Bishops and Priests (Consecration and Ordination of Women) Measure

Debate between Lord Field of Birkenhead and Tony Baldry

Monday 20th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Second Church Estates Commissioner (Sir Tony Baldry)]

I beg to move,

That the Bishops and Priests (Consecration and Ordination of Women) Measure (HC 621), passed by the General Synod of the Church of England, be presented to Her Majesty for her Royal Assent in the form in which it was laid before Parliament.

It is now nearly a century since Parliament recognised that it should no longer be the body that initiated legislation concerning the running of the Church of England. However, Church legislation becomes part of the law of England, so it requires parliamentary approval and Royal Assent. A Measure such as the one before us has to have been passed by the General Synod of the Church of England. Most Measures require simple majorities in the Synod, but this one falls in that special category of particularly important instruments that need to have achieved at least two-thirds majorities in each of the Houses of Bishops, Clergy and Laity.

A Measure passed by General Synod then comes to Parliament to be considered by the Ecclesiastical Committee, a statutory Committee comprising 15 Members of each House, and if after consideration the Committee thinks it expedient to approve the Measure, it then has to be considered and approved separately by each House. The Measure was passed by General Synod in July and considered and approved by the Ecclesiastical Committee on the last day Parliament sat before the summer recess. The House of Lords considered and approved the Measure last week, on the first sitting day after the recess, and for it to proceed to Royal Assent, it now simply remains for this House to give its approval.

The purpose of the Measure is to enable the Church of England, for the first time, to open all three orders of ministry—deacons, priests and bishops—without reference to gender. The process was begun by legislation to enable women to become deacons in the 1980s and to become priests in the 1990s. That process will at last be completed by this legislation, which will enable women to become bishops—and indeed archbishops, as they are not separate orders of ministry in the Church of England.

Women priests now make up over a quarter of parish clergy and around half of priests in training. There are already 23 women archdeacons and six women deans. As a debate last year in Westminster Hall testified, over the past 20 years many women have given outstanding leadership to the Church of England and to our communities as vicars, archdeacons and cathedral deans. Now every type of post will be open to them. It is right to acknowledge the immense patience among many women in the Church who have waited for this day. We acknowledge, as we need to, the pain and hurt that there has often been as a consequence of the delay in arriving at where we are at today.

[Mr Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

As well as recognising the consequences of delay, will the right hon. Gentleman sound a note of joy, in that the Church will now be able to choose from the other half of the population for its most senior positions, which, all things being equal, must strengthen our hand?

[Sir Tony Baldry]

I hope this whole debate will be joyful, because this is a very joyful day for the Church of England and society as a whole.

The conundrum has been: how to try to maintain the theological breadth and diversity of the Church of England while securing a solution that avoids any appearance of equivocation over the Church of England’s commitment to equality between men and women. Or, as I said in a speech to General Synod in 2010, shortly after I was appointed Second Church Estates Commissioner, the Church of England could have women bishops or not have women bishops, but one thing Parliament would not tolerate was any suggestion of second-class women bishops. As the House will recall, in November 2012, the earlier Measure failed at General Synod. That resulted in my having to answer an urgent question in the House, which indicated the depth and breadth of concern across the House. There was subsequently a half-day’s debate.

I think everyone in the Church of England felt chastened by the failure to reach agreement, and the Archbishop of Canterbury set in place a process of facilitated listening and discussions between all the various groups in the Church to seek a way forward. That process of facilitated listening and discussion led to a much simpler Measure, which is before the House today.