Simon
Hughes: Absolutely—that is a really important point
because, with the best will in the world, some incumbents who are
appropriate and entirely competent at the time of their appointment
become less so. They become less well or less mentally and physically
capable, or they become more erratic and less diligent. I would not
dare name any, but I could give more than one example from my
constituency—where I have been the MP for 26 years—when a
parish has not had such a good service from its incumbent. That could
equally happen in
Chelmsford. The
hon. Gentleman, who has much experience as an MP and as a member of the
Church is right to point out that the Measure gives the Church
authorities the right to deal with such a situation. It is important
that the Church has that right. In our jobs, we are held to account by
our local party executives and within our parties. If we do not do a
good job somebody can complain and say, “Look, the MP
isn’t doing their job properly.” We can be deselected and
we need not to be nominated for the next election, quite apart from the
electorate’s
entitlement. If
someone had what was a freehold, they could stay from the age of 25 or
30 until retirement age, which I think is 70 in the Church of England.
We must have protection against things going wrong. Some members of the
clergy lose the confidence of their parish and their parochial church
councils. They may not technically have been in breach of something
that occasions a disciplinary inquiry, but we must have the confidence
that bishops, who now have a much less authoritarian role in the
Church, on advice—normally with suffragan and assistant bishops,
bishops’ counsel and lots of consultation—can make a
decision to initiate a process and say that a person cannot continue in
office.
Sir
Patrick Cormack: They do that
now.
Simon
Hughes: There is a process now, but the real benefit of
the Measure, which is why Unite is so supportive of it relative to the
current position, is that we need to give, as far as possible,
employment rights to clergy. We are not talking about the full,
traditional employee relationship, just as we MPs do not have an
employee relationship. It is different. It is an office holder
relationship, which is what gives it its justification. It is a move
from a combination of statuses—freehold and other—to a
special status that is almost unique and gives clergy the rights that
any worker would expect. The clergy need those as much as anybody else.
In a modern, pressurised age, it is important that we give our clergy
that support. It is important that they have the knowledge that they
have the personal back-up, with assessment of their performance and
support—we have heard good evidence of that in the
Committee—as well as the ability to claim entitlements. There is
an appeals system under the new regime so there can be an appeal if
there is disciplinary
action. I
entirely respect the hon. Gentleman’s concerns, as he would
expect, and I understand that the Measure is a very significant change
in the arrangements for the Church of England, but I think it reflects
the age we are in. It moves the Church, which is a much more diverse
organisation than it ever was when the freeholds were set up, to a
position where it can cater for its modern needs. The Church is no
longer only a parish ministry—it is an industrial chaplaincy, a
prison chaplaincy and a
hospital chaplaincy. From my family’s experience, I know that
such chaplains do a fantastic job, and I commend them without
reservation. When our mother was ill and eventually died in the Queen
Elizabeth hospital in Birmingham, wonderful service was given by the
hospital chaplain’s team. My brothers and I will never fail to
admire them for what they did for us and for
everyone. The
Church has youth chaplains. It has other people doing other jobs. We
have to recognise a much more complex ministry. We need a system that
allows people to move around in the Church—to move from one job
to another—knowing that they have the security, respect, status,
dignity and protection that should be given to them.
I hope,
therefore, that although the hon. Gentleman has concerns and other
people may have concerns, we will see the Measure as an opportunity,
rather than a threat. It is not about any individual being a problem;
it is about respecting everyone. No one who currently has a freehold
will lose it, but the Measure will mean that the next generation of
people coming into the Church have equal status and there will not be
two tiers of people—those who have a freehold and those who do
not—which has sometimes meant that people have felt less valued
than they should have done. The Measure gives people equal status,
whatever their type of ministry. I think that it is a good thing and I
hope that the Committee will support it; I certainly
shall. 5.16
pm
Mr.
