THE Church of England has made “slower progress than we had hoped” on the appointment of girls bishops, the Bishop of St Albans, Dr Alan Smith, told the House of Lords on Tuesday, in a debate on a Bill to enable further “fast-tracking” of girls to the Bishops’ Bench.
The Lords Spiritual (Women) Act 2015 (Extension) Bill will extend rules that make sure that vacant seats on the Bishops’ Bench are filled by women bishops if an eligible female diocesan bishop is obtainable (News, 2 August). There are exceptions for the five sees — Canterbury, York, London, Durham, and Winchester — that carry an automatic entitlement to a seat within the Lords. In accordance with the Bishoprics Act of 1878, the remaining 21 seats would often be filled on the idea of seniority — that’s, by the length of tenure.
To date, six women bishops have been enabled to sit down within the Lords because the Lords Spiritual (Women) Act 2015 got here into force (News, 23 January 2015). The original laws is as a result of expire in May 2025; the proposed extension is to May 2030.
Dr Alan Smith, the convener of the Lords Spiritual, described the Bill as a “reasonable extension to a successful piece of laws”.
“I believe it prudent to admit that we within the Church have made slower progress than we had hoped when it got here to making sure that our senior clergy are representative of the various congregations we serve,” he said. “This is true each of girls and of ethnic and racial minorities.”
The pattern of appointments to the episcopate had “not consisted of as many female bishops as we had hoped, and we humbly ask this House to grant us somewhat longer to make sure that our excellent and qualified women bishops have enough time to beat this barrier”.
He reassured the House that the “pipeline” was “getting into the correct direction”, and that the number of girls archdeacons, cathedral deans, suffragan bishops, and incumbents in parishes was increasing (News, 19 July).
Since the passing of laws enabling the appointment of girls bishops in 2014, nine women have been appointed as diocesan bishops, and 20 men.
“It is such a shame that the Church of England has to revisit this issue, because it was hoped back in 2015 that ten years can be long enough to make sure that there have been enough women diocesan bishops that the Lords Spiritual would have some semblance of a gender balance,” Baroness Brinton, of the Liberal Democrats, said.
She expressed concern about “whether extending the law will work or could actually be a perverse incentive to not appoint women as diocesan bishops. Is this considered one of the explanations that only two of the last 11 appointments have been women?” Even with the Bill in place, “we could find yourself with only men,” she warned. “In the following five years, there are 14 retirements due, and the replacements — bar the Bishop of Peterborough, who will replace the Rt Revd Prelate the Bishop of Worcester — can be men.”
She was amongst peers who raised questions on whether the Lords Spiritual should retain their seats.
The crossbench peer, Lord Birt, expressed disappointment that the Government was not preparing a “comprehensive, holistic and long-overdue approach to the general reform of this House”. The guaranteed representation of the Bishops was a “feudal legacy” and an “indefensible, undemocratic anomaly”. Faith leaders ought to be appointed “on individual merit, not as exercising a right existing in a single form or one other for half a millennium”.
Lord Scriven of the Liberal Democrats questioned whether the Church was “really committed to equality for girls inside its structures and . . . to coping with the misogyny, and believes within the true equality of girls inside its structures, which is the idea the Bill is established on”. Provision for traditionalists was “not mutual flourishing, but a system of institutionalised misogyny”, he said. Bishops didn’t have any “special insight”.
Dissent was provided by the Labour peer Lord Murphy of Torfaen, a Roman Catholic, who described the Bishops’ contributions as “first-class”.
The Bishop of Derby, the Rt Revd Libby Lane, said that there have been “mixed views” on the unique Bill, each on the Bishops’ Bench and within the College of Bishops. The number of girls bishops remained “too low”. But the House of Lords had “benefited greatly from the wisdom and repair of those women who’ve been Lords spiritual under the term of the Act”.
The Bill now passes to the Committee Stage within the House of Lords. The Lord Privy Seal, Baroness Smith of Basildon, said that Bishop Lane “should take back to her colleagues how much support she has from Benches across the House who need to see more women bishops”.
