Question

To ask the Member for South West Bedfordshire, representing the Church Commissioners, what steps the Church of England is taking to strengthen its parish ministry.

The Church Commissioners intend to distribute £1.2 billion between 2023 and 2025, up 30% from £930 million in the current three-year period, to support the Church’s mission and ministry, including through parishes across England. The core of the extra funding will be channelled into the revitalisation of parish and local ministry and go some way to continue enabling local parishes to serve their communities and the whole nation. The distributions will help fund dioceses’ plans by reaching more young and disadvantaged people, radically cutting the Church’s carbon footprint, and addressing issues of racial justice.

During the cost of living crisis, the Church Commissioners have worked with the Archbishops’ Council to provide £15 million for dioceses, both rural and urban, to help churches struggling to pay energy costs. The fund will help churches to remain as centres of worship and pastoral care and will also make a key difference in helping churches to continue opening their buildings for vital practical support for their communities over the winter through social action such as food banks and warm hubs.

Funding from the Church Commissioners has helped to enable the continued rise in the numbers of ordinands in training, who will be the parish clergy of the future, and the most recent data from the 2020 Ministry Statistics are available here: Ministry Statistics 2020 report . An updated document is in the process of being compiled.