Boswell: May I first welcome you to the Chair,
Mr. Gale? It is evident that I am not a member of the
Ecclesiastical Committee, nor have I ever served on it, although I
should declare my interest as a dyed-in-the-wool member of the Church
of England and my wife’s interest as a clergy daughter from the
Church in Wales. I therefore have an interesting perspective, which
does not lead me to the conclusion that the hon. Member for North
Southwark and Bermondsey reached, in favour of disestablishment. I
remain a supporter of establishment, although equally, as I shall
explain in more detail, I am a supporter of both Measures. The two
issues should not be
confused. As
part of a general statement, I should also like to say that I am no
supporter of the unbridled power of bishops to tell parochial clergy
what to do. I am certainly sensitive to the eloquent defence made by my
hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire of the history of the
freehold system, but I share the view of the hon. Member for North
Southwark and Bermondsey that it is now time to move on from that,
particularly in relation to the two-tier system, which he touched
on. Before
I deal with that, I shall comment on the pensions Measure. I commend it
to the Committee, although I do have one question for the hon. Member
for Middlesbrough. This is, as it were, a concession—the
spending of capital. Now is a difficult time for the world markets,
which may strengthen the argument in favour of the spending of capital
in order to safeguard the payment of current pensions. However, is it
envisaged in the present circumstances that it will be necessary to
introduce a further Measure in seven years’ time, or is this
thought to be the last occasion on which the exception will have to be
made?
Turning to the
ecclesiastical offices Measure, may I share briefly with the Committee
a moment of personal history? I was the employment spokesperson for my
party at the time the National Minimum Wage Bill and the subsequent
Employment Relations Bill were passing through the House. I vividly
recall an incident at the end of an all-night sitting in Committee when
we had reached 11 am and I regaled the Committee—I think it was
for the first and only time—with some excerpts from
“Harvey on Industrial Relations and Employment Law” that
were about office holder status. I pointed out to the Committee that
the employer of the clergy was held to be not any human agency but, in
effect,
God. I
am happy that that concept—that we are not simply dealing with
some kind of ecclesiastical or secular bureaucracy—is maintained
in the Measure, but from that time I became uncomfortable about and
conscious of the difficulties that the Church had as an employer, in
effect, in dealing with its non-parochial clergy in a decent and proper
way. I make no secret of the fact that I had private discussions in
Church House at that time about how that question should be taken
forward. I was very pleased when the Government rolled it into a wider
review of related issues of employment law some years
later. The
process has been long, but it has come to fruition with a thoroughly
well balanced Measure relating to that increasingly preponderant group
of clergy who are not freeholders and who hold other offices in the
established Church. I feel strongly that it is right to give them
proper, safeguarded rights under the control of the Church rather than
of this place or of general employment law. However, it is right that
those rights should reproduce employment law, because the Church needs
to be seen to look after its people
properly. We
then come to the critical issue of extension: whether we should,
creepingly and progressively, abolish the freehold. It is a balance of
advantage. I understand what has been achieved and the need for
safeguards in the past. That was in the days of authoritarian diocesan
bishops, long before employment law was conceived or invented, let
alone the law replicated in the Measure. We do not need that sort of
protection now. The best protection is, if I may say so, the
self-denial of the diocesan bishops, who do not set out on that
authoritarian route. If they were disposed to do so, as the hon. Member
for North Southwark and Bermondsey has pointed out to the Committee,
they would be inhibited by the
Measure. I
am concerned that, for reasons I can understand, diocesan bishops have
not been appointed to freehold. There is a particular reason for that,
but whether or not we set out this afternoon to defend the freehold
system, it would be progressively eroded by indirect means. It is
better to introduce the Measure, which safeguards those who
have freehold, provides a measure of tenure and support to those who do
not and is balanced. I do not always agree with what comes up from
Synod, and I certainly hold no charter for what might be called
diocesan Episcopal authoritarianism or ecclesiastical bureaucracy, but
on this occasion, at least, the Church has introduced Measures
that have got the balance right.
5.22
pm
Sir
Stuart Bell: I am grateful for the comments Opposition
Members and glad that those in my party have listened carefully to a
Church debate that is profound and interesting, covering history as
well as the present concepts of bishops, their dioceses and their
relationship to the clergy.
I shall move
backwards, responding first to the points made by the hon. Member for
Daventry. He is perfectly correct: under the Measure, bishops do not
have unbridled power. There is a balance between the rights of the
clergy and of the bishops. I was glad that he referred to employment
law, as he has sat in Committees on the matter, and this is a Measure
of employment law. It responds in many ways to criticisms of the Church
that the clergy had no rights or were limited in their rights. There
was a big move by Unite and others within the Church who felt that that
was wrong and that there ought to be a response. The Government
considered what were called atypical workers, which included clergy.
They might have included Members of Parliament as atypical workers,
although had they had done so, we might not be where we are today.
