Pensions (Pre-consolidation) Measure

Debate between Baroness Butler-Sloss and Lord Cormack

Thursday 22nd March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, these three Measures were much simpler to deal with and took very little time. I simply point out that the third one is purely consolidatory. Unlike the other Measures with which this House is concerned, it makes no changes at all; it simply puts things under one umbrella. The Ecclesiastical Committee had no hesitation in finding all three Measures expedient.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I just want to put on the record something that I believe is terribly important. I entirely agree with what the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, has just said. Of course, the third Measure is a consolidation but it covers an exceptionally important group of buildings in this country. Sixteen thousand buildings are in the care of the Church of England, most of them parish churches. Most are listed, and a great many in the top category. Collectively, these buildings, together with our cathedrals, are the most important public buildings in the country, and we all have an affectionate care for them.

As a church warden I have sought to raise money, as I did, for instance, when we raised £1 million for St Margaret’s, Westminster, in the early 1980s. From that, I know that the people who do not often, and sometimes never, go to church still regard the building as central to their lives. For them, it is a focal point on the landscape—the one public building in the town or village to which they can easily resort. Many of them are now used, very properly, for a variety of other recreational and community purposes.

It is crucial that, in recognising that consolidation Measure, we recognise the importance of the buildings to which it refers. It is no easy task to maintain ancient and fragile buildings. Having been a churchwarden three times, and as the former president of the Staffordshire Historic Churches Trust, as the only vice-president of the Lincolnshire one at the moment, and as a trustee for over 40 years and then vice-president of the Historic Churches Preservation Trust—now the National Churches Trust—I know that we all have individual and collective responsibility. I do hope that those present in your Lordships’ House today will have a look at this Measure and see what the Church is doing, and that whenever the occasion offers, will make their own contributions in whatever form they take to ensure that these buildings, which define our land and our history, are not at greater risk than they are at the moment. The fewer that have to close, the better.

Mission and Pastoral etc. (Amendment) Measure

Debate between Baroness Butler-Sloss and Lord Cormack

Thursday 22nd March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, we took the precaution, in the Ecclesiastical Committee—since we were asked to look at several Measures together—of allowing a considerable period of time to reflect on them before we actually met as a committee. So all of these documents were sent—the next ones coming along, together with the present one; I will only speak once on this—to committee members before Christmas, although we did not meet until some time in January. The result was that there were a number of very sensible—if I might respectfully say so—and practical questions asked of the Church of England in relation to each of these subsequent Measures. Each one of those questions was very appropriately and adequately responded to, so that by the time of the Ecclesiastical Committee, we dealt with all the Measures within an hour, including the one that we have just been discussing, because we had been given such good help by the lawyers of the Church of England in particular that we were able to understand and be entirely satisfied that they were expedient. Therefore, I support the present Measure on the basis that the Ecclesiastical Committee found it expedient.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, for reasons which the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, knows, I could not attend that meeting. I certainly do not wish to rehearse arguments that I might have advanced then, but I will make two or three simple points. We have to recognise that, in England, we have an established Church and everyone in the country lives in a parish and is entitled to the services of the parish priest. We also have to recognise that the landscape of the organisation of the Church of England has altered very significantly since those days some 70-odd years ago when I first sang in a church choir—I promise your Lordships that I will not do it now.

In those days, almost every parish had a parish priest resident. A lot of not-necessarily-large parishes had a curate, as we had in the parish where I grew up. Now, in Lincolnshire, where we began the amalgamation of parishes with the South Ormsby Group many long years ago, it is not unusual for a parish priest to be responsible for five, six, seven, eight or even a dozen parish churches, many of which are historic buildings of enormous importance. It is important to get these things on the record and to recognise that another thing that has changed very much is that now very few incumbents enjoy the freehold. Now, it is much less likely that a parish priest will have the freehold of the parish in which he or she lives. This inevitably leads to a great deal of extra power and authority going to the bishop of the diocese. Most bishops exercise that with care and sensitivity and understanding—but I have come across cases where that has not been so, and we need to be alive to that fact.

