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11.50 am
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Tom Sackville): I shall not attempt to answer the debate, as is sometimes the role of the Minister, but simply make a brief intervention to welcome the fact that the debate is taking place and to make a couple of points on behalf of the Government.
First, I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Selby (Mr. Alison) and the hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) for their thoughtful contributions. I am sure that many people would wish that the deliberations of the House were carried on in today's atmosphere more often. We are aware that there are those who are involved in Church matters, be it their local church or wider than that, and there are others who have little involvement. Those hon. Members who are present are deeply involved in Church matters--perhaps there should be more.
All of us are aware of the difficulties that the Church faces in the latter part of the 20th century. Some of them have been referred to already.
When I arrived at the parish of Irnham in Lincolnshire on Christmas eve, following a long drive through rush-hour traffic, I found that I had been volunteered to accompany five carols at midnight at the local parish church. That filled me with some alarm because my
musical talents are more in the nature of a nightclub pianist than a church organist. I had been volunteered because the regular organist had gone down with pneumonia. When I arrived at the church to practise, I got an inkling of why that might be. None the less, everything went off well. My main problem with the rather simple instrument that I had to play was in discovering the trick of getting the last verse played much louder than all the rest so as to go out on a heroic note without one of those pedals that change the settings. I finally solved the problem by asking my sister-in-law, the estimable Mrs. Bevan, to sit beside me on the bench and pull out all the stops for the last verse. That was the first time I understood the full force of that phrase.
I congratulate the Church Commissioners on having pulled out all the stops to get the affairs of the Commission back in order. There is no doubt that the affairs of those who are or will be eligible for a pension from the Church are in the best possible hands. Sir Michael Colman and my right hon. Friend the Member for Selby and his colleagues should be congratulated on what they have achieved.
Those who are employed by the Church live for a long time, perhaps because they have a fulfilling career, so there is a huge liability, which we must take seriously. Whatever changes are made, we must be certain that they are in line with recent pensions legislation so that the pensions and any other arrangements that are made for those involved have the full protection of the law.
As for whether any changes should be achieved by Measure, I hope that some arrangement can be reached so that we can continue the honourable long tradition of affecting changes in Church matters by Measure. As has been suggested, it is quite possible that some transitional or partial change in the arrangements could be achieved by Measure, but in the end it will be a House of Commons decision. It is perhaps worth placing on record that if a radical proposal was made to transfer a substantial part of the funds of the Church Commissioners, the House may decide that a Bill was required--as it might regarding any radical change to the Commission.
Mr. Alun Michael (Cardiff, South and Penarth):
None of us comes to debates unencumbered by our experiences and personal histories. I was brought up as a Welsh Presbyterian and then accepted into the Church of England while at university in England. For the past 30 years, however, I have been a communicant in the disestablished Church in Wales. I am therefore able to combine sympathy and objectivity in the debate.
I speak with some trepidation, because I am an expert in neither ecclesiastical nor legal matters--I am certainly not an expert in ecclesiastical law. The way in which we approach such matters in the House requires a good deal of care as well as sympathy.
It is clear that important principles have to be dealt with and financial problems need to be resolved regarding the Church of England's pensions for its clergy and the responsibilities of Parliament to respond to its proposals.
The right hon. Member for Selby (Mr. Alison) has, as always, made a massive contribution towards enabling us to understand our responsibilities and the way forward. The report of the Select Committee on Social Security is a valuable contribution, because it refers to matters that need to be considered and resolved.
It is inevitable that one of the difficulties that we must face is how Parliament should respond to proposals to resolve the problem. When we last debated the issue on the Floor of the House, I expressed the view on behalf of the Opposition that the resolution of the long-term problems would require primary legislation. At the time we understood that the Archbishop of Canterbury and his advisers felt that that contribution had been helpful to the debate. That view about primary legislation was not questioned, and it has just been in the past couple of weeks that a different view has been expressed to us.
