Clergy Discipline Measure

HL Deb 21 May 2003 vol 648 cc916-30

8.20 p.m.

The Lord Bishop of Winchester

rose to move That, in accordance with the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act 1919, the Clergy Discipline Measure be presented to Her Majesty for the Royal Assent.

The right reverend Prelate said: My Lords, the Clergy Discipline Measure before your Lordships' House this evening represents a major revision of the disciplinary procedures of the Church of England. It is the result of very long and careful consideration of the General Synod and comes to the House with the strong support of the General Synod and the Church of England, after having been found expedient by the Ecclesiastical Committee. It is with confidence that I commend it to this House for approval.

The current arrangements for clergy discipline are contained within the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Measure 1963. Its procedures, modelled in some ways on those of criminal courts, have been found to be inflexible, expensive and slow. The result has been that the 1963 Measure is rarely used, which has had serious consequences. A significant number of complaints have been left unresolved; discipline has tended to be exercised informally and on a voluntary basis; and a cleric's resignation has been a frequent outcome, not always appropriately.

That situation is unsatisfactory, not least from the point of view of the clergy themselves. if they are to be respected and trusted, a manifestly credible, fair and transparent system for administering discipline is essential on those rare occasions in which we fall short of the standards rightly expected of us.

Accordingly, in 1994 the General Synod established a working party to review clergy discipline and the working of the ecclesiastical courts. There followed an extensive consultation and an examination of good practice in other Anglican provinces, other Christian churches and the professions and employment in the United Kingdom, which led to the report Under Authority. Legislative proposals were then developed and taken through a long and careful process of revision in the Synod. The Measure that resulted from that lengthy process commanded the support, on its final approval in November 2000, of 100 per cent of those voting in the House of Bishops, 99 per cent in the House of Laity and 90 per cent in the House of Clergy, in which only 23 voted against final approval, with 200 voting for it.

In drawing up the Measure, the Church has sought to construct procedures which are fair to all parties; are capable of applying to all types of clergy, whatever their rank, experience or circumstances; are easily understood and flexible; and encourage as speedy a resolution as is consistent with the needs of justice. We firmly believe that the procedures in the Measure will meet all those requirements and enable genuine complaints to be dealt with effectively, while excluding those that are trivial, malicious or vexatious.

In detail, the disciplinary procedure under the Measure, which relates only to cases of misconduct and not to matters of worship or doctrine, will be activated by a written complaint to the bishop. Once received, the complaint will have to be examined by the diocesan registrar, a practising lawyer, who will decide whether the complainant has a right to complain under the Measure, whether it involves a disciplinary matter and whether the evidence supplied supports the complaint. On the basis of the registrar's assessment, the bishop will then decide whether the complaint should be dismissed. If he decides not to dismiss it a number of courses are open to him, including taking no further action, leaving the complaint on the record, seeking to promote conciliation, or imposing a penalty with the cleric's consent. The remaining option is to refer the complaint for investigation with a view to it being brought before a bishop's disciplinary tribunal if the President of Tribunals, again a lawyer, agrees that there is a case to answer.

In practice it should seldom be necessary to follow that last course of action. In those rare cases where a complaint does proceed to a tribunal, the case will be heard by a tribunal of five members—two clergy, two lay people and a legally qualified chairman—allocated from provincial panels. Their decision will be by a majority using the civil standard of proof. Appeals will continue to lie to provincial courts of appeal.

As regards penalties, the Clergy Discipline Measure will give more flexibility than does the 1963 Measure. The most severe, for use in the most serious cases, is prohibition for life, which involves a permanent ban on exercising any clerical function. Others include prohibition for a limited period, removal from office, revocation of a licence, requiring the cleric to refrain from some offending behaviour, and. lastly, giving a formal warning. The Measure also provides for the bishop to be able to impose some of those penalties after certain proceedings in the criminal or divorce courts—whose findings are treated as conclusive for the Church—and gives him a new power of suspension.

