HC Deb 18 October 1982 vol 29 cc13-4
19. Mr. Greenway

asked the hon. Member for Wokingham, as representing the Church Commissioners, if he will make a statement on the conditions of service of beneficed clergymen.

Sir William van Straubenzee

The only information I can add to the answer I gave to my hon. Friend on 5 July is the analysis of stipends in payment in 1982 in the Central Stipends Authority's tenth report, which will be published shortly. I shall arrange for a copy to be sent to my hon. Friend.

Mr. Greenway

I thank my hon. Friend for his reply and congratulate him and those whom he prepresents on their good sense :in improving the pay and conditions of clergy and bishops, enabling them to carry out God's work on earth in a better way. Does my hon. Friend agree that a handful of bishops and clergy must be overpaid and underworked to have time to produce the sort of political diatribe that has been published today calling for unilateral disarmament?

Sir William van Straubenzee

The Church Commissioners, for whom I answer, have no responsibility for the report in question. It is a report of only a few, however distinguished, people. There are a large number of churchmen who do not think it incompatible w ith their beliefs to regard it as most unwise, in the face of an expansionist atheistic communism, to do away with nuclear weapons.

Mr. Anderson

Will the hon. Gentleman give an undertaking that the clergy, who are poorly paid, will not have their pockets hit because of any alleged waywardness in their views on unilateral disarmament? Will he confirm that, now that some consider the Church of England to be the SDP at prayer, clergymen's pay will not suffer?

Sir William van Straubenzee

Freedom of thought in these matters is total for the clergy. I have no doubt that those few who have temporarily lost their balance politically will soon find it again.

Sir John Biggs-Davison

Is not the danger that the Church of England is becoming, not the SDP at prayer, but the CND at prayer?

Sir William van Straubenzee

It is important to repeat that the report is merely that of a few people. It will he discussed by the Church of England's parliament in February and we must await the outcome of that.