§ 7.34 p.m.
§ THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY moved to resolve, That in accordance with the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act, 1919, this House do direct that the Incumbents (Discipline) Measure, 1946, be presented to His Majesty for the Royal Assent.
§ The most reverend Primate said: My Lords, even at this extremely late hour I am afraid I must detain your Lordships for a few minutes on this Measure, 736 because it is an important one. I am not quite sure what the subject matter of the discussions I have recently listened to was. I think it was sheep farming at one time. This deals with another kind of sheep farming, generally called pastoral work. There are in the Church of England some 20,000 clergymen. Their standard of professional conduct in the sacred ministry is, generally speaking, very high indeed; but among that very large number of men there must be occasions, although the occasions are relatively rare, when a clergyman is not suitable for the incumbency that he holds, either because he has become a victim of physical or mental disability or, more rarely, because he has fallen into some kind of negligence or misconduct. As a result, there has been a very long series of what are called Clergy Discipline Acts of Parliament and Measures.
§ The problem is always complicated by the parsons' freehold. That system has positive advantages; it also has real disadvantages. But, in any case, everybody would agree that the parsons' freehold cannot be allowed to operate so as to inflict serious harm on the spiritual welfare and interests of a parish. In the nineteenth century there was a long series of Acts which I will not now detail. In 1926 the Church Assembly passed a Measure which became law called the Benefices (Ecclesiastical) Duties Measure. That dealt with both disability, by which I mean clergymen who become incapable by mental or physical infirmity, from doing their duty, and also with discipline, by which I mean cases where clergymen had become negligent or fallen into misconduct. The Measure was not successful, partly because it put together in one Measure two utterly distinct things. It is one thing for a man to lose his mental faculties, and that is a thing to be dealt with by itself; it must not be confused with a man who has fallen into misconduct. That Act, partly for that reason, became a dead enactment. In 1931 the clergy themselves of the Church of England in the Church Assembly, zealous for their professional standards, took up the matter again, desiring to get a satisfactory solution of the matter. Ever since 1931 the Church Assembly has been actively concerned about it. That is a very long period of gestation, and after fourteen years something has been done. 737 First of all, in 1945 the Incumbents (Disability, Measure dealing with this mental or physical incapability, was passed by the Assembly and received the Royal Assent and is now law.
§ This Measure which I now bring to your Lordships deals with discipline. It is necessarily long and complicated, because it is careful at every point, even over-careful, to guard against any possibility of a miscarriage of justice. May I as briefly as I can indicate the substance of the Measure? First, it does not deal at all with any complaints involving questions of doctrine, ritual, ceremonial, social or political opinions. Those are all definitely excluded from the Measure. It deals only with cases—and I quote the words—" of conduct unbecoming the character of a clerk in Holy Orders or of serious, persistent, or continuous neglect of duty." I shall have to come back to that phrase, "conduct unbecoming the character." That is the class of offence that is dealt with.
§ May I now very briefly tell you the procedure? A complaint may be laid with a Bishop of an incumbent by certain named responsible people. The Bishop may discuss the complaint with the incumbent concerned and decide whether he wishes procedure to be taken under the Measure. If he says it shall be taken the complaint goes to a ministerial committee. That ministerial committee is composed of six clergymen taken from a panel elected from the Diocesan Conference. Out of that panel of six clergymen is formed a ministerial committee, and they consider the complaint. They may, if they will, dismiss the complaint, or by a majority of four out of the six they may agree to take the next step. You will observe that at that point the incumbent against whom a charge is laid is being examined by six of his own brethren, of his own peers.
§ The next step is that the complainant has to define his charges in a prescribed form for submission to a Special Court. When he has done that, the ministerial committee reads his complaint and may at that point dismiss it again. If they do not, it goes on to the Bishop, who also may dismiss it. If he does not, it goes to the Special Court, That Special Court consists of the Chancellor of the Diocese, two clergymen and two laymen, similarly taken from a panel—two clergymen, quite rightly, since a clergyman is charged, two laymen, also quite rightly, 738 because the laity are as deeply concerned as the clergy in the character of their clergy. The Special Court then gives its judgment and there is an appeal to a Provincial Court, both in the Province of Canterbury and the Province of York. The Special Court gives its judgment on what charges are proved and also—I would emphasize this—gives its opinion as to the gravity or otherwise of the charge proved; in other words, it can say, "This is proved and it is a serious thing," or, "This is proved, but, to tell you the truth, it is not really a very serious misdemeanour."
§ That is a very careful and elaborate system. After it is concluded, if the man is found guilty, the Bishop then has powers of action. There are three kinds of action he can take. He can censure the clergyman; or he can inhibit the clergyman for three years—he does not take him out of his freehold but he does prevent him from engaging in ministerial work for those three years—or he can vacate the benefice, that is to say, dispossess the incumbent, but only on one condition, and that is that he has to go back to the ministerial committee with whom the whole thing started, and can only vacate the benefice if he has the support of five out of the six members of that committee. I think you will see that the safeguards are quite immense and you will see why I said at: the beginning that the Measure has perhaps been over-careful to prevent any miscarriage of justice.
