Churches and Religious Buildings: Communities

Catherine Atkinson Excerpts

Tuesday 13th May 2025 Westminster Hall

[Catherine Atkinson (Derby North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Jeremy. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) on securing this important debate.

Our churches and religious buildings are so much more than the stone and bricks and mortar that they are made from, but if their walls and roofs fall down, then what we lose is far greater too. In Derby, we are blessed to have churches, Sikh gurdwaras, Hindu temples and Muslim mosques, and in the middle of our city, we have our cathedral. Next year, it enters its 100th year as a cathedral, although its tower dates back to the 16th century. It is our tallest building at 212 feet—that height is rather firmly imprinted on my memory, having abseiled from the top of it for charity alongside my then nine-year-old. Inside the tower is the oldest ring of bells in the world. The oldest is more than 500 years old, older than the tower itself, and they peal out across the city. At our VE day celebration, there was a commemorative peal that lasted three hours, which was no small feat for the bell ringers, the youngest of whom was 10 years old.

The coming together of people of all ages always strikes me in our churches and religious buildings, and the churches in our city have groups from the little nippers to the university students coming together at St Alkmund’s or the monthly tea for older people at St Peter’s. I had lots of really interesting studies and stats about loneliness and crossing generational divides, but given the three-minute limit I will have to leave those out.

We have heard from many Members, and I am sure we will hear more, that the work done in our churches is so often there to meet the wider need in our communities, with food banks, community cafes and warm spaces such as that at St Philip’s church in Chaddesden, to name just one. Often, it is in our churches and religious buildings where we see examples of humanity at its best and looking after one another. Nearly 80% of Church of England buildings host more than 31,000 social action projects a year, and His Majesty’s Treasury Green Book estimates that for every pound invested in our church buildings, the benefit to communities is over £16.

Our religious buildings are often opened up for wider cultural events as well as social action. At Derby cathedral, people have heard Queen by candlelight. Again, I had a whole list of other events, but Members will have to look them up for themselves. The incredible sound of Derby cathedral choir fills the cathedral most days, giving moments of peace and reflection in busy lives and what feels like an uncertain world.

I would like to give a final example of the work of our church going out beyond their walls. Derby cathedral has a music in schools programme that is currently working with more than 900 children weekly across 17 different schools. To hear their voices fill the cathedral creates moments in time that nourish the soul. Those buildings were built with the knowledge that they would build communities and lift the health, education and culture of Derby and of every part of our country. I would ask that the Minister ensure that all the social good carried out within the bricks and mortar—but which extends so far beyond them—is taken into account when decisions on funding are made.