Church of England (Miscellaneous Provisions) Measure

Motion to Direct

Moved by

That this House do direct that, in accordance with the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act 1919, the Church of England (Miscellaneous Provisions) Measure be presented to His Majesty for the Royal Assent.

My Lords, this is the latest in a series of miscellaneous provisions measures. It makes provision for a range of matters concerning the Church of England that do not merit separate, freestanding legislation. It includes provisions relating to the General Synod, ecclesiastical offices, ecclesiastical jurisdiction, Church property, elections to representative bodies, the functions of the Church Commissioners, appointments to the Church of England pensions board and the conduct of various types of meeting. I do not propose to take noble Lords through each of its 22 clauses in turn, but I thought I should draw attention to some of the more significant provisions.

Clause 1 puts the ability of the General Synod of the Church of England to hold remote or hybrid meetings on a permanent basis. Clause 2 amends the Legislative Reform Measure 2018 by removing the sunset provision. This amendment to Clause 2 repeals a sunset provision: the Church has found the power to make legislative reform orders a useful one, and three significant orders have been made since the power came into being. The amendment will secure the power to make further orders.

Clause 7 and Schedule 1 make it possible for cathedrals that wish to do so to appoint lay residentiary canons. Clauses 9 to 12 update the practice and procedure of the Church’s courts and statutory tribunals in various ways. Clause 20 and Schedule 2 make provision for a range of Church of England bodies, at local as well as national level, to hold their meetings remotely or as hybrid meetings. The Ecclesiastical Committee of Parliament has reported on the measure and has found it to be expedient. I beg to move.

My Lords, it is my practice, when we get the Forthcoming Business, always to search for the word “pension”, which is a prime interest of mine—among others, of course. And, of course, this came up, so I did a bit of investigating. It is not an issue of direct relevance to me: the pensions of clergymen are outside my normal involvement, although I do have relations who are members of the scheme.

I have two questions. First, I am not sure whether the right reverend Prelate will be able to help me on this, but what is our exact role in this process? Clearly, the measure has to come through this House: I understand that, but is this an issue which is ever debated and discussed? Ultimately, is it possible for us to say, “We don’t like this particular proposal”, or is this really, in practice, a matter of us being notified as to what is happening?

The more substantive question is: what is happening to these pension arrangements? I did a bit of digging, and it seems rather odd that, every few years, somewhat irregularly, we get this request to extend the period where capital can be drawn down to pay pre-1998 pensions for another seven years. But it was known and stated when this arrangement was first started that the outstanding pensions would be payable for another 60 years: I assume there was some advice on how long these pensions were going to be payable, but it was expected that these moneys would be drawn down year by year for another 60 years—but for some reason the power has to be reapplied for and reinforced every seven years. The initial estimate was that up to 50% of the capital assets—the Queen Anne’s Bounty, or wherever they came from—would need to be drawn down over those 60 years in order to pay the pensions that the Church is legally obliged to pay to the beneficiaries.

As I say, it is an issue of pensions, in which I am interested. Is this just being rolled over because it is there, or has there been any reassessment as to whether this is the right way to handle this obligation of the Church to pay pre-1998 pensions? So I just urge the right reverend Prelate, when he replies, to provide a bit of explanation, because it is simply not there in the papers that have been provided to us. There is a total lack of information in the papers that have been submitted to the House, yet we are still being asked to make a decision. I have questions in my mind as to exactly what we are doing here as part of this process. Is it, in fact, just a form of ritual, or is there some substantive decision being made? I think it is reasonable to ask the representatives of the Church here today to provide us with a bit more background.

My Lords, as chairman of the Ecclesiastical Committee, perhaps I could answer some of the questions from the noble Lord, Lord Davies, but not, I have to say, the last question, save to say that I have no doubt that it was discussed at length in Synod. Synod is where the decisions are made and then they are passed by Parliament.

