Bishops and Priests (Consecration and Ordination of Women) Measure

Susan Elan Jones Excerpts

Monday 20th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

It was an extraordinary Synod of the English Church, taking place as it did on a site of two religious communities—one of men and the other of women—both of which were headed by a female abbess. I am talking not about last summer’s General Synod of the Church of England or even any English Church Synod over the past 1,000 years, but about the 7th century and Abbess Hilda of Whitby.

As we have this debate today, we have to reflect on the leadership of women—some ordained and some lay—in our parishes around England, Wales and other parts of the United Kingdom. Today also provides us with a moment to reflect on those who have served in ministries in many different capacities, but whose undoubted vocation was never recognised through the institutional structures of the Church. I think it was the French philosopher Pascal who once said that God made man in his own image, and man returned the compliment. That has been true in the ecclesiastical structures in this country.

You will know, Mr Deputy Speaker, that I am not English, and I am also not much of a sports watcher. But in the words of a 1990s football song, what we are seeing is the English Church coming home, and we are all the richer for it.

I think it was in 1989 when the first female bishops in the Anglican communion were consecrated in New Zealand. We have had a bit of a wait in this country. The Church in Wales decided to support women bishops last year. Interestingly, as we have the debate about alternative episcopal oversight, it is worth looking at the model that the Church in Wales has taken, which does not go down the flying bishop route. However, such an issue requires a much wider discussion.

I was really heartened by what our Second Church Estates Commissioner said on the subject of the Lords Spiritual and how the process is likely to be accelerated. My right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) has made the point many times that if the change does not come down the route of the Church, then it is only right that it comes down a different route, and I hope that that will happen.

The one thing that separates the Church of England from the Church in Wales is the fact that the Church of England is an established church. Most of us laboured under the misapprehension that the Church in Wales was disestablished, but when we had the debate on equal marriage we discovered that what we thought had happened in 1920 had not really happened. Perhaps we can finish off the job before it reaches its centenary.

As long as we have people who are not elected in the second Chamber, I can accept that representatives of the established church should probably be there, but what I cannot accept is an all-male Bench of bishops. I am heartened by what has been said this evening, and I very much hope it happens. Let us see today as that great moment of celebration—of women celebrating their vocation and making our lives all the richer for it.