Lords Spiritual (Women) Bill

Tony Baldry Excerpts

Monday 19th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gyimah]

My hon. and learned Friend makes a very valid point. The Bill is not controversial. As the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), has pointed out, it has cross-party support from Members throughout the House. It is not to do with the composition of the House of Lords.

[Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

Through the Minister, may I remind my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Sir Bob Russell) what Her Majesty the Queen said at the start of her diamond jubilee year? 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.”

[Mr Gyimah]

I could not put have put it better or more eloquently than my right hon. Friend.

We lost the bishops, briefly, under Cromwell’s commonwealth, but they were welcomed back to Parliament at the restoration. No new bishoprics were created until 1847, when the population had increased and previously small towns were becoming industrial cities. The Church responded by increasing the number of bishops, but it was agreed that the new bishops would not add to the number of Lords Spiritual. The Bishopric of Manchester Act 1847 and subsequent Acts kept the number of Lords Spiritual at 26. The Government have introduced the Bill in a similar spirit to those Acts, which adapted the constitutional arrangements in line with the changes made by the Church as it modernised.

The current arrangements by which Lords Spiritual sit in the House of Lords are set out in the Bishoprics Act 1878. Twenty six bishops—the two Church of England archbishops and 24 of its diocesan bishops—are entitled to sit in the House of Lords as Lords Spiritual. Five of the 26 bishops automatically receive writs of summons to attend the House of Lords on the basis of their see: the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, and the Bishops of London, Durham, and Winchester.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gyimah]

It is not for the Government to make such an assessment, but we believe that the 10-year period will allow enough time for the Church to appoint a sufficient number of women as diocesan bishops and that, once they have become eligible for appointment to the House of Lords, they will be able to fill those positions as and when they become available. However, that is a matter for the Church, and the Bill has been put together in consultation with the Church, which will ultimately control the number of bishops. Ten years is seen as sufficient time in which to enable the Lords Spiritual to reflect the number of women bishops.

[Sir Tony Baldry]

As my hon. Friend will be aware, several diocesan vacancies—in Gloucester, in Oxford and in Southwell and Nottingham—are being considered at the moment by the Crown Nominations Commission. It is perfectly possible that one—or indeed all—of those new diocesan bishops could be a woman. The Bill will ensure that if and when they are consecrated, they will be able to go straight into the House of Lords without having to wait behind every male bishop who is, at present, ahead of them in the queue. Depending on when those dioceses determine who they have as their new diocesan bishops—that will depend to a certain extent on the Crown Nominations Commission—we could see a woman bishop in the House of Lords very speedily.

[Mr Gyimah]

My right hon. Friend makes the point clearly. The hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) asked about the Government assessment, but, as my right hon. Friend points out, vacancies are available. I would not want to speculate from the Dispatch Box on whether a vacancy will be filled by a male or a female, but the Church has shown its commitment to increase the number of female bishops and the number of female bishops who become members of the Lords Spiritual. That is, after all, why we are here today. One retirement from the Bishops’ Bench in the next Parliament has already been announced: the Bishop of Leicester will retire on 11 July 2015.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Second Church Estates Commissioner (Sir Tony Baldry)]

In my capacity as Second Church Estates Commissioner, I should like to thank the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition for the support they have personally given to this Bill. I should like also to thank the Leader of the House, the business managers and the usual channels for providing an early opportunity for the Bill to have its Second Reading and other stages undertaken, so that, if agreed by this House, it can go promptly to the House of Lords for consideration, ensuring sufficient time for it to be enacted before this Parliament is dissolved at the end of March.

When in 2012 the General Synod failed to agree a measure that would have enabled women to become bishops in the Church of England, I was summoned to this Chamber to answer an urgent question. Shortly after that, we had a half-day debate. The number of hon. Members present on those occasions—from every part of the United Kingdom and from all political parties—who asked questions and made speeches indicated that Parliament was keen for the Church of England to get on and ensure that women could become bishops. When the General Synod did agree the measure, there was genuine rejoicing and happiness that that could now happen, and that sense of happiness was well reflected in the debates on the measure for women bishops in the House of Lords on 14 October last year and in this House on 20 October.

Bishops have been part of Parliament ever since Parliament began. This year, for example, we will celebrate the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta, and it is worth recalling that the whole idea of Magna Carta had been initiated by Stephen Langton, the then Archbishop of Canterbury who dusted off a 113-year-old proclamation of King Henry I and showed it to the barons, when the idea of a new improved charter, “a great charter” took hold. Indeed, Magna Carta begins, and I translate from the Latin:

“John by the Grace of God, King of England, Lord of Ireland, Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, Count of Anjou, to his Archbishops, Bishops, Abbots, Earls, Barons, Justices, Forresters, Sheriffs, Reeves, Officers and all his Bailiffs and faithful subjects, greetings. Know that for the sake of God, and the salvation of our soul and the souls of all our ancestors and heirs to the honour of God and the exultation of the Holy Church and of the reform of our Realm, by the advice of our venerable Father, Stephen Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of all England and Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church; Henry Archbishop of Dublin, William Bishop of London, Peter Bishop of Winchester, Jocelain Bishop of Bath and Glastonbury, Hugh Bishop of Lincoln, Walter Bishop of Worcester, William Bishop of Coventry and Benedict Bishop of Rochester”.