The position of the Ecclesiastical Committee is that we are a statutory committee of Members of the House of Commons and Members of the House of Lords, usually chaired by a former lawyer. We have very careful explanations from the Church, nearly always from a bishop and the lawyers from Church House. We debate it among ourselves and then we declare whether it is or is not expedient. That is the wording of the 1919 statute. We went through that process. We had the bishop, the lawyers and in my recollection an archdeacon. We certainly had five or six members of the Church. We had a full explanation and we declared, on behalf of both the House of Commons and the House of Lords statutory committee, that we found it expedient. I therefore support the Motion in the name of the right reverend Prelate.

My Lords, I wonder if I might help here. I declare an interest: I am a member of the Church of England pensions scheme. I expect to draw my pension from it, including some service from pre-1998, which will be funded by the Church Commissioners. I was, for a time, the vice-chair of the Church of England pensions board, and more recently the vice-chair of the Church Commissioners. I have therefore had a foot in all the various camps.

It is important that we come to Parliament every seven years for a refreshing of that power to spend down capital. The Church Commissioners’ fund is, in effect, a permanent endowment, so capital should be spent only with clear authority as to why it is necessary. Clearly it is necessary in order to pay pensions, so we come back to both Houses of Parliament via the Ecclesiastical Committee on a regular basis to check that they are still happy for that power to continue for the next seven years.

Of course, it is entirely up to the committee to declare it non-expedient or for this House or the other place to determine that it does not want that power to continue. For me, seven years is enough time to allow the Church Commissioners and the pensions board to plan ahead with what they are doing, but it is not giving a blank cheque. It is not saying that permanent endowment can be spent down willy-nilly for the whole of the 60 years.

The good news is that when I last looked at the figures the amount of the Church Commissioners’ total endowment that will be necessary to pay out those remaining pensions over that period—and I hope my retirement will be long and healthy when it comes—is now down to something more like 20% than 50%. It is reducing with time, so more and more of the resources of the Church Commissioners are free to support the mission and ministry of the Church of England on a wider basis. It is important that we have this power renewed and that Parliament, which scrutinises the work of the Church Commissioners, gets a chance to tell us whether it is expedient to continue to spend that money from capital on pensions on a regular basis. That is part of our accountability to your Lordships’ House and to the other place.

My Lords, I am grateful to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chichester for explaining these Measures, and for the subsequent explanations by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester.

It seems to me that the tidying up of the Church legislature is a good thing, and the main Measure here is a prime example of what the Church of England is hoping to achieve. It takes a number of matters which need amending but which do not individually merit free-standing legislation. It is the 13th in a series of miscellaneous provisions Measures, which have all been through the various and exhaustive stages, culminating in a vote in the General Synod. These now come to us in this Chamber for our ratification.

The Church of England (Miscellaneous Provisions) Measure includes provisions that relate to the General Synod, enabling it to continue to hold remote or hybrid meetings, if it so wishes—that is important. It removes a sunset provision in a complex system of legislative reform orders and includes a minor safeguarding code revision, simply ensuring that everyone uses the same language throughout the process—those are important. It removes the need for the General Synod’s approval to a change of name of a suffragan see and it addresses the terms of service for clergy and some laity who serve under what is called common tenure: a person who is licensed to exercise ministry as a member of a religious community.

The Measure allows delegation of episcopal functions, whereby either of the two archbishops may delegate their functions if they have to be away for any reason. Other general and uncontroversial items are gathered under this Measure, none of which have caused concerns.

The Church of England Pensions (Application of Capital Funds) Measure is about extending the power to resort to capital by a further seven years until the end of 2032. Such an extension, as we have heard, has occurred several times in the past, beginning in 1997, and has of course been explained further in the debate that we have just heard.

My Lords, I am grateful for the questions and comments, which have ranged widely and possibly beyond the Motion that we were initially addressing, which addressed the miscellaneous provisions Measure.

Motion agreed.