Bishops in the House of Lords

Tommy Sheppard Excerpts

Thursday 6th July 2023 Westminster Hall

[Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of bishops in the House of Lords.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Davies. Some people, perhaps including members of my party, might wonder why a member of the SNP has secured a debate on the House of Lords, so I want to make it clear from the outset that my principal role here today is as co-chair of the all-party parliamentary humanist group, which comprises more than 150 Members of both Houses and has representatives from all the main political parties. I moved the motion in that capacity.

[Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)]

As secretary of the same group, I congratulate the hon. Member on securing this debate, which is not only overdue, but timely: as he knows, yesterday in the Lords, there were amendments to the Government’s legislation. I suspect he agrees with the principle of those amendments—he and I differ on that—and he probably agrees with me that the archbishop who tabled them is a very distinguished Member of that House, but does he share my sense of unease about somebody who has not been elected or appointed, and who is merely in the Lords in his capacity as a bishop, potentially changing the law of this country?

[Tommy Sheppard]

Absolutely, and that goes to the core of the argument I am about to make, but I start by thanking all the members of the all-party humanist group, many of whom wanted to participate in this debate but could not make it today. I say that so that the public watching know that the interest in this question in Parliament is much wider than they might think from the number of people able to make it here on a Thursday afternoon. I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I place on the record my thanks to Humanists UK, which supports our group in Parliament, for the work that it has done, particularly with our patron, Sandi Toksvig, in trying to raise the debate more generally among the press and public.

There are only two countries in the world where clerics are automatically guaranteed a place in the legislature. One is the United Kingdom, and the other is the Islamic Republic of Iran. The question before us is whether we wish to be able to make that same comparison in future.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

The hon. Member is broadly accurate, but I am sure he would want to be complete in what he says. They might be small jurisdictions, but the Tynwald, which is older than this Parliament, last month reinstated the cleric who sits in that Parliament. Also, the Dean of Jersey is a member of the States Assembly in Jersey. I say that for completeness. Within these islands, what happens here is not unique.

[Tommy Sheppard]

I am talking about national Parliaments and legislatures, so it is only the United Kingdom and Iran to which this applies. The question before us is about an arrangement made in pre-democratic, feudal times, under which the Church of England is, at the heart of our constitution, guaranteed automatic representation. Does that have public legitimacy in the 21st century, in a country that aspires to be open and democratic, and in which a clear majority of citizens do not identify with that Church? Is it appropriate that we should continue with that? I submit that it is not.

[Aaron Bell]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving way again. I apologise for intervening, but I have to leave for a Bill Committee in a moment and I want to get these points on the record; I am grateful to him for letting me. Does he agree that there is a way in which religious people could be represented in the Lords, and indeed are already? We already put the Chief Rabbi and the Chief Iman into the Lords through appointments. If we are to continue to have an appointed Lords—opinions differ in this place on that—people in the Church of England could be appointed to the Lords in the same way. It just should not happen as of right.

[Tommy Sheppard]

Absolutely. The hon. Member again pre-empts what I will say. I shall come on to that, because I want to be clear that I am not suggesting that people of faith, or faith leaders, should not play a major role in our public life and public discourse and be representatives in Parliament. What we are concerned about here is the automatic right of one Church—one institution—to a privileged position and guaranteed representation at the heart of power.

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Member for securing this debate, and for his really good speech. The UK is an increasingly diverse place when it comes to religion and belief. I speak as a humanist —I declare that as an interest. That is my belief, but I champion the rights of all religions and beliefs. On the point about one particular branch of one particular belief being represented, does he agree that that is not really where we should be in a pluralistic society?

[Tommy Sheppard]

I do; again, the hon. Lady pre-empts what I will say. I am coming on to exactly that point. However, I wanted to say, just in case anyone thinks otherwise, that we are not talking about a ceremonial arrangement; there is nothing cosmetic or decorative about the situation of the bishops in the House of Lords. We are talking about real, effective, political power. The bishops vote on matters in the legislature, and there are plenty of occasions when their votes have been decisive. It does not really matter—in answer to the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Aaron Bell)—whether I agree or disagree with the position that a bishop takes in any vote; the question is whether they should have an automatic right to that vote.