A closely similar process is made available for complaints about bishops and archbishops. Among its other provisions, the Measure also provides for the establishment of a new commission, the clergy discipline commission, to give general advice on the working of the Measure and to issue codes of practice and guidelines, and for the maintenance of an archbishops' list—a confidential record of penalties imposed under the Measure and other matters.

In drawing up these new procedures the Church recognises that disciplinary proceedings can have very serious implications for clergy even where the complaint is about a relatively minor matter. We have therefore been concerned to ensure that the rights of the clergy are properly protected. To that end the draft Measure was subject to a detailed scrutiny by leading counsel specialising in human rights law. Counsel was satisfied that the requirements of Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, conferring the right to a fair trial, were met by virtue of the rights of appeal to the provincial courts. But he identified ways in which, had that not been the case, the Measure as originally drafted might not have been fully consistent with human rights requirements. A number of changes were made as a result; and we are therefore as satisfied as we reasonably can be that the Measure is fully compliant with the Human Rights Act.

The proper protection of the human rights of the clergy was of course a matter to which the Ecclesiastical Committee was entitled to give the fullest consideration, and it did so. One of the principal issues it addressed, at pages 55 and following of the committee's report, was that of the standard of proof where a complaint is heard by a tribunal. We explained to the committee that the choice of the civil standard. as opposed to the criminal standard which applies under the 1963 Measure, was arrived at after thorough consideration and much debate in the revision committee for the Measure and in the Synod as a whole.

The civil standard is increasingly used in the disciplinary procedures of other professional bodies. In our view it strikes an appropriate balance between the interests of the wider Church and the public in not allowing misconduct by clergy to go unchallenged and the right of clergy to a fair hearing and a safe decision. This is because the level of proof required will vary according to the seriousness of the allegation and the implications for the cleric. Thus in the most serious cases the standard of proof required will be indistinguishable from the criminal standard.

This understanding of the position was accepted by the Ecclesiastical Committee, which was accordingly content to accept that the adoption of the civil standard of proof was appropriate. In its examination of our representatives and in its report the committee addressed other matters but none was such, in its judgment, as to render the Measure inexpedient. In so far as the committee made recommendations for consideration by the Church, we are grateful for them and shall give them very careful consideration in the implementation of the Measure if it passes into law. The committee's decision, by a substantial majority, to find the Measure expedient reinforces my confidence that the Synod's proposals embodied in the Measure will commend themselves to this House.

In conclusion, the Measure is the fruit of very long and careful consideration by the Synod of the needs of all those who have an interest in this important area, not just clergy, their bishops and the lay people of the Church but also the wider public. We believe that it strikes a fair balance between their different interests and that in doing so it will give the Church a fair. credible and open system for dealing with disciplinary issues. I beg to move.

Moved, That, in accordance with the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act 1919, the Clergy Discipline Measure be presented to Her Majesty for the Royal Assent.—(The Lord Bishop of Winchester.)

8.32 p.m.

Baroness Turner of Camden

My Lords, I thank the right reverend Prelate for introducing the Measure. I speak on this issue because, as some noble Lords will know, I have an interest as a former official for the union to which a number of clergy belong, Amicus, MSF Section.

The union has been concerned for some time to try to ensure that its members have the same employment rights as other employees. As is well known, that is not the case at the moment. I am not an expert in these matters; I speak from a briefing provided by the union. But one problem is lack of employment security, which, of course, extends to security of homes as well.

The clergy are in a unique and sometimes invidious position as public figures and by reason of their employment conditions. They are open to allegations which can easily be made without any supporting evidence and which are sometimes difficult to disprove. Because of the public nature and character of ordained ministry, it is often enough for allegations to be made for someone's life's work to be destroyed without the prospect of redress or reinstatement.

