Women’s Contribution to the Ordained Ministry (Church of England)

Caroline Spelman Excerpts

Thursday 20th March 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Caroline Spelman (Meriden) (Con)]

I am delighted that the Backbench Business Committee has granted us the time to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the ordination of women. A number of colleagues to whom I have spoken have been surprised that 20 years have elapsed since the first ordination. Indeed, the first of 32 women priests was ordained in Bristol cathedral on 12 March 1994. Angela Berners-Wilson was the first to be ordained, making history. Since then, more than 5,000 women have been ordained to the ministry. Last month, the General Synod also agreed to fast-track the process towards ordaining women as bishops, so the first female bishop could be chosen as soon as the end of this year, which is to be celebrated.

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

I warmly congratulate the right hon. Lady on securing this debate on this happy anniversary. Does she agree that given the exciting prospect of the first women bishops by the end of this year, there may be an argument, where sees are currently vacant, to hold them vacant for just a little bit longer in order to give some of the fantastic women in the Church of England who will make wonderful bishops the ability to apply?

[Mrs Spelman]

I had the same idea, and I put it to the Archbishop of Canterbury, but he made an important point, recalling especially his experience. When a diocese is left vacant for any long period of time, life gets quite difficult for everybody else in the diocese. He was speaking, of course, of his experience of moving swiftly to Durham and then almost as swiftly to the top post within the Church. We must recognise that although it is a good idea in principle, because it would be a way to create space for women to move into, in practical terms, we want well-functioning dioceses. However, when the event gets very close, there might be an opportunity to do what the right hon. Gentleman suggests.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

To pursue that thought, it is a matter of chronology that bishops and archbishops must retire at a certain age, although we do not expect the Archbishop of Canterbury to retire for some time. We admire and welcome the continuing services of the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of London, but we hope that there is no reason why the committees and councils that nominate people to those offices will not find the pent-up talent of women, which has not been able to be used, and allow one of them to be appointed and therefore come to the House of Lords straight away.

[Mrs Spelman]

My hon. Friend makes an important point about what I would describe as succession planning. Where we know there is likely to be a retirement, with the prospect that a woman might be consecrated as bishop, we should be thinking in terms of those retirement seats. It is known to be done in politics in a similar way. Succession planning ensures a smooth transition, which is always good for the functioning of any institution. If my hon. Friend will bear with me, I will return later to the question of women bishops sitting in the Lords, which I personally hope will happen. There are some aspects that it is important to weave into this debate, and I will refer to it later.

For anyone who is following the debate, the workings of the Church of England can sometimes be a bit of a mystery, so I thought it would be worth while at the start to explain a little bit, in case a lay audience is watching. The ordained ministry consists of deacons, priests and bishops, in ascending order of seniority. Those accepted for ordination as priests are first ordained as deacons. Indeed, before women could be ordained as priests, that was the staging post where women’s progression stopped. The first women deacons were admitted in 1987 and the first women priests in 1994—a total of 1,500 women deacons were ordained as priests in that historic year.

According to statistics from the Church of England, women now make up nearly a quarter of the Church’s full-time paid clergy, at 1,870 out of 7,880. That is an increase of 14% since 2002, and the number and proportion of females is expected to rise further in the next three years. Clearly, the historic moment of ordaining women unleashed a great appetite for more women to enter the ministry. In 2010, for the first time, the number of women ordained was greater than the number of men, at 290 compared with 273.

I was given an excellent suggestion by the Opposition spokeswoman, the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman), that we as constituency MPs should take the opportunity of this debate to write to the women priests in our constituencies to give them a chance to raise any issues with us, reflect on their role as female priests and help us understand what it is like from their perspective. I thought that that was a really good suggestion, so I did it. As hon. Members will see shortly, I have woven into my speech some of the comments that those women gave me. I have decided not to attribute them—I think it is probably better to protect the identities of people in a public ministry—unless they expressly asked me to put a name to their quote. They made some interesting comments.

