THE General Synod voted overwhelmingly to just accept the Parochial Fees Order 2026 and keep burial fees as they stood at present. A series of amendments had enabled the Synod to reject a proposed one-off increase of £1000 in burial fees.
The vote got here after an almost three-hour debate on the Friday morning, by which 20 pages of amendments were considered. The proposal arose out of a fringe meeting on the Synod last July, at which it was suggested that parochial fees referring to a body or cremated stays in a churchyard were out of line with the fees charged for woodland burials. Archbishops’ Council staff researched a variety of fees for these and for local-authority burials.
It consequently proposed a Parochial Fees Order for the following five years, to assist many rural churches with open churchyards, and to bring Church of England burial fees more in keeping with those in other settings. Under the brand new order, burial of a body in a churchyard immediately after a service in church can be £1390; the fee of burial on a separate occasion can be £1425.
CHURCH HOUSE YOUTUBEAmanda Robbie (Lichfield)
The Archbishops’ Council had an open mind on the matter, Carl Hughes, who chairs the Finance Committee, said. Introducing the motion, he said that he would love the Synod to make a decision that day. He reiterated later the “slight irony” that there was “no pressure from the Archbishops’ Council to extend burial fees. . . Not increasing can be no problem to us.”
The Bishop of Blackburn, the Rt Revd Philip North, straightaway asked for an adjournment. There was an intense debate available in regards to the level of fees, the philosophical questions on how fees needs to be set, and deeper issues in regards to the accessibility of occasional offices to low-income communities; but this was not the option to do it.
“I don’t consider that we are going to resolve these issues by countless amendments on the ground of the Synod,” he said. “All that may do is take all day, push necessary matters of business out of the Synod and lead to probably the most terrible mess.”
His procedural motion was lost.
Amanda Robbie (Lichfield) said that the rise in fees can be “embarrassing, indefensible. . . It’s a holy calling, a chance to face alongside the grieving. It would decimate our ministry. It’s a very bad idea.”
Canon Ian Flintoft (Newcastle) said that much church growth had come from funerals. How was he to face longstanding members of his congregation?
In a maiden speech, Canon Amanda Barraclough (Sheffield) believed that this could make the pastoral burden much heavier. She didn’t think that the presumption of equivalence in fees was accurate. “The gospel is free, isn’t it?” asked Sandra Turner (Chelmsford).
The first of a series of amendments from the Revd Jonathan Macy (Southwark), searching for to limit the terms of the Fees Order for one yr, to permit time to assemble data, was lost.
An amendment by Robin Lunn (Worcester) sought a compromise in an annual £200 increase for the five-year period as a substitute of a single £1000 increase. “We are higher than this,” he said. “We are at risk here of a cost-of-dying crisis. It’s morally incorrect.” The amendment lapsed.
An amendment by John Mason (Chester), which sought to make sure that when there was a decrease within the Consumer Prices Index (CPI), there can be a corresponding decrease in the quantity of the bottom figure or fee quite than a freeze, was also lost.
The complex series of grouped amendments that followed, brought by Mr Macy, Mrs Robbie, Canon Nick Moir (Ely), Nigel Bacon (Lincoln), the Archdeacon of London, the Ven. Luke Miller (London), and Dr Ian Johnston (Portsmouth), in principal subtracted £1000 from each of the bottom burial fees within the Order as they applied to variations in burials or lawful disposal of cremated stays, and substituted the brand new figure, and were methodically voted on in turn.
Speakers throughout the long debate were exercised in regards to the proposed rise. The Revd Paul Benfield (Blackburn) had had more responses to this issue than to every other other issue ever, “even Living in Love and Faith. It’s pastorally inept and would cause great damage to our work within the parishes of this land,” he said.
Michaela Suckling (Sheffield), a parish nurse, warned of the continued consequences of not supporting people’s needs and suggested that the Church “look creatively at ways to take care of churchyards”. Canon Vincent Whitworth (Manchester) reflected:, “It costs money to take care of churchyards. It costs pain if we don’t. We have the biggest graveyard in Bolton. It’s an enormous undertaking to keep up it. We do need money to take care of graveyards.”
Clive Scowen (London) was not alone in saying that the matter was greater than the Fees Order. “Synod should debate what it actually wants. It should take a look at the laws and see whether fees were even appropriate.”
The Revd Dr Catherine Shelley (Leeds) is the vicar of a town parish with 4 churchyards. “The majority of a funeral cost was for the funeral director, and the matter also needs to be considered in that context,” she said. “Keep the fees low, but look longer-term at how we maintain our churchyards.”
Canon Andrew Dotchin (St Edmundsbury & Ipswich) believed grief to be “stolen” when people opted for direct cremation. “I wish we could do that at no cost,” he said. “People during Covid-19 couldn’t attend them. Now, we don’t hassle.” He urged the Synod to “vote for all amendments which is able to keep fees as they’re or abolish them altogether”.
So much happened in a churchyard space, where many individuals, not all churchgoers, found a spot for spiritual reflection, the Revd Andrew Yates (Truro) said. The Revd Dr Ruth Howlett-Shipley (Salisbury) had 14 rural churchyards, 13 of them open. “Funeral ministry is a really significant ministry opportunity, which we’d hate to lose. Everyone who lives and dies in my parish has the correct to be buried within the churchyard.”
The funeral business was now a crowded market, and the C of E was not the one place to go, the Revd Joy Mawdesley (Oxford) said. She mentioned the massive rise in direct cremations and reminded the Synod: “Cost often dictates selections.”
The Revd Dr Jo Kershaw (Universities and TEIs) observed that the Church of Scotland didn’t charge funeral fees. “I’m quite bored with being ashamed about [charging],” she said.
The Archbishop of York was pleased with and supportive of the amendments: “The time has come for us on the very least to step back and do a rethink of these items.”
The Bishop of Birkenhead, the Rt Revd Julie Conalty (Northern Suffragans), was prepared to “support any amendment if it can keep the fee down. Support this amendment,” she urged Synod within the latter stages. “[Otherwise] I could also be forced to sell indulgences.”
At 85, David Ashton (Leeds) admitted “a keen interest in what we’re debating”.
In light of the strength of feeling about fees, a necessity was expressed for legislative changes to the Ecclesiastical Fees Measure 1986 itself. The Synod voted in favour of the amended Order by 262-3 with five recorded abstentions. The draft order would now be referred to the Archbishops’ Council.
Mr Hughes praised the Synod for its “patience and perseverance”.
Read more reports from the General Synod Digest here
