CHURCH OF ENGLAND CONVOCATIONS BILL [H.L.] (Hansard, 25 November 1965)

§ LORD SHEPHERD
My Lords I have it in command from Her Majesty the Queen to acquaint the House that Her Majesty, having been informed of the purport of the Church of England Convocations Bill, has consented to place Her prerogative and interest, so far as they are affected by the Bill, at the disposal of Parliament for the purposes of the Bill.

§ LORD STONHAM
My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be read a second time. This is a modest Bill, with only one substantive clause, but it is of considerable historical and constitutional interest. It is a further step in the relationship which has developed over the centuries between the Mother of Parliaments and the ancient provincial assemblies of the clergy of England. The English nation achieved unity in its ecclesiastical life long before it was 1032 politically united as one kingdom, and the first national assemblies in our country were ecclesiastical. Before the Norman Conquest the great nobles attended from time to time with the bishops, and the custom developed of transacting Church and State business in the same mixed assembly; but soon after 1066 this practice was abandoned, and the senior clergy met to discuss religious questions alone.
In the thirteenth century, there were further developments which profoundly affected our Constitution and national history. At that time the Convocations of clergy became concerned with the raising of money, and the practice developed of summoning to them representatives or proctors for the lower clergy. This recognition of the principle of "no taxation without representation", undoubtedly influenced the subsequent development of Parliamentary government. In this way, too, the need to grant supply brought about an association between Parliament and Convocation which has survived to this day, notwithstanding the acceptance by the clergy in the seventeenth century of taxation in Parliament.
Not surprisingly, the association was not initially welcome to the Church. The issue of Writs by the Crown addressed to diocesan Archbishops and Bishops commanding them to attend as a kind of "third estate" in Parliament, together with their deans and archdeacons and the whole clergy of their diocese, was violently resisted by the clergy as an invasion of their liberties. Protests were made and the form of the Writs was modified so that the two Primates were ordered themselves to summon their clergy to attend the meeting of Parliament. This form of Writ survives to this day in the praemunientes clause which is included in the summons of every Bishop to your Lordships' House at the beginning of a new Parliament.
In obedience to these Writs the clergy attended the debates and meetings of Parliament for a number of years, under protest, complaining of the waste of time, which ought to have been spent in spiritual duties. From the early fourteenth century their attendance was not insisted on, although they continued to be summoned in accordance with ancient practice. Noble Lords will be aware that our 1033 Standing Order 6 requires an explanation of any alteration in the form or style of the Writ of Summons. It may be that, with the passing of this Bill, it will prove necessary to consider some modification of the form of the Bishops' Writ of Summons. If this should prove to be the case I hope that your Lordships will feel able to accept this statement of mine as sufficient compliance with the Standing Order.
The dislike of the lower clergy of the Crown's action in calling on them to attend the meeting of Parliament led to the practice of issuing, besides the personal Writs of Summons to Parliament, contemporaneous supplementary Writs also to each Archbishop, requiring him to summon his suffragans, together with the deans, archdeacons and the whole clergy of his Province, to meet under his presidency to consider, for example, the grant of subsidies and such other matters as might be thought proper. Thereupon the Archbishop issued his mandate to the diocesans of his Province summoning the inferior clergy by the mode of representation mentioned in the Parliamentary Writs addressed to the Bishops individually. In this way the first "Convocation Writ" of 1315 effected a compromise between the King and the clergy enabling Convocations to discuss among themselves the King's business which they were unwilling to discuss in Parliament at the behest of a secular authority. It is by this procedure that the Convocations are called together to this day.
Some of the practices of the Convocations seem to reflect Parliamentary forms and traditions. The Bishops and lower clergy ordinarily meet separately; just as they attended in different Houses when, in early times, they both went to Parliament. But I understand that for more formal business—for example, the solemn making of Canons and formal Acts of Convocation the two Ecclesiastical Houses meet together, as to-day and the Members of another place attend in this Chamber to hear the reading of Royal Assent to Bills agreed on by both Houses of Parliament.