I will make another point. The right reverend Prelate, in introducing this Measure—which, again, he did extremely cogently—referred to retirement age. In the final debate initiated by the then Archbishop of Canterbury—now the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Williams of Oystermouth—who was stepping down in his early 60s, I made the point that we should be more relaxed about retirement in the Church of England. Many a man or woman in their late 60s or even 70s—I speak as one who will enter his 80th year next year—can minister very effectively, and with great care and thought, as I am sure the noble Baroness will do when she is ordained; we are lucky to be able to look forward to her ministry. I therefore appeal to the right reverend Prelate to take back to his colleagues in the House of Bishops the fact that there is some degree of disquiet in and around the Church of England—I know this to be a fact in Lincolnshire, and in the diocese of Lincoln—that men and women who could well still conduct a vigorous ministry often do not feel that they are sufficiently regarded, even though we rely on the ministry of retired priests, even in the cathedral, when there is a vacancy or illness. I hope that the right reverend Prelate will take that away—and there is of course the added bonus that the right reverend Prelates might then be able to sit in your Lordships’ House a little longer.

Legislative Reform Measure

Debate between Baroness Butler-Sloss and Lord Cormack

Thursday 22nd March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I am chairman of the Ecclesiastical Committee. As the right reverend Prelate has said, we have declared that this Measure is expedient, but I have to tell the House that that was after a prolonged process.

The most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury informally told members of the Ecclesiastical Committee that he was extremely anxious to deal with obsolete and unnecessary legislation within the Church that had been running for years and years and was quite simply impeding the modernisation process. We took the extremely unusual course of inviting members of the Ecclesiastical Committee to come informally—not as the committee, because we are a statutory committee—to discuss with the members of the Church of England what they really wanted from us. They produced for us a draft that was not quite the same as the present, which was quite simply too wide. I made it very clear to the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury that I could not get it through the House and nor should it get through the House. That was totally understood by the Church of England, and the lawyers took it away and tidied it up. They reduced that part, as the right reverend Prelate has explained to noble Lords, which, at the start, made it possible for the synod to change our laws that were not ecclesiastical laws, which is not of course ever what they intended. Consequently, we held some further informal meetings and the absolutely splendid secretariat of the Ecclesiastical Committee—particularly the lawyer advising and the House of Lords clerk of our very large committee—took a lot of trouble to discuss this. We were satisfied that what was required by the individual members of the committee, not sitting as a committee, was in fact found within this present draft.

I am extremely happy to tell the House that we took this very unusual, rather interesting step and that it turned out to be most successful. I hope that we might repeat it with other important pieces of legislation to make sure that we are all, if I may say so, singing from the same hymn book. I am very happy to say to the House that the committee at its most recent meeting, within just 10 or 15 minutes of discussion, said that this was expedient.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I would like briefly to support what has just been said by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, who is an admirable chairman of the Ecclesiastical Committee. I am not sure about singing from the same hymn book—in Lincoln Cathedral we have two; some days it is ancient and modern and on others it is the English hymn book—but the point that she made is entirely valid.

I have served on the Ecclesiastical Committee for 42 of the last 48 years, during 36 of which I have been a church warden of three separate churches, so I know a little bit about these matters. I also served on the General Synod for 10 years. I approached this initially with a degree of real apprehension, because I was extremely concerned that the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury should not be seen—not that it was his intention—to be taking on the mantle of Henry VIII. That, in the Church of England, would not necessarily be the most appealing stance for an archbishop to take. The representations that we made—informally, as the noble and learned Baroness described—were taken on board. There was a degree of sensitivity over a series of controversial proposals that could well point the way to the Government of the day on another issue that is frequently occupying your Lordships’ House at the moment—but I will leave it at that.

The right reverend Prelate introduced this Measure with thoroughness and clarity, for which we are grateful. We have to beware, as I said in that very different context yesterday, of authority taking power unto itself. But the General Synod has a continuing role here and, as the right reverend Prelate has indicated, so does Parliament. Because of that, I am very glad to give strong support to our admirable chairman and I hope that, the committee having deemed this measure expedient, the House will not take a contrary view.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Baroness Butler-Sloss and Lord Cormack

Committee: 6th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 12th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I make two short suggestions. One is that all the words that we have heard today should be treated exactly the same. The second is that Parliament should deal with all of them.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Deben, in his scintillating speech, referred to the power of arbitrary monarchs. I do not need to remind him—or anyone else in your Lordships’ House—that 369 years ago something happened to a monarch who had sought to exert those powers absolutely. The ultimate end of ship money was outside Banqueting House in Whitehall on 30 January 1649. I do not want to make too many historical diversions, but I was grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, whom we missed last week when we really began these debates on Wednesday, for referring to what I had sought to say then. This is the specific consequence of the generality that we abhorred last week—giving to Ministers, effectively, arbitrary power.