Safeguarding (Code of Practice) Measure — House of Lords, 2021-09-16
Topic: Civil Rights
Julian Henderson (Bishops, Unknown): My Lords, it has been a long day and we are on the cusp of a party conference recess. I do not want to detain your Lordships more than is necessary. I am somewhat anxious, and feel, to use the words of a noble Lord a moment ago, a scintilla of fear, standing here for the first time and hearing much of the previous debate about the importance of good leadership and of doing everything well. Perhaps I am a candidate for all that further training that was talked about. It is a great privilege to be allowed to spend this week as duty Bishop in this House and to lead Prayers each day I am grateful for your Lordships’ presence this evening, not least because the Measure before us is significant in its application and is about safeguarding. As noble Lords will know, the Church of England has been on a long journey of putting in place appropriate staff, policies and practices to make the Church a safe place for all people, especially children and vulnerable adults. That has been essential as a response to church often being unsafe and to stories—historic and current—of appalling cases of abuse by those in positions of power who should have known better and whom many were willing to trust This Measure updates the legislation concerned with the safeguarding of children and vulnerable adults by the Church of England. In particular, it responds to a recommendation made by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, known as IICSA. In 2019, the independent inquiry issued a report on case studies it had carried out into abuse committed by Peter Ball, a former Bishop of Gloucester, and on past abuse in the diocese of Chichester. The report recognised that steps had been taken by the Church to tackle abuse, including the passing of the Safeguarding and Clergy Discipline Measure 2016. But the independent inquiry considered that the way the 2016 Measure imposed obligations on individuals and Church organisations to follow correct safeguarding practice was less clear than it should be. This recommendation focused on the requirement in the 2016 Measure that a relevant person must have "due regard" to safeguarding guidance issued by the House of Bishops. The independent inquiry considered that the effect of a statutory requirement to have "due regard" to guidance was not well understood and should be replaced with a requirement that was more explicit in its terms The Archbishops’ Council accepted the recommendations contained in the report of the independent inquiry and has been taking steps to implement them. This Measure, passed by the General Synod in April this year, will implement the recommendation I have just described. It replaces the existing duty to have "due regard" to safeguarding guidance with the duty to "comply with" requirements imposed by a safeguarding code of practice. The concept of complying with a requirement should be more straightforward than having "due regard" to guidance The code of practice itself, and any subsequent amendments to it, will be subject to prior consultation, including with those who have suffered abuse, as well as with representative bodies of the clergy and the laity. The code will also be subject to scrutiny by the General Synod. The code of practice, and any amendment to it, will be sent to every member of the General Synod and published online. If 25 or more members of the synod give notice, a code will not come into force until the synod has debated and approved it The opportunity has also been taken in this Measure to update the list of "relevant persons"—that is, those individuals and bodies to whom the code of practice will be directed and who will be under a duty to comply with its requirements. Under the 2016 Measure, the list of relevant persons already includes clergy, licensed laypersons, church wardens and parochial church councils. Cathedral chapters will be added by the Cathedrals Measure 2021. This Measure will add diocesan boards of finance and diocesan boards of education to the list. It will also add staff working in the Church of England’s national safeguarding team, meaning that they too will be obliged to comply with relevant requirements contained in the code of practice During the passage of the Measure through the General Synod, the issue was raised as to how compliance with the requirements of the code of practice would be enforced, should that become necessary. So far as the clergy are concerned, non-compliance would potentially be a disciplinary matter, as it would be for licensed lay ministers. Bodies such as parochial church councils and diocesan boards are charities, and the Charity Commission takes the safeguarding responsibility of charity trustees very seriously and has statutory powers to intervene where they are not being properly carried out. Cathedrals are subject to visitation by the bishop and will shortly become subject to the jurisdiction of the Charity Commission.