Generally, of course, the bishops’ influence is what one might call socially conservative, particularly when it comes to controversial and passionate arguments about equalities, same-sex marriage, assisted dying and many other issues that have a moral dimension. That element of the legislature tends to create an in-built conservative majority, which places the legislature and Parliament at odds with the attitudes of the general public.

Also, of course, in the House of Lords, the bishops are effectively a group. They have their own chair, and they are treated as a political party, in terms of the information and consultation that they get on the framing of legislation. Some people probably do not know that they even have priority and privilege over other Members of the House of Lords. By convention and protocol, when a bishop stands up to speak, whoever is speaking must shut up, sit down and give way, whereas in the House of Commons, a speaker has discretion to decide whether to take an intervention. That is not the protocol in the House of Lords.

[Andrew Selous]

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is right in saying that the bishops have that right, but if he observes debates in the Lords, he will find that the bishops are very generous and gracious in giving way to other speakers. It may be a right that they have, and he may be right that it is old-fashioned—I would perhaps agree with him on that—but in practice, I think he will find that the bishops are generous and gracious about having their arguments and points tested in debate.

[Tommy Sheppard]

But there are plenty of occasions when it has happened, much to the chagrin of Members of the House of Lords who contributed to the Humanist Society’s report on the matter.

The final thing that I want to say about the way that the bishops operate is that the code of conduct in the House of Lords, and particularly its strictures on conflicts of interest, does not apply to the Lords Spiritual. In effect, it is accepted that they would not have a conflict of interest, or if they did, that it should be ignored. In effect, one Church—the Church of England—has 26 paid professional advocates, right at the heart of the constitutional arrangements of this country, who are there to protect and advance the interests of that institution. That gives the Church of England an unfair advantage in this democratic system.

In preparing for this debate, I looked at what happened in deep history, because the relationship between Church and state, and the history of bishops in the Lords, is very old. I read about a controversy in the time of Richard II, centuries before the country that I represent in this place was even part of governance arrangements. At that time, a majority of Members of the legislature were Church representatives. In fairness, no one would claim that was democratic, but a bunch of people took decisions, and the majority of them were representatives of the Church.

That changed with the dissolution of the monasteries, after which Church representatives became a minority in the upper Chamber, and in 1847 the number of bishops in the House of Lords was capped at 26. The situation has not been reviewed since. Some on the conservative side of the argument will say that the fact that the arrangement is so old is reason in itself to protect and not challenge it, but we are talking about our democratic constitution; it is not good enough to leave untouched and unreviewed an arrangement that is so obviously out of touch with our times.

The time is right for a review. We first need to identify the mores, attitudes and norms of the society in which we live and which our Parliament is meant to govern. Everyone will admit that they have changed remarkably, even in our lifetime. In the 1950s, one might have been able to describe England or Scotland as a Christian country, but that is no longer the case. In the last British social attitudes survey, 52% of the population identified themselves as non-religious, and a further 9% did not answer the question, so the number of people who identify as religious is getting towards a third of the population these days. Within that, only 12% of people say that they identify with the Church of England—and the Church says that only 1% of the population are active in the Church, in the sense of attending services and being part of it in any normal sense. Clearly, there is a great disjunction between the type of country we are and whether the Church should continue to have this privileged and separate representation at the heart of our constitution.

I am not saying—I repeat this point—that it is wrong for people of faith to be involved in our public life and public discourse, and to be representatives in Parliament. I am saying, however, that it is clearly wrong that one Church and one institution in our country has guaranteed and automatic representation at the heart of our governing arrangements. After all, we do not apply that to any other section of society. We do not say that university vice-chancellors, representatives of the royal colleges of medicine or any other part of society should appoint Members to the House of Lords, and we certainly do not say that any other Church or religious group should, so why is this anomaly allowed to persist?

In this debate, we will necessarily engage with the wider context, on two fronts. First, we will invariably get into a debate about the general role of Church and state, and whether the time has come to disestablish the Church of England and have a proper separation of powers, so that we have secular arrangements for our governance. Some time ago, there were plenty of examples of established Churches—indeed, the Anglican Church was established in many other countries—but over time disestablishment has taken place, and I submit that it has been to the benefit of both Church and state. Demonstrably, the state has continued to be there, without being subject to partisan interests, and the Church has been freed from the responsibility, and has been better able to play the role it should in debates taking place among the population: the role of our social and moral conscience.

