Lords Spiritual (Women) Act 2015 (Extension) Bill [HL]

Earl of Devon Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 10th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Devon (CB)]

My Lords, it is an honour to speak on this short Bill, which seeks to extend by five years the period in which vacancies among our Lords spiritual are filled predominantly by female Bishops. I support the effort to increase the gender diversity of Lords spiritual and agree that we should seek to increase the diversity of this House more generally so that it better reflects the nation and allows a breadth of opinion to be brought to our legislative efforts.

I should note my own interests. I was a one-time Cambridge theologian, I am patron of a number of Anglican parishes in Devon, I am an irregular churchgoer and I am a member of a family with long clerical connections. We count many churchmen—and indeed, I can tell the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, that my research suggests a couple of churchwomen, including Adelicia, the foundress of Forde Abbey—in the family tree: there are Bishops of Norwich, London, Exeter and Winchester, and even an Archbishop of Canterbury, whose coat of arms as Richard II’s Chancellor appear just to the left of the Throne.

I thank the Convenor of the Lords Spiritual, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans, for his letter, which was received last night; the detail and background were instructive. Along with him, I wish to put on record my appreciation for the contributions of those female Lords spiritual who have made it into the House as a result of the provisions of the Lords Spiritual (Women) Act 2015, which we are extending with this Bill. The right reverend Prelate’s letter also provided helpful statistics, including the fact that 33% of ordained ministers were female in 2020—a number that I hope has increased since. I wonder whether the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby could confirm that.

I also agree with the right reverend Prelate’s sentiments when it comes to the number of female bishops as a whole. He states:

“it is my view that the overall number of women appointed as diocesan bishops since 2014 remains too low, and there is continuing work to do to rectify the longstanding historic imbalance”.

In considering this Bill, we should be provided with a better understanding of why the Church has not done more to promote female bishops since 2014. For example, it is notable that, of the five episcopal sees with automatic seats in this House—namely, Canterbury, York, London, Durham and Winchester—only one is currently held by a woman. It would be helpful to know what particular efforts the Church of England is making to ensure gender equality amongst its own leadership and what the barriers that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans references actually are.

I would be pleased if the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby could provide us with an update on that issue when she speaks. It should not be for Parliament to spare the Church of England’s blushes if it is not able to promote female leadership within its own ranks and of its own accord.

Secondly, while I support the efforts to increase gender equality within the Lords spiritual, this Bill does nothing necessarily to increase the diversity of thought or belief within our House. All bishops, be they male or female, as we have heard, will still be Anglican bishops and the voices of other religious faiths will be no louder as a result of this Bill. Do the Government, given their passion for Lords reform, have any plans to broaden the creed of those sitting in the spiritual seats of your Lordships’ House, or do they otherwise intend to increase the presence of non-Anglican Church leaders upon our red Benches?

On equality and diversity through Lords reform, it is obviously appropriate to increase female presence amongst the Lords spiritual. At the same time, the Government are undertaking other elements of reform that will result in better gender parity in this House. I refer to the Government’s ambition to abolish the remaining 92 hereditary Peers, all of whom, since the retirement of the great and noble Countess of Mar, are now male. Therefore, there is a hereditary Bench occupied only by men, which is unfortunate. This is a valid and very real criticism of the hereditary peerage, but it is the fault not of the hereditary Peers themselves but of the arcane rules of succession to which we are subject. Here I note my interests as an Earl of Devon.

For a number of years, I, along with honourable Members in the other place, have been seeking to introduce by way of a Private Member’s Bill a Bill to permit female succession to hereditary peerages, but we have been unsuccessful in our efforts to date. I am the youngest of four children, as was my father before me, and my grandfather was the only boy among six siblings. The law of succession to the Crown was changed without incident over a decade ago and, as we have heard, female bishops have been allowed since 2014. So at least two of the three feudal mainstays of our constitution, the Crown and the Church, have been permitted to embrace gender equality. It is therefore shocking that, in 2024, the heirs to hereditary titles remain subject to such explicit gender discrimination, both the eldest daughters, who might wish to inherit a title, and younger sons, who might have had something better to do with their lives.

It would appear to be grossly discriminatory of Parliament not to act upon this, leaving us to wallow unwillingly in patriarchy. Noble Lords may suggest that such a move would be a waste of time, given hereditary Peers’ impending abolition, but I am mindful that hereditary titles will retain some presence and status within Britain even after we are no longer active legislators, particularly in those parts of the country, often rural, which have retained a traditional social fabric—our much-loved rural parishes, for example, where the local baronet retains social and economic significance. I expect also that hereditary titles will long remain a fascination for popular culture, as a focus of fashion and social magazines, popular film and literature. If the Government can find legislative time to promote gender equality among the Lords spiritual, could it not also find time to change the rules for hereditary succession so that within a generation, half those titles would be held by females in their own right? It would be a lasting legacy upon which to depart your Lordships’ House.

I end by reiterating the importance of diversity to this Chamber and to our work, and regret that the abolition of a hereditary presence in Parliament will remove some notable diversity that is not found amongst Lords spiritual, nor among many of the appointed life Peers, who tend to be people of excellence either in politics or society more widely.

Recent hereditary additions to the Cross Benches have included a veterinary practice manager, an inner-city state schoolteacher, a nuclear engineer and even a modest American IP litigator, none of whom are necessarily leaders in their fields nor the most ambitious. They are here to serve, in the way their forebears have done for centuries, with neither fear nor favour. The irony of removing the purportedly elitist hereditary peerage is that we will lose some of the more normal and perhaps modest Members of your Lordships’ House. I hope the Government will reflect upon that.