Allegations repeated in a public hearing, in the solemnity of what appears to be a Crown Court, attended by the world's media, generally end the ministry of any cleric whether acquitted or found guilty. The 1963 system ensured the maximum interest by the media and gave what are in effect matters of Christian discipline the character of serious criminal misconduct. Enormous power rests in the hands of the bishop and his legal advisers which I am advised has sometimes been exercised oppressively and unjustly.

The new Measure attempts to regulate the involvement of the bishop with the administration of justice although it does not remove him from making decisions in a process in which he is involved in his own right. However, the prospect of a civil tribunal with officers not appointed by the bishop and out of the glare of the media is less of a threat to those who are determined to have their day in court and to vindicate themselves against allegations.

The second aspect of the clergy's position which needs consideration is that once removed from their employment in paid ministry they have no alternative employers to whom they can turn. They have lost their tied housing, their income, their ministry and all prospect of further service in what is, after all, very much a vocation.

I am advised by our members that there is a so-called caution list maintained by the archbishops, circulated regularly to their episcopal colleagues, on which names of clergy appear—not only those who have been formally disciplined under the 1963 Measure or have criminal convictions according to the law of the land. but those to whom their bishop has taken some exception. Clergy can be threatened with the list as a means of demanding conformity, whether legitimately or oppressively. Some modest regulation of the list is introduced in this Measure, although our members tell me that it does not go far enough.

I gather that the most important positive reform introduced by the Measure is a new section in which, for the first time, it becomes practical for anyone, clergy or lay, to initiate disciplinary proceedings against the bishops themselves. The threshold provided by the requirements of the 1963 Measure was set so high that it was practically impossible for a bishop to find himself on the receiving end of a complaint. In the new Measure it will be easier for proceedings to be commenced by a wide range of parties, including those who consider themselves to have suffered from the actions of a bishop. The briefing I received asks that attention be drawn to the new canon law, which the General Synod has also approved to accompany the new Measure.

The proposed amending canon 24 will have the effect, if approved, of imposing the provisions of the new Measure not only on serving clergy and bishops of the Church of England—that is an appropriate use of the powers of the Synod—but on all those who have ever been ordained, including those who have resigned or retired from active ministry, those who have been deposed, and even those who have repudiated the Church of England and been accepted into the ministry of another Church or even of another faith. Our members believe that that is not appropriate and possibly a breach of the human rights convention, despite what the right reverend Prelate said.

It is clear that the new Measure is not without shortcomings, and there will be reservations about it on points of detail by clergy. However, the prospect that bishops would deal with clergy with whom they were dissatisfied in a relatively open way, using a process more recognisably close to that which employees in ordinary walks of life might face, is a step in the right direction. The union believes that it goes some little way to meeting the kinds of arguments that it has been putting forward on behalf of its members.

The Measure still falls a long way short of full employment rights for clergy, however. Some clergy will be in a vulnerable situation, and the Measure may not improve matters for them. Clergy of the Church of England who lack the parson's freehold will still not be protected in the same way as those who have the freehold. There has been a lengthy consultation process in relation to the DTI's review of atypical workers' rights, but it has not so far resulted in a decision to grant clergy full employment rights in accordance with the campaign in which the union is still engaged. Meanwhile, as I said, I welcome the new Measure as a step in the right direction.

8.38 p.m.

Lord Brightman

My Lords, I have had the honour of being a member of the Ecclesiastical Committee for some years, and would like to take the opportunity to raise two points for consideration. The first arises from the fact that the committee has no power to amend a draft measure, even in the most obvious case. The function of the Ecclesiastical Committee is confined by statute to drafting a report to Parliament stating the nature and legal effect of a proposed measure and its views on the expediency of the measure. It then communicates the report in draft form to the legislative committee of the General Synod, and finally presents the report to both Houses, if the Legislative Committee wishes. The final step is for Parliament to submit the measure for Royal Assent, if so resolved on Motion. Nowhere along this long path is there any power for the Ecclesiastical Committee to amend a draft Measure, however obvious it may be that an amendment is needed.

