Draft Grants to the Churches Conservation Trust order 2021

Nigel Huddleston Excerpts

Tuesday 16th March 2021 General Committees

[The Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty's Treasury (Michael Tomlinson)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Grants to the Churches Conservation Trust Order 2021.

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher, for my first contribution from the Front Bench.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Nigel Huddleston)]

I thank you, Sir Christopher, and my colleague from the Front Bench for helping out at the start of the sitting. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship.

The order is required so that the Government may continue to provide funding for the Churches Conservation Trust. The trust takes into its care some of the most magnificent examples of our churches that are no longer required for regular worship. All these churches are listed; they are mostly grade I and grade II*, and some are also scheduled ancient monuments. Historic places of worship are a valuable and vital part of the nation’s heritage. About 45% of all grade I listed buildings are Church of England churches or cathedrals. They are some of the finest examples of our historic buildings and showcase the most accomplished design and workmanship.

The Churches Conservation Trust currently cares for more than 350 churches in towns, villages and cities across England. They range from small hidden treasures to grand Victorian buildings. The churches that the trust has saved are some of the finest examples of architecture and craftsmanship, spanning over 1,000 years of our history. The trust keeps these buildings open to the public and does not charge an entry fee, believing that historic churches are buildings that belong to everybody and to their local communities.

The Churches Conservation Trust is a charity and was established by ecclesiastical legislation in 1969 as the Redundant Churches Fund, aimed at protecting an essential part of our heritage. It demonstrates a successful partnership between the Church, Government and community. In 2019-20, the Government made up 31% of the trust’s overall funding; the figure was down from 35% in 2017-18. The CCT raised the rest of its income from other sources.

The trust’s recent strategy has been to invest in staff to create an infrastructure to support local communities to use and love their historic church buildings. This infrastructure provides community support, learning, fundraising, conservation and maintenance expertise, and major project support, as well as funding.

The trust has increasingly made use of its statutory grant to raise new income from other sources, such as donations, legacies and grant-giving foundations. Among its many initiatives, champing—church camping, Sir Christopher; that was a new one on me as well—is a scheme offering overnight stays in historic places of worship. This is extremely popular. The scheme began in 2015 and has continued to thrive, even in the 2020 season, as there is now greater emphasis on UK breaks. Champing is a successful social distancing holiday option. It has so far proved to be a good income stream and will be again, I am sure, when restrictions allow.

Filming has also been an important contributor to the diversification of the CCT’s income streams. It offers another creative route to supporting and conserving the estate. In the last year, the organisation has facilitated film and TV productions from the BBC, Sky, HBO and Netflix across its sites. While the country continues to recover from the impact of covid-19, there remains the potential to attract more film and TV production to the CCT estate.

Over the last three years, the trust has earned an income of about £1.4 million from consultancy, champing and the maintenance business. The trust’s people are award-winning experts in conservation when it comes to regenerating historic churches for new uses. The organisation has an international reputation for innovation in the field of historic church buildings. Consultancy work is a positive income stream for the trust, working on projects with dioceses, churches and community groups, as well as a new maintenance business initiative.

The impact of covid-19 has meant that the Churches Conservation Trust has been unable to open its buildings at the very time of year when most of its activity takes place. Therefore, in common with many other parts of the sector, the trust has experienced a considerable loss of income throughout the lockdowns. Although the trust has been able to manage pared-down, basic care of its buildings, we need to ensure that it can continue to thrive and to protect them. During the pandemic, membership of the trust has grown, predominantly through the Thursday lunchtime lecture series, which has attracted more than 200,000 viewers to date. It has also created an online community of interest in the work of the CCT.

Sadly, the trust has been affected in other ways during the pandemic. An illegal rave, for example, took place in All Saints’ in East Horndon in Essex, causing damage to the grade II* listed 15th-century church. However, after a public appeal was made to raise £2,000 to clean and repair the damage, the community far and wide raised an incredible £22,000, which is testimony to the support the trust has from the wider public.

