Church of Scotland (Lord High Commissioner) Bill

Lord Wallace of Tankerness Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 19th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness (LD)]

My Lords, I am happy to follow the Lord Privy Seal and the noble Lord, Lord True, in welcoming the Bill. I shall start by declaring interests: I am a member and elder of the Church of Scotland and a former moderator of the General Assembly.

I have known Lady Elish. We served in government together in Scotland in the early 2000s and then, when she was Lord Advocate, I was the Advocate-General for Scotland, so we had a lot of dealings with each other. I certainly consider Elish and her husband Dominic to be good personal friends. I should probably also declare another interest: she has invited me to stay overnight at Holyrood Palace during the General Assembly—assuming, of course, that the legislation has passed.

I congratulate the noble Baroness the Lord Privy Seal on giving a very good analysis and description of the role of the Lord High Commissioner, which I am sure the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, will be able to elaborate on. It shows, as I said last week in one of our debates, that you can have a national Church that enjoys a positive and assertive relationship with the sovereign without the need for its senior clergy to be in the legislature. Maybe there are lessons to learn from that in other ways.

Repealing the provision in the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829 brings us into the 21st century. Like the noble Lord, Lord True, I am pleased that the noble Baroness has indicated that the Government will look at other religious discrimination that still exists, with a view to bringing forward some consultation. If she could elaborate on that, that would be very welcome.

I noted too that the noble Baroness made the following statement under the Human Rights Act:

“In my view the provisions of the Church of Scotland (Lord High Commissioner) Bill are compatible with the Convention rights”—


which of course they are. Indeed, they help to implement convention rights. The noble Baroness’s equivalent in 1829 would not have been able to make such a declaration, which is a sign of the times. I am not quite sure what happened then—whether it was the fact that the Church of Scotland and others in Scotland made representations to the Duke of Wellington for the exclusion, or whether it was just that, knowing the slightly febrile situation in the religious atmosphere of Scotland in the early 19th century, the Government took the view that it was probably better to avoid such a controversy. But controversy there would have been and there was no way it would have been acceptable in 1829.

Nor, I am ashamed to say, would it have been acceptable in 1929. During a shameful period in the Church of Scotland’s history in the 1920s and early 1930s, General Assemblies often became obsessive about Irish immigration into Scotland. They perceived a threat to our cultural identity and that the people coming in would take Scottish jobs, and some Scots demanded immediate repatriation. Now, we may have echoes of some things that are going on today, but we should remind ourselves that these attitudes were there. I think it says something that the person we are discussing today, Lady Elish, is of Irish descent, and a female Roman Catholic of Irish descent becoming the Lord High Commissioner shows the progress that we have made. In 1935, thousands demonstrated violently in Edinburgh when the freedom of the city was granted to the Prime Minister of Australia, Joseph Lyons, because he was a Roman Catholic. That was less than 90 years ago and it shows just what we have to do.

Progress has been made. Ecumenical links have been strengthened over the years and, as has already been referred to, the St Margaret declaration of friendship between the Church of Scotland and the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, in which as moderator I was pleased to play a part, was delivered and achieved on the back of much mutual respect and good will, not least on the part of the Scottish Catholic Bishops’ Conference by Archbishop Leo Cushley. It was signed in November 2022 and was seen as a landmark and, I hope, as a signal to the rest of Scotland.

However, to say that everything in the garden is rosy would be wrong. When my predecessor as Moderator of the General Assembly, the very reverend Dr Martin Fair, made his valedictory address to the General Assembly in 2021, among the things he said was the Kirk’s mission. He said:

“For as long as anti-Catholic, anti-Irish bile is spewed onto our streets by so-called football fans - there is work for us to do”.


I think we would certainly endorse that.

The St Margaret declaration says in its very first paragraph:

“We recognise each other as brothers and sisters in Christ, and we wish to express our friendship and respect for one another as fellow Christians, citizens and partners in announcing the kingdom of God in our land”.


