Question

To ask the Member for South West Bedfordshire, representing the Church Commissioners, what estimate he has made of the potential net financial saving of areas that plan to implement large parish structures.

Local strategies are for individual dioceses to work out, not the Church Commissioners.

These large parish structures are not primarily about achieving financial savings, but ensuring that there is effective ministry and service to the community, given the financial and other constraints that the Church faces.

The dioceses of the Church of England are not-for-profit organisations, and so all funds are reinvested in the work of the Church, and the proposed changes are about how to use these funds in the best possible way to serve the whole of England.