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CHURCH COMMISSIONERS
Divorced Clergy (Accommodation)
36. Mr. Tony Banks: To ask the right hon. Member for Selby, representing the Church Commissioners, what arrangements are made in respect of accommodation allocation following divorce among clergy. [20670]
Mr. Michael Alison (Second Church Estates Commissioner, representing the Church Commissioners): Where a clergy marriage has broken down and the diocesan bishop accepts pastoral responsibility for the spouse, he and his diocesan board of finance take steps to try to provide accommodation. If the diocese has difficulty in providing it, it may apply to the commissioners for a loan.
Mr. Banks: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his reply. Is he aware, however, that no legal rights exist? When clergy marriages break down, accommodation can unfortunately be lost, pension rights can be sacrificed and lump sums can go at the same time. What talks is the right hon. Gentleman prepared to have with the commissioners to try to introduce an element of legality? Is it not perverse that the future head of the Church of
England can be discussing with his estranged wife who is to have which palace and who will pay for the colonic irrigation when all that the clergy whose marriages break up are left with is a pain in the butt?
Mr. Alison: It is purely a matter of history that both the leaders of the Church of England and the future monarch happen to live in palaces. We attempt not to be legalistic; in the past 10 years we have made advances of £10 million in nearly 190 cases, specifically to help spouses who have suffered a marriage breakdown and are without accommodation. Whatever the law may dictate, we try to be humane, reasonable and constructive.
Bequests
38. Mr. Jenkin: To ask the right hon. Member for Selby, representing the Church Commissioners, what estimate has been made of the number of bequests made to Church of England parishes in the latest year for which records are available; and what was their total estimated value. [20672]
Mr. Alison: In 1993 there were about 6,150 bequests to parishes of the Church of England, excluding cathedrals. The total value was about £18 million.
Mr. Jenkin: When people make bequests to parishes for the benefices of those parishes, why are the assets sequestered by the Church Commissioners? Why cannot the parishes raise money to better the livings of their clergy, as any other normal charity might be able to do?
Mr. Alison: As far as I know, the Church Commissioners do not sequester any property from parishes; that is more likely to be done by the diocese, and it will be done on the basis that assets flow back into the parish from the diocese. Parishes almost certainly do
better by having such a relationship with the diocese. I shall verify the point, however, and write to my hon. Friend if necessary.Investments
39. Mr. Flynn: To ask the right hon. Member for Selby, representing the Church Commissioners, what is the latest figure of the value of the annual returns on Church investments. [20673]
Mr. Alison: The Church Commissioners are finalising their 1995 figures, which will shortly be published in their annual report. They expect the annual returns to be similar to the benchmark return of 19.1 per cent. in 1995 in the independent WM all-funds index.
Mr. Flynn: Was not the right hon. Gentleman enunciating an extraordinary new Church of England doctrine when he told me on 29 January that the ethical investments in GEC were all right because GEC's arms production is below the 30 per cent. threshold? Does the Church of England now believe that it is okay for people to sin for 30 per cent. of the time if they are virtuous for 70 per cent. of the time? Is there to be a new doctrine saying that we can obey seven commandments and ignore the other three? How on earth can the Church justify the 30 per cent. threshold?
Mr. Alison: The hon. Gentleman is being almost pharisaical in his nit-picking about particular figures. Whatever the exact balance, if the hon. Gentleman wants figures I can tell him that the Church of England believes in 100 per cent. forgiveness and in a reasonable balance of investments that will maintain a flow of funds to maintain the pensions of elderly clergy widows, for example. Clergy in retirement now outnumber those whom we support as incumbents. That all has to be done through our investment assets, whether they be in land, businesses or armaments firms. The investment is valid and proper.
Business of the House
3.30 pm
The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Tony Newton): With permission, Madam Speaker, I should like to make a short business statement. The business for Thursday 28 March will now be as follows:
Until about 7 o'clock, conclusion of the remaining stages of the Finance Bill. That will now be followed by a debate on bovine spongiform encephalopathy on a motion for the Adjournment of the House.
Ms Harriet Harman (Peckham):
I thank the Leader of the House for his statement. It is acceptable to the Opposition.
BSE (Health)
3.31 pm
The Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Stephen Dorrell): With permission, Madam Speaker, I would like to make a further statement about the advice that the Government have received from the Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee.
