Question

To ask the hon. Member for Battersea, representing the Church Commissioners, how many rural parishes have a vacancy for (a) an incumbency and (b) a priest-in-charge; and how many (i) incumbent and (ii) priest-in-charge vacancies there have been in each of the last five years.

The National Church Institutions do not hold information centrally about the number of vacancies in urban or rural parishes; the deployment of clergy to benefices is a matter for diocesan bishops and their leadership teams.

Data on benefice vacancies are only available at a diocesan level. However work is underway to update the national modelling of projected clergy populations, and the National Church Institutions are considering how they might gather and monitor data on vacancies.

To understand the local context in Romford or in the wider Chelmsford Diocese, it would be best to contact the Bishop of Barking, or the Archdeacon of West Ham. Contact details are available on the diocesan website.