Bishops in the House of Lords

Martin Docherty-Hughes Excerpts

Thursday 6th July 2023 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Selous]

The hon. Gentleman is right in that how a question is asked can determine the answer, but it was a free choice and plenty of people put down, “No faith”. In the last census, a majority of people in England and Wales declared a religious faith, and it is important to put that on the record.

The Church of England, as the established Church, takes its responsibility to uphold religious freedom for all extremely seriously. No one put this better than the late Queen. At Lambeth Palace in February 2012, she said:

“The concept of our established Church is occasionally misunderstood and, I believe, commonly under-appreciated. Its role is not to defend Anglicanism to the exclusion of other religions. Instead, the Church has a duty to protect the free practice of all faiths in this country.

It certainly provides an identity and spiritual dimension for its own many adherents. But also, gently and assuredly, the Church of England has created an environment for other faith communities and indeed people of no faith to live freely. Woven into the fabric of this country, the Church has helped to build a better society—more and more in active co-operation for the common good with those of other faiths.”

Those were wise words from Her late Majesty the Queen, and we would do very well to heed them 11 years after they were spoken.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)]

I thank the Second Church Estates Commissioner for the Church of England for giving way. The established Church of Scotland, which is really a national Church, not an established Church, takes its role of creating a better society very seriously—we can look at the role of the Committee on Church and Nation in the development of the Scottish Parliament—but it does not sit in an unelected Chamber to create a better society.

[Andrew Selous]

I accept that there are different arrangements in different nations around the world, but if the hon. Gentleman will bear with me as I develop my argument, he will understand why I am making it.

No other major denomination or faith argues for the removal of bishops from the House of Lords. In 2012, other faiths argued for their retention in evidence to the Joint Committee on the Draft House of Lords Reform Bill, which scrutinised the coalition Government’s Lords reform plans. Indeed, I have spoken to Muslims, for example, who would much rather live under a benign and welcoming established Christian Church of England. What they fear more is a sort of dominant secularism, which they think would cause problems for them as Muslims and for people of all faiths.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Andrew Selous]

I will give way once more to the hon. Gentleman, and then I will make a little progress.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes]

I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman seems to be touching on very dodgy ground. What is he trying to allude to here—if there is a Government led by a Muslim in this country—because there happens to be one in Scotland? And in London.

[Andrew Selous]

I did not deny that was the case. I am just pointing back to what actually happened when evidence was being taken by the relevant Bill Committee under the coalition Government for Lords reform. Other faiths argued for the retention of bishops in the Lords, and that is a matter of fact and is on the record.

I suspect that the intention of some Members present would not be to stop with the bishops. I think that some here would like to eradicate the whole footprint of the Church of England across their country. They are entitled to that view—I do not have a problem with that—but it is not a view that I agree with and share, and we argue these things out in this place.

Another important point is that the bishops—

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[Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)]

It is good to see you, Mr Davies, and solidarity to the Bishop of Salisbury. I might not think he should be sitting in the House of Lords, but the Christian message of love and charity should be heard loud and clear from pulpits across the length and breadth of these islands.

I am a doubting Thomas, as I said in the main Chamber the other week. In some ways I agree with the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle) when it comes to certain Members of the House of Lords. Some of us tried to raise the matter at Prime Minister’s questions last Wednesday, but I am afraid the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland failed to answer the question of whether he agrees with MI5 or with the former Prime Minister about that appointment.

I am going to speak as a Scottish constituency MP. There are 59 Members from Scotland. I have been looking at evidence in the House of Commons Library about the way in which bishops of the established Church of England have participated since 2013 in legislation that has not only affected England and Wales. I am mindful that the Anglican Church is disestablished in Wales and that the Kirk is the national/established Church in Scotland; there is the Episcopal Church, but it is not the national Church.

The bishops of the Church of England participated in 615 Divisions between July 2013 and July 2023, on 187 pieces of business. Parliamentary research has identified 22 pieces of business on Scotland, based on the subject index—basically, those that cover all of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. During those 22 pieces of business, 49 Divisions took place. Twenty-three bishops participated in 31 of those Divisions, casting 91 votes on 11 different pieces of business.