I begin by briefly reminding the House of the background. The advisory committee brings together leading experts in neurology, epidemiology and microbiology to provide scientifically based advice on the implications for animal and human health of different forms of spongiform encephalopathy. As I have repeatedly stressed, its members are not Government scientists: they are leading practitioners in their field, and it is the function of the advisory committee to allow them to pool their expertise to assess the latest scientific evidence that is available.
Both the Opposition health spokesman, the hon. Member for Peckham (Ms Harman) and the Leader of the Opposition stressed last week the importance of reaching decisions on the basis of the scientific evidence. I agree with them. I also agree that it is important that both the evidence on which the committee reached its recommendations, and the recommendations themselves, should be made public as soon as practicable. That is why I published the committee's recommendations last Wednesday and why I have today put copies of its latest recommendations, accompanied by a statement from the chief medical officer, in the Vote Office. I can confirm to the House that arrangements are in hand to ensure that the evidence on which those recommendations are based will be published in the scientific journals within the next four to six weeks.
Science is not a substitute for political or personal choice, but it is the only basis on which an informed judgment about these issues can be reached. Last Wednesday, I informed the House of the advisory committee's conclusions about 10 new cases of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. The statement that the committee approved at its weekend meeting emphasises that only 10 cases of this previously unrecognised variant of CJD have yet been identified and that the committee is not in a position to confirm whether there is a causal link between bovine spongiform encephalopathy and the human disease. However, the committee repeated its view that the most likely explanation at present of this new form of CJD is that these cases are linked to exposure to BSE before the introduction of the specified offals ban in 1989.
Following receipt of its advice last week, I asked the committee to consider as a matter of urgency the implication of its findings for children. In considering that question, the committee was joined by three leading experts in paediatrics, gastroenterology and immunology. The committee considered carefully its knowledge of the transmissible spongiform encephalopathies and considered the evidence available from the 10 identified cases. Taking all that into account, the committee concluded that
The committee also considered the possibility of increased susceptibility among patients in hospital, pregnant women and people who are taking immuno-suppressive drugs. Again, it concluded that
The committee's statement goes on:
Following the scientific evidence, there is clearly no reason for the Government to advise local education authorities to remove beef from school menus. I understand, however, from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Employment that it is customary for schools to provide a choice of menu to accommodate different dietary and cultural practices. The Government believe that that choice should continue. Local education authorities will be sent copies of the advisory committee's statement so that they can be aware of the precise terms of its findings.
The committee reconfirmed the recommendations that were published last Wednesday concerning the deboning of cattle carcases aged over 30 months, and it has made a number of other recommendations concerning the treatment of specified bovine offal. My right hon. and learned Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food will deal with those questions in his statement.
The committee also made two recommendations concerning research. It recommended, first, the reinforcement of the CJD surveillance unit at Edinburgh university and, secondly, the commitment of substantial additional resources to long-term, basic and applied research, to improve our understanding of these diseases. The Government accept those recommendations. We have already made plans to strengthen the CJD surveillance unit. In addition, I have today instructed Professor John Swales, the NHS director of research and development, to prepare a directed programme of research in this sector involving the Department of Health, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, the Medical Research Council and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.
Against the background of those findings, the advisory committee reports two central conclusions. First, it reasserts that, provided that the restrictions that it recommends are fully implemented and sustained, any BSE-related risk from eating beef or beef products is likely to be extremely small. Secondly, the committee's statement concludes with these words:
"if human infection with the BSE agent occurs, infants and children are not likely to be more susceptible to that infection than are adults".
25 Mar 1996 : Column 711
"if human infection with a BSE agent occurs, none of these groups is likely to have any increased susceptibility to infection".
"Parents are naturally concerned about the risks to their own children. No human activity is without some risk; if the Government rigorously enforces the current and newly recommended controls we believe that this risk is likely to be extremely small; however the Committee recognises that parents will often choose to reduce risk to their children beyond that which they are prepared to accept for themselves.
It is important to be aware that many foods are associated with health risks and that changing from beef to non-beef products is not necessarily without risk."
"the Committee does not believe that any additional measures are justified at this stage but the situation needs to be kept under careful review so that additional significant information can be taken into account as soon as it becomes available".
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