Diocesan Stipends Funds (Amendment) Measure

Crispin Blunt Excerpts

Tuesday 13th June 2023 General Committees

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

I hope I do not strain the Committee’s patience by asking my hon. Friend the Second Church Estates Commissioner how the Measure will work in practice. His gilded words were that the Archbishops’ Council may act as a broker, but all the quiet pressure that can be brought to bear on bishops and others in authority who have a career in the Church of England and perhaps have more attractive posts ahead of them may influence their decisions. How will they be gently persuaded to part with their funds? If it is via the archbishops’ funds, might it not, in practice, end up more a mechanism of centralisation of Church funds into the archbishops’ funds than one of distribution?

Without provoking the concern of the hon. Member for Ilford South, I believe that my cousin, his father, will possibly be in receipt of some of these funds. I am not sure what the state of the funding is in the relevant diocese, but I just wonder how this works in practice. Is the salary bill of the Church of England in the wider public interest for us to reinforce? Do we not have quite enough of them already?

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Selous]

I shall try to go through everyone’s questions, but if I do not answer them satisfactorily, please intervene on me again, because there were quite a few—I tried to note them down as we went through.

I can tell my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate that the Oxford diocese, for example, has already tried to be generous, but because we need clarity on the law—so what they do is legal—we have this measure today. A willingness has already been demonstrated by the wealthier dioceses to do this, so I am not really fearful of what he suggests. We are talking about the remuneration of parish priests, and I think the Church of England as a national organisation, which, through the Church Commissioners, already moves money towards poorer communities, will welcome the measure as an additional action to promote a policy that is already in place. Salaries of clergy are incredibly important. They are and will remain a priority.

I note the point that the right hon. Member for Exeter made about the explanatory notes. I am sorry that they were not available in printed form. I have spoken to House and Church officials and we will try to ensure that they are available in print in future, so I ask the right hon. Gentleman to accept my apology. They are available on the website, but that is not quite good enough and they should be here in paper form for Members.

[Crispin Blunt]

Will my hon. Friend give a little more historical context about the size of congregation per stipendiary rector or priest? How big is the flock of those who attend a church with a priest for guidance, compared with, say, 1900, 1950, 1975 and today?

[Andrew Selous]

I do not have those figures in front of me because they are not strictly relevant to the Measure. I have the populations of each diocese—I referred earlier to the amounts per capita in each diocese. Again, the Church of England publishes attendance figures, so they are publicly available, but because they are not germane to the Measure, I do not have them in front of me. The amounts in diocesan stipends funds are a matter of public record. The figures that I cited were from 31 December 2019—slightly out of date, but I do not suppose they have changed significantly. They can be looked at.

On the question about diocesan synods, they do not have a veto, so I did not explain myself as clearly as I should have done. If a diocese proposes to move money from its diocesan stipends fund to another poorer diocese, that money will be in that diocese’s budget, and the whole budget goes before the diocesan synod. Just as we have a debate in the House on the Budget, so, diocese by diocese, clergy and laity who are elected to the synod in each diocese will have an opportunity to question what is happening.

On the comments of the hon. Member for Ilford South, it is always a massive sadness when we do not have enough clergy. I hope that the Measure will lead to the retention of more clergy, or the ability to employ more clergy. It is one more means, alongside parish giving, where the majority of our income comes from, as well as the Commissioners’ money, which contributes about 18% of the Church’s funds, to help ensure that clergy are properly looked after. It is absolutely our intention to provide as many clergy as we can.

I hope that I have satisfactorily answered the questions put to me, and I commend the Measure to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.