§ I must comment on two further points, and for this reason. I must say frankly that there is an association of clergymen—I have no knowledge of their number but I do not think it is very large—who have agitated against this Measure going through, who approached the Ecclesiastical Committee when they were considering it, and who have, I believe, approached some Members of Parliament in this House and the other. As far as I know, their ground of complaint is twofold. First, it is said That the phrase "conduct unbecoming the character of a clerk in Holy Orders" is too vague and may therefore be open to abuse. The choice of language in the Measure was deliberate. It really is impossible to tabulate every kind of conduct which would lead to this result, and if you tried to do it you would thereby give free licence to a man to do anything that 739 was not in the table. Therefore, as I say, the choice of language was deliberate. I think, as I have described the working of the Measure, I have amply proved that nothing can go through that is not really in the minds of clergy, lawyers, Bishops and laymen properly described as "conduct unbecoming the character of a clerk in Holy Orders." I believe in the Army regulations there is a provision that an officer may be cashiered if he behaves in a manner unbecoming the character of an officer and a gentleman. I do feel that it is absurd to say that there is any ground of complaint against the Measure there.
§
The other ground of complaint is that it is an invasion of the parsons' freehold. My Lords, it is. In the final result a parson can be turned out of his benefice, but is there any reason on earth why, after this elaborate procedure, that result should not follow? In paragraph 2 of its report to Parliament the Ecclesiastical Committee said:
Any Measure of this nature must necessarily affect the rights of incumbents, but the Ecclesiastical Committee are satisfied that the Measure safeguards their rights so far as it is practicable having regards to its object; indeed the Committee are inclined to think that the safeguards may prove in practice to be so numerous and cumbersome as to impair the efficacy of the Measure.
The Measure received general approval in 1942 without a division. It was then referred to every diocesan conference of the country, receiving general approval from forty of them and disapproval from two. It was then referred to the largest Revision Committee that the Church Assembly has ever appointed—I think sixty members—representing all Houses. It came from that to the Church Assembly once more and so reached final approval.
§ One complaint is that when it came to final approval in the House of Bishops it passed by the narrow margin of eleven votes to eight out of a total House of forty members. I wish to say here that I greatly regret that so many Bishops were absent from that division, but there is some explanation, I think, in this. Many Bishops felt that they did not want to be imposing a system of discipline on the clergy and they felt that they would not be too anxious to be present at the division for that reason. I think there were 740 others who said to themselves: "This Measure is so hampered with restrictions that we very much doubt if it will do much good. Therefore we are not going to bother to vote." Whichever way it was, I regret that they did not exercise their proper duty in making a decision. In the House of Clergy it passed by 113 votes to 89—a substantial minority but, after all this discussion, a real majority. In the House of Laity—and I would draw your Lordships attention to this—the Measure was passed by 179 votes to 40. That is an 81 per cent, majority, which I think gives an indication of how the Laity wish this for their own protection in these rare but, when they occur, very distressing cases.
§ With that, I would put the Measure before your Lordships. The Ecclesiastical Committee said that in points of details the Measure is open to criticism, but so, if I may say so with all respect, all too often are the Acts which pass your Lordships' House. They are, however, convinced as a result of their conference with the Legislative Committee that there is a real need for the Measure and that procrastination rather than improvement would be the result of further consideration of its terms by the Church Assembly. I have made it quite clear that I think the Measure is hampered by an excess of care, but it is better than anything we have had hitherto for dealing with these cases and I therefore beg to move the Motion standing in my name.
§ Moved to resolve, That in accordance with the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act, 1919, this House do direct that the Incumbents (Discipline) Measure, 1946, be presented to His Majesty for the Royal Assent.—(The Lord Archbishop of Canterbury.)
LORD SALTOUNMy Lords, I would like to say, if I may, with what enormous pleasure I have listened to what the most reverend Primate has said. I would like to ask him what occurs in the second case, when the incumbent is inhibited for three years. How is his flock looked after and does he still enjoy the revenues of his office?
THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURYMy Lords, I wish I could give an absolutely certain answer. I think the members of the Government generally have somebody, as I gathered just now, to provide them with an answer, 741 right or wrong. I had an official here to brief me but he gave up hours ago! I think I am right in saying that if an incumbent is inhibited he may not officiate. The Bishop appoints someone to take the cure of souls in his place and I think the cost of that falls upon the inhibited clergyman. He draws his income but he has to pay enough to enable the work to be done to the Bishop's satisfaction.
LORD SALTOUNMy Lords, I should like to thank the most reverend Primate and also to express my regret that my contentious friends have kept him waiting so long.
§ On Question, Motion agreed to.