THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURYMy Lords, I beg to move to resolve, That in accordance with the Church of England Assembly (Powers) 1919, this house do direct that the Clergy Pensions Measure, 1926, be presented to His Majesty for the Royal 502 Assent. I hope not to detain your Lordships for very long in calling attention to a matter of very real importance and of very great practical difficulty which is covered by this Motion. As the law now stands the condition of matters with regard to the pensions of the Clergy is lamentable. I think there can be none of your Lordships who is not familiar with a parish where it is exceedingly desirable that the present incumbent should cease to hold office, and where, in a perfectly friendly way, he is desirous of vacating the office if only it was possible, but he has no private means in reserve enabling him to live if he surrenders the modest income which his incumbency supplies. Therefore, simply to resign without a pension is practically impossible.
To meet such cases, the law has provided that if he chooses to resign under what are called the Incumbents Resignation Acts a commission can be appointed which may give him a retiring allowance up to one-third of the income he has hitherto enjoyed; but that sum will be deducted from the income of his successor in the incumbency. He knows as well as anybody else that for him to satisfy those conditions would mean crippling the activity of his successor or, perhaps, rendering it impossible for any successor to hold the place tolerably. He therefore shrinks both on public grounds and otherwise from accepting even the miserable pittance—for miserable it is—which one-third of the income he has been earning would afford him. For a long time that state of things has been the subject of constant agitation and difficulty, and the Bishops have received constant complaints regarding it, not least from those who are patrons of livings in important parishes, and are familiar with the effect of the continued tenure of men who had much better resign.
As a result of this state of affairs, from the moment the Church Assembly received power to act in such matters, subject to the ultimate control of Parliament, appeals have poured in upon us to do something to arrange for proper pensions for the clergy whatever else was left alone. As soon as the matter was looked into it was seen that the difficulties were so great as to daunt many men. But there were and are men in 503 the Assembly who have faced these difficulties and have taken untold trouble and devoted great labour and skill to the endeavour to overcome them. Notable among them is one who at the moment is out of England or he would have been here to-night, Lord Phillimore, who for years has given himself to this subject with a devotion which is beyond praise. He has spent constant labour upon it and has met with perfect good humour all kinds of objections and difficulties which have confronted him in the task. Different and very varying schemes have been propounded during the discussion and consideration of the subject and skilled legal authorities, actuarial authorities and business authorities generally have endeavoured to the utmost of their power, with the aid of the clergy, to devise a suitable and satisfactory scheme.
The scheme which is contained in the Measure that is now before your Lordships' House is the outcome of an immense amount of care and discussion. It was introduced, not in this shape but in a shape from which this Measure has been evolved, so long ago as 1924, and it received the general approval of the Assembly on its consideration. According to the usage it was referred to a Committee who had to consider the matter in detail. The appointed Committee sat and greatly modified the proposals in consequence of representations made to them and of criticisms which had arisen in the debate. The Committee reported in the spring of 1925 and the changed aspect of the Measure was again before the Assembly, which once more considered it in great detail, there being very long debates, and in the end referred it back to the Committee for yet further consideration. Difficulties of different sorts had arisen. This year the Committee again reported and the matter came back to the Assembly.
Once more we spent a very long time in discussion both on the general principle and details and finally what we in this House should call a Third Reading but what in the Assembly is final approval was given to the Measure by a vote which was taken a couple of months ago. In that vote the Bishops, the clergy and laity voted separately, with the following results: For the Measure, 18 Bishops and no Bishops against; clergy; in favour 504 138; against, 26 laity: in favour, 169; against, 11. That was the majority by which the Assembly as a whole passed the Measure. The numbers voting are comparatively small compared with the total numbers of the Assembly, but the matter was practically in many ways a foregone conclusion, and many who would have been there had the necessity of a vote called for it were, as is often the case in all popular assemblies, absent on that day. But the majority was an immense one, 325 against 37. We now present the Measure which was thus approved.
The contributions which the clergy are to pay, as laid down by this Measure, would not of themselves nearly meet the requirements even of such a modest pension as £200 a year to a man of seventy years of age who has worked for forty years. One might almost say that was a miserable result to reach—a man who has been forty years at work and has reached the age of seventy obtains a pension of £200! In order even to get that amount and to provide for the incidental arrangements necessary, the contributions of the clergy have had to be supplemented from other sources. There will be a contribution of £50,000 a year from the Central Board of Finance. A capital sum of £350,000 will be provided by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners and an annual sum of £100,000 will also be provided by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. Those contributions are in addition to gifts and legacies, provided from other sources, into the details of which I need not go. A very large sum is thus being contributed from outside to render possible even the humble result to the clergy which is achieved by this Measure, should Parliament pass it.
During the discussions there has been abundant criticism of the details, which are necessarily very complicated. Those details have been freely discussed from many points of view and all kinds of criticisms have been raised. I have been in the chair practically throughout all the discussions during these years, and nothing has impressed me more than this. Those who were most ready in criticism and to make all kinds of comments have always, when challenged to produce proposals of their own, failed to produce any scheme that would be actuarially sound. 505 Again and again we have put the question to them: "What is it that you propose on such and such an arrangement? You ought to know that actuarially it has been shown that that would be utterly unsound." Nothing could be so unfair to the clergy as to make them contribute to a scheme which, actuarially, was unsound and might never produce the results to which they had been entitled to look forward. That has been my personal observation right through these years of debating. The very men who were criticising what we were proposing put forward nothing in its stead which would, so to speak, hold water, and they are still saying: "For Heaven's sake do something; things cannot go on as they are."
