HC Deb 05 February 1990 vol 166 cc638-40
78. Mr. Harry Greenway

To ask the right hon. Member for Selby, representing the Church Commissioners, what contribution the Church Commissioners have made to the work of the Archbishop of Canterbury's office; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Alison

The commissioners' contribution is a financial one. They pay for the archbishop's supporting staff and their equipment.

Mr. Greenway

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the latest report from the Archbishop of Canterbury's advisory group on urban areas—"Living Faith in the City"—is a great deal more constructive and less hysterical than Opposition Members and the previous report entitled "Faith in the City"? The new report states that the Government are trying to target aid to those who need it most and are succeeding. Will my right hon. Friend commend those who produced the report, but ask them to go a little further and make some of the Church Commissioners' assets of £2.3 billion available to those who suffer from poverty?

Mr. Alison

Like my hon. Friend, I welcome the new version of "Faith in the City", called "Living Faith in the City". I am very glad that it pays proper credit to the Government's considerable work in improving conditions in inner cities. The weakness in the report is its failure to make sufficient comment on the modest level of giving by parish churchgoers and church members in the Church of England. Barely £2 a week on average comes from church folk in the Church of England—scarcely more than they spend on their weekly newspapers. Until the Church of England gives a lead to its own members, it must be circumspect in urging too much expenditure on the Government.

Mr. Simon Hughes

Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that those of us who are authors of the report also said that the tale of the inner city is still a tale of two cities and that there must be a fundamental transfer of resources by the Government as well as by the Church from the rich to the poor? Will the right hon. Gentleman communicate that message to the Church Commissioners and ensure that they communicate it to the Government?

Mr. Alison

It is precisely because of the reference to the transfer of resources—I speak as a churchman who puts money in the parish plate every week—that it seems to lie ill on the Church of England to be too vigorous in its request for expenditure by the Government on the inner cities. The contribution from church members to the Church's own resources is extremely modest-£2 a week on average, which is probably less than 2 per cent. of personal disposable income-and nothing vigorous is said about that in the report.

Mr. Speaker

Mr. Edward Leigh, and try to keep it in order this time.

Mr. Leigh

I wonder whether my right hon. Friend will consider asking the Church Commissioners to make representations to the office of the Archbishop of Canterbury to help the community of the Russian cathedral in exile, who have been evicted from the parish church that they have occupied for 30 years? Their church has been turned into offices. Is there no way in which, somewhere in the Anglican community, a church can be found for those people? It is not good enough that Archdeacon Derek Hayward, the secretary of the diocese, says that the Church has no duty to find an alternative. Is that a Christian attitude?

Mr. Alison

I have great sympathy with the campaign that my hon. Friend is waging on behalf of the Russian Orthodox Church in London. As he knows, responsibility for the redundancy of the church from which they have been evicted is not directly for the Church Commissioners. If the leaders of the Russian Orthodox Church would like to write either to myself or the Church Commissioners seeking help in securing further premises elsewhere in the Church of England, we shall certainly do what we can to help, but it must be without commitment until we have seen full details of their needs.