Lords Spiritual (Women) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-01-19
Topic: Civil Rights
Anthony Brian Baldry (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend makes a very good point, and I think the whole House was grateful for the work done by the Bishop of Truro in co-chairing an inquiry by the all-party group on hunger and food poverty Archbishop Justin concluded that "the Church of England remains one of the glues of society", and I would suggest it is a worthy glue to be included within the fabric of parliamentary life As my hon. Friend the Minister made clear, the provisions in the Bill before the House are straightforward. It is a two-clause Bill which, if passed, will mean that for a period of 10 years the most senior eligible female bishop will fill any vacancy that arises on the Bishops’ Bench for the 21 places in the House of Lords filled by seniority, in preference to the most senior eligible male bishop A helpful comment in the Bill’s explanatory note makes it clear that unless the law is changed, it will take "some years" before a newly appointed female diocesan bishop will be eligible to enter the House of Lords. Quite what "some years" means is hard to specify because the period between appointment and going into the Lords has varied greatly over the decades, depending on when retirements and other unexpected vacancies occur. In the past three Parliaments, it has ranged at times from less than four years to at one point more than seven. I think this House, as much as everywhere else in the country, would find it unacceptable if, having waited so long to get women bishops, we then had to wait perhaps the duration of a further Parliament before they started to reach the top of the queue. Under the current law, the two Church of England archbishops and 24 of its other diocesan bishops are entitled to sit in the House of Lords as Lords Spiritual. This Bill enables women diocesan bishops to skip the queue, which, when all sees are filled, is 14 bishops long. It is a Bill which, I can assure the House, has the very broadest support across the Church of England. The Bishop of Lincoln, the Right Rev. Christopher Lowson, who is the diocesan bishop currently at the head of the queue—the bishop who, if the law were not changed, would be the next to enter the House of Lords—has with characteristic generosity welcomed the Bill and has observed: "On the one hand, this is quite frustrating because greater Lincolnshire is under-represented in the House of Lords. However far more frustrating has been the wait for women to be able to be ordained bishop, and for an anachronism to be consigned to history. For that to happen completely, it is absolutely right that women bishops are fully represented in all levels of society, Parliament and the Church, and I look forward very much to seeing that happen." The campaigning group WATCH—which stands for Women and the Church—has over many years led the campaign for the ordination of women bishops. Before Christmas it issued a statement, saying it had "always campaigned for women and men to be bishops on equal terms including as members of the House of Lords…Sometimes, however, equality is so far distant that some speeding up is necessary to make it happen within a reasonable time frame." WATCH went on to say: "The Bill recognises the fact that for the first Diocesan bishops who are women this hasn’t been a level playing field and they won’t have had the same opportunities historically to fulfil their full and true calling." The Bishop of Leicester, who is convenor of the Lords Spiritual in the House of Lords, has made it clear that he believes that women bishops will "enrich and strengthen" the voice of the Lords Spiritual in the House of Lords As the Leader of the House made clear in business questions recently, if the Bill passes all its stages in the House today, the intention is for there to be sufficient time for the Lords to consider the Bill and for it to receive Royal Assent before Parliament is dissolved. As a result, when women start being consecrated as diocesan bishops, they will be able to take a place in the House of Lords straight away I very much support the Bill and commend it to the House.