier debate that she is a near neighbour to me in Wakefield; there is solidarity in West Yorkshire. Her speech last week to the Council of Foreign Relations in Washington DC was but the latest example of the forthright engagement that we have come to expect from her.

It is of course true that a great deal of work is being done in relation to freedom of religion and belief. However, this work is not necessarily focused on ensuring that everyone is able to exercise that right in peace and security. So the question, it seems to me, is how we move on from the essentially negative strategies that have been rooted in combating discrimination, intolerance, hate speech and incitement. Of course these things are important, but they work only once there is a clear commitment to the underlying value of the freedom of religion or belief. Core values need to be supported by proactive policies. Other noble Lords have hinted at such policies; indeed, the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, talked about the independent human rights commission. Is it not now time for the Government to shift their attention to a more positive approach to religious freedom and to recognise the wider societal benefits that it brings?

How might this be achieved? Some suggestions have already been put forward during this debate. Certainly the appointment of an ambassador at large or a special representative for religious freedom would help enhance the voice of the UK as the champion of an inclusive approach to freedom of religion or belief. A number of us have been pressing for this recently.

The head of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s human rights and democracy department is indeed an impressive figure. However, the incumbent of that post on her own is unable to give this matter the attention it rightly deserves because of competing priorities and pressures on her department’s time. We need to look again at strengthening the machinery of government in this area. It is to be hoped that when the Foreign Affairs Select Committee looks at its work programme for the next year, it will take upon itself the task of examining this issue with its usual forensic attention. I have been assured in a letter by the committee’s chair that this will be taken into account.

In concluding, I note only that unless we are prepared to give this issue the urgent attention it requires, we cannot be surprised if respect for religious freedom continues to decline markedly. The existing strategy across our world is not working, and it is time to think again.

Arts and Culture: Economic Regeneration

Lord Bishop of Wakefield Excerpts

Tuesday 29th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Wakefield]

My Lords, I also begin by thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, for seeking out the opportunity for this debate, which is so timely and important for us all. Married to a Northumbrian—and an adopted Northumbrian myself —I was delighted to hear of her links with the Northumbrian pipers and also to hear the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, talking more of the north-east. However, I shall start elsewhere.

A decade ago when I arrived in Yorkshire—in Wakefield—there was much feverish talk of regeneration: a new hospital, new railway stations, a new shopping centre at the heart of the city and a new art gallery. There was the usual flood of scepticism, enhanced by a strong dash of Yorkshire realism. Would any of this ever happen?

The most extreme reactions in all this were to the art gallery. Here, west Yorkshire bluntness could find its ideal target: “We need a new art gallery like a hole in the head. There is enough modern art in the sculpture park already and no one can understand that anyway”. And so it went on.

Now, 10 years on, all these regeneration projects are complete—even the work on the railway stations has begun. We are amazingly fortunate to have received all this, and in the midst of one of the deepest recessions in modern history, as we have heard this afternoon. Most amazing, however, is the Hepworth gallery. The largest new-build gallery outside London for over a century, Sir David Chipperfield’s building has received universal accolades. With a target of 175,000 visitors for the first year, we achieved over half a million, and now we are heading for 400,000 in this second year.

The Hepworth effectively has placed the moderately-sized city of Wakefield, still recovering from the death of both the woollen industry and coal mining, on the map internationally. Barbara Hepworth, a daughter of Wakefield, and Henry Moore, a son of Castleford, just seven miles up the road, have given birth to the west Yorkshire sculpture triangle. That includes the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds, and the Yorkshire Sculpture Park and the Hepworth in Wakefield. The sculpture park is a great triumph, unique in England, and also a tribute to the passion and energy of Peter Murray, its founder. The Hepworth has already hosted at least one national book launch and also the nation’s salute to the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, the 350th anniversary of which was last year.