This point arose in stark form in the present case. Archbishops were omitted by mistake from a certain section. There was no doubt whatever that this was an accident in drafting. It was clear from the Notes on Clauses; it was clear from the statements of the representatives of the General Synod who appeared before us. The mistake did not matter all that much in the present case, and the Ecclesiastical Committee did not reject the draft measure on that ground.

Had the mistake been more serious, I am advised that the draft Measure would have had to be returned to the General Synod for correction and that the delay might have been at least six months before the measure finally became law.

I do not suggest that the Ecclesiastical Committee should have any general power to amend. I only suggest that there should be a limited power to correct an obvious and admitted mistake in wording, in order to avoid the laborious and time-consuming process otherwise involved.

Let us suppose that the word "not" were omitted by accident from an important clause. Supposing it were abundantly clear from the Notes on Clauses and from statements made by representatives of the General Synod appearing before the Ecclesiastical Committee that the word "not" should be there. It seems absurd that the draft Measure should have to go back to the Legislative Committee of the General Synod, and then to the General Synod, and back once more to the Ecclesiastical Committee in order to put matters right. What a palaver for just correcting an admitted mistake!

My second point relates to the size of the Ecclesiastical Committee. The committee is required by statute to consist of 30 members, subject to casual vacancies—that is to say, 15 from each House. I have examined the reports of nine meetings of the committee. It is usually not possible to tell from the reports how many members of the committee voted on the expediency of a draft Measure. But I can say that in one case only 12 members attended and voted—12 out of 30.

It is, I believe, obvious that if a committee has a very large membership, the sense of responsibility of members towards the work of that committee is in danger of being diluted. In the case of a small committee, individual members are likely to feel a greater responsibility to attend meetings. It may also be possible for the committee Clerk to arrange days that are convenient to most or all members. I therefore suggest that the members of the committee should be reduced from 30 to perhaps 14 members, drawn equally from each House.

My two suggestions—a very limited power of amendment and a reduction in the size of the committee—would require statutory authority. If those suggestions commended themselves to the Government and the General Synod, they might perhaps be the subject matter of a Private Member's Bill without upsetting the Government's legislative programme.

8.46 p.m.

Lord Lloyd of Berwick

My Lords, I agree with every word that the right reverend Prelate said and with his comments supporting the Measure that is before us.

This is an important Measure; there is no doubt about that. It was considered at very great length by the Synod. It was agreed unanimously—or by an overwhelming majority—in all three houses of the Synod. It is, on any view, a huge improvement on what was there previously. For the first time, for example, it deals separately with disciplinary offences and does so in a way that seems—to me, at any rate—to he fair to the clergyman and the complainant. It was considered at unusual length in the Ecclesiastical Committee, as one can see from the minutes of the two meetings that we held; the report extends to some 25 or 30 pages.

The main points for consideration arose under Clauses 1, 18 and 38. Those points were all discussed at great length in the Synod, and the Synod representatives, including the right reverend Prelate, appeared before the Ecclesiastical Committee to give us the benefit of its advice and help, and they answered questions at great length. I do not suggest that that was done at inordinate length; it was entirely appropriate that that was done. It was made clear at the outset of the hearing that the Synod wished the matter to be taken slowly because it was concerned about its importance. At the end, the Ecclesiastical Committee found, by a majority of 10 votes to two, that the measure was expedient. It was for the Ecclesiastical Committee to perform that task under the terms of the 1919 Act.

I am sure that the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, will remember that Amicus MSF applied at an early stage to be allowed to give evidence before the Ecclesiastical Committee. We considered whether we could do so consistently with the provisions of the 1919 Act. We were advised by our legal adviser that we could not.

The noble Baroness also raised the undoubtedly important point about whether the clergy should be entitled to the ordinary employment rights as between an employer and employee. That may fall outside the scope of our debate. That is not to say that it is not an important point that must be considered at some stage.

