Church of England (Miscellaneous Provisions) Measure

Debate between Lord Williams of Elvel and Lord Bishop of Oxford

Tuesday 13th May 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Williams of Elvel (Lab)]

My Lords, I intervene only to refer to Section 19 of the Measure, which refers to the Lady Margaret Professorship at Oxford. I have to declare some sort of interest, in that my father was Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity at Christ Church. It seems to me that we cannot let that go entirely without some sort of obituary. The professorship was set up by Lady Margaret Beaufort, who, your Lordships will no doubt recall, was the mother of Henry VII. It has been a distinguished post in the history of Oxford, of Christ Church and of divinity and theology. After my father, and before he became archbishop, the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Williams of Oystermouth, who was the previous archbishop to my stepson, was Lady Margaret Professor.

It is, in a way, a sad obituary for something that was set up and operated so well in so many theological contexts. It allowed professors to deliberate and preach in the security of the residence of Christ Church. It is a pity that it should go. However, there it is. As they say, the caravan moves on. All I would ask of the right reverend Prelate is that he explains what will happen to that rather attractive priory house where my father lived and I was brought up. I would be interested in what Christ Church believes it should do with it. Other than that, I simply say, “Lady Margaret Beaufort, farewell”.

[The Lord Bishop of Oxford]

My Lords, I am grateful for those two contributions. To my noble friend Lord Elton I say, yes, a concern has been expressed to me about what the impact of this would be. It is as well to be clear what we do at the moment—what the Church Commissioners, for instance, are using derivatives for. They use them for three things: the hedging of foreign currency, the hedging of interest rate risks and as a means of taking shares in particular companies—preparation for buying equities themselves. So they make very limited use of derivatives. They are certainly not in the business of speculation.

It is worth understanding that trying to draw up an adequate measure that would cover the variety of uses that might be needed in future meant that it was not possible to be too specific. If we had been very specific in drawing up legislation, it would have required a much more substantial measure to identify each of the financial instruments that might have had to be named. That would have taken us another two or three years: to go through the General Synod, through Parliament, et cetera. Therefore, we tried to give ourselves sufficient width, recognising that the Church Commissioners and the pensions board are not into speculation, and that they have pledged to enter only schemes that they understand. I think that was a significant problem in 2008. We therefore have reasonable safeguards here, recognising always that the Charity Commissioners require charities such as the Church Commissioners to act only in the best interests of the charity itself and not like individuals who might be entering speculative regions.

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Williams, that I am very sorry about the Lady Margaret Professorship departing. He gave it a good obituary. It is a sign that good theology is now much more broadly spread across the population. It is not just an ordained preserve: lay and/or ordained theologians are excellent and serving the church and the world. So I agree that the caravan has moved on and will say only that this is where we have moved to and that lay theologians as well as ordained ones are entitled to live in the lovely house.

With those very few comments, I am happy simply to ask the House to approve the Motion.