Talk of prayer moves me on to the cathedral in Wakefield, the nave of which will re-open in a month’s time after a year cocooned in scaffolding. A £3 million regeneration project supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund will make it a flexible venue for the worship of God, for which it was built, and an equally flexible venue for other cultural purposes. The largest venue in the very heart of the city, the cathedral will bring further economic benefits to the city and region just as the Hepworth has done. Of course, it is not only about the actual place itself in the case of the museum, the gallery or the cathedral but what it brings to the rest of the city and everything else thereabouts.

Talk of cathedrals comes close to my heart, having been the Dean of Norwich for some eight years. Here I declare an interest as a member of the Cathedrals Fabric Commission for England. In so many of our cities, cathedrals are responding to the needs of a changing society. In Norwich, we embarked on providing new facilities, which have further opened up that great building more effectively to the wider community. The development there is indeed the largest single development within a medieval cathedral since the Reformation.

Twelve million people visit our cathedrals every year. In 2004, a report showed that English cathedrals alone brought £150 million into the various local economies. That would be £186 million at present-day levels. Visitor numbers have increased since then by some 50 per cent, so noble Lords can do their own calculations on today’s figures—I think that it is probably about £200 million.

The benefits do not end there, of course. Cathedral music thrives here in this country as it does nowhere else in the world. Furthermore, speak to so many of our outstanding musicians, conductors, soloists and instrumentalists and you will find that their musical education began in cathedral choirs. With the advent of girls’ choirs, that is now equally true of women.

There is one more essential by-product of arts and culture in regeneration. This time it is not about finance and economics but, instead, about the nurturing of our common humanity. One serious impact in our area of the death of the coal industry has been a loss of sense of purpose in so many communities. That undermines what I would call our corporate self-esteem. The Hepworth and similar projects have begun to repair this essential element in community life. Every one of us will know how serious the loss of self-esteem is for individuals, sometimes even to the extent of people talking their own lives. It is no less serious corporately in communities.

I have tried not to drown noble Lords too much in statistics, but even the few that I have quoted tell their own dramatic story. My message to Her Majesty’s Government is that even a minimal increase in funding for our cathedrals and their upkeep, for example, will yield a bonus proportionately way beyond what any other investment can offer in these tough times. So, too, with the arts. In Wakefield we are grateful this year for Arts Council support for the Art House, another unique institution in our city which works particularly with the less well off, and sometimes the disabled, in the area of the arts and the creative arts. Frank Matcham’s fine Theatre Royal has also received funding.

However, still all these institutions and agencies are up against it. Spending on the arts and on culture is tiny proportionately to our national spending and budgeting, but the benefits that it brings in regeneration, economic development and, as I said, in terms of corporate self-esteem exceed what any of us might expect. I ask the Minister in his response to please be both realistic and generous in supporting regeneration by this most imaginative route.

NHS Mandate: Health Inequalities

Lord Bishop of Wakefield Excerpts

Monday 28th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

The noble Baroness is right to highlight this area. I point out that the NHS Commissioning Board has recently advertised nine posts which focus on health inequalities. I am sure that that kind of focus will help. The noble Baroness is right in that there are certain groups within communities that are particularly vulnerable. She will probably also be pleased to hear about the Inclusion Health programme, which focuses on particular groups which have particularly poor health outcomes, and which is chaired by Professor Steve Field, of whom she will be well aware.

[The Lord Bishop of Wakefield]

My Lords, given that one aspect of the Government’s strategy to improve patient outcomes and reduce health inequalities is to encourage a shift from hospital-based to community-based care, will the Minister say what steps are being taken to address the shortage of district nurses, whose numbers have fallen by more than a third in the past decade?

[Baroness Northover]

I will write to the right reverend Prelate with numbers, as I have seen them but I do not have them in my brief here. I point out that because health will be far more focused in the local area, it is extremely important for the health and well-being boards, for example, to look at how health is delivered in their area. If there are problems because of a lack of staff, they will need to address that.

