Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
Main Page: Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Labour - Life peer)
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, for his success in securing this debate. It is, as he said, a counterpoint to a debate he secured a short time ago about cathedrals. Perhaps there is a rolling sequence here—first, cathedrals; then churches. Now what? What is his next trick? I suggest that if the noble Lord is in any doubt about what he might raise, perhaps it might be something that appeals to a slightly broader audience than even today’s—rural cinemas, for example. I am worried about them and perhaps we may get together on that one.
More generally, it is always a comfort when the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, is in his place. I feel happier in the House of Lords when I see him sitting opposite, with his avuncular style and ability to anticipate the trends and fashions of the day. I am a little surprised that he is not sporting his MCC tie, today of all days—given the test match taking place. That is a bit of a blot on the discussion. However, when he is there the sun will rise. It may not always shine but it certainly rises. Larks will sing, choirs will raise their voices in wonderful places, and all will be right in the world. I do not know why I got into that but it seemed appropriate, given that we are all traipsing down memory lane, recalling churches we have visited and books we have read about them.
I should also say that I live in Little Missenden in Buckinghamshire—a small village of about 100 houses. We have a Norman-Saxon church, St John the Baptist, which, according to the records, was founded in 975. As it says on the website—we have a website—it has been a place of Christian pilgrimage for more than 1,000 years. I recommend it to those who might want to visit, not least because we have a wonderful festival every October for the wall paintings of St Christopher and St Catherine that were uncovered in 1931. It is a place with whitewash and bright vermilion drawings of these extraordinary figures, which reflect faith in a different time but offer continuity, because they are, in some ways, very modern. While I am in local tour mood, I should say—because it was mentioned by my noble friend Lord Griffiths—that the house in which I live was used to film some of the scenes of “The Vicar of Dibley”. I claim no credit because it was before we moved there. Perhaps this is a point for the next debate but Dibley Manor, as it would have been, attracts a lot of visitors who come and gawp at us through our windows—which is a bit surprising sometimes.
That, for me, is context, but it is not really an explanation of what I want to say today. I find myself in a slightly difficult position because, although we have lots of variations on English religious practice, I do not think we have any other of these in the room: I am a Scottish Presbyterian by background and I am married to a Catholic. So I am probably not the best person to respond to all aspects of the debate. Rather than try to dig into the question of faith—I will certainly be turning to fabric later—I thought I would research who else has been talking about faith, in particular about churches. I found two reports from two of our most advanced think tanks, Demos and ResPublica, which have not been mentioned so far and rather surprisingly were not on the list of material that was circulated in the otherwise excellent Library note.
The Demos report is largely authored by Stephen Timms MP, who I think is well known to many people as being very interested in issues of faith. It is quite a recent report which has researched religious activity. Interestingly, it found:
“Religious people in the UK are more likely than non-religious people to volunteer regularly in their local community, to feel a greater sense of belonging to their local community … and to have higher levels of trust in other people and … institutions”.
They are more likely than non-religious people to take “decision-making roles in committees”, and to go into jobs such as being a councillor or a school governor. Religious people who feel religion is important to them are also more likely than those who said it was not important,
“to be civically engaged and to give to charity via their places of worship.”
So far so good with my research; I am sure I have lost noble Lords already in my tract. It was interesting that the research also found that those who belonged to religious organisations or felt they belonged to it—this was particularly a UK issue, not so much a European issue, because they did research across Europe as well—were more likely to base themselves on the left side of the political spectrum. They were more likely to “value equality over freedom”, less likely to have a negative association towards living next door to immigrants, but slightly more likely to say those on benefits should have to take a job, rather than be able to refuse. There are lot of mixed messages there; I do not quite think it fits with the standard UKIP pattern, or that of the left of centre. I thought noble Lords would like to know that.
Although religious people might be more likely to volunteer, they are also less likely to have a meaningful interaction with people from backgrounds different from their own. Efforts to encourage greater mixing between people of different backgrounds in pursuit of common goals should be picked up as part of an issue to do with religiosity.
That was the Demos, new-left/centre thinking. I then turn to the report from ResPublica, Holistic Mission. As I am sure noble Lords will be aware, ResPublica describes itself as an “independent, non-partisan think tank”, developing,
“practical solutions to enduring socio-economic … problems”.
It starts with a bit of blast. It says, quite unashamedly,
“Britain needs both new and renewed institutions … We are now in the UK at a point of institutional miscarriage. Both state and market have failed us. The NHS has been implicated in massive scandals of appalling care and resultant coverups. Our banking system has been the province of vested and rent-seeking self-interest. In the UK, social mobility is stagnating and inequalities are both rising and embedding; all of this despite massive expenditure by the state and vast amounts of contracting out to the private sector”.
