Chancel Repair (Church Commissioners’ Liability) Measure

Motion to Direct

19:48:00

Moved by

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

My Lords, this Measure rationalises the legal basis on which the Church Commissioners are obliged to provide funds to repair the chancels of certain parish churches. The existing law in this area has its origins in the time before the dissolution of the monasteries in the 16th century. The rule that applied generally in England was that the people of the parish were responsible for maintaining the nave of the parish church, the main part of the church where the people would generally stand or kneel during services, and the rector of the parish was responsible for the chancel, the eastern-most part of the church that contains the altar and seats the clergy. Legislation over several centuries, beginning in the 1530s and concluding with the establishment of the Church Commissioners in 1947, has resulted in the commissioners inheriting some of the land that had once formed part of the endowment of a rectory. That ownership carries with it the rector’s liability to keep in repair the chancel of the relevant parish church. The commissioners’ land carries liability for around 350 parish churches. In some cases, the commissioners have the whole liability. In other cases, they share it with other landowners. In 2023, they incurred net expenditure of around £354,000 on chancel repairs, which was considerably down on £608,000, which occurred in 2022. They expect expenditure for 2024 and 2025 to be in the region of £1.2 million for each year. Cathedral chapters also carry liability for the chancels of around 200 parish churches. The Church Commissioners currently have a statutory power to make grants to chapters to cover these liabilities. In 2023, the commissioners made net grants of about £124,000 to chapters for this purpose, meeting the entirety of cathedral chapters’ liabilities in this regard. When land that carries chancel repair liability is sold, the purchaser takes on that liability, provided that it is registered against the title of the land before the sale takes place. That has the potential to reduce the value of the land in question and result in lower sale proceeds than would otherwise be the case. If the liability is not registered against the title of the land, the purchaser takes the land free of the liability, in which case the parish loses out because the liability, in effect, disappears. This Measure will cut through some of those complex issues. It will detach chancel liability from any land that currently belongs to the Church Commissioners and turn it into a free-standing statutory obligation on the commissioners to make the relevant payments. That will mean that parishes will no longer need to go to the trouble of registering chancel repair liability for which the commissioners are responsible. Those parishes will continue to be entitled to receive payments from the commissioners to maintain the chancels of their churches, and the commissioners will be able to sell land without having to reduce the sale price to take account of a liability having been registered against the title. The Measure also helps cathedral chapters: instead of having to rely on grants from the commissioners to offset their liability to repair the chancels of various parish churches, chapters will no longer carry the liability at all. It will be transferred to the commissioners, who will become subject to a direct statutory obligation to meet the liabilities that, until now, have fallen on cathedrals. As noble Lords will be aware from its report, the Ecclesiastical Committee has considered the Measure and found it to be expedient. I beg to move.

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Harris of Richmond, is taking part remotely, and I invite her to speak.

My Lords, I will be brief. The Ecclesiastical Committee, under our excellent chair, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, considered these Measures on 3 February this year, as we have heard, after they had gone through all the synod’s scrutiny. Before I begin, I must declare my interests: I am high steward of Ripon Cathedral in North Yorkshire—as we have heard, cathedrals are also mentioned in the Measure—and I have a nephew who is a parish priest on the Isle of Man, although that is exempt from these Measures at the moment. The first Measure, on chancel repair et cetera, is about an enforceable liability to repair or contribute to the repair of the chancel of a parish church. In essence, it would detach the Church Commissioners’ liability from the affected land and convert it into a free-standing statutory duty, as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chichester told us clearly. This would enable the Church Commissioners to sell any land they own, free of responsibility for the repair of any chancel liabilities. The commissioners would continue to be liable to repair the chancel as a continuing statutory duty, even after they sell any land for which there is a chancel repair liability. The Measure also makes provision for the conversion of the current statutory chancel repair duty of the chapter of each cathedral into a statutory duty of the commissioners. It does not abolish chancel repair liability or change the liability of third parties to pay contributions to any chancel repair that is needed. As the right reverend Prelate has already told us, we were happy to accept this Measure, as proposed by the synod.

My Lords, as your Lordships’ House has heard, I am chair of the Ecclesiastical Committee. The committee heard a considerable amount of evidence from the Church, and a number of MPs who are part of the Ecclesiastical Committee asked some very relevant questions, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, who has just spoken. We were satisfied, according to the 1919 statute that sets up the Ecclesiastical Committee, that it was “expedient”—that is the phrase used in the statute—to pass this Measure to this House.

My Lords, I do not know whether it is appropriate for me to contribute, but I feel I must. I was also part of the committee coming to the conclusion that the noble and learned Baroness has just mentioned. My degree in theology at Cambridge clearly did not fit me for understanding the complexities of land tenure in parish churches, but I just wished—I know that this is a silly thing to say—that all the chancels in Methodist churches that I know about could have been included in the Measure being put forward.

My Lords, I wish to follow on the noble Lord’s last comment: of course they would not, because the Methodist Church is not the established Church. That is why we are discussing this issue: because it is the established Church. I think that most people watching this—I declare my interest as a member of the National Secular Society—will be surprised that, in 2025, we have to debate this based on the established Church and the archaic nature of one Church in this land. I appreciate that the right reverend Prelate has to come and speak to this Measure because of the position that the established Church is in and the privilege that the Bishops sometimes get to be able to plead to Parliament about some special interest for the established Church, but I wish to place on record not just my voice but that of many people. The very fact that we have an established Church and these archaic rules means that this Parliament has to take this up. It would be better, eventually, for the Church to be disestablished and to be in control of its own rules and laws and not subject to the need for Parliament and parliamentary time.

My Lords, I thank noble Lords for the comments that have been made, and I am especially grateful for the interest and support of Methodists, who view the matter from a different perspective. Perhaps I may comment on the place of the Church of England in the history of the land. We are very aware of being the stewards of a large part of this nation’s history. Much of it is invested in the physicality of our church buildings, and I regard this process as one in which we are transparent and accountable for how we discharge that responsibility, so I hope that this will not be regarded as time that is wasted.

My Lords, I understand that, under this procedure, there is no reply from the Government.

Motion agreed.