THE General Synod voted overwhelmingly against a proposed increase of £1000 in burial fees, after a debate of nearly three hours on Friday morning.
There were 20 pages of amendments to the Fees Order. Speaker after speaker referred to the strength of feeling in parishes and the pastoral importance of funeral ministry.
The proposal arose out of a Synod fringe meeting in York in July, at which it was suggested that parochial fees referring to a body or cremated stays in a churchyard were out of line with fees charged for woodland burials. Archbishops’ Council staff researched a variety of fees for these and for burials conducted by local authorities.
A Parochial Fees Order for the subsequent five years was recommend as a method of helping many rural churches with open churchyards and bringing C of E burial fees more consistent with burial fees elsewhere. Under the brand new order, burial of a body in a churchyard immediately after a service in church can be £1390; for burial on a separate occasion, it might be £1425.
The Archbishops’ Council had an open mind on the matter, Carl Hughes (Archbishops’ Council) said in his introduction, however it would really like the Synod to make a decision that day. He later reiterated the “slight irony” that there was “no pressure from the Archbishops’ Council to extend burial fees. . . Not increasing can be no problem to us.”
First to talk was the Bishop of Blackburn, the Rt Revd Philip North, who asked for an adjournment. There was an intense debate available in regards to the level of fees, he said. There were philosophical questions on how fees ought to be set, and deeper issues in regards to the accessibility of Occasional Offices to low-income communities — but this was not the approach to do it, he argued.
“I don’t imagine that we’ll resolve these issues by countless amendments on the ground of the Synod,” he said. “All that may do is take all day, push vital matters of business out of the Synod, and lead to essentially the most terrible mess.”
The debate went ahead, nonetheless.
Amanda Robbie (Lichfield) was typical of many speakers when she said of the order, “It can be embarrassing, indefensible; it might decimate our ministry. . . It’s a holy calling, a possibility to face alongside the grieving. It would decimate our ministry. It’s a very bad idea.”
Several personal stories were told. Clergy spoke of growth coming from funerals ministry and of the likely impact on the community.
“It’s vital that we’re reactive to what we see on this planet,” the Revd Graham Kirk-Spriggs (Norwich) said. “This massive hike can be bad for our popularity locally and a pastoral nightmare for clergy. We are a Church, not a business.”
Robin Lunn (Worcester), bringing an amendment to substitute for the immediate increase a £200 annual increase for five years, was “shocked” at what amounted to a 350-per-cent increase. “We’re at risk of a cost-of-dying crisis,” he said. “It’s morally mistaken.”
The Revd Paul Benfield (Blackburn) had received more responses to this issue than to every other issue ever, he said, “even Living in Love and Faith. It’s pastorally inept and would cause great damage to our work within the parishes of this land.”
The complex series of grouped amendments, chiefly brought by the Revd Jonathan Macy (Southwark), necessarily related to several types of burial and cremation fees.
The Bishop of Birkenhead, the Rt Revd Julie Conalty (Northern Suffragans), was prepared to “support any amendment if it’s going to keep the fee down. Support this amendment,” she urged the Synod within the latter stages. Otherwise, “I could also be forced to sell indulgences.”
As an 85-year-old, David Ashton (Leeds) admitted “a keen interest in what we’re debating”.
It was identified that it might also require legislative changes to the Ecclesiastical Fees Measure 1986, which might take three years.
Six amendments were carried to make sure that in every variation of burial and cremation, the figure given had £1000 subtracted. After this, the order was eventually carried by 262-3 with five recorded abstentions.
Mr Hughes praised the Synod for its “patience and perseverance”.