So, it is quite clear that archbishops, bishops and abbots took precedence over earls and barons, and that the list of those from whom the King had taken advice was headed by the bishops. Indeed, we rightly remember that Magna Carta has a number of noble sentiments, such as:

“No free man is to be arrested or imprisoned or disseized or outlawed or exiled or in any other way ruined nor will we go or send against him except by the legal judgement of his peers, or by the law of England”,

and that

“to no one will we sell, to no one will we deny or delay right or justice.”

In fact, the opening commitment of Magna Carta, chapter one, clearly states beyond all of those other commitments to the rights of barons or freedoms of individual citizens:

“Firstly, we have granted to God and confirm by this our present Charter for us and our heirs in perpetuity that the English Church—

“Ecclesia Anglicana” in the original—

“shall be free and shall have its rights in full and its liberties intact and we wish this to be thus observed which is clear from the fact that before the discord with our Barons began we granted and confirmed by our Charter free elections which are considered to be of the utmost importance and necessity to the English Church.”

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I am very disappointed that my right hon. Friend did not read all that out in Latin. I am sure that you would have been happy to let him do so, Mr Speaker.

Earlier, in an excellent intervention, my right hon. Friend said, quite rightly, that the established Church represented all our churches. I am a warm supporter of the Church of England and its establishment nature, but—I mentioned this earlier—presumably it has no principled objection to the representation of bishops from other denominations, or leaders of other faiths, in the House of Lords.

[Sir Tony Baldry]

That was made clear in evidence to the Wakeham commission, and by the body that set up the Joint Committee earlier in the current Parliament. However, I think my hon. Friend will find that it is said by the Vatican and by the Roman Catholic Church itself—not just in England, but throughout the world—that bishops and cardinals cannot be members of national legislatures. That is entirely an issue of authority. By definition, any Catholic bishop who sat in the House of Lords would have to take the Oath of Allegiance to the Queen, and the Vatican is not willing to allow Catholic cardinals or bishops to take an oath of allegiance that acknowledges the authority of the Crown.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

We do not want to become involved in too theological an argument. My right hon. Friend is of course entirely right, but the Catholic Church has absolutely no objection to the appointment to the other place of lay people who can represent the Church. Believe me, I am not trying to talk myself into a job; I am merely making a point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Tony Baldry]

There are some excellent members of the Roman Catholic Church in the other place, including recent Lord Great Chamberlains such as Lord Camoys, whose ancestors fought at Agincourt. Nevertheless, others who are much more senior than me may well take what my hon. Friend has said as an indication that if there were ever a need to augment the galaxy of talented Catholics in the other House, there would be a willing and, I am sure, very worthy volunteer.

Bishops have continued to contribute to our national decision making down the centuries, although, rightly, they played a much less prominent role as we moved into the modern era. The number of Lords Spiritual has remained at 26 since the Reformation. In 1847, when the passing of the Bishopric of Manchester Act created a 27th diocese, Parliament broke the ancient arrangement whereby all diocesan bishops immediately became Lords Spiritual in the House of Lords, and a queuing system became necessary. Today there are 40 English diocesan sees, five of which confer immediate entitlement to a writ of summons, while the other 35 confer entry to a queue according to seniority for the other 21 places.

There are those who might ask why we still have bishops in Parliament. That issue is much wider than the issues dealt with in this modest Bill, and there will be a range of views on it in both Houses. It is worth remembering, however, that the Wakeham report on reform of the House of Lords concluded:

“The Church of England should continue to be explicitly represented in the second chamber”,

although it added that

“the concept of religious representation should be broadened to embrace other Christian denominations, in all parts of the United Kingdom, and other faith communities.”

I think it fair to say that the Church of England supported that approach.

Earlier in the current Parliament, the Joint Committee on the draft House of Lords Reform Bill resolved that

“bishops should continue to retain ex officio seats in the reformed House of Lords.”

Of course, the Committee was recommending the establishment of a considerably smaller second Chamber. It agreed

“that the number of reserved seats for bishops be set at 12 in a reformed House.”

That would have been proportionate to their present membership.

Speaking recently at a lunch in the Parliamentary Press Gallery, the Archbishop of Canterbury observed in response to a question:

“it is helpful to have an institution that thinks in terms of centuries rather than weeks, which considers the eternal as well as the temporal, the global as well as the local, the grassroots as well as the establishment.”

