THE Bishop of Chelmsford, Dr Guli Francis-Dehqani defended the Church of England’s approach to asylum-seekers under questioning from MPs on Tuesday morning.
At a gathering of the Home Affairs Select Committee, Dr Francis-Dehqani reiterated that the Church had no evidence that there was a “conveyer belt” of asylum-seekers cynically converting to Christianity to be able to boost their claims, but said that the Church was willing to work collaboratively with the Government on immigration policy.
The C of E doesn’t keep records on whether people being baptised are asylum-seekers, she said, but noted that there had been no increase in baptisms in areas where there are larger numbers of asylum-seekers.
Churches must be a spot of “warmth and welcome” she suggested, and in “the increasingly hostile environment” created by UK immigration policy it’s “perhaps not surprising” if asylum-seekers are drawn to them. “But that’s a very separate issue to saying that we’re quickly and simply and freely baptising large numbers to be able to scam the asylum process.”
Later within the hearing, the Minister for Legal Migration, Tom Pursglove MP, looked as if it would back Dr Francis-Dehqani’s claim, saying: “We don’t have evidence of systemic abuse of the asylum process in the way in which some perhaps are suggesting.”
The pair were among the many church and political figures giving evidence on Tuesday morning, after MPs had heard an account from the Revd Matthew Firth, who was Priest-in-Charge of St Cuthbert’s, Darlington, between 2018 and 2020.
In early February, Mr Firth said in an interview with The Daily Telegraph that, during his time within the church, there had been a “conveyor belt and veritable industry of asylum baptisms” for asylum-seekers, and that he had “put a stop” to the practice (News, 12 February).
In a letter to the newspaper, the then Bishop of Durham, the Rt Revd Paul Butler, said that there was no evidence to back up Mr Firth’s “imaginative range of allegations”.
In 2020, Mr Firth left the Church of England to affix the Free Church of England.
On Tuesday morning, under questioning from select-committee members, Mr Firth made more detailed claims: that he had been approached every two to 3 weeks by groups of 5 – 6 asylum-seekers who desired to be baptised, but he had turned them down.
When he had first arrived on the church, he had found seven baptisms already “booked in”, which he performed, he said. According to records kept by the diocese of Durham, a complete of 15 baptisms of people that might have been asylum-seekers took place at St Cuthbert’s over the last decade that included the period during which Mr Firth was incumbent.
Mr Firth said that the people searching for baptism “melted away” after they realised that they’d be required to attend church usually; and he attributed the low numbers of baptisms of possible asylum-seekers to his decision to “press pause on the method”.
Asked why he didn’t communicate his concerns on the time, Mr Firth said that he had felt that there was no need, as he had “handled” the situation — but in addition that his experience of constructing disclosures, including allegations of bullying, was that he had been “ignored”.
The Conservative MP for Dudley North, Marco Longhi, said that Mr Firth was a “brave man” for agreeing to talk with the committee. At the beginning of the session, Mr Firth said that he had been advised that some people “might attempt to get” him because of this of him giving evidence.
He confirmed under questioning that he was not aware of anyone who was actually attempting to intimidate him, but had merely been warned about the opportunity of this occurring.
Another Conservative MP on the select committee, Tim Loughton, asked whether it was “fair to say that the Church of England has come down on you just like the Spanish Inquisition”.
Mr Firth suggested that the response from the C of E amounted to “veiled attacks”, and insisted that his allegations “weren’t imaginary”. After giving evidence, Mr Firth declined to reply questions from the Church Times.
Mr Loughton has previously suggested that taxpayers are being “scammed” by the Archbishop of Canterbury, after C of E guidance for clergy involved in supporting asylum-seekers got here to public attention (News, 8 February).
The MP for Ashfield, Lee Anderson, who this week joined Reform UK after having lost the Conservative Party whip for making comments which were perceived as Islamophobic, asked Mr Firth if he thought the Archbishop of Canterbury had “turned a blind eye” to allegations of widespread bogus conversions.
“I feel there’s a lack of knowledge concerning the particular dynamics I’ve been describing, and an unwillingness to be totally honest concerning the dynamics we’re seeing on this area,” Mr Firth said.
AFTER Mr Firth had given evidence, Dr Francis-Dehqani appeared alongside the overall secretary of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, Canon Christopher Thomas, and the public-issues enabler on the Baptist Union, the Revd Steve Tinning. The Bishop of Chelmsford fielded the vast majority of the questioning.
The panel of MPs consisted of a Labour MP, an SNP MP, three Conservatives, and Mr Anderson.
Dr Francis-Dehqani said that she didn’t need to get right into a “tit for tat” with Mr Firth, and was not aware of the detail of what had occurred within the diocese of Durham, but emphasised that the Church had no reason to think that it was facilitating any scams.
The clergy were right to be “vigilant” when it got here to those searching for baptism, she said, something that was reflected within the guidance, where it says that priests must be “clever as serpents and innocent as doves. . .
“Clergy have to be confident that those searching for baptism fully understand what it signifies, as an unrepeatable sacramental act of initiation which ushers a person into the Church,” the guidance continues.
Although the document was being revised, Dr Francis-Dehqani said that she didn’t expect the essence of the guidance to vary. That essence, she suggested, was “to support individuals, to assist them to explore faith, to bring them to baptism if that’s their commitment. That is our role. It is the role of the Home Office, the courts, and the tribunals to evaluate asylum claims.”
Mr Loughten asked whether the guidance was in truth an “handbook” for helping asylum-seekers to win their cases, to which Dr Francis-Dehqani replied that it was designed to support people through the system.
“We need to all the time act with honesty, and above board,” she said, and suggested that “headlines are driving people’s perceptions” on the subject.
It was ultimately inconceivable to offer a “cast-iron” guarantee of real conversion, because one “can’t look into people’s hearts” she said, adding that just a few examples of things going mistaken — reminiscent of case of a convert in Liverpool who committed a terrorist attack (News, 16 November 2021) — mustn’t be used “to criticise a complete system”.
In any case, she said, it was “not, at the tip of the day, the Church’s responsibility to evaluate an individual’s claim” but to try and discern a calling to baptism — a sacrament, she said, which was the Church took “incredibly seriously”.
Towards the tip of the session, Mr Tinning spoke concerning the Baptist church in Weymouth where seven migrants who’re currently living on the Bibby Stockholm barge have been baptised since October. In each case they’d converted to Christianity of their home country, he said.
The Baptist church which they, and dozens of other asylum-seekers, attend has been subject of threats, he said, reading an extract from an email through which the church was described as “treacherous”, needed “closing down”, and was warned: “brace yourselves.”
After the church representatives had been questioned, it was the turn of the Mr Pursglove and two senior civil servants on the Home Office.
Mr Pursglove was asked what evidence there was for the previous Home Secretary Suella Braverman’s remarks, made in The Daily Telegraph, that “too many churches are facilitating bogus asylum claims”.
He replied that it was for Ms Braverman to clarify her comments, but confirmed that the Home Office didn’t have evidence of “systemic abuse” of the system, and that individual cases were investigated after they arose.