Ingram National Park Visitor Centre

Lord Bishop of Wakefield Excerpts

Wednesday 31st October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

The noble Lord is quite right and I invite him to have a look at the website for this park and see exactly what it offers. With regard to the commitment, I point out that the park was given just over £3 million last year and this year it has been given £2.9 million, so that is not a huge reduction in what is going to the park. We are fully committed to supporting the national parks. We know how important they are.

[The Lord Bishop of Wakefield]

My Lords, having been last week in both the Ingram valley centre and indeed the Rothbury centre, as I often am, I was appalled to think that there will effectively be no human face anywhere in the northern part of the Northumberland National Park. The place at Once Brewed on Hadrian’s Wall is something like 75 miles away and will do nothing to ensure that there will be anyone there to welcome people. Although the amount of money reduced seems small, it disproportionately affects the operations of the park, which is the smallest national park. Will the Government please think of ways of trying to assist the national park in rethinking this decision in order to have a human face somewhere in the northern part of the park to welcome people?

[Baroness Northover]

I remind the right reverend Prelate that how the national park decides to spend its resources is not a decision for Defra. I am sure that the national park will be listening. As I say, it is working closely with the Ingram village hall committee to try to ensure that information is available and it is doing a number of other things. I was also incredibly impressed by the number of volunteers who were involved in this park, as with others, and it may well be that some work needs to be done to try to see how that can be brought forward to make sure that there is the kind of coverage that the right reverend Prelate refers to.

English Cathedrals

Lord Bishop of Wakefield Excerpts

Thursday 28th June 2012 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Wakefield]

My Lords, I cannot hope to come up to the same standards of energy and enthusiasm that we have just had from the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock. However, I begin by saying that, as with my friend the right reverend Bishop of Worcester, whose excellent maiden speech we have just heard, cathedrals lie very close to my heart, so I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, for making this debate possible.

I have spent 15 years of my life working in two very different cathedrals. For seven years I was a residentiary canon at Portsmouth, a parish-church cathedral in an urban setting right next to the great naval dockyard. Then, for eight years, I was dean of Norwich, a magnificent medieval cathedral, to which we have already heard reference, and one of the two greatest Romanesque churches in England. I am not vying for it to be the top one but it is certainly as good as Durham.

Cathedrals offer an extraordinary variety of experience, as I shall note later. There is one brief vignette which focuses something of this and which for me seemed bizarre. During my time at Norwich, we celebrated the 900th anniversary of the diocese and cathedral. Anglia Railways kindly agreed to call one of its locomotives “Norwich Cathedral”. That was very good news, but it was the final denouement of this tale to which I want to advert. At the end of the year, I was invited to Norwich station for the denaming ceremony. That seemed to me quite baffling. Most of the Anglia Railways locomotives took their names from significant places in the north-west of England, where they had previously toiled—names such as “Vulcan Foundry” and “City of Preston”. Here was “Norwich Cathedral”, named after the single greatest focus of tourism in East Anglia, with more than half a million people passing through our doors each year, and we were taking the name off the locomotive. That is an interesting reflection on how people do not always see the significance of these great buildings.

For all the talk of the decline of religion, cathedrals remain enormous magnets for all sorts and conditions of people, as we have already heard. In a recent essay on church growth, it was noted that alongside the growth in the size of congregations, mentioned earlier by my friend the right reverend Bishop of Birmingham, the spend was £91 million in cathedrals alone, and the total impact on the wider localities was more than £150 million. However, church growth just touches the fringes of the impact of these places. They are the contemporary equivalent of common ground. They are open to all who come—all can graze in their pastures, as it were. Indeed, the variety of expressions of their impact is clear in the myriad people who consider themselves to be stakeholders.

Many organisations and individuals ask to use our cathedrals—from civic services to Rotary International, and from local businesses to voluntary sector agencies. However, these stakeholders—and there are myriad others—are matched by the diverse reasons for visits by individuals. Some come as tourists; others as pilgrims. Some come for silence and solace in the face of life’s difficulties and challenges. Many is the conversation I have had in cathedrals with people in places of sadness in their lives. Some come with the explicit hope of talking and meeting up with others, so a guide in a cathedral has to be immensely sensitive, knowing when people might want to speak and when they might not. Of course, some come as aficionados of architecture, while others come simply to celebrate the place, the city in which they live.