We are sympathetic to the need to deal with the immediate problems as expeditiously as possible--that desire informs the recommendations of the Select Committee. As the right hon. Member for Selby acknowledged, provision for the longer term requires difficult questions to be answered. It has been said that there is nothing, including pensions, in the long term as well as in the short term that cannot be resolved by Measure. Indeed, that is the view of the right hon. Member for Selby. Some of the briefing documents have suggested that, since 1919, there has been no case of a Church of England matter being dealt with other than by Measure.
The briefing from the House of Commons Library reached a similar conclusion. The basis for the expeditious treatment of Church of England matters was clear when it was pointed out in 1919 that only 33 out of the 217 Church Bills that had been introduced from 1880 to 1913 had been successful. The position has been greatly improved by the existence of an expeditious way of responding to matters resolved by, and proposals brought forward from, the Church authorities.
The Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act 1919 set up an arrangement whereby Parliament could deal with those matters expeditiously, and explicitly stated that the Measures
I argue that we have a responsibility to consider the right means, by Act or Measure, to resolve the issues before us. That needs proper discussion to ensure that we fulfil the responsibilities of Parliament in the right way.
The responsibilities are obviously shared. The recommendations leading to the 1919 Act came from the Convocations, and that was regarded as important in
showing that the Church Assembly's powers rested on the authority of the Convocations as well as Parliament. Similarly, the responsibility to help to resolve those issues is shared by Parliament and the Church authorities. That was demonstrated again after disestablishment, when the Church in Wales did not take over its share of funds. Instead, a different settlement was reached: in effect, the Church in Wales was disendowed at that time. I believe the position in Ireland to be similar.
I mention those points to show that a responsibility rests on Parliament to ensure that what it does is an appropriate response to the proposals of the Church authorities. We should properly understand our responsibilities as well as our powers. As the Minister rightly said, there is an element that requires sensible discussion and resolution, so that Parliament and the Church can proceed co-operatively in agreement, and so that we do not end up arguing about constitutional issues that might be an obstacle to a proper, lasting resolution of those issues.
The Select Committee report is a helpful contribution to the process of working towards a solution; but an interim solution, which is what is suggested, must be seen only in the context of a clear view of the long-term resolution of issues and how Parliament is asked to respond.
The Select Committee report makes the point, reinforced by my hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field), that many of the reforms that the Church wishes to make can be undertaken without requiring endorsement by Parliament. I am sure that the reinforcement of that point today will be regarded as helpful. I am sure that Parliament would wish to encourage progress wherever possible.
Obviously, the reference in the report to the limit to a five-year arrangement is an attempt to say that a step forward can be taken, with agreement, in sympathetic consideration of the problems that confront the Church. In response, the right hon. Member for Selby made the valid point that a seven-year arrangement might be preferable to a five-year arrangement, and I am certain that we would be sympathetic to that variation on the recommendations of the Select Committee.
This matter will be easier to resolve in the context of a long-term agreement or settlement. I hope that my comments today will be regarded as helpful, so that the issues can be discussed, formally and informally, as soon as possible, to try to find ways to prevent us from encountering procedural blockages, which would not be in the interests of the Church or of Parliament.
I am sure that parliamentarians and Parliament will be willing to listen to the views of the Church authorities and to seek a resolution that meets the needs of the Church of England, protects the poorer parishes and thus the needs of the inner cities--for which the Church has a deeply felt and recently voiced concern--and allows Parliament to fulfil its responsibilities in accordance with the law. Obviously, clarification on the procedure is needed, and it is sensible for that to be discussed as soon as possible by all the parties involved.
"shall have the force and effect of an Act of Parliament on the Royal Assent being signified thereto in the same manner as to Acts of Parliament".
A question remains. I have been told that, although Parliament has the power to introduce legislation, it has never done so, and that that even applied to the establishment of the Church Commissioners in 1947. In reading through the briefings and texts in the Library just before the debate, however, I was surprised to read of the Church of England Convocations Act 1966, which represented the use of an Act by Parliament after 1919.
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