English Cathedrals

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Thursday 28th June 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend very sincerely on obtaining this debate, and I am delighted and humbled to take part. By comparison with him, I am a very ordinary Anglican. I am particularly grateful to be able to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, because she has led the English Heritage programme, not just in this field, of course, but in other fields, with great success and distinction. There is wide appreciation, which I share, of the fact that English cathedrals have an historical and continuing role not only as centres for active Christianity in our communities but as great historic buildings of wide architectural and cultural significance.

If I have any right to speak in this debate, it is as a failed architect. I had to draw cathedrals as a student and then went on to be a senior member of the RIBA staff. More importantly, as an ordinary man in the pew, I have had the most extraordinary experiences in various cathedrals. I witnessed the ordination of my two brothers in Guildford and Wells Cathedrals—an interesting contrast there. I remember taking my mother, who lost two of her much beloved elder brothers in the First World War, to a performance of the “War Requiem” in Exeter Cathedral, which was both a great cultural and religious occasion and very moving for both of us. As a humble Anglican, I witnessed a great movement forward when seven women priests were ordained in Truro Cathedral.

My only family connection with your Lordships’ House is my ancestor Bishop Jonathan Trelawny, who was one of the seven bishops who were arraigned for seditious libel and acquitted in Westminster Hall in 1688 and then triggered the Glorious Revolution. He was described by James II as the most saucy of them all. I have suggested to my family that that might be an epitaph when I go. His picture is in the Peers’ Guest Room in the House. He is the one with the Beatles haircut at the far end.

Previously, during the Reformation—I am also a failed historian—Thomas Cromwell persuaded Henry VIII that he could legitimise the nationalisation of the church, its cathedrals and its wealth, removing its temporal power and so making it concentrate on the spiritual needs of the nation. It may be thought from the theme of this debate that there are those who think it is now payback time. I do not believe that that is true, but nevertheless think that it is right for Parliament to take a real responsibility for the future of this great heritage.

There are some important dilemmas for both the church and Parliament. Our established church is the established church only for England, as is apparent from the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Cormack. As a good unionist, I think that those who represent other parts of the United Kingdom may have a legitimate reason for expressing some concern about the treatment of the heritage of the different denominations and the different churches. As my noble friend said earlier, the cathedrals belong to us all, but there may be some queries as to who “all” is in that respect.

That is not, however, the big dilemma for either the church or the Government, because the cathedrals are an important part of our heritage. Yet I as an Anglican and the church itself are proud of the independence of the church from the state. We believe, I think rightly, that faith should be an important part of our national life but should not be nationalised by the lay state, the whole body politic of which has to be strictly faith-neutral. Yet the church is rightly looking for recognition of its role in conserving priceless parts of our cultural and physical heritage, as both my noble friend and the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, have been saying.

My noble friend referred to the French situation. I do not think that any of us want to emulate that. That is the wrong way to go. The noble Lord’s French history is better than mine, as I know to my cost, but I think that the French situation goes back to Napoleon, who wanted to separate dramatically the state from the church. There is no established church in France, yet there the state recognises its responsibility to its national heritage and therefore its major contribution to the maintenance and conservation of all the French cathedrals.

As has already been said, there is the important issue of the Government’s and therefore Parliament’s treatment of financial support for conservation. The noble Baroness referred, as did my noble friend, to the VAT situation. I will spend only a couple of minutes on that to avoid repetition and to keep within my time limit. The VAT treatment of historic buildings, not exclusively cathedrals, is a sorry saga that goes back many years. In the excellent briefing from the Lords Library on the future of English cathedrals, there are no less than 16 pages of updates on the treatment of VAT on historic buildings, particularly churches and cathedrals. The end of the brief from the House of Commons Library says of the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme, which is how the Government have sought to square the circle of reducing the exemptions and then having to pay by other means:

“Further details on how the extended scheme will operate will be published shortly”.

The confusion and lack of clarity continue to this day, even weeks after the 2012 Budget, when it was thought that this situation would be clarified and improved.

From my discussions with members of the chapters of various cathedrals I know that they are looking principally for clarity at the moment. On this issue and others, we are often told that we are all in it together. Yes, in a period of austerity it is difficult to find new resources, but the very simplicity or otherwise of such schemes as the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme is having a very disturbing effect on the chapters and on other organisations responsible for historic buildings, not least some of the great parish churches, which are having an equally difficult time and with which I have also been in contact.

I hope that this will not be thought to be so politically correct as to be incorrect in your Lordships’ House, but I welcome the fact that we now see some women being promoted into the responsible positions in the chapters of our cathedrals. They bring new life, approaches and, perhaps, intuition to managing the very difficult situation that many of the chapters face.

The Church of England and those responsible for many other historic and religious buildings deserve from Parliament at least an improvement in the clarity and speed with which decisions are taken by the Government. In that respect at least, I hope my noble friend’s debate today will draw the attention of the Government and my noble friend on the Front Bench to the anxiety that many of us in many parts of the United Kingdom feel. We deserve to do better by those who are responsible for such an important part of our cultural, architectural and religious heritage.