During almost 17 years as the MP for Meriden, I have had the privilege of seeing at first hand the vital contribution that many ordained women have made to the life of my constituency. One vicar described the role of women priests as “transformational”, both for the Church and for the work of churches in the local community. There are a number of benefits that come from having priests of both genders. Women bring a different approach to Church governance. Although it is perhaps a bit stereotypical to point this out, the consensual way in which women like and tend to work has resulted in the creation of many more connections at the constituency level between churches of different denominations. I have certainly seen that change led by the female clergy in my constituency. Women are also often able to approach governance issues from a different perspective, with a focus on discussion and practical solutions rather than on necessarily winning the argument hands down. That kind of collaborative approach brings benefits. I have seen increased co-operation not just between churches of different denominations but between churches and other agencies and charities in my constituency. The female priest is often at the heart of the networking process.

Women also bring a particular creativity to ministry. When women first came into ordained ministry 20 years ago, they had only male role models, which required a creative approach to being a woman and a priest. That has had many benefits for local communities. It takes anyone a while to work out how to be themselves in a job, but even more so when they have no similar role models to work from. In every sense, women priests have been trailblazers over the past 20 years.

It goes without saying that women are not the same as men. They often have more responsibility for families, looking after the home at the same time as carrying out a job. Many female vicars are also mothers or grandmothers, and I have seen the benefits that those other duties have had on their ministry. One female vicar in my constituency said:

“In Kingshurst, people call at the vicarage if they need help. I listen to a woman who works in a factory and needs help with improving her reading. I have been doing this for about three years.”

Some of the women in my constituency lack female role models within their own family—perhaps they are estranged from the grandparental generation. A female priest can provide real practical help, advice and support to young women making their first steps in motherhood without a family network around them.

There are other ways in which women priests can show their creativity in ministry. For example, in my constituency, a woman priest was involved in setting up the Seeds of Hope project in 1998. It is an independent charity that continues to flourish. It encourages a range of community activities in the north of the Solihull borough, an area that has three wards in the bottom 10% of socio-economic data. There is real deprivation in that part of my constituency. Seeds of Hope operates out of the church village hall, but remains independent, and its continued success is absolutely central to the ongoing needs of the community. One example of the kind of networking I described is that the charity plays host to a credit union, which operates at the same time as it runs lunches and support clubs for the surrounding community. The female priests have a pivotal role and bring real benefits to that community.

[Mr Bradshaw]

Does the right hon. Lady recall, at the time of women’s ordination, dire predictions from Anglo-Catholics like me that the ordination of women would lead to some terrible rupture in our relations with our Roman Catholic and Orthodox brothers and sisters? That has not happened. As she said, at a local level, women are often far better at cutting across denominations, working collectively and bringing faith groups together. The hope is that what we have done will spread to other Christian denominations.

[Mrs Spelman]

The right hon. Gentleman is right. The dire predictions about the ordination of women have been proved wrong. The sky has not fallen in. There has been an important cultural shift. For my late father, the idea that a woman would administer communion was strange to begin with, but he quickly came round to the idea that women are good at the job, not least because they listen well to their parishioners’ needs and carry out the office with great dignity. His concerns were blown away very quickly. Cultural acceptance of the ordination of women has been remarkably smooth in most cases.

On women bishops, if we bar women from reaching the top of Church governance, we might not always get the best person for the job, with the honourable exception of Archbishop Justin Welby, for whom I have the highest regard. It is right to place on the record that he has been skilful in weaving his way through this minefield with good grace. I sincerely hope that he will see reward with the achievement of women being consecrated as bishops.

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

I am sorry to intervene for a second time, but I have to go to a charity meeting, so I will probably be unable to make a speech. I take this opportunity to say that the archbishop, the other bishops and the Synod realised that accepting the Women and the Church recommendation to take away the barrier and sort things out quietly was the right way. That was led by the Second Church Estates Commissioner, who made it absolutely plain, in Parliament, in public and later to the Synod, that the House of Commons would not stand for continued discrimination on baseless grounds.

