Diocesan Stipends Funds (Amendment) Measure

Debate between Crispin Blunt and Andrew Selous

Tuesday 13th June 2023 General Committees

[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 The figures that I cited were from 31 December 2019—slightly out of date, but I do not suppose they have changed significantly.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.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Crispin Blunt and Andrew Selous

Thursday 27th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Selous]

My right hon. Friend asks a typically astute question, and, like any national institution, the Church has examples of outstanding practice, which are not as widely shared as they should be. Although there is excellent work in every diocese, I have been particularly impressed by the pre-marriage course, which is also for couples who are not engaged and want to explore marriage, and the marriage course run by the Reverend Nicky Lee and his wife, Sila. These have been run in 127 countries for more than 1.5 million couples and get tremendous feedback.

[Crispin Blunt]

I hope that my hon. Friend can give me a one-word answer to my question. Will he confirm what I understand was said by the Archbishop of Canterbury, which is that the Church of England has no objection in principle to suitably qualified humanist celebrants conducting marriages for those couples who so wish to make their vows to each other in that way?

[Andrew Selous]

I think I can make my hon. Friend at least partially happy

by telling him that the Church of England has no principled objection to humanist marriage. However, I know he will be aware that any move from a premises-based system of marriage registration to a celebrant-based one in England and Wales would not be a minor reform and would affect everyone involved in registering marriages. I recognise that Humanists UK have made alternative suggestions recently; while I can understand his frustration about progress, he will know that it is for the Government, not the Church, to make the ultimate judgment on whether and how the current system should be changed.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Crispin Blunt and Andrew Selous

Tuesday 19th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

7. What steps he is taking to provide relationship skills programmes for prisoners.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Crispin Blunt)]

Currently, commissioning services for offenders is devolved to directors of offender management in the regions and Wales. They are responsible for deciding what services they wish to commission to meet the needs of prisoners in their area. We are examining how reforms to the justice system could enable delivery of more programmes from a broader range of local providers of greater relevance to the many rehabilitation needs of offenders.

[Andrew Selous]

Given that there is a mass of academic evidence from the UK, the US and the Netherlands that strong family relationships reduce reoffending and, therefore, cost to the Minister’s Department, can I ask him to stress that in the Green Paper and when he and his colleagues speak to prison governors?

[Mr Blunt]

I tend to agree with my hon. Friend. We have to get to a position in which those people who are charged with the rehabilitation of offenders have a much freer hand to deliver the interventions that will be effective for the offender who is in their care. If we over-prescribe exactly what has to be done from the centre, we will have a much less effective system. That process will be central to the rehabilitation revolution of delegating responsibility and authority for these decisions to a local level.