I would say amen to that. This Bill is in the spirit of that declaration.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a real pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope, in this relatively unusual outburst of ecumenism among Scots. It is also a pleasure to join the chorus of unanimity which has characterised this Bill’s progress here and in the other place. I have often had occasion to chafe against the time restrictions on Back-Bench contributions in your Lordships’ House, but, given my unqualified support for this Bill and the absence of any dissenting voices, I will keep my contribution short. I cannot guarantee, however, that it will not in part be repetitive of other noble Lords’.

This legislation is becomingly simple, and rights an obvious wrong. As we have heard, it amends the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829 to allow the sovereign to nominate Lady Elish Angiolini as His Majesty’s High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, much as Section 1 of the Lord Chancellor (Tenure of Office and Discharge of Ecclesiastical Functions) Act 1974 opened that office to members of the Roman Catholic faith. It is no surprise that it is His Majesty King Charles’s nomination of Lady Elish that has prompted this important legislation. His commitment to interfaith dialogue and mutual respect between different faiths was a constant animating principle during his time as Prince of Wales, and the Bill before your Lordships’ House today represents a further step towards formal equality.

The Promissory Oaths Act 1871 already removed a bar to people professing the Jewish faith holding the office of Lord High Commissioner. In that context, I refer to the briefing paper of the Law Society of Scotland, which I thank for identifying the remaining elements of the Catholic Relief Act 1829 and the Jews Relief Act 1858 which hold trace elements of religious discrimination that remain part of British law. I commend my noble friend the Lord Privy Seal, and the Prime Minister, for their energy in seeking to tackle those remaining matters of discrimination as soon as possible. As the noble Lord, Lord True, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, referred to, the sooner that can be done, the better, because, as we all know, legislation holds both a practical and a symbolic value. In this particular context, a Bill which removes these historic anomalies would not just be overwhelmingly welcomed in Scotland by the Roman Catholic community and others but would be a worthy symbol of positive change for a Government who base their whole term of service on changing, and this is one of the many changes which need to be added to their list.

As we have already heard, the appointment of Lady Elish Angiolini exemplifies, and gives expression to, the historic St Margaret declaration of friendship between the Catholic Church and Church of Scotland, signed in 2022. I am pleased to have been reminded by my friend, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, that this was during his term of office, and I am not surprised that he was part of the process which caused that to happen. I thank him for his contribution.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness (LD)]

It was not signed during my term of office, but it was worked up during my term of office, and then approved at the General Assembly when I stood down, and signed by my successor.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

I thank the noble and learned Lord for that clarification. None the less, I will not withdraw my thanks and congratulations to him.

It is perhaps difficult for anyone who has not lived in Scotland to appreciate just what an extraordinary step that represented, and, still further, what the sovereign’s appointment of an Irish-born Catholic woman as Lord High Commissioner represents. The spirit of ecumenism, amity and fraternity between different Christian denominations is at the heart of this legislation. In his 1995 encyclical on ecumenism, Pope John Paul II pleaded with Catholic leaders to adopt a fraternal attitude to the members of other denominations in the following words:

“We should therefore pray … for the grace to be genuinely self-denying, humble, gentle in the service of others, and to have an attitude of brotherly generosity towards them”.


Whatever one’s view of Catholicism, Christianity or faith in general, it is hard to quarrel with those sentiments. In that spirit, it is perhaps appropriate that the nomination of Lady Elish has taken place so close to the King’s state visit to the Vatican, as he continues to demonstrate his commitment to interfaith dialogue.

It has been said, but bears repeating, that Lady Elish has a record of distinguished public service, and a career that already encompasses several firsts. Noble Lords will recall the opening of Evelyn Waugh’s Decline and Fall, in which he describes

“the sound of English county families baying for broken glass”.

Lady Elish must be used to a similar—though rather more wholesome—sound, given the number of glass ceilings that she has shattered in the course of her distinguished career. As she does so yet again, I wish her well in her new appointment, and give my wholehearted support to the Bill before your Lordships’ House.