The House of Lords now has some 790 members, and I think that a total of 26 bishops—in fact, two archbishops and 24 bishops—focusing on the eternal, the global and the grass roots constitutes a worthy and useful addition to Parliament. Each of these bishops has a portfolio or policy area on which they focus. For example, there is a lead bishop for education, a lead bishop for welfare reform and a lead bishop on overseas development, and the bishops work hard at understanding their policy areas and how the Church of England might best make a contribution to policy development.

It is also worth remembering that the Church of England is part of the Anglican Communion. There are 37 other provinces in the Anglican Communion, mostly in the global south, mostly poor, and many in areas of war and persecution. We have a worldwide network of contacts and briefings different from that, say, of the Foreign Office, and through the archbishops’ and bishops’ membership of the House of Lords we are able to share the benefit of those briefings, intelligence and contacts with Parliament.

As Archbishop Justin observed when he spoke to the Parliamentary Press Gallery:

“We are, by tradition…a Christian society”.

He went on to say:

“The Church generally—and perhaps the Church of England especially—has influence in two ways. First, it is everywhere in England and it does the stuff we think Jesus wants done…Since 2008, the networks of food banks have been set up by the churches. Local churches…are involved in the renewal of the credit union movement, usually with debt counselling. We have chaplains in every prison, every unit of the armed services, every hospital, people living in every parish…we educate almost 1 million children a day, we bury the dead, we marry, we baptise, we care for those ignored, and the list goes on.”

[Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is making a very powerful speech. On geographical representation, does he agree that often bishops represent parts of our country that are under-represented in Parliament? My own Bishop of Truro does such a good job of representing remote rural communities in the Isles of Scilly and Cornwall, for example.

[Sir Tony Baldry]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point, and I think the whole House was grateful for the work done by the Bishop of Truro in co-chairing an inquiry by the all-party group on hunger and food poverty.

Archbishop Justin concluded that

“the Church of England remains one of the glues of society”,

and I would suggest it is a worthy glue to be included within the fabric of parliamentary life.

As my hon. Friend the Minister made clear, the provisions in the Bill before the House are straightforward. It is a two-clause Bill which, if passed, will mean that for a period of 10 years the most senior eligible female bishop will fill any vacancy that arises on the Bishops’ Bench for the 21 places in the House of Lords filled by seniority, in preference to the most senior eligible male bishop.

A helpful comment in the Bill’s explanatory note makes it clear that unless the law is changed, it will take “some years” before a newly appointed female diocesan bishop will be eligible to enter the House of Lords. Quite what “some years” means is hard to specify because the period between appointment and going into the Lords has varied greatly over the decades, depending on when retirements and other unexpected vacancies occur. In the past three Parliaments, it has ranged at times from less than four years to at one point more than seven. I think this House, as much as everywhere else in the country, would find it unacceptable if, having waited so long to get women bishops, we then had to wait perhaps the duration of a further Parliament before they started to reach the top of the queue.

Under the current law, the two Church of England archbishops and 24 of its other diocesan bishops are entitled to sit in the House of Lords as Lords Spiritual. This Bill enables women diocesan bishops to skip the queue, which, when all sees are filled, is 14 bishops long. It is a Bill which, I can assure the House, has the very broadest support across the Church of England. The Bishop of Lincoln, the Right Rev. Christopher Lowson, who is the diocesan bishop currently at the head of the queue—the bishop who, if the law were not changed, would be the next to enter the House of Lords—has with characteristic generosity welcomed the Bill and has observed:

“On the one hand, this is quite frustrating because greater Lincolnshire is under-represented in the House of Lords. However far more frustrating has been the wait for women to be able to be ordained bishop, and for an anachronism to be consigned to history. For that to happen completely, it is absolutely right that women bishops are fully represented in all levels of society, Parliament and the Church, and I look forward very much to seeing that happen.”

The campaigning group WATCH—which stands for Women and the Church—has over many years led the campaign for the ordination of women bishops. Before Christmas it issued a statement, saying it had

“always campaigned for women and men to be bishops on equal terms including as members of the House of Lords…Sometimes, however, equality is so far distant that some speeding up is necessary to make it happen within a reasonable time frame.”

WATCH went on to say:

“The Bill recognises the fact that for the first Diocesan bishops who are women this hasn’t been a level playing field and they won’t have had the same opportunities historically to fulfil their full and true calling.”

The Bishop of Leicester, who is convenor of the Lords Spiritual in the House of Lords, has made it clear that he believes that women bishops will “enrich and strengthen” the voice of the Lords Spiritual in the House of Lords.

As the Leader of the House made clear in business questions recently, if the Bill passes all its stages in the House today, the intention is for there to be sufficient time for the Lords to consider the Bill and for it to receive Royal Assent before Parliament is dissolved. As a result, when women start being consecrated as diocesan bishops, they will be able to take a place in the House of Lords straight away.

I very much support the Bill and commend it to the House.