[Mrs Spelman]

My hon. Friend’s intervention was well worth making before he understandably slips away. I think all of us in this debate would wholeheartedly concur with what he says. Parliament will not stand in the way and we want the change that we support to take place.

The outcome of the General Synod vote last month is also to be celebrated because it has been a long process to get to that point. In July 2005, the General Synod approved a motion to begin the process of removing legal obstacles to women in the episcopate. It was only last month, however, that it voted to approve the process, and the final vote will be in July 2014. The Church of England has stated that it is “fully and unequivocally” committed to all orders of ministry being open equally to all. That is the official position, but some will, of course, remain opposed. Those who minister within the Church of England must accept that the Church has made a clear decision that those ordained are the true and lawful holders of their office and deserve due respect.

I have a number of friends who are female priests and they initially felt a great sense of obstruction and rejection from the views of the Synod following the great setback in progress towards women’s consecration as bishops. It made life very difficult for some of them in their parishes, because those who perhaps did not fully accept the ordination of women in the first place received a certain succour from the reservations expressed through the Synod about women’s consecration. That was a great shame, and I am pleased that progress is being made. That surely must be an encouragement to the women who have been ordained to the ministry.

The Church of England will continue to share the historic episcopate with other Churches, including those who continue to ordain only men as priests or bishops. It must therefore accept that its own decision on gender in the ministry is set within a broader process of discernment within the Anglican communion and the whole Church of God. Those within the Church of England who oppose the ministry of women bishops or priests continue to be within the spectrum of the Anglican communion, and the Church of England remains committed to enabling them to flourish within its structures.

I pay tribute to the work of WATCH, the campaigning organisation to which my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley) just referred. It points out that there are still areas of concern about the point at which we have arrived. The first two of the five principles established by the package that the Synod recently agreed contain a clear, uncompromising statement—I have read it out—about women’s ordained ministry, but WATCH has concerns about the other three statements. It recognises that they represent where the Church of England is, both in voting by the General Synod and, to a much lesser extent, on the ground in the parishes. WATCH remains to be convinced that the mutual flourishing called for in the fifth principle is truly possible with that fundamental incompatibility.

WATCH remains concerned about the continuing role of flying bishops, because although the Act of Synod is to be rescinded, most of the arrangements it contained remain in place, including flying bishops. That might result in the continuing tendency for parishes under their care to separate themselves from the mainstream of the Church of England, with consequences for those parishioners who welcome the ordination of women. When the Second Church Estates Commissioner speaks, he might like to reflect on some of the remaining concerns of WATCH, because they are legitimate and important to place on the record, so that we as parliamentarians understand where there is still work to be done. I know that he will place the Government’s position on the record—as will the Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities, my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant)—but our support for the next step could not be made plainer.

Although there is much good work on the transformations steering group of the Church of England, it still has some challenges to address. The group was set up after a conference held by the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, to raise awareness of the issues faced by women in the Church, and it continues to call for research into strategies to address obstacles that limit the flourishing of women in ordained ministry. We all need to work hard to ensure that the glass ceiling does not remain in place, even once the formal barriers to women becoming bishops are removed. That is important. Inevitably, entrenched attitudes against women might remain, and many women will still not be fully accepted within the Church.

Our next challenge will be getting women on to the Bishops’ Bench in the House of Lords. At present, many ordained women have reported feeling that they are still regarded as second best, which will persist unless we are successful in getting a mix of men and women bishops in the upper House. There are, however, some complexities. It would require a change in the law and an Act of Parliament, so I signal to Members present that an important job of work will be undertaken by Parliament in due course. It would be a shame if the manner in which Parliament was caught up in this led to some obstruction of the main objective of getting women consecrated as bishops. With the expertise and wisdom of the Second Church Estates Commissioner, Parliament can hopefully navigate its way through that aspect of the minefield and achieve what we want.