We can point to no example of the disestablishment of a Church being anything other than beneficial. No one would consider going backwards to re-establish a Church that has been disestablished. That said, there are plenty of examples of established Churches that do not have privileged or guaranteed representation in the legislature. Again, the UK is exceptional in that regard. We need a wider debate about the role of the Church of England in our diverse, multi-ethnic, multi-religious, non-faith society, but that is not germane to the argument about representation in the House of Lords. We could remove the Church of England’s representation in the House of Lords without disestablishing the Church of England.

The other argument that we get into is the general question of Lords reform. I took part in a radio discussion on this issue this morning, and one caller asked why we were even talking about bishops in the House of Lords, because we should have been talking about having an unelected second Chamber. To some extent, I agree, but I think the bishops’ presence in the House of Lords is a good place to start, because in many ways it is a double affront to the notion of democracy. Not only are the bishops not elected by, or accountable to, the public; they are not even scrutinised and subject to the normal appointment mechanisms for the House of Lords. They are completely separate from that, so if we want to talk about the balance between elected and appointed representatives, and about the role of scrutiny and transparency, the bishops are the best place to start.

Lords reform has been talked about for so long—certainly for all the time I have been in Parliament, and for many decades. I think it was 113 years ago that the Labour party committed to the abolition of the House of Lords. I say that not to have a go; I simply point out that it has been an intractable debate for a very long period. It is useful to have this debate, and to see whether we can engage on the subject. An electoral contest in the United Kingdom is coming, and parties will have to frame propositions on this matter. I wait to be educated by the shadow spokesperson, the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris), about His Majesty’s Opposition’s thinking with regard to the upper Chamber, but I note the report published by the Labour party at the end of last year, which talked about having a second Chamber. It did not say how the second Chamber would be elected or appointed, but it talked about a Chamber of the nations and regions of the United Kingdom. I think the presumption is that representatives would be elected in some way. Even within that model, however, there is simply no role or logical place for the Lords Spiritual, so on those grounds, they would have to go.

Hon. Members will hear from the SNP’s Front-Bench spokesperson, my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady), about our party’s thinking on this issue, but I should explain why I am engaged in this debate. Of course, my colleagues and I want Scotland to become a politically independent, self-governing country in these islands, and we want a much better, co-operative relationship between the national Governments of Britain. That is something we aspire to, and there is not really any conceivable place for the House of Lords in that arrangement. In many ways, there is a particularly Scottish aspect of this issue, because the bishops represent the Church of England; they do not even represent the Anglican community throughout these islands.

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

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. He is making a very interesting speech. On a point of curiosity, if the worst were to happen and Scotland became independent, would there be an upper Chamber in its legislature? Is that in the SNP’s plans?

[Tommy Sheppard]

That would be a matter for the people of Scotland. My party’s proposal is that if we had consent to move forward and become an independent country, a modern, democratic constitution would be written. We would spell out the rights of each citizen and the process of government. That would be when to debate whether it was necessary to have a bicameral Parliament, or whether a single legislative Chamber would suffice. I note that part of the argument in this place is that we need an upper Chamber because the House of Commons makes so many mistakes. That seems an argument for reform of the House of Commons, rather than justification for an unelected Chamber.

There is a particular attitude in Scotland; people look at the House of Lords, and at the role of the Lords Spiritual within it, and see this very much as another country. They see this as part of the rationale for doing something different, and moving forward to become an independent country.

I will wind up in a moment because I want others to have a chance to contribute, but I want to say that we need to continue this debate. It is very much overdue in this place, and I know that the public are with us on that. I gave some figures about how many people identify as non-religious. When we ask people whether the Church of England should have automatic and guaranteed representation in Parliament, we find that the majorities against that arrangement are phenomenal: 68%, including a majority of Conservative voters, say that it cannot and should not continue.

This is a debate whose time has come. We should make time for it in the main Chamber as we go through to the end of the year, in a time slot that I hope—with all respect to the Backbench Business Committee—will allow more colleagues to participate and engage in the discussion. This is something that gives our democracy a bad name, and it does not do any favours for the Church of England.

