Lords Spiritual (Women) Bill

Chi Onwurah Excerpts

Monday 19th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate, which largely represents cross-party agreement on an important advance, notwithstanding the comments of the hon. Member for Colchester (Sir Bob Russell).

I welcome the ordination of women bishops and this Bill, which enables them to play a full part in the other Chamber, unreformed as it is for the moment. The ordination of women bishops was welcomed by Newcastle residents of all faiths and none. It is the only controversial step—in terms of the length of time it took to happen and the amount of fierce debate within the Anglican community and outside—on which I have received not one letter, e-mail or phone call criticising the decision. Wherever I have spoken on the subject, the decision that finally the great work done by women priests and deacons in the Church of England would be recognised up to the highest level was greeted with joy—a word that is not misplaced.

It is appropriate that women bishops should be able to play a full role in Westminster. As has already been said, women priests play a full role in the Church, and in Newcastle in particular I am well aware of the work that women priests do to represent, fight for and minister to their communities. We have so many excellent women priests in Newcastle that it would be wrong to name any one of them, but I hope that they will understand it if I say that at the Church of the Ascension in Kenton, which is where I first went to Sunday school, I am always very impressed by the work of the Rev. Lesley Chapman.

The excellent former Bishop of Newcastle, the right reverend Bishop Martin, retired in November. He is a great loss to the city. As bishop, he championed the causes of social equality and social justice, in keeping with the history of Newcastle, which has long championed social justice, and of the north-east more broadly, as my hon. Friends the Members for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) and for City of Durham (Roberta Blackman-Woods) mentioned. That history ranges from the Jarrow march to support for all-women shortlists in the Labour party; I benefited from my constituency’s support for those.

Like my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham, I do not want to anticipate the decisions of the Church of England, but it is only appropriate to say how much a woman bishop in Newcastle would reflect the city’s position at the forefront of social justice and the great support for women’s playing their full role in the Church, the economy and the city as a whole.