Other challenges for ordained women come in the language used when talking about ordained women. We cannot necessarily pass a law for this one, but it is indicative of the cultural challenges that persist. One senior female vicar that I know commented that we need to avoid talking of “fast forwarding women”, because the reality is that, had some of those women been men, they would have been in senior roles long ago. The Church of England needs to embrace the gifts that men and women bring. Perhaps there will come a time, as the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) suggested, when, in management terms, the space can be made for women who really deserve the opportunity to rise to the most senior ranks within the Church. There is always a tendency for gender to be blamed for unpopular decisions, and women will continue to face the challenge of being made a scapegoat for all the problems in the Church, but the problem is not unique to the ministry. Women experience it many parts of our society, including politics.

In conclusion, we can celebrate the positive contribution made by ordained women to the Church over the past 20 years. This anniversary year will also be marked with a national celebration at St Paul’s cathedral in May, and I hope that as many of us as possible will be able to assist on that occasion in a spiritual context. This is the first national celebration of ordained women—a first for the Church—and we need to celebrate the women priests who have made such a difference over the past 20 years, and look forward to the changes that are to come with the ordination of women bishops.

I want to finish by reading an extremely well-expressed reflection from a women priest:

“It has been transforming for the church and has started a process of holy orders being fully complete with both women and men, a process which will itself be fully complete when women as well as men are included in the episcopate. For both women and men are created in the image of God. In my experience it is only people inside the church who ever question this process at all. For those whom we minister among, it is normal and expected for women and men to be vicars as well as bishops, and our ministry is accepted and valued without question.”

I could not have put it better myself and it comes better from someone who is in the role, serving the people whom they have been ordained to serve.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Spelman]

I am very moved by the passage from scripture that the Second Church Estates Commissioner, my right hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry), has read to us. He did well to read it into the record, as we are in the period of Lent; we are coming up to the time when we remember the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The fact that he revealed himself first to a woman and asked that woman to tell the brethren is very poignant indeed. I thank my right hon. Friend for bringing some scripture into our debate, which has been very encouraging. We hope that the women who are serving in ministry, in what is a difficult job—“the curer of souls” is a resonant phrase to describe one who undertakes the highly vocational service of ministering to great human need—will read the record of our debate and know that Parliament gives its support to their calling, and that we want to go further. We want to see their calling extended to the high governance of the Church of England, and we want to see it soon.

I thank hon. Members for their contributions. I thank the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) for staying with us on a busy afternoon. He is a liberal Catholic, and I, like many Anglicans, have been heartened by the hopeful message that the new Pope sent early in his ministry about the inclusive way in which he regards the gospel and his Administration. His inclusion of women at the top of the Catholic Church was a great encouragement to me and others like me.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley) for taking up the theme of the support that parliamentarians can give to the important step of women becoming bishops. He spoke of his high aspiration to see one day a female Archbishop of York to follow in the excellent steps of John Sentamu, who holds that office with distinction. He helped us aspire to see a new chapter in the Church of England’s future.

I thank the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman), who genuinely was there from the beginning. I applaud and pay tribute to her for that, and for seeing the importance of fighting for this issue with her friends so long ago.

I am sure all hon. Members wish to put on the record their thanks to the Second Church Estates Commissioner—what a title!—who is respected in the House of Commons and across Parliament. He brought the debate about the future role of women in the Church to this important moment just before the significant change with skill, wisdom and discernment. This issue is safe in his hands as our representative—our go- between—in Parliament to the Crown and the Church.

I hope our debate has sent a message to the 4,200 ordained women that we greatly value what they do. The Church is facing an inter-generational challenge, so it is important that it attracts more young men and women. The young generation simply does not understand why we do not ordain and promote women to high office in the Church. The future of our Church is safe in the hands of the new archbishop, but it is important that we take the next step of consecrating women bishops. I am delighted that we have been able to have this debate.

Question put and agreed to.