Places of Worship Renewal Fund

Lord Scriven Excerpts

Thursday 25th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, it is a genuine pleasure to follow the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester. I enjoyed his contribution, although I have a nagging feeling that what I am about to say may make him wish that he had been scheduled to speak after me rather than before.

I may be a minority of one in this debate, with these views, but I am definitely not a minority of one in the House nor in the country. We are living in an increasingly secular Britain, where less than half the population identifies with any religious faith and a mere fraction regularly attends services. Yet this capital fund ring-fences millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money a year for the exclusive benefit of active religious buildings across the country. This is not a natural exercise in heritage conservation. It is an exercise in state patronage, filtering public tax revenue from citizens of all beliefs and none to subsidise the operational footprints of religious institutions.

Look at the gross unfairness baked into the eligibility criteria: the historic grade 2 listed village hall, an old miners’ welfare hall or an independent community theatre facing structural collapse cannot touch a single penny of this fund. They are forced to battle for oversubscribed general grants. The irony is that religious organisations are fully entitled to apply for some of these pots too, but an active place of worship now receives a dedicated, exclusive, multimillion-pound safety net.

Crucially, the Government have confirmed that the financial assets of religious bodies are not routinely considered when determining how this new support will be distributed. Why? Let us look, for example, at the Church of England. The Church Commissioners manage a massive, diversified endowment fund that is now valued at an astonishing £11.6 billion. They hold vast stakes in global equities and, despite scaling back their retail exposure, they retain a 10% stake in the Metrocentre in Gateshead, which is now being put up for sale for an estimated £500 million. This demonstrates just how highly commercialised these holdings are.

Nowhere is the commercial wealth clearer than in the heart of London, where the Church owns the prestigious 90-acre Hyde Park Estate. The estate consists of 2,300 high-end properties, luxury residential lets and the boutique commercial quarter of Connaught Village. It raises a staggering £45 million to £60 million in rental income annually for the fund. Let us be clear about what is missing from this premier estate: despite the Church’s public rhetoric on housing, there is virtually no social nor affordable housing on this site. It is treated explicitly as a high-yield cash generator.

We will no doubt hear the argument that the £11.6 billion fund cannot legally be used to maintain local parish churches because its statutory duty is restricted to pensions and clergy salaries. Although restructuring the endowment fund to local church properties might be difficult, it is not impossible if the leadership of the Church of England decides it wishes to do so. It is a question of choice. Instead, this cash-rich institution hoards its wealth centrally and does not use it for the upkeep of private religious buildings.

The Church of England spent £35 million on school evangelism projects alone last year. At a time when it can devote more money in a single year to school mission than the total annual budget of this entire new tax-funded building fund, why should taxpayers be expected to meet the cost of repairs that the Church is entirely capable of funding from its own vast resources?

Furthermore, we must scrutinise the strict mandate that these buildings must remain in active religious use to qualify. This goes far beyond preserving architecture. If this were purely a rescue mission for historic bricks and mortar then the theological utility of the building would be completely irrelevant. By tying public millions to active worship, the state is directly intervening to support religious practice itself. By funding active worship, the taxpayer is being forced to bankroll institutions that frequently hold exclusionary positions. Many of the religious bodies owning these buildings discriminate in their hiring practices, refuse to perform same-sex marriages or bar women from leadership roles. Why should an LGBT+, atheist or woman taxpayer see their hard-earned money used to prop up the roof of an establishment that rejects their rights?

If we are to spend £92 million of public capital on heritage, let us do so through a strictly neutral secular framework, which these buildings and institutions can bid against. Let us build an exclusive fund for public space, not fund the structural fabric of private faith. I urge the Government to rethink this fund and use it to deliver and protect truly secular and inclusive buildings for a 2026 Britain.