Churches and Religious Buildings: Communities

John Glen Excerpts

Tuesday 13th May 2025 Westminster Hall

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

I commend my friend, the Second Church Estates Commissioner, the hon. Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova), for opening this co-sponsored debate, and it is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Jeremy. This is a useful and important opportunity for colleagues across the House to draw attention to the considerable impact that churches and church buildings play in their communities.

I will make some points about the listed places of worship grant scheme, and I will reflect on and amplify some of the points that the hon. Lady has made about the social impact of church buildings. I will also spell out some of the opportunities that the Government could consider with respect to capital grants. However, I first reflect on what the hon. Lady said about her own church, Holy Trinity Clapham. Jago Wynne, rector of that church, has been a personal friend of mine for 25 years. Let us not underestimate the leadership role that many rectors and vicars play, outside their core remit of preaching the gospel, in raising funds to maintain and extend the missions of their churches. Next year, Holy Trinity Clapham will celebrate 250 years of existence; it is rooted in the Clapham Sect. Jago said to me this morning, “This is a mission project, so that the building can be a blessing to the community, not a barrier.” The church now finds itself £1 million short because of the changes to the terms of the listed places of worship scheme. As the hon. Lady has set out, there are 260 other churches facing similar challenges. They have undertaken a considerable fundraising effort, the works are under way, and now they face a deficit. Some may be able to meet the gap, but others might not.

I am privileged in Salisbury: I live in the shadow of the cathedral and worship at Saint Paul’s.

[Rachel Gilmour (Tiverton and Minehead) (LD)]

I would like to reflect on the words of the hon. Gentleman. My three brothers spent many happy years as choristers at Salisbury Cathedral. As the hon. Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) said, churches are the backbone of our communities; as she also said, some 969 in England alone are at risk due to crumbling roofs and vanishing heritage funding. Recently and famously, my party was mocked for fixing church roofs, so I can only surmise that the more Liberal Democrat MPs there are, the better. Having said that, instead of leaving congregations and communities up and down the country seemingly praying for a miracle, can the Minister comment on whether the Government will commit to making the listed places of worship scheme permanent, and to removing the cap?

[John Glen]

I am trying to avoid making party political points, but the hon. Lady does tempt me, because at St Paul’s in Salisbury—where I go to church and where my grandmother went 100 years ago—we recently had a win in the local elections over a member of her party. That says something about the commitment that Chris Taylor has to the St Paul’s community.

I have visited many churches in Salisbury—including St Mark’s, and St Mary and St Nicholas, the famous Italianate church in Wilton, where the Rev. Mark Wood does a fantastic job—where we are seeing growth in the congregations, but also constant anxiety about how the fabric of those buildings can be maintained. The buildings are integral to the vibrancy of the communities that they serve. They are a source of great encouragement and a convening point for community activities, which have a big impact across all age groups.

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[Sir Jeremy Wright (in the Chair)]

Order. Before the right hon. Gentleman responds, I observe that interventions are getting progressively longer. If those who want to speak are going to be able to speak, we will have to have shorter interventions.

[John Glen]

I acknowledge the hon. Lady’s point. Every Member present today will have a vivid portrait in their mind of an impact that a church makes in their community. It is quite different in different places, and evolves according to the needs of that community. I will not go through every single church that I have visited over my 15 years as Salisbury’s MP, but the range and depth of their impact is considerable.

Andrew Rumsey, the Bishop of Ramsbury in the diocese of Salisbury, is, coincidentally, the co-lead on church buildings for the Church of England, which has 16,000 buildings, 42 cathedrals and 300 major parish churches. Of those, 12,500 are listed. That is nearly half of grade I listed buildings in our country. Contrary to elsewhere in Europe—France, Germany and Italy, for example—there is no central church funding for building works. While it will always be right that people look to the local community to raise funds, we have to examine what we have done in the past and what we might do in the future, given that churches and church buildings are a delivery vehicle for community services alongside local authorities, and how we can embed that understanding in public policy so that churches are supported and become a sustainable force into the future.

The first point I want to make is about the listed places of worship scheme. The hon. Member for Rhondda and Ogmore (Chris Bryant) gave an assurance of continuity for one year, which I suspect is related to the spending review. On 11 June, we will have some clarity over what is happening on a multi-year basis—that cannot come soon enough. The point has been made about the 260 buildings that are in progress and outside the cap. The Government need to address that. Typically, this excellent scheme, which Gordon Brown set up in 2001, was underspent— I remember being Chief Secretary and seeing that the line was £42 million, and it was usually in the 20s. That money will be netted off at the end of the year, but I respectfully say that this is so valued that the Government must reconsider stopping those 260 buildings and putting them at risk of not achieving what they need to complete the works so that we are not left with a deficit.

In my constituency, I think the figure in the last year was £93,855. That is a considerable amount of money, and it makes a lot of difference on individual projects. That will have covered 15 or 20 projects.

[Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)]

The Church of St Mary Magdalene in Stockland Bristol in my constituency has been planning since 2019 for extensive repairs and to turn the church into a community hub. Due to the changes in the listed worship scheme, it finds itself £300,000 short. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that is an enormous sum for a small community to raise?

[John Glen]

It is, and I wish St Mary’s parishioners well in all their endeavours. There is scope for the Government to come out of this in a very positive way in June by looking back over what they can do to put this right.

