Oral Answers to Questions

Neil Hudson Excerpts

Thursday 9th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

As I said, the Minister for Farming, Fisheries and Food did visit and she held meetings with farmers to discuss their concerns. I have had raised with me issues such as damage to fencing and some of the problems that has caused for farmers. I know that my colleagues in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy have been working hard on the key issue of power disruption.

[Dr Neil Hudson (Penrith and The Border) (Con)]

T2. It is so important that we uphold our high animal welfare and food production standards not only in international trade deals but in our domestic public sector food procurement. The Government buying standards for food and catering services currently still provide an exemption from meeting the standards if that would increase costs. Will my right hon. Friend update the House on when the Government will close this glaring loophole, as we on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee have recommended?

[George Eustice]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question and for his passion for campaigning on these issues. We have made a number of improvements to Government procurement over the years, including introducing the so-called balanced scorecard some five years ago. There is more that can be done, and I will certainly look in great detail at this particular proposal that has come from him and the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

The hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire, representing the Church Commissioners was asked—

[Dr Neil Hudson (Penrith and The Border) (Con)]

3. What proposals the Church of England has to put the maintenance of churches and cathedrals on a sustainable basis.

[The Second Church Estates Commissioner (Andrew Selous)]

The Church of England is very grateful for the generosity of congregations and local communities for the upkeep of its buildings, as it is to the Government for the recent £54 million of culture recovery funding, which included £20 million for capital repairs. However, putting repair and maintenance funding on a stable footing is essential if the Church is to continue contributing about £50 billion a year to national wellbeing, as calculated by the Treasury’s Green Book methodology. Past partnerships between Government and the Church have been very helpful in this regard, and with levelling up this opportunity is even greater.

[Dr Hudson]

I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. Churches in rural communities face challenges of small and sometimes decreasing congregations, significant upkeep of old buildings, and, often, being in a group of churches under a common minister. These churches are at the heart of our rural communities and play such an important role for the people in those communities. What is the Church doing to support the long-term survival of small rural churches?

[Andrew Selous]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this issue; he is absolutely right to do so. Our rural churches are a precious part of the Church of England, and we are looking at various options for small rural churches that could include, for example, new insurance and maintenance partnerships to remove some of the bureaucracy from priests and churchwardens while, very importantly, retaining local ownership. We are committed to a thriving rural ministry to attract the congregations to be able to sustain these churches into the future.