However, the Government proposed considering the matter and the Church
took it up. Consideration went on for six years—the Church, of
course, works slowly. The hon. Member for South Staffordshire, who has
now returned to his seat, said that there had been no recent
appointments to the freehold. In the six years in which the Church has
been considering the issue, it is not surprising that no further
appointments have been made.
On the
pensions Measure, it is significant that Parliament wishes to conserve
the right to consider the Measure and to check and challenge the Church
on the balance of using its capital to cover pensions. People such as I
were concerned by that concept and thought that we ought to be careful
in the use of capital, as our view is intergenerational—we look
to future generations. The Measure will need to come back to the House
in 2018, but in the meantime it depends on the valuation of liabilities
and assets made by the actuaries. However, it is an important and
significant point.
The question
of establishment and disestablishment comes up from time to time; and I
may come to that later, but it is not pertinent to the present
discussion. I therefore turn to the other points made by the hon.
Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey. He asked about the
relationship between pensions and capital or assets, and he went
through the percentages. He wanted me to give the formulae for
calculating pensions. I will be happy to write to him, as I do not have
them with me.
As for the
percentages, the hon. Gentleman should know that between 1 January
1998, when the power came into effect, and the end of 2007, the
commissioners spent £405 million of capital, but the value of
the fund increased by £2.2 billion. That is why the percentage
has decreased. Indeed, the commissioners are to be congratulated on the
fact that the value of their portfolio has risen so steeply during the
years during which I have been Second Church Estates Commissioner. I am
glad that it has happened, as it enables us to meet our pension
requirements. The hon. Gentleman also asked whether more people will be
added to the rolls. It will
be only those who were in the pensions scheme before 1997 and who are
still in service. From 1997 onwards, the commissioners are no longer
liable. The hon.
Gentleman mentioned disestablishment. Disestablishment in Wales came
from a Liberal—Lloyd George. I can share with the Committee the
fact that Lloyd George made his name through his Friday speeches and
his wish to disestablish the Church of Wales. Once he had achieved
that, he left the subject alone and never returned to it. The Church in
Wales became disestablished in 1919. It will take some time before we
get around to disestablishing the Church of England.
The hon.
Gentleman asked whether the bishops could use their powers to clear
out, but he answered his own question. That is not how the Measure will
work. We are bringing in workers rights for the clergy, and that is
extraordinarily important for them. The clergy will have workers
rights, but they will still be office holders. We are keeping a sort of
balance between the
two. I
am now able to come back to the point made by the hon. Member for South
Staffordshire. He called me his hon. Friend, so I shall return the
compliment. My hon. Friend and I have worked together in the interests
of the Church for many years, and I have great respect for him. He made
a fluent and eloquent speech—one that he made also to the
Ecclesiastical Committee. He mentioned the greater needs of the Church
on the matter, and he also mentioned the English Clergy Association.
The association canvassed us, wrote to us and lobbied us, and that was
taken into account by the Ecclesiastical Committee.
It would not
help the Committee if I were to go into the mechanics of elections to
the General Synod. It would not necessarily take us far. My hon. Friend
said that the Church has been a bedrock through the ages and mentioned
Margaret Laird. She was our third commissioner for many years. She is a
distinguished person, and her husband has the honour to be the parish
priest for the Salisbury family at Hatfield. My hon. Friend also
mentioned 400 years of commonality, which was an interesting point.
However, as the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey said, it
is time to move on.
The hon.
Member for South Staffordshire spoke about freehold. That leads me to
share with the Committee the fact that not only are there 5,000
freehold clergy, but there are 7,000 licensed clergy. There are more
clergy in the profession without a freehold. There are 1,600 chaplains
and clergy who are employed; stipendiary readers and lay workers also
come within the framework of the Measure. In the search for
commonality, having the same rules and regulations throughout the
Church, it is important that the Measure is
passed.
Some have
talked of abolition of freehold, but I can tell those of my hon.
Friends who may not be members of the Church that it is not abolition
as such but a phasing out. It is clear that anyone who has a freehold
now can keep it. It will not be taken from him. He may opt out of the
system if he so wishes, but he will not be coerced to do so. The
freehold offices should be phased out—that is the essence of the
Measure—but those holding such an office when the Measure takes
effect will not be obliged to surrender their freehold while they
continue to hold the
office.
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