I wish that there was a way under the existing Act by which we could correct obviously accidental errors, especially when they are agreed to be errors, without what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brightman, called the palaver of going back to the legislative committee, back to the Synod and then back again. It is obviously a cumbersome process, but we find that it is impossible to envisage that on the legislation as it stands. Section 3(5) specifically provides that the legislative committee—that is, the committee of the Synod—shall have no power to vary a Measure of the Church Assembly either before or after conference with the Ecclesiastical Committee. Therefore, there is no way in which that can be done without the primary legislation that my noble and learned friend Lord Brightman envisages.

The same applies to the size of the committee. I fully understand the reasons that the noble and learned Lord urges; in particular the obvious point that the larger the committee the more likely it is that people will think that others can do the work for them and they need not attend. But that is not always the reason: more recently, a reason has been that with the rearrangement of the timing in the House of Commons, Members who have been present at the beginning of discussions of the Ecclesiastical Committee find that they have others to attend. It is an interesting point, but one which cannot be dealt with by us without primary legislation.

My noble and learned friend Lord Brightman, having been one of the two dissentients and the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, was the other. I am sorry that he has decided to speak in the gap rather than put his name down in the usual way. But that was clearly his privilege. I give the Measure all the support I can.

8.54 p.m.

Lord Campbell of Alloway

My Lords, I thought that four minutes was all your Lordships could bear, so I shall speak for four minutes. I have the fairly recent honour to serve on the committee. I shall not speak to a Measure which I decline to support or oppose the Motion. I am content to rely on the assurance of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Winchester as to implementation. But, as in the case of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brightman, I want to take some short points in proposals for improvement of the exercise of our statutory functions.

The first relates to attendance and the membership of 30. Everything the noble and learned Lord said was right. On our first meeting, 22 out of 30 members attended, but later it had to be adjourned because there was not a quorum of 10. At the second meeting 16 members out of 30 attended. At the end, a member who was leaving the room had to be recalled to establish a quorum for a vote.

That is not a satisfactory situation. My notes arc curious. Without consultation with the noble and learned Lord, they say, "Six or eight aside; say 16", which is not far off the 14 of the noble and learned Lord. And there should be an obligation, an honour, to attend and to remain in attendance.

My second point is that the remit of the Act of 1919, as to the constitutional entitlement, must include the concepts of natural justice as judicially established. whether or not discussed at the Synod. Paragraph 63 shows that one matter of considerable importance to the noble and learned Lord and to myself was not discussed. There is no power to amend. I am not suggesting that there should be. I agree with everything that the noble and learned Lord said. I was going to propose a new procedure under which our clerk could send reasoned reservations with draft amendments to the appropriate authority for consideration before our first meeting in the interests of constructive and informed debate on due notice. That can be discussed at the first meeting.

It would be helpful if the relevant extracts from the minutes of the Synod could be produced. It would have saved about a quarter of an hour of my questioning at one stage of the proceedings. One could have seen the extract from the notes.

So I believe that there is a case for a new procedure and a case, without having any formal power to amend and if there is agreement in the Joint Committee, for embodying that agreement in codes of practice in implementation of the statute. True, it will require primary legislation, but I make that suggestion.

I also suggest that no snap vote should ever be taken without notice in the absence of members who have raised serious reservations. That would ensure that there is some representative decision. A representative decision of 30 is hardly ever achieved and it assuredly was not achieved on this Measure.

My last point is that I know that estate commissioners attend as members of our committee. But should they attend? Should an estate commissioner attend, to move a snap motion or to vote for approval? They are, unlike other members of the committee, not there without some preconception. 1 suggest that that should require some consideration on the Floor of the House. This is a procedural criticism which is in no way personal and in no way concerned with the right honourable gentleman Mr Stuart Bell. I hope that the ideas—we have not discussed them—of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brightman, will take root.

8.58 p.m.

Lord Pilkington of Oxenford

My Lords, am I allowed to speak?

Lord Bassam of Brighton

My Lords, I am advised that the noble Lord is entitled to speak, but briefly.