I remember being in Norwich Cathedral one morning when a chap who had been thrown out of his house by his wife—probably for very good reasons—came up to me and said, “Ooh, it’s a big place you’ve got here, isn’t it?” It was interesting that he had lived in Norwich all his life and had never been in the building before. What was it that brought him there? Well, I just mentioned that.

In Norwich—to focus there a little longer—it is the cathedral, the university and the football team, of course, that somehow give the city its character, its personality and its status. Cathedrals give a city their soul. Cathedrals belong to everyone. In both Portsmouth and Norwich, people of other religions and people of no religious faith will talk of “our cathedral”.

Often cathedrals work with other agencies to nourish a city’s flourishing. In Norwich we co-operated with Delia Smith, the queen of cookery, in a centenary service for Norwich City football club. By good providence we even had what passed for Canaries robes of yellow and green to match the occasion.

Cathedrals, too, have been the seed-bed for the nourishing of music in our nation. We have heard so much already in this debate about the quality of cathedral music. Most significant as well is that so many of our really talented classical musicians, people now at the top of their tree in their profession—not related particularly to church matters—started their musical careers in cathedral choirs. This essential work needs to continue via proper financial support. I was very pleased to hear the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, say how important this remains, not just for our cathedrals but for the whole heritage and tradition of good music in our country.

For all these reasons, I am acutely aware of the need to respond to any moves that may undermine these great flagships of the spirit. As we have already heard many times, a month or two ago a change in the VAT regulations threatened to undermine the very breadth of what cathedrals offer. It is the alterations, adaptations and modifications of these buildings that make them speak more effectively to our own generation, so I am very thankful that we are being given respite in that area, at least for three years. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, and the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, have said, I hope we can be reassured further that that respite will continue well beyond that time; not only do we not get proper funding, but having to pay VAT would actually take funding away from us. Therefore we are grateful for the shift on VAT and for the extra grants available.

Still, however, the issue of adequate state funding for essential maintenance and conservation is crucial. I absolutely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Cormack; I would not want the situation to be as it is in France. Nevertheless, as we have heard, English Heritage’s budget is always under pressure and now cathedrals are placed alongside other churches in an open market. We are enormously grateful for all that it has done, and I am enormously grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, who has been greatly supportive in our diocese. I look forward to welcoming her again in the near future.

Let us go for the £50 million that the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, asked for. If you compare it with the amount of money in terms of the fuel excise duty that has been so much in the news in the last few days, or, indeed, the £1.3 billion that will go to the European Union—doubtless for good reasons—£50 million is as nothing.

Like all organisations, as well as facing outside threats, the Church of England is always capable of shooting itself in the foot. The Dioceses Commission needs to be careful not to threaten to undermine the very raison d’être of cathedrals. Merging dioceses easily dissolves important local loyalties and takes away the point of these buildings as the focus of a bishop's ministry and the character and personality of a locality. Present plans in our part of England aim to keep cathedrals for the moment even if the dioceses merge; but what will be the logic, and for how long could two or three cathedrals be justified in one diocese?

Furthermore such changes seem to ignore the essential reason for the existence of cathedrals. They are the home of the cathedra, as we have been reminded—the seat of a bishop. We need smaller, not larger, dioceses, each with one cathedral, the teaching seat of the bishop who is the focus of unity for the church in that place. As others have said, the essential reason for cathedrals is for the worship of Almighty God; that is the beginning and the end of them.

Let me end with one further telling vignette. It relates to that extraordinary outflow of emotion on the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. We opened our doors in Norwich—where I was at the time—from dawn until dusk, and I saw one woman enter the building, light a candle and pray for 10 minutes. On her way out of the cathedral she thanked me for making the great church available and said, “I am not religious or anything, but I had to come”. I reckon that 10 minutes of prayer and a lighted candle feels a pretty religious thing to do. Whatever she thought she was doing, such an act and expression of commitment is but one of so many reasons why we must work even harder not only to preserve our cathedrals but to make their ministry and service to a whole community more effective than ever. I, too, look forward to a great statement of confidence in the Government supporting our cathedrals and I hope that they might think carefully about that £50 million.

