Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill (Twenty Sixth sitting)

Greg Smith Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 20th October 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Rachael Maskell]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

New clause 47 raises quite a niche issue, but none the less an important one. The post office is long gone; the village shop has closed; the pub is now holiday lets. Some may not realise that the Church of England is currently looking to dispose of 356 churches. They were paid for and built by parishes and are now under threat. They are the very last community space, sucked out by the secularisation of society. The need for financial prudence over community value and a spiritual space within a community has never been more apparent. Having met with the Save the Parish campaign, I believe that these spaces are too important to just go to the market. Instead, parish churches and associated glebe land should be designated as land of community value.

[Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)]

I am curious as to why the hon. Lady is defining this as narrowly as parish churches. For example, a church in my constituency was never a parish church—it was attached to a mental health facility that has long closed—but it is just as architecturally beautiful and as much a piece of heritage as the nearby parish churches. There are many similar chapels out there; in many cases they were attached to hospitals or military facilities. They also add community value and need saving. Will the hon. Lady expand her scope to include those premises?

[Rachael Maskell]

I am incredibly grateful to the hon. Member for Buckingham for raising that issue. He is absolutely right; we need to look at the broadest possible scope. This particular issue has been raised within the Church of England, but he is right—there are many places of worship that should be marked as community assets.

When those assets are disposed of, communities should have a right to access them and bid for them, as we have discussed during previous stages of the Bill, rather than them going straight to market sale. That leaves communities devoid of any assets whatsoever. It is so important for communities to have the option to maintain an asset and use it for multiple purposes, including as a place of worship or as a place to serve the community.