The trust has saved nine additional churches of exceptional merit for the nation since 2016, with more in the pipeline. The trust’s primary objective and the greatest call on its funds is the conservation of its churches, particularly upon initial vesting when buildings may have been out of use for a number of years. I am pleased to say that the trust has an excellent reputation for quality in its conservation work. In 2015, the CCT won one of the European Heritage Awards/Europa Nostra Awards in recognition of its role in protecting the architectural significance of historic places of worship and their essential function as centres of community life. The work, and also the expense, does not end there.

With an estate of more than 350 buildings serving their communities, there is a rolling programme of repairs and new facilities across the estate. Between 2019 and 2020, 1.74 million people visited a Churches Conservation Trust church. The trust’s churches are run by 1,800 volunteers and I offer my sincere thanks to those people without whom the churches could not hold such diverse events. The trust has shown that it is excellent at partnership working and at the forefront of saving buildings by looking well beyond the traditional heritage solutions. I am aware, also, that the trust is lending its expertise in the development and delivery of workshops on caring for historic places of worship as part of the £1.8 million Taylor pilot scheme, set up and funded by the Government to help build a sustainable future for listed places of worship. I take this opportunity to thank the trust for that support.

I am extremely fortunate to have three Churches Conservation Trust churches in my constituency: All Saints’ Church in Spetchley, St Michael’s Church in Churchill and St Lawrence’s Church in Evesham. That means I have more than my fair share of CCT churches. These historic buildings remind us of communities of old. They anchor us to our history in a way that we should never take for granted and, indeed, which other countries rightly envy. To close, I hope the Committee shares my enthusiasm for the work of the trust and the key role that it plays in preserving and promoting a vital aspect of our nation’s heritage, and that it will consent to approve the draft Grants to the Churches Conservation Trust Order 2021, as the Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty's Treasury, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson), proposed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nigel Huddleston]

I thank all hon. Members for their contributions and their positive words about the work of the trust. In particular, I thank the Second Church Estates Commissioner, my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous). We go back quite a long way, to an election in Luton South back in the general election in 2010, which I can assure hon. Members is an experience I will never forget. I thank him in particular for his role as Second Church Estates Commissioner, a role which he fulfils incredibly gracefully and effectively. I thank him for all the work that he does.

I also thank my opposite number, the hon. Member for Leeds North West. We share a great deal of passion for all things culture and heritage. I take the comments he made on board very seriously. He probably does recognise and acknowledge that we are trying to do what we can to support the heritage sector. In recent difficult times, the culture recovery fund has been hugely beneficial and much needed for the sector. I mentioned the Taylor review in my speech as well; he also mentioned several other issues, including the importance of skills, as indeed did my hon. Friend the Second Church Estates Commissioner. It is important that we do not just save the buildings, but also the jobs and the skills that go with them—skills that we could all too easily lose if we do not focus on that.

The hon. Member for Leeds North West also asked how effectively the money is spent. I assure him that I and my officials hold regular meetings with the CCT, both independently and jointly with the Church Commissioners who fund the CCT, to discuss its strategy, the maintenance of buildings, new acquisitions and so on. In addition, the CCT presents its annual report and accounts to the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, where they are examined before being laid each year before the House. The Secretary of State also holds the CCT to account through a funding agreement, which sets out his priorities, along with the indicators that are used to measure the performance. We have mechanisms in place that ensure that the money is spent effectively, but with consensus and agreement.

I extend my grateful thanks to the trustees under the leadership of Peter Ainsworth, to the staff and to the many volunteers who ensure that the churches are open and welcoming. I have highlighted some of the programmes put in place by the Churches Conservation Trust to generate independent income from philanthropic endeavours and appropriate commercial use of buildings. We fully support those endeavours, which increase the use of the buildings in a way that anchors them even more firmly in the local communities that love them and use them. They increase access, increase use and reduce their dependence on public funds. That is the future for how these historic buildings will continue to thrive: through the commitment and dedication of the people involved and the communities that love and use them.

Question put and agreed to.