Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall
Main Page: Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Labour - Life peer)
Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)
My Lords, I shall speak briefly in the gap, first to say how grateful we should all be to the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, for introducing this debate, which has turned out to be extraordinarily entertaining and enlightening, and in my case very reassuring.
I shall take a few minutes to use my parish church to exemplify some of the points that have come up. I speak from the position of being that atheist to whom the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, has just referred, but I am also a trustee of the parish church in Thaxted, in Uttlesford, in north-west Essex. It will be known to those who are connoisseurs of the English parish church, because it is one of the finest; it has four stars in Simon Jenkins’ book. It is also huge. It has a massive nave, and in mentioning that I think of the uses which the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd-Webber, and others have reminded us that naves of churches have been put to in the past and should be again. Thaxted parish church gives the community a wonderful opportunity to use the nave in a wide variety of ways.
Thaxted is also the home of a very well known and widely respected music festival, founded by Gustav Holst, who lived in Thaxted for a number of years. Indeed, one of the great tunes from “The Planets” was subsequently named for Thaxted. The church has in it one of the only two surviving, untampered-with Lincoln organs, built by Henry Lincoln. The other is in Buckingham Palace. The parish of Thaxted managed to raise well over £300,000 from various sources to have the organ restored, and it is just about to be recommissioned. It will be a great resource for the parish and for musicologists throughout the country. It also has some wonderful medieval glass, which needs to be preserved, just as the Burne-Joneses do, to which the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd-Webber, referred.
The church has an extraordinary history of Christian socialism, which goes back to the parish priest in the early part of the 20th century, Conrad Noel, who believed in a very active Christianity. That came from a deep socialist conviction, which he turned into reality. In fact, for one brief moment there were riots in Thaxted because he flew the red flag in the church.
The church is also the source of one of the greatest revivals of the English folk tradition. Every year outside my window, Morris dancers come from all over the UK and beyond to dance in the streets—and we see Thaxted as it used to be, with a market square, rather than a main road running through it. All this points to the fact that the church is, has always been and must remain a vital community asset. But it is very difficult to allow it to evolve in the way in which many noble Lords have stressed that churches must evolve. It is difficult partly because money is needed to do so, which is always a problem, but also because, I am sorry to say, there is an ageing group of people, of whom I am one, who are prepared to give their time and energy to get some of the work done that is needed and to raise funds for that.
I have one request to make to the Minister. It is to do with the fact that Thaxted, an extremely beautiful medieval town, is now the focus of a great deal of rather predatory development interest on the part of private developers. Some of that predatory activity will be fought off by a community that is not too keen on it, but some of it will be successful. Does the Minister consider that it is important and necessary for developers who wish to develop places such as Thaxted—and there are many of them all over the country—to realise that the church is a critical part of creating a strong community and a focus for a community that is growing through that development, and that they should therefore be not only encouraged but required to contribute to the church’s capacity to evolve its buildings, to create new amenities and to allow the community to make better use of some of these wonderful spaces?
That is all I have time to say, but I hope the Minister will take it seriously.