Whereas Bishops … ought not to be intangled with secular jurisdiction the Office of the Ministerie being of such great importance that it will take up the whole man And for that it is found by long experience that theire intermedling with secular jurisdictions hath occasioned great mischeifs and scandall both to church and state His Majestie out of his religious care of the church and souls of his people is gratiously pleased that it be enacted And by authoritie of this present Parliament Be it enacted that no Archbishop or Bishop or other person … in Holy Orders shall at any time … have any Seat or place suffrage or Voice or use or execute any power or authority in the Parliaments of this Realm … .
The Clergy Act 1640
1640 was a tumultuous year in England. Political and religious strife abounded and in the Clergy Bill found combined legislative expression. The Bill sought to remove the bishops, who were key supporters of the Catholic King Charles, from Parliament. The Bill became an Act in 1642 but was revoked twenty years later during the Restoration.
The Clergy Act and its fluctuating fortunes are little discussed today, but it’s emblematic of the history of the British constitution and a felt unease about the relationship between religious faith and the legislature within it.
Four hundred years after the passage of the Act, 26 Bishops of the Church of England remain sitting as Lords Spiritual in our second chamber. Acts of Parliament are signed by both Lords Spiritual and Temporal; Bishops lead prayers beginning the day on the red benches of the House of Lords.
Some are uncomfortable with this situation, pointing to Iran and Belize as the only other nations to so imbed religious representation within their political systems, but for many the presence of faith leaders in Parliament is a reassuring thing. Bishops can provide a moral voice, often sounding on poverty, human rights and the need for grace.
The role of the Lords Spiritual in Parliament is, at any rate, an unusual quirk of our constitution, and one which merits thinking about. With this in mind, I was delighted that the Rt Rev. the Lord Bishop of Manchester, or Bishop David as he prefers to be called, agreed to talk to the Constitution Society in the tearoom of the House of Lords.
When describing his progression through the Church of England and ultimately on into the Lords, Bishop David emphasises his work in the community, particularly on the issue of housing. At university he put aside thoughts of a political career on feeling the call for church ministry. He later became the chair of a decent sized housing association as a result, and then went on onto the board of the National Housing Federation. As a vicar he was then plucked by the Blair government to serve on a policy