Lord Pilkington of Oxenford

My Lords, I shall be very brief. I am a member of the Ecclesiastical Committee. I was not planning to speak in this debate but the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, has reminded us that this deprives people of life and liberty. What has brought me to my feet are the points raised by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brightman, and the noble Lord, Lord Campbell. The Ecclesiastical Committee is there to protect the rights of the citizens. There are weaknesses in the system. We should listen to what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brightman, and the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, said. It is terribly important. They are a minority of individuals but we must pay attention to their interests. They lose their houses, their jobs; they lose everything.

Laws must be drafted absolutely correctly. We do not want any of the matters to which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brightman, referred. More care should be given by the Church and by everyone else because, above all, we Christians are concerned about individuals. That is all I want to say.

9 p.m

Lord Hardy of Wath

I echo the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Pilkington. I spoke only briefly during the committee's consideration of the Measure. The right reverend Prelate may recall that I expressed some anxiety about hard worked priests. There are many of them. One might have one priest representing and serving six, seven or eight parishes. There could be enormous pressures and that could easily be the subject of a malicious complaint.

I was satisfied that the Measure was unlikely to uphold a malicious complaint or draconian action quite unfairly being taken in such cases. However, it leads me to say that I hope that consideration can be given to the point advanced by my noble friend this evening and on previous occasions. There must be some change, both to provide the flexibility to which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brightman, referred in terms of the legislative perfection of measures of this kind, and to ensure that in the 21st century the clergy are not denied natural justice by a refusal of adequate representation.

9.1 p.m.

Lord Wallace of Saltaire

My Lords, we have been debating the appropriateness of the Ecclesiastical Committee at least as much as the appropriateness of the Clergy Discipline Measure. I have one or two points to make on that. There are problems about the concept of the "representativeness" of the Ecclesiastical Committee, which is drawn from Members of both Houses. The Ecclesiastical Committee should operate its powers with the maximum of restraint.

As regards membership, I was one of those who was absent from the last meeting of the Ecclesiastical Committee, which happened to coincide with a meeting of the joint Standing Committee on the EU convention. I felt it was my duty, as someone who follows European matters, to attend that committee.

Perhaps I may tell the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brightman, that the committee, on what many of us thought was an important issue from the outset, failed to start on two occasions for lack of a quorum. It struggled for several months to manage a quorum and to get any notice whatever. Noble Lords can imagine the sour feelings that some of us had when, all of a sudden, the political editor of the Sun arrived and it was splashed all over the newspapers that the world and British sovereignty was coming to an end when some of us had struggled for several months to try to attract the attention of both Houses and the press.

There are always problems about the weight of business on different committees in this House. I suspect that we will struggle particularly with Members of another place to get them to attend in the strength which has been suggested would be appropriate.

We have, as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Winchester said at the outset, a Measure before us which has received a long and careful scrutiny. It had had nearly 10 years consideration—and six years with the Synod—before it came to us. I have visited Synod on a number of occasions. I was struck by the greater seriousness of its debates than I sometimes witness in another place, although not of course in this Chamber.

The balance of opinion on the Ecclesiastical Committee should be as far as possible to give Synod the benefit of the doubt, although quite properly it should consider whether there are holes in the proposed Measures. We recognise that some delicate issues are addressed. What is proposed is a backstop power which ideally will be used only on the rarest of occasions.

I have a little difficulty with the proposition advanced on behalf of Amicus by the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, that there should be full employment rights for the clergy on the same basis as all others, just as I have struggled in my own professional life with the argument about whether university teachers—and, indeed, schoolteachers—should have full employment rights on the same principle as everyone else. As teachers, we have a special care for our students that requires higher standards of conduct. Similarly, members of the clergy have a special care, duty and obligation in the way in which they match their private to their public lives that unavoidably demands higher standards of them than of others.