In modern times it is no longer appropriate to insist on a common life for both Parliament and the Convocations of the Church. Since the Restoration 1034 the clergy have been agreeable to their taxation in Parliament, although I am informed that in theory they retain the right to tax themselves in Convocation. This change of practice diminished the constitutional importance of the Convocations and for a time their meetings became very infrequent; indeed, they were virtually suspended for the whole period between 1717 and 1852. As the House knows, however, the Convocations to-day meet frequently to discuss ecclesiastical business and from time to time to discuss issues of social importance in which the Church is interested in expressing a considered view. Obviously the dissolution of Parliament for reasons quite unconnected with the interests of the Church can under the present arrangements (whereby the Convocations are not only summoned, but also dissolved at the same time as Parliament) lead to unnecessary interruption of ecclesiastical business and the unwelcome expense of new elections of representative clergy. But this practice has now become firmly established, and can be modified properly only by legislation. That is the reason for this Bill now before the House, which the Government have introduced into Parliament, at the request of the two Archbishops, after consultation with their clergy in Convocation.
The Bill makes provision for the severance of the association of the sittings of the Convocations with those of Parliament. With this object in view, it provides in subsection (1) of Clause 1 that the power of Her Majesty to dissolve and summon Convocations shall be exerciseable independently of powers to dissolve and summon Parliament; it goes on in subsection (2) to provide that the maximum life of Convocations shall be five years—six years in the case of the present Convocations so as to enable them to be dissolved in 1970 at the same time as the House of Laity of the Church Assembly, which was elected for five years in September this year. Subsection (3) provides for the continuance of the present practice whereby the election of the representative members of the new Convocations and the calling together of those bodies takes place as soon as convenient after the dissolution of the old Convocations. The reference in the subsection to the powers being exercised "as heretofore" is intended to refer to 1035 the timing of the reassembly of Convocations and not to the detailed procedures under which the Crown, by Order in Council, causes Writs to issue for the meeting of new Convocations. As I mentioned earlier, it is possible, but I am unable to be quite categorical at this stage, that the form of the Parliamentary Writ of Summons to diocesan Bishops may need to be reviewed if the Bill passes into law.
Subsection (4) of Clause 1 removes any doubt as to whether Convocations may continue to sit notwithstanding the demise of the Crown. The Representation of the People Act 1876 provides for the continuance of Parliament in such circumstances, and it has been the practice since that time to apply the same principle to Convocations. The subsection, which is in declaratory terms, confirms these arrangements.
I am glad to have had the privilege of presenting this Bill for the approval of your Lordships, in the knowledge that its provisions have commended themselves to the Convocations as appropriate to the circumstances and needs of the Church in modern times. My Lords, I beg to move.

THE LORD BISHOP OF LONDON
My Lords, my first task is, on behalf of the Convocations, to express our gratitude to the Government for finding time for this modest Bill, as the noble Lord described it. We are also grateful to the noble Lord for his most interesting historical survey and for the information he has given us, as well as for the terms in which he proposed this Bill. From the point of view of the Church, it will be extremely helpful to have the duration of Convocations linked to the lifetime of the House of Laity of the Church Assembly rather than to that of Parliament. It might have been possible—indeed, it has sometimes been stated—that before the enabling Act Parliament was, in a sense, the House of Laity of the Church. That is no longer the case in the old sense, and we are moving within the Church of England to some form of synodical government in which the House of Laity will be more closely associated with the Convocations than is possible under the 1036 present enabling Bill in the Church Assembly.
It is therefore clearly desirable that the lifetime of the House of Clergy, which is, in effect, the Lower House of the Convocations of Canterbury and of York, and the House of Laity of the Church Assembly, should coincide. We believe also that, with the greatest security of tenure which this Bill will provide, the work of the Convocations will be facilitated and that we shall be able to accomplish our business more efficiently and more speedily.