Sudan and South Sudan

Lord Bishop of Wakefield Excerpts

Thursday 17th May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

The noble Baroness rightly points to the implications of South Sudan cutting off its oil supplies, which constitute 98% of its revenue. It is extremely important to bring home to the Government of South Sudan the implications of that and that the international community will not simply bail them out. DfID is very much focused on humanitarian relief, which is extremely important, but the important issue here is to get the Governments in question to negotiate and take forward some of their responsibilities to their citizens.

[The Lord Bishop of Wakefield]

My Lords, to pick up the point about humanitarian aid, given that children make up half the population of South Sudan, and that the malnutrition rate for children under five in the border areas averages between 15% and 22%, will the Minister please ensure that any UK humanitarian aid specifically supports the health and happiness of the children caught up in this tragedy?

[Baroness Northover]

The right reverend Prelate makes a very good point on what is, I think, his birthday—many happy returns to him. The UK has contributed £10 million to the World Food Programme for general food distribution and £15 million to the Common Humanitarian Fund. We are acutely aware that it is children who will be particularly vulnerable in this situation. Therefore, the provision that the international community is trying to make is very much focused on their needs.

HIV and AIDS in the UK

Lord Bishop of Wakefield Excerpts

Thursday 1st December 2011 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Wakefield]

My Lords, I am particularly nervous to follow the comments on the particular church background that the noble Baroness mentioned a moment ago. I would like to start with an example of where the church and church agencies have been rather more positive. Almost 20 years ago when I was in Rome for a series of meetings, I was taken to two or three projects in Trastevere, in the heart of the city. These included a language school for illegal immigrants, a soup kitchen and a hostel for children born with HIV/AIDS. It was a powerful experience, meeting the children and their mothers. The unit had been opened about a year before by Desmond Tutu and was entirely the initiative of the Community of Sant’Egidio, a lay community which now works throughout the world on the same sort of projects.

This commitment to HIV and AIDS was mirrored in this country by the churches in the early days of the Mildmay Hospital, the London Lighthouse and other early AIDS projects. Of course, there was some element of enlightened self-interest in this work. The churches, not least through their priests, have been affected by these diseases just as much as other organisations and agencies. Looking back to my experience in Rome, I was stimulated to think further about the complexity of this task and the way that that agency had found itself dealing with illegal immigrants at the same time as HIV/AIDS, and so on. Migration and the spread of the disease and other viruses have been a key part of all this, as indeed has the enormous growth in international travel. This automatically presents us with issues about the treatment of all people with HIV, regardless of where they come from or indeed their present resident status. Humanitarian concern places an imperative on us to make sure that all who are living with HIV/AIDS receive proper care and treatment. This point has already been made by noble Lords in this debate. Again, there is, of course, an element of enlightened self-interest in this. If we are selective in the way we face this continuing issue, we may indeed be storing up further trouble for our own society in the coming years. Disease and infection know no boundaries, either morally or internationally.

Just two months ago I welcomed representatives from across the Anglican Communion, and especially from Africa, to a day consultation at Lambeth Palace on this very subject. I had been well briefed having spent two weeks in Tanzania only a month earlier, where I was introduced to projects. The focus at this consultation at Lambeth was particularly on sub-Saharan Africa, to which the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, referred earlier. It struck me at the time that in what I was saying to that consultation, I could equally well have been speaking to myself and to our own situation here in the UK. The situation is not something that we can take for granted, and that seems to have been made perfectly clear in all the speeches that we have heard so far in this debate. The situation here is as serious as it ever was. The figure of 100,000 that we heard at the beginning is terrifying, and it is increasing.