For my second point, I want to spend a few moments reasserting the impact that church buildings have on local communities. The hon. Member for Battersea mentioned “The House of Good” report. One of my constituents, Luke March, has been working for 10 years as chairman of the National Churches Trust, which put that report together, and it makes for interesting reading. We are talking about enormous support for communities, working with local authorities. The National Churches Trust report talks about how the care for those in need is worth twice as much as the total spend on adult social care by local authorities. There is a risk—I recognise this from my ministerial experience—that we say, “Well, this is going to happen anyway,” so we can bank that, and then worry about our overall budget. The Minister must recognise—he will know this from his own constituency—that there is often a synergy between statutory-funded local authority provision and the provision of churches working together. We need to look at embedding that understanding in policymaking.

The hon. Lady mentioned the value of church buildings as a source of encouragement and fun, through arts and cultural experiences. I massively recognise that at Salisbury cathedral: the flower festival this week, Sarum Lights, the number of visitors to evensong, the “From Darkness to Light” services—all of those things. Sixty-two per cent of church spaces are useful for leisure-time music performances, and they are used as such. Then there is the other side: the food banks, warm spaces, or acting as a venue for Alcoholics Anonymous, debt counselling, grief counselling, youth clubs and parish meetings.

Last year the independent Khan review looked into social cohesion and resilience. As the Minister will know, it understandably focused on the financial vulnerability of councils, but I reinforce the point that churches can surely be an effective and investable vehicle to deal with some of those deficits. Putting right the issue with the grant scheme can give more security to more buildings going forward. In its report, “Pillars of Community”, the Centre for Social Justice asserts that 12 out of its 29 policies for community thriving are supported by the presence and role of churches.

My third and final point is about capital grants. There is a considerable precedent here, although, as a former Chief Secretary, I feel anxious about that constant demand for more money. I recognise that, but we did find money from 2014 to 2018 for the first world war centenary cathedral repairs fund, which benefited 57 Anglican and Catholic cathedrals. The roof repair fund gave £55 million over a similar timeframe and was administered by the National Heritage Memorial Fund. The heritage stimulus fund gave grants for programmes of major works as part of the culture recovery fund after covid in two tranches in 2021 and 2022.

The public finances are clearly challenged, but there is enormous willingness in many communities where the Government are doing something to match that funding. There is an enormous opportunity for a multiplier effect. It is usually easier to secure capital funding than revenue funding. A Chancellor is always looking for small items, or good news stories, as George Osborne did back in the day, so I urge the Minister, when he plans his budget and finalises what is happening in these final weeks, to recognise that this would be a great opportunity to find a capital grant scheme for match funding from philanthropic and charitable giving that would be really popular and welcomed across the House.

I will not detain colleagues for much longer, but I want to emphasise that we must fully acknowledge the enormous contribution that our church buildings make and the value-add that they provide—spiritually, socially and in looking after the most vulnerable people. I call on the Minister to take to heart the cumulative effect of all that he will hear this morning and reflect on the impact of church buildings, which is felt across our country. There are just four weeks until the spending review on 11 June. There is time for a late addition and to put a few things right; this would be a great opportunity to do so.

I also want to give thanks to all those church leaders—not only in the Anglican Church, but in all denominations—who do so much to achieve positive outcomes for people in our communities. They do so alongside their formal ministry of preaching the gospel, but the impact they have, and what they speak of Jesus Christ to their communities, is instrumental in the mission they have. I hope that we and the Government can acknowledge that and assist them in the maintenance of this vast estate of church buildings, which is so important to our country.

[Sir Jeremy Wright (in the Chair)]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. We will need to move to Front-Bench speeches at just before 10.30 am, so if colleagues can keep their speeches to around three minutes, we might get everybody in.

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[Jim McMahon]

I did my best to outline the range of different funding available to local churches and places of worship; this fund is just one of a number. On my hon. Friend’s particular point about the continuation of the fund, Members will appreciate that any matter of future funding is a matter for the spending review, and every Department across Government will make a submission to that.

[John Glen]

Of course the Minister is absolutely right in what he has just said. However, he will also be very aware that within the budgets he is responsible for, there will be capital underspends in-year, so there will be an opportunity for him to make the case to his Secretary of State and to the Treasury, to say, “Should some of that underspend be allocated to these works in progress—the 260 projects that anticipated a VAT return that they do not have?” I urge him to consider taking that opportunity. It would be a very savvy and politically sensible way of proceeding, and would earn him a lot of credit.

[Jim McMahon]

What I can say is that the passion, enthusiasm and commitment shown by all Members here today in talking about the importance of these places of worship—not only the historical status they give to a place in terms of belonging and sense of pride, but how they act as a community anchor for the future—is absolutely appreciated. Our wider work in terms of the plan for neighbourhoods, with the £1.5 billion that we have announced, and the wider work that we are doing, for example on community ownership, is all part of this process.

In my own constituency, the Holy Rosary Catholic Church, which was built in 1955, has now unfortunately closed. Members might think that a 1955 church would be quite mundane in its feel and architecture, but there is a significant grade II listed memorial in that church, designed by George Mayer-Marton, which is a significant focal point for that community. We are working locally to see how we can marshal funds from different places. I give that as an example of how—as everyone in the Chamber will know from their own communities—there is never just one fund that provides answer to the question; we must blend different funding streams together to make these schemes add up. The importance that Members have given to these local schemes is appreciated and supported by this Government.

To directly address the question from the right hon. Member for Salisbury about capital underspends, we will look at that in the round and across the whole range of interventions that the Government take to support local communities. However, I will certainly take the enthusiasm of this debate back to other Ministers in DCMS and make the point to the Minister for Faith, who I am sure is following today.

In a way, we finish where we started: recognising, through the contributions that Members have made, just how important these buildings are as both places of worship—something that has an important role to play in our society—and as places to convene. They are places for people of all faiths and no faith to get the support they need to live a decent and fulfilled life in their community.