A FORMER Lord Chancellor, Sir Robert Buckland, has been appointed as the brand new Third Church Estates Commissioner.
Elected in 2010 because the Conservative MP for South Swindon, a seat that he held until last yr, he served as HM Solicitor General for England and Wales, Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, Minister of State for Prisons, and Secretary of State for Wales. He was a practising barrister for nearly 20 years and a part-time Crown Court judge. He was appointed a QC in 2014 and KBE in 2022.
Sir Robert, who grew up in Llanelli and joined the Conservative Party on the age of 15, has described how his political opinions were formed across the time of the miners’ strike within the early Nineteen Eighties.
“We lived on the sting of the coalfield,” he told the magazine Counsel in 2022. “I didn’t like what was happening: illegal striking, Arthur Scargill. . . I used to be never fearful that my views in politics weren’t generally shared by my peers.”
Having campaigned for Remain within the EU referendum, he helped to steer the EU (Withdrawal) Bill through the House of Commons, arguing that not abiding by the results of the vote would have been “devastating for democracy”. He has described the assisted-dying Bill as “unworkable”.
Sir Robert, whose daughter is autistic, has been a champion of the rights of autistic people, chairing the APPG on Autism for several years and leading the Government’s review of autism employment.
During his time in government, tensions between the Government and the courts rose. The Supreme Court ruled that each the Government’s Rwanda scheme and the choice to prorogue Parliament in 2019 were illegal. Sir Robert called on his party to seek out ways to “preserve the balance inside our structure, quite than creating more flashpoints”, but warned recently that “the rule of law doesn’t mean rule of lawyers.”
As Third Commissioner, he’ll chair the Mission, Pastoral and Church Property Committee, in addition to the Bishoprics and Cathedrals Committee.
The Save the Parish movement quotes Sir Robert on its website: “We are in peril of letting excessive managerialism strangle the life out of our Church. Our parishes are its heart and soul, not top-heavy bureaucracies and virtue-signalling talking shops.”
Welcoming his appointment, the First Church Estates Commissioner, Alan Smith, said: “Sir Robert Buckland’s background as a lawyer and public servant means he’s ideally suited to this demanding role, which is central to the Church Commissioners’ role in enabling flourishing parish ministry, and its responsibilities as co-regulator of cathedrals. His wisdom will probably be invaluable in helping steward the Church of England’s ambitious drive towards net zero in its churches and buildings in a careful and thought of manner.”
Sir Robert takes up the appointment on 14 March, succeeding Dr Flora Winfield, who’s now the Bishop of Selby.
An honorary lay canon of Bristol Cathedral, Sir Robert is a keen performer of choral music. His Christian faith had “sustained me in difficult moments”, he told Counsel. “I might have struggled without it.”