We also recognise the intense pressures of contemporary life both on members of the clergy themselves and, as one or two noble Lords have said, from a tabloid press that is always looking for scurrilous allegations and willing to listen to malicious complaints. As the noble Lord, Lord Hardy of Wath, said, they are often entirely unsubstantiated but nevertheless must be answered. One recognises the difficulty for the Church as a hierarchy in handling those situations.

The Measure has got the balance right. It applies to the whole of the Church, from top to bottom; it sets out a careful balance of measures and of discipline; and it attempts to provide a balance of fairness to both sides. On that basis, I welcome the Measure.

9.6 p.m.

Baroness Wilcox

My Lords, the noble and learned Lord. Lord Brightman, my noble friend Lord Campbell of Alloway and the noble Lords, Lord Pilkington and Lord Wallace of Saltaire, have all been much concerned with the Ecclesiastical Committee and its size. That reminds me of the saying that the world is run by the people who turn up. Perhaps that is what we have heard tonight. For myself, I shall confine my comments to the question of the Measure.

We on these Benches support this Measure, which fills a vacuum in the current employment arrangements for clergy. I am grateful for the clear exposition given by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Winchester in moving the Motion now before us. Indeed, I should like to take this opportunity to thank him and his team for the articulate and helpful assistance that they gave the Ecclesiastical Committee during our two meetings on the Measure. As a member of that Committee—an interest I now declare—I know that I for one benefited enormously from the help that they gave us, both orally and in writing. I join with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd, in that commendation.

In view of what has already been said by the right reverend Prelate and others, and in view of the exhaustive explanatory material published with the Ecclesiastical Committee's report, I shall not detain your Lordships long, but I should like to offer the House a few reasons why the Measure deserves our wholehearted support.

First, it offers clergy a well-thought-through and comprehensive scheme for professional discipline, which current arrangements simply do not provide. Every profession needs a fair, intelligible and accessible scheme for the regulation of professional conduct, which is what the Measure will offer. Under its provisions, which will apply to all clergy, frivolous and unsubstantiated allegations of misconduct can be swiftly considered and set aside. As we have heard, alleged misconduct of a more serious character can be fairly and properly determined.

Where adjudication is required, that will be performed by an independent tribunal, operating in much the same way as an employment tribunal. That must be right. I was interested to hear the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, speak so eloquently in expressing her reservations and yet, at the end, welcome the Measure as a step in the right direction.

Secondly, the whole system lays great emphasis on conciliation and proceeding by consent. That is another feature that we find attractive. Thirdly, I draw the House's attention to the meticulous way in which the Measure has been prepared and in which the Synod considered disciplinary practices elsewhere. As a result, this Measure now offers to Church of England clergy the kind of disciplinary scheme which is taken for granted by most other professions in the United Kingdom; and, indeed, which is enjoyed by their fellow clergy in many other provinces of the Anglican Communion. This is another reason why we support the Measure.

The Measure has been a long time in the making. As we have heard, it is now some six years since the Synod's working party first reported. It has been thoroughly scrutinised by the Synod, with the equivalent of Committee, Report, and Third Reading stages. It has been overwhelmingly approved by the Synod's three houses. It has been found expedient by the Ecclesiastical Committee of Parliament. We on these Benches see great merit in these proposals, and wish them well. We agree that they should be presented for Royal Assent.

9.11 p.m.

The Lord Bishop of Winchester

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken, both expected and unexpected—the latter were, none the less, welcome—and to all who have attended the debate.

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Turner. for her interest. However, if I may presume to say so. there were times during her speech when she appeared to be ill served by her brief. It seemed to me that those who produced it had not read the Measure with the utmost care and had certainly not attended the debates in order really to understand the issues involved.

I do not believe that the Archbishop's list, which is described and given statutory basis in the Measure. or the preceding Archbishop's list and its predecessor, the caution list, have been open for about 20 years to the kinds of critique described by those who produced the noble Baroness's brief—a brief from which she distanced herself at points. The bishops regard it as absolutely straightforward that we, too, are brought clearly within the ambit of the measure.