You know where they are coming from—at least I think you probably do. Phillip Blond is well known for being a bit of a polemicist. My point is that, in the research ResPublica has done—there is a lot more of the type I just mentioned before we get to it—it decided, in looking at the need to,
“create, recover and restore new transformative institutions that can genuinely make a difference to people and their communities”,
that the church can fill this gap. It says,
“the Church has the potential, the experience and the capacity to become one of the foundational enabling and mediating institutions that the country so desperately needs … the Church has a wealth of in-depth and varied experience across most fields and in many areas”.
We have heard a number of those. The areas it mentions range from,
“helping women recover from prostitution, to mental health, to work experience and training to homelessness and drug addiction and prisoner rehabilitation”.
So the point of the research is that the church is already doing a lot and it wants to do more. But—there is always a “but”— the church has to make itself fit for purpose. The report says:
“If the Church is to fulfil its purpose and its potential, it has substantially to upgrade its internal and external structures. It has to adapt to governmental demands for accountability and standards, while at the same time allowing its localities to innovate and create”.
The Government, too, have to work hard with the church in order to create the opening, the incentive and the encouragement.
My researches leave me somewhat perplexed about what think tanks are doing but I think that there is a theme, which this debate has also picked up. There is a feeling that the church’s enduring mission has relevance today; that the facilities, the people and the resources there could be deployed in a more creative way; and that possibly there are ways in which we could see a new compact or a new arrangement established for developing help and social context.
I want to conclude with a few questions for the Minister, drawn mainly from the documents in the Library report. There is reference to a DCMS Select Committee report which dealt with heritage more generally but also picked up questions about English churches and cathedrals. The first point it makes is that,
“state support for all places of worship through general taxation would not be readily understood by the public and would at present be inappropriate”.
A number of questions have been raised about whether the state should be involved either directly or indirectly in supporting places of worship. This is more generally stated for all places of worship but it would of course include parish churches. Can the Minister update us on what has happened since that recommendation was made?
The second point made is that faith groups have a responsibility for making sure that the buildings they use for their faiths are maintained. Many suggestions are made but one is that parish councils could be approached for support, perhaps showing imagination in how buildings could be used. Obviously parish councils are part of the apparatus of representational democracy, and again I should like the Minister to say whether he feels that there is a role for parish councils in that work.
The third point, which has been picked up by a number of noble Lords, is that, although significant funding is now going into churches, not just directly through English Heritage but through the generous support for repayment of VAT incurred, about a third of the total amount of money required—this is picked up in a number of papers—is not available and has to be raised by the individuals who use these facilities. That seems not only to be a big gap but a gap that will be worryingly larger in future years. Elsewhere in the papers, it is disclosed that the majority of the congregations who currently regularly attend parish churches are ageing and are not being replaced by a younger generation. Therefore, who will be responsible for filling this gap, which is currently about £60 million a year for the maintenance and repair of our churches?
The Church of England prepared a briefing note for this, and it is interesting that its “asks” were quite targeted. Again, perhaps the noble Lord can respond to its points. I think that some are covered in his briefing notes and he should be able to respond directly. A couple of them have been mentioned already. One is to encourage agencies, such as VisitEngland, to include parish churches in their campaigns and initiatives. That would seem to produce an easy win-win. Church visits are said to be very valuable and the tourism economy is not to be ignored. I would be grateful if the Minister could respond to that. Providing brown heritage “Historic Church” signs to all rural and out-of-the-way parish churches seems to be another easy win. Again, that would help to signpost people to these wonderful resources and would not be very complicated to arrange.
The church has picked up on the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd-Webber, regarding help to install wi-fi so that the church can reach the 21st century along with others. This, the church says, would assist churches in providing professional services to all who seek them. I think that it was part of the rural broadband initiative, which is administered through the DCMS, and it is something that might be picked up.
Another point raised in the debate is the need for the National Heritage Memorial Fund to pick up on church treasures to make sure that those which are important to us in a more general historic and heritage sense are not lost in some other concerns about church or faith groups. They are important for us all.
Finally, the English Heritage note picked up a couple of points on which I think it would also be useful for the Minister to respond. One point that it makes concerns planning and relates to changes in the demography, to which I have referred, and in church usage—and we have heard about the extraordinary things that can be mounted in churches. However, there are problems with planning in some areas. Will the Minister think about how one might accommodate the flexibility that will be required as we go forward in order to make sure that these spaces are used, and used in a way which is contemporary and appropriate for those who wish to operate within that locality?
A number of points were slightly off piste, as it were, but are important. We need to think about the question of bats. There are two quite different issues: first, the need to make sure that our natural environment is protected; and, secondly, the impact of the bats. The glis glis is another problem. It is local to Little Missenden but is spreading out. It was until recently a protected species and caused tremendous damage. However, now that they are now longer restricted it has been possible to make some progress.
I hope the Minister will be able to respond to the question of how he is going to train the bell ringers who are going to maintain our music in the countryside, as the noble Lord asked us to do.