We do need a Pensions Bill and we have taken the best material at our disposal and the best in formation we could obtain and all the funds available for the purpose, and we have produced to the Assembly the Measure which your Lordships are now asked to approve. It is true to say that there may be a certain number of hard cases, but that would be so in any scheme that might be proposed. And it is important to remember this, which is often forgotten: If we were dealing with a simple business affair like providing a pension through an insurance office we should, of course, be obliged to content ourselves merely with what I might call the mechanical result that follows from the contributions and that would be very small. We should feel it was sad that it was so small, but that would be all that could be done. In this case we are dealing with the matter in a different way. Every diocese has the power of inducing the Board of Finance to deal with hard cases and to supplement the amounts received if they need supplementing and if there are funds available. At all events that would seem to prevent what might appear to be an intolerable wrong being inflicted upon any individual, though I do not think that is a term which could be properly used in any case. We have at least a solatium and a means of softening hardship in extreme cases, and that would not exist if this were a scheme simply on business lines and nothing else.
The details of this Measure are very intricate and I do not know whether your 506 Lordships would wish me to discuss them. If you do wish to discuss them we have noble Lords in the House who are familiar with them from end to end and they will be ready, I am sore, to explain them. They could explain the business details which are involved perhaps better than I could. The last thing I desire to suggest is that the House should regard itself as precluded in the slightest degree from the fullest discussion and debate upon any of the details of the exceedingly complicated and lengthy range of questions involved. If your Lordships shrink from grappling with these, you may rest assured that those who are best competent to deal with the matter have discussed them again and again with the Bishops, the clergy and the laity.
All have taken part in those discussions and it is notable that the criticisms now being levied in some quarters against the Measure emanate in not a few instances from members of the Assembly itself who prefer to write to the newspapers rather than to have dealt with the matter they could have done in the Assembly when their criticisms would have been met and answered. I do not say they are wrong to do that, but it is a fact that many criticisms of the Bill now raised are being brought forward by the very people who are members of the Assembly and whose criticisms, had they been raised in the Assembly, would have met with satisfactory answers. I hope your Lordships will accept my assurance that the greatest care has been given throughout to this Measure by people competent to deal with the subject, and I trust you will approve of the results at which they have arrived and which I now put before your Lordships. But do not let me be supposed for a moment to desire to burke discussion or to deprecate any question being raised which your Lordships may desire to raise about the intricacies of the Measure.
Moved to resolve, That in accordance with the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act, 1919, this House do direct that the Clergy Pensions Measure, 1926, be presented to His Majesty for the Royal Assent.—(The Lord Archbishop of Canterbury.)
§ EARL BEAUCHAMPMy Lords, if I may venture to say a few words on this matter it is not in order in any way to.
507 oppose the Measure but only to express the hope that it will not become the custom to present Measures to your Lordships' House in this fashion. This Measure was only presented to the House last night. It deals, as the most rev. Primate told us, with a very complicated question, and we are asked to deal with it finally this afternoon. I have a great deal of sympathy with the clergy who will be affected by the Measure, and I agree entirely with what the right rev, Primate said about the need for providing pensions. It is quite evident that if the Measure is postponed a certain number of those clergy—what the number may be I do not know—might fail to get pensions because of the lapse of time. For that reason, apart from any other, I shall not ask your Lordships to postpone dealing with this Measure.
But I do think that one single day for such a complicated Measure is really insufficient. We all know that a good deal of opposition has been expressed. It may not be numerous but it is rather vocal. That opposition would probably have been considerably placated had there been opportunity for some discussion in your Lordships' House. I should very much like to hear, not so much from the most rev. Primate as from those most admirable people who devote so much of their time to the work of the Church in the National Assembly and Who are members of your Lordships' House, some assurance that Measures which start in that. Assembly will not in future be presented to your Lordships' House in this way, but that further time will be allowed in order that we may discuss and consider them in the full way which the most rev. Primate says he wishes us to discuss them.
§ THE EARL OF SELBORNEMy Lords, in answer to the appeal of the noble Earl, may I say that I agree with him, and that I think it is asking a great deal of Parliament to pass a Measure like this in such a very short interval. I most sincerely agree with the noble Earl that it should not form a precedent it would, of course, be possible to adjourn the debate now, but I hope that will not be asked for. The only reason why we have brought this Measure forward at such short notice is that unfortunately we have not funds enough at our disposal to bring within the ambit of this Measure any 508 clergyman who has passed the age of fifty-five years. If the Measure receives the Royal Assent this Session it ought to be possible to get the Measure into working order by January 1. If, on the other hand, the debate were adjourned, and the subject dealt with by your Lordships' House and the other House in the month of November, it quite certainly would not be possible to get the Measure into working order before April 1, and probably not before July 1 of next year. The effect of that would be that a number—I cannot give your Lordships the exact number—
§ THE EARL OF SELBORNEMy noble friend behind me, who knows every detail of the subject and has worked at it for years, tells me that over 200 clergymen would be excluded from the benefit of this Measure. These are all men approaching the age of fifty-five who have presumably already done at least twenty-five years service. Your Lordships will realise that to them it may be almost a matter of life and death in their old age. That is our excuse for doing what, I admit, otherwise would have been un pardonable: that is our excuse for asking your Lordships at very short notice to allow the Measure to go forward.
§ On Question, Motion agreed to.