The move that brings retired and other clergy within the ambit of clergy discipline seemed to the Synod to he proper. granted that in any diocese—or at least in some, such as mine and, I suspect, Hereford—hundreds of retired clergy function week by week as clergy. A structure that did not include them within the clergy discipline Measure would be bizarre. As Amicus and many others have long been asking, this Measure gives to clergy who are licensed but not beneficed the same disciplinary structure, and, therefore, the same safeguards as are available to the beneficed clergy.

I was also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, for his response in relation to the character of our particular calling. He reasonably used an analogy with his own. It did not seem to the Synod, nor to me, that the issues would be well served were we simply to look to the general range of employment tribunals. The issues would not be well served; the clergy would not be well served; and the public would not be well served. Amicus representatives among Synod members had ample opportunity to make their case to the Synod. However, it needs to be said that, to a very large extent, they did not persuade the Synod.

Clearly the questions raised about the Ecclesiastical Committee by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brightman, and the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, are neither matters for us this evening, nor for me, to comment on in any detail. There is an issue about the situation in which an error of drafting in a Measure is widely agreed to be such, both by the Church's representatives and by the Ecclesiastical Committee. However. I very much doubt whether that would be worth the huge effort involved in seeking to review the whole process. Goodness knows which cans of worms might be opened for Parliament and for the Church were such an attempt to be made. I should imagine that all sides would think a great many times before setting out on such a path.

The question of the size of the committee received an appropriate response from the noble Lord, Lord Wallace. The comparison between the two matters seemed rather significant. I am very grateful for the comments of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick. I am also grateful for his chairmanship, as, I am sure, are the members of the Ecclesiastical Committee and the representatives of the Synod.

It is important to take up one of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell. I will not respond to the other points, because they relate to how Parliament wishes to do its business—though it would doubtless consult the Church. The noble Lord commented on the presence of the Second Church Estates Commissioner as a member of the Ecclesiastical Committee—one commissioner, not, as I felt he was suggesting, more than one. Presumably, that is a parliamentary question rather than a Church matter. At present, there is one member of the Ecclesiastical Committee appointed by one of the Houses of Parliament who is also a member of the Synod, and in the past there have been more than one. In that respect, those members have two bites of the cherry. That is the case for one distinguished Member of another place at present.

I welcome the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Pilkington. His point that the committee exists to protect the rights of the citizen is of profound validity. But, given what the noble Lord has said this evening and at other times, it is important to state that the citizen—whom I take the Ecclesiastical Committee to be required to have in mind—is not only the cleric but the public. As with other codes of professional discipline, the aim of the Measure and the intensive process over the years has been to hold as carefully as possible in tension the rights of the range of individuals wits involved—both clergy and public. It is among the particularly difficult responsibilities of a bishop daily, and under the Measure, to hold the two in appropriate tension.

The noble Lord, Lord Pilkington, said that we wanted none of the things that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brightman. referred to—I think that I quote him correctly. However, it is important for the record to say that the noble and learned Lord and the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, referred to the absence of the word "archbishop" from a clause. We highly regret that absence.

That gives me an opportunity to assure the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, in response to his first point, that the representatives of the Synod have taken seriously the points made by the committee that are recorded on pages 2 and 3 of the report. I have no doubt that those points will be clearly considered over the next years of implementation, or through miscellaneous provisions Measures, to see how they can be approached.

I take note of the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Hardy of Wath. Of course we are concerned to respect natural justice and I believe that that is safely in place. To some extent the noble Lord retracted his point about rural clergy, who are to he considered and defended just as carefully, along with their parishioners, as any other sort of clergy and parishioners. I am also grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, for her attention to this matter.

Finally, I thank all members of the committee, its staff and our own staff, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, for his skilled chairmanship.

On Question, Motion agreed to.

House adjourned at twenty minutes past nine o'clock.