Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Thursday 12th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dame Caroline Spelman]

We need to understand, in the world today more than ever, the different faiths of the world and their tenets, and be respectful of the fact that 84% of the world’s population adhere to one of the great religions of the world. By working through religious institutions in all these countries, which should all condemn outright slavery in all its forms, I hope that we can work together internationally to bring an end to the terrible exploitation to which my hon. Friend refers.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

12. To ask the right hon. Member for Meriden, representing the Church Commissioners, what progress the Church of England is making on building new churches in London.

[Dame Caroline Spelman]

This is a bit of good news. The Church Commissioners have made £27 million available for the creation of up to 100 new churches. I am pleased to say that eight new churches are to be created across all the London diocese, and already 100 new worshipping communities meet outside formal church buildings in a fresh expression of “church.”

[Stephen Timms]

Will the right hon. Lady confirm that the Church of England is now building its first new church buildings in London since the 1950s to accommodate not decline, which is widely understood to be what is going on, but a very sharp increase in the number of people attending public worship?

[Dame Caroline Spelman]

I can do a bit of myth busting here. The Church is not in fact closing more churches than it is opening; interestingly, it is opening almost as many new ones as we are needing to close older ones. But that is often to serve gaps in provision and new communities. At the recent Synod I attended over the weekend in York there was an interesting fringe meeting about the planting of new churches on estates and evangelism on estates. We often build new housing developments, but we do not put a church community building in the heart of those communities. That is why the commissioners have seen fit to make extra resources available for the creation of new churches in areas where demand is high.