Ecumenical Relations Measure Church of England (Miscellaneous Provisions) Measure Church Property Measure Church of England Pensions Measure

Karin Smyth Excerpts

Tuesday 11th December 2018 General Committees

[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie. I will not detain us for long either. I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for her explanation of the points that took the Committees more time to look over, and I appreciate the reassurances. I thank hon. Members who served on the Committees to bring the Measures to this Committee. An awful lot of work was involved tidying them up and bringing them up to current practice. The Measures are technical and complex, so it is important for there to be a degree of transparency around them, because they are important to the lives of people working and worshipping in the Church.

With regard to the Church Property Measure, I have mentioned before that these are really important assets to local communities and it is important that local communities are involved when property is disposed of and when new buildings are coming forth. I know that the work of the right hon. Lady and other hon. Members is cognisant of that, but it affects all our constituencies and the people in them. Equally, with regard to the Church of England Pensions Measure, when people put themselves forward for public service, it is important that they have some assurance about what will happen for them and their families when they no longer continue to work.

I thank everyone for the work they have done to date. Nothing stands out to us as particularly controversial at this stage. We welcome bringing outdated legislation up to date and anything that might improve the situation. No doubt hon. Members will want to talk about that further on the Floor of the House when the Measures come to it—whenever that may be.