The Church of England is committed to the fight against HIV/AIDS through its community work in many places. In my own neck of the woods in the diocese of Wakefield, the St Augustine’s project in Halifax provides help for asylum seekers, refugees and EU migrants, and to all those resident in the local community who need assistance. HIV and AIDS is, of course, an integral part of this, so we do work from first-hand knowledge in each locality.

In 2004, the Church of England produced a report which we called simply Telling the Story: Being Positive about HIV/AIDS. In a useful and concise manner it focused on many of the problems that we still face—for example, the question of openness about the crisis. It read:

“At the heart of the AIDS crisis lies the sin of stigmatization. Unless and until we address this central issue, whether it is manifested in our communities, expressed in our personal or national attitudes or, as in the case of Africa, is directed towards an entire continent, stigmatization will remain the single most resistant defence against any fulfilment of our promise to future generations”.

What the report said remains just as true now as it was then. It went on to say:

“If the Church’s response is to be effective ... then we will need to understand that the only way that we can work for an AIDS-free world is to work for stigma-free hearts, individually, nationally and globally”.

Any one of us who has encountered people living with HIV/AIDS will know only too well of the difficulties that they have in finding the courage to be open about what has afflicted them and is threatening their lives.

Earlier, I noted that our attitudes to AIDS are related not simply to stigmatisation but to enlightened self-interest. This means that there are at least three practical ways in which we must respond to be effective. First, with regard to public health, new evidence shows that effective HIV treatment results in a 96 per cent reduction in onward transmission. Therefore, ensuring that everyone who needs treatment receives it is the key to tackling the UK HIV epidemic. Charging for such treatment deters people both from being tested for HIV and from seeking treatment.

Secondly, ending charging for HIV will, in the end, save the NHS money by preventing new infections and identifying HIV early, as the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, noted in his introductory speech. Then it can be effectively treated. This will reduce hospital costs and, indeed, expensive high-tech treatment. Thirdly, there is no evidence to support the claim that there is a market in HIV “health tourism”, or indeed to suggest that the ending of charging in this country would lead in that direction.

I have mentioned once or twice issues of enlightened self-interest but ultimately the issues behind this debate take us to a far deeper level—to what is essential to our common humanity. Universally we owe it to each other to offer free and effective care in response to an epidemic which has wiped out whole populations in sub-Saharan Africa but which has also been, and remains, critical within our own society. Such fear still exists, so people are unprepared to talk about their condition and others are too frightened to face it when dealing with people pastorally or medically.

I remember, as I am sure do many other noble Lords, that some 25 years ago people whispered about the terrifying implications of the growth of AIDS. Such whispering began on the boundaries of some of the homosexual communities in North America. Now, a generation on, this is no matter for whispering about, nor indeed is it the rumour of an impending crisis. The crisis is already upon us and it is also no longer an issue for homosexuals alone; it affects all parts of our community. The crisis is upon us and we owe it to each other as a society to respond with all the resources that we can effectively muster.

Burundi

Lord Bishop of Wakefield Excerpts

Tuesday 5th April 2011 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[The Lord Bishop of Wakefield]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of Burundi’s role in long-term regional stability and regional integration strategies in the light of their decision to cease bilateral aid for Burundi.

[Baroness Verma]

Burundi’s location at the centre of the Great Lakes region and its membership of the East African Community mean that its stability and economic growth are closely linked to the rest of the region. The Secretary of State for International Development has therefore decided to continue to support Burundi’s economic integration into the East African Community from 2012 through a regional approach.

[The Lord Bishop of Wakefield]

I thank the Minister for that Answer. Does she agree that the UK should be supporting a political, and certainly non-military, solution to regional stability throughout the Great Lakes region, which crucially requires Burundi’s involvement?

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, the right reverend Prelate raises some very important points. However, through our regional work on economic integration and expanding focus on free trade, we think that our greatest support will be through developing Burundi’s ability to integrate into the East African Community through trade. That will be the determining factor for its growth. We will also work incredibly hard with the Burundi Government to ensure that peace comes through all sorts of means.