I will finish by repeating this point: it is so important that people of faith are engaged in public life. I say that as a humanist and an atheist, but I respect everyone’s right to practise their religion and to have their own belief system. I want to see a pluralist, tolerant society where everyone is respected, so, of course, I want people and faith leaders such as bishops to be involved in our public discourse. I agree with many of their statements and arguments and the way in which many of the bishops vote on many topics of the day. I am not saying in any sense that they should be excluded from our parliamentary system, but they should be there on the same basis as every other citizen. They should be subject to the same rules as everyone else. At the end of the day, surely that is what democracy means: everyone is treated fairly and everyone has the ability to hold others to account.

I commend this discussion to the House and I look forward to it continuing as the months go by. Perhaps we will actually see the framing of some policy on this matter, with will feed into the political debate at the election, and we may even see some change. Or perhaps Scotland will become an independent country first—I do not know.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I had an email from one of my humanist constituents a few days ago asking me to speak in this debate. I told him that I would do so and that I would take an alternative view, but come with a listening ear, and I hope that will be the same for everyone who speaks.

I get the passion that the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard) has for this issue. However, having had the privilege of being a Member of this House for 22 years, I can say that it is not regularly at the top of my constituents’ lists of demands. The good people of South West Bedfordshire are not short of things they want me to get done in this place, but this issue probably does not make the top 50 or even the top 100. I also gently observe that in a House with 650 Members of Parliament, there are only six MPs here this afternoon who do not have to be because of their Front Bench or Parliamentary Private Secretary responsibilities. I know that there are other important debates in the Chamber, and that we may even be on a one-line Whip now and other considerations may call, but it is worth putting that on the record.

I, too, will start with some history—it is important that we remember our history, because if we do not remember where we have come from, we are in danger of repeating the failures of the past. The hon. Member for Edinburgh East is right. In 1301, in addition to the two archbishops and 18 bishops, there were 80 abbots and priors entitled to sit in the House of Lords, but the temporal peers rarely exceeded 50. The hon. Member, who introduced the debate very well, would indeed have a point if anything like those numbers and proportions were the case today. However, bishops today make up just 3% of the House of Lords. I think that it is the second biggest legislature in the world, after that of the People’s Republic of China, and that it tops 850. Of those 26 bishops, it is usual for just one or two to vote. I am told that a large number would be four or five, and six would be right at the top of the scale. I am unsure of how many votes the bishops have swung because they tend to come down on a rota system. They have a pastoral and a spiritual role, and they say Prayers like our Chaplain does in the House of Commons.

I dispute the figures that the hon. Member for Edinburgh East quoted. My reading of the 2021 census is that a majority of people in England and Wales declared a faith. I counter the notion that is put about sometimes that faith is dying; I think that is a myth, and it is unhelpful for the positive development of a modern society. It leads to a disconnect between people of faith and others, and it can lead to problems in the delivery of services. In fact, it is nearer to the truth to say that, in many parts of our country, faith is not just alive, but thriving. That is particularly true in London, where 62% of people identify as religious compared with 53%, which is still a majority, outside London.

[Tommy Sheppard]

The census produces different data from the social attitudes survey, but does the hon. Gentleman not accept that there is much concern about how the faith questions on the census are asked? It asks about affiliation, rather than belief. There are many people who answer “C of E” or whatever to that question because that is what they were born into. It is not what they believe and who they are now.

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tommy Sheppard]

I am glad that this debate has at least brought to the fore in the Chamber those who wish to advocate on behalf of the Church of England, and they are right to do that. They can console themselves, perhaps, that I am not advocating a Cromwellian approach to this problem at least.

There is not sufficient time to deal with everything that has been said, but I want to stress that no one is suggesting that there is not a role for people of faith in our public life and in our Parliament. No one is suggesting that Anglicans should not be represented in the House of Lords or that bishops should not be in the House of Lords. In fact, 60% of the non-spiritual peers in the House of Lords identify as Christian, so it is hard to make an argument that that particular Church is under-represented in the upper Chamber. What we are talking about is whether this anachronistic situation of additional, guaranteed representation should exist for one Church and one institution alone, above all others.

I said earlier that I do not have a religious faith, but I want to give the last word in this discussion to someone who does: my friend and colleague Simon Barrow, the director of the Christian think-tank Ekklesia. He says—

[Mr Virendra Sharma (in the Chair)]

Order.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the matter of bishops in the House of Lords.