One of those Divisions was on the Scotland Act 2016, which was the then Government’s response to the referendum on Scottish independence, on which the bishops of the Church of England had more of a say than the 59 Members representing Scottish constituencies, no matter what party they belonged to. This is a matter of the constitution. The Second Church Estates Commissioner, the hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous), will perhaps correct me if I am wrong, but in 1919 the convocations of Canterbury and York agreed addresses to the King that sought greater opportunities for the Church of England to discuss its own affairs and to review the legislative role of Parliament. Up until 1919, it was Parliament that dictated the governance of the Church of England, which seems absolutely ridiculous.

The point I am making is that if it is acceptable for the Church of England to review its own processes and mostly remove itself from the parliamentary process, why is it participating in the governance of the other nations of the United Kingdom? Why is it participating on issues that relate to Scotland and Northern Ireland? I have heard the excuse that Churches in those areas have asked it to participate, but there is no Episcopal national Church in Scotland; it is the Kirk.

I come back to the point about the role of religion in politics. I think it is central, because if it were not for the Church and nation committee of the Kirk, the Parliament of Scotland would most likely not exist. It was the voice of the Scottish nation itself prior to devolution, and I am extremely grateful to the Kirk for doing that work. We also need to go back to issues relating to Ireland, because the Anglican Church there covers the entire island of Ireland. If I were a Unionist in the north of Ireland, I would be asking myself, “What has the Church of Ireland got to do with the governance of Presbyterian issues specific to Northern Ireland?” I say that as a doubting Thomas Catholic.

There is also the question of replacing the bishops in the Church of England or adding to the religious ethos of the upper Chamber. I need to be very clear that I do not believe in an unelected, unaccountable upper Chamber; during our time in the Union there needs to be total, sweeping reform and a new premise on which people are elected or appointed to that upper Chamber.

The idea is also sometimes raised—it has been raised here before—that we should ask other religious leaders, such as the Chief Rabbi or imams, to go into the upper House. I have even heard cardinal archbishops of the Roman Catholic Church suggested. That will not happen, because Roman Catholic clerics are prohibited by canon law from taking up elected office: if they do, they are removed from holy orders.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard) on reminding us that the constitution and the way in which governance happens is important. It comes down to all the other issues that the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark was talking about. I commend my hon. Friend and say to him that people like me will stand with him and continue to argue, with no personal animosity against the bishops of the Church of England, for the end of the House of Lords itself and for an elected upper Chamber to replace it.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Davies. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard) on securing the debate. My first email from a constituent asking me to participate in the debate was in February, so I congratulate Humanists UK on the effectiveness of its campaigning machinery and the passion of its members. I echo the thanks to the all-party group, and to the Backbench Business Committee for granting the debate.

My hon. Friends the Members for Edinburgh East and for West Dunbartonshire (Martin Docherty-Hughes) have a record of making interventions on the subject of the Lords Spiritual and Lords reform, and they have wide agreement among our SNP colleagues. Our position is clear: the House of Lords should be abolished. There is no place in a modern democracy for an unelected legislature, let alone one that grants membership to religious clerics as of right.

In 2005, I was proud to move the resolution at SNP conference that most recently confirmed our party’s long-held position that no SNP member would take a seat in the unelected House. It is important to be clear, as we were in the debate that I led from the Back Benches in January about reform of the Lords, that we hold the individuals concerned in the highest regard; nothing we say is meant with any personal disrespect or questioning of their sense of duty and commitment to the roles that they have accepted.

We can also appreciate the role of faith leaders more widely across society. In Westminster Hall we often have debates about the importance of freedom of religion and belief around the world, and we hear of many places where these rights are not respected, so we should be proud to live in a modern, pluralistic society where people can practise their faith and speak openly about their beliefs in the public square.

Faith communities continue to make up a significant proportion of our society, and it is right and proper that the leaders of those communities are accorded respect and, where appropriate, a voice in our national discourse. We need only look at the service in St Giles’ cathedral yesterday, where leaders from the Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist and humanist communities were invited to greet the monarch after he was presented with the Honours of Scotland. Our views on a constitutional monarchy notwithstanding, that gives an indication of the importance of faith and belief communities to our wider civic society. But providing that kind of representative role, having a platform in the media or being a statutory consultee on certain aspects of public or planning policy is very different from having an active role in a legislative Chamber of Parliament.

The unelected Chamber is already anomalous. The presence of bishops as ex officio members is more or less unique in western democracies; it is even more peculiar when we consider the special privileges accorded to the bishops in the House, which my hon. Friend the Member for West Dunbartonshire outlined. All that comes on top of the antiquated and essentially undemocratic role, and frankly existence, of the House of Lords itself. These points have been well made by my hon. Friends and do not need much more rehearsing.

Ironically, there are more people in the Lords than in the Commons who want the upper Chamber abolished or reformed, because so many Members of the Commons, particularly on the Government and official Opposition Benches, want to be appointed to the Lords at some point. That is why I concluded in my debate back in January—as the Lord Speaker concluded in his thoughtful intervention for the Hansard Society, and even Gordon Brown conceded in his latest weighty tome, which I think is already gathering dust on the shelves of the Leader of the Opposition—that the biggest barrier to reform of the Lords is that no meaningful reform of the Lords can be carried out without also reforming the Commons. And any meaningful reform of the Commons would mean taking power away from the Government. And no UK Government, of whatever colour, will readily give up that power.

Despite all the grand talk about parliamentary sovereignty, the House of Commons is essentially a plaything for the Government of the day. The Government set the agenda, control the time, and control the standing orders and rulebook, no matter what myths and conventions say otherwise. An elected Lords would challenge the primacy of the Commons. A cap on the size of the Lords would limit the powers of patronage held by the Prime Minister. The removal of the bishops would call into question the relationship between Church and state, meaning the relationship between the Church and Crown.

The Crown in Parliament and the royal prerogative are the Government’s free hand to wield Executive authority. No matter what nice words the Government use to dress up how much they value the House of Lords and appreciate the work of the bishops, the reality is that any tinkering at the edges or pulling on the thread of the UK’s constitutional tapestry risks unravelling the whole thing—and no UK Government would want to do that.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Patrick Grady]

Apologies, Mr Davies. I was pretty much finishing, but I will hear from my hon. Friend the Member for West Dunbartonshire.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes]

My hon. Friend was talking about the issue of establishment and the role of Church and state. The Cecil Committee in 1935 was very clear

“that a complete spiritual freedom of the Church is not incompatible with Establishment.”

Does my hon. Friend agree with the Cecil Committee?

[Patrick Grady]

My hon. Friend is right. The points about the establishment of the Church of England have been well made. The point that I am trying to make is that we cannot unpick. This is the nature of the UK constitution, such as it is. Everything is so tightly interwoven that if we start picking at one part, the whole thing will fall apart. That is not in the interests of the Government, because the point of the UK constitution is to give the Government as much unlimited and unchallenged power as possible while retaining the pretence of democracy. The alternative to that, for the people of Scotland, is for us to vote to become independent.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Norris]

The hon. Gentleman tempts me to read the future. I am afraid that I will disappoint him. We have not finished our process of policymaking. The Government are hiding from the public—it seems like they intend to do that for a long time, and we understand why—but if the hon. Gentleman wishes for a quicker answer, he can give the public what they want, which is their chance to have their say on his Government.

Another issue that is hugely important for what we can do now and today—I hope to hear a little from the Minister on it—is that we know that our communities want greater power and control over their lives. A very important and significant degree of consensus has emerged across the political parties, and across the Chambers, over greater regional devolution. At the moment, we have an asymmetric settlement whereby some are in and some are out, and I hope to hear from the Minister his desire to improve and to move at a quicker pace on that. I depart from the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady), the Front Bencher for the Scottish nationalists, in that it is not my goal to hoard power in this place so that I might one day get a chance to sit where the Minister does and get all those nice levers to pull. That is not my desire in politics at all. I am here for devolution. I am here because I want to put the tools and resources into my community so that local leaders can shape our economy, shape our place and make it somewhere where everybody has access to the best opportunities.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving way on the issue of decision making. The 23 Anglican bishops who sit in the upper House have no moral or theological authority in Scotland, so why are they participating in laws that impact Scotland and also Northern Ireland?

[Alex Norris]

The hon. Gentleman reiterates the point that he made earlier, with great gusto. It will be heard, and it has contributed to the debate. I think that that is an important question that needs to be resolved, but the point I am making is that we have to resolve this in the round. I do not think that a debate such as the one we are having today, which takes a granular look at the issue, serves the bigger picture.

I will conclude on that point. We have a constitutional settlement that has evolved over centuries, as we have heard, and with that come things that, if we were sitting down afresh, we would not design in the same way. It behoves all of us, as custodians of this place, to renew and refresh these things, but doing that in the round and doing it with the public, rather than to the public, have to be the strongest principles.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Alex Burghart)]

It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I congratulate the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard) both on initiating the debate and on the manner in which he spoke, which was non-partisan and direct to his point. Despite what I will say in the debate, I have the greatest respect for the humanists in the United Kingdom. I respect their values and the work they do. I know that there are members of the hon. Gentleman’s APPG on both sides of the House, because this is an issue that cuts across party lines, as we have seen this afternoon.

The hon. Gentleman was right in saying that we ought to be having these constitutional debates. We ought to have them in every generation. We have had them in many generations, certainly over the past 400 years. In Cromwell’s day, the bishops were removed from the House of Lords, to be brought back under the Restoration 20 years later. In the 1840s, there was a groundswell of movement to disestablish the Church of England; that then faded away. Gladstone started off as an ardent supporter of the established Church, only to change his position 20 years later, based on what he had seen in Ireland. In around 1929, the Church of England itself toyed with the idea of disestablishment, in response to the Houses of Parliament having voted down its Book of Common Prayer, which Parliament deemed to be too Catholic in its tastes. Therefore, this is a debate that we have had over and over again, and it is right that we should return to it, because nothing in the British constitutional system is automatically eternal. The case has to be made again and again for the way in which we do things. And, over time, things have changed.

[Mr Virendra Sharma in the Chair]

The hon. Gentleman referred to the pre-democratic feudal past, from which the Church emerged. Indeed it did. The Church in his country, his nation—Scotland—and in mine is older than the kingdom of Scotland; it is older than the kingdom of England. There were priests and churches before there was a king of all Scotland or a king of all England. I urge him not to be totally down on the pre-democratic feudal past. It was that past that also gave us Parliaments, law, the jury system, currency, local government and many other things. Not everything that emerges from that time is inherently bad—I used to be a teacher of medieval history.

The question that we are addressing is, how strong is the case for change? I was particularly drawn to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) about priorities. I will disappoint the hon. Member for Edinburgh East when I say that I have not come to Westminster Hall to announce that it is Government policy to disestablish the Church of England. The hon. Member will recognise that, although some people feel very strongly about this subject, their numbers are quite small, the challenges the country faces are very great and the time before the next general election is increasingly short. So this issue is not something the Government will be engaging in—certainly not in this Parliament.

The hon. Member for Edinburgh East rather cheekily raised the parallel with Iran. I say “cheekily” because, although I would share his concerns if the Archbishop of Canterbury controlled the BBC, the courts, the military and the selection of MPs, that is not the case in the United Kingdom.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes]

I will ask the same question that I asked the spokesperson for the official Opposition. The 23 bishops of the Anglican Church sitting in the upper House have no moral or theological authority in Scotland, Northern Ireland or, indeed, Wales. Does the Minister think they should participate in legislation that impacts those three nations of the Union?

[Alex Burghart]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for the point, which he has made several times in the debate. The truth is that we remain the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It remains the case that we have, on certain issues, a Westminster Parliament, which has an upper and a lower House. Members of the upper House are entitled to vote, just as, I might add, Members of the SNP are entitled to vote on certain issues that affect only England, and I have observed them so doing on a number of occasions. I know that the hon. Gentleman wishes not to recognise the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. However, the people of his country chose otherwise in a once-in-a-generation referendum.

While we are on the subject, I have heard the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) say a couple of times that the SNP will have nothing to do with the unelected House of Lords. That is the SNP’s prerogative, and the SNP is entitled to take that position, but I do think there is something rather sad about it, because the people of Scotland chose to stay in the United Kingdom, and the House of Lords remains part of the constitution of this kingdom. The SNP has deliberately chosen not to represent its views in the upper House, and that is unfortunate; it is a narrow view that is depriving SNP voters in Scotland of a say in the upper Chamber.

[Alex Burghart]

The hon. Gentleman specialises in jokes of poor taste. The Government certainly do not seek to gag bishops in any way. I take the view that I think he takes, which is that Members of the House of Lords should be free to talk about any issue that comes before them—even when I disagree with them. Obviously, my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder) takes a different view on that. I think it is important that people who sit in the Lords can speak their minds on any issue that comes before that House.

The hon. Member for Edinburgh East raised points about how there was special pleading for the bishops in the Lords in one or two areas on privileges. As my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire pointed out, while there is a custom and a convention, these are not rules. Indeed, the customs and conventions are often more honoured in the breach than the observance.

The hon. Member for Edinburgh East mentioned party blocs. Again, what he said is not quite the case. Bishops are not consulted as a party bloc on new legislation before it is tabled, they are not recognised by officials as a party grouping and nor do they get a separate meeting with the Bill makers. That argument does not quite work.

On the code of conduct, although it is true that there is a slightly different code of conduct for bishops, that is also the case for Ministers of the Crown and Members who are employees of non-departmental public bodies. I do not quite follow the hon. Gentleman’s arguments there.

The hon. Gentleman talked, quite rightly, about how the social mores of society have changed, and they have. The position of the bishops has also changed over time. The arguments he will hear bishops advocate today are very different from those he would have heard 50 or 100 years ago. Do bishops today reflect society? I think the hon. Gentleman said 14% of people in the United Kingdom are Anglicans. Only 3% of the Members of the House of Lords are Anglican bishops. If one wanted to go down that route—I am not encouraging anyone to so do—one would say that the Anglicans were under-represented.

I know that the point the hon. Gentleman was actually making was a serious one about the ex officio status of Members of the House of Lords. Going forward, that is fertile ground for discussion, and I thought we were in the foothills of that serious discussion. However, the hon. Member for Glasgow North chose to make this a bigger debate about the House of Lords in totality, and he and I have had that debate a couple of times.

I was trying to tease out SNP Members’ position on an upper Chamber, should they get independence. I think I got three different answers. The hon. Member for Edinburgh East said that that will be decided as and when; the hon. Member for Glasgow North said we should abolish the upper House; and the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire said he would like to see an elected upper Chamber—

[Martin Docherty-Hughes]

Here.

[Alex Burghart]

The hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire says from a sedentary position that he would like to see an elected upper Chamber here. Let us address that point. From the Conservative party’s perspective, the problem with an elected upper Chamber is that all the experience that people bring to the House of Lords—people who do not wish to be part of a political group and who have perhaps come to a stage in their career where they do not want to stand for election—would be lost. That would be a terrible shame, very much to the detriment of democracy in this country. A challenging and revising Chamber needs to be a Chamber of all the talents. The best way to get that is by having the system we currently have and making sure that people who would ordinarily not find their way into an elected House can have a stake and a place in our democracy.

Mr Sharma, I think the hon. Member for Edinburgh East would like to say a few words to sum up, so I will sit down.