It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Jeremy.
The Church of England has been at the heart of our national life for centuries. It is our national Church and it plays an important role in many of the great ceremonies and occasions that bring our country together. Even in an age of increasing secularisation, parish churches are a central organising pillar of many of our communities. For many, especially for people who live in villages like those in my constituency, the Weald of Kent, the parish church is where we meet, celebrate, marry and grieve.
The Church of England is also arguably Britain’s largest heritage organisation. It is responsible for the upkeep of more than 16,000 church buildings, more than 12,500 of which are listed by Historic England in recognition of their enormous historical and architectural value.
Given the Church’s continued significance in our national life, the financial decisions taken by and on behalf of the Church are a matter of significant public interest. I am therefore heartened that we have an opportunity to debate the Measures before us today, which provide some transparency for the public around the Church of England’s finances and the legal liability for chancel repair.
It is right that there should be clear, accountable structures providing oversight of how and why the Church of England spends its money. It is for that reason that rule 2 paragraph (6) of the National Institutions Measure 1998 stipulates that after the end of each year, the Archbishops’ Council
“shall cause a certificate to be issued to the Church Commissioners to the effect that the application and distribution of the sums made available by them as aforesaid has been in accordance with subsection (3) above.”
Could the Second Church Estates Commissioner, representing the Church Commissioners, please disclose the amount certified under the Measure for each year since the provision came into force, and place copies of the relevant certificates in the House of Commons Library?
Last year, the Church Commissioners for England launched a programme, dubbed Project Spire, to provide reparations in relation to historical transatlantic slavery. The commissioners have committed £100 million to the fund, which is intended to be distributed through:
“initiatives led by and for people of African descent, through a reparative and intersectional lens”
These are thought to be impact investments, which by their nature are suboptimal commercially, and grants and research projects, which produce no financial return. Any money that is given in grants, used to pay for research, or forgone as the result of commercially suboptimal investments, is money that is not available for hard-pressed parishes.
The project seems to be a departure by the Church Commissioners from their core duties. The funds are intended for the upkeep of parish churches, the management of historical records and the provision of salaries for members of the clergy. A commitment to wide-ranging historical reparations clearly falls outside the scope of the commissioners’ charitable duties, yet little information about the funds’ structure or management has been made public. We simply do not know how the Church Commissioners are attempting to justify the use of these funds according to their charitable aims, nor do we know the details of conversations between the Church Commissioners and the Charity Commission about how the fund will be structured and administered lawfully—or whether it can be. We do not know whether the idea of a separate fund was considered, or perhaps is still being considered.
As the figures relating to the chancel repair Measure show, the new fund could not come at a worse time. According to the National Churches Trust, nearly 1,000 historic cathedrals, churches and chapels across England are at risk of falling into disrepair. However, rather than providing the funding needed for those crucial repairs, the Church Commissioners are choosing to allocate £100 million to an ill-conceived, opaque fund for reparations. That seems to be a dereliction of their primary duty, and directly undermines the Church Commissioners’ role as stewards of our national history.
The horrors of slavery and slave trading are as old as organised human society. Shamefully, Britain was no exception from participation, but we were exceptional in being among the first people in the history of the world to abolish both. We went on, rightly and proudly, to do penance for slavery by spending resources, ships, money, political capital and the lives of Royal Navy sailors in fighting slavery across the globe for 150 years. It is certainly not feasible to demand financial reparations from every institution with a tangential relationship to that awful trade.
In the Church of England’s case, its involvement is said to stem from its connection with Queen Anne’s Bounty—a charity created by statute to support poorer members of the clergy—which invested in wide variety of companies over its 243-year history, and in turn, that charity’s involvement in the South Sea Company. Queen Anne’s Bounty acquired South Sea Company annuities, and later shares in its trading activities, at a point when it was not involved in the slave trade, although it subsequently became so in 1722. Those shares were all disposed of by 1730 and, overall, the result was a substantial loss.
The Church as an institution did not endorse the slave trade—indeed, many Church of England ministers were at the forefront of the fight against this evil practice, and as far as anyone is able to tell, Queen Anne’s Bounty did not make money from it at all. It is therefore wrong of the Church Commissioners, with the apparent approval of Church leaders, to allocate millions of pounds that they hold on behalf of others to reparations, at a time when so many parishes desperately need support. It is particularly wrong to do so in this manner, which is opaque, unaccountable, and evasive.
In the light of the direct involvement of the archbishops, bishops, and clergy in the Church Commissioners’ governance, and in order to get the full picture of the Church’s financial position, which is necessary to debate the Measures properly, I ask the Second Church Estates Commissioner the following questions. What information can she provide on when discussions about Project Spire began between the Charity Commission and the Church Commissioners? What legal advice, if any, has been obtained to ensure that the proposals for Project Spire are within the statutory powers of the Church Commissioners, and can it be published? Which grant-making power will be used to make any relevant grants? What other statutory powers do the Church Commissioners intend to use to facilitate Project Spire, bearing in mind that, as a statutory corporation, they can act only in accordance with powers granted by statute?
Are the commissioners proposing to set up a new charity to administer Project Spire, the Bishop of Salisbury’s remarks at last month’s General Synod meeting suggest? The Bishop of Salisbury also specified that it is necessary to seek approval from the Charity Commission for the project. If the project is already within the rules, why is that necessary? If the Church Commissioners are confident that this activity is permitted by law, under what section of which statute? If Project Spire will instead be ultra vires—which is to say, unlawful—have the Church Commissioners spoken to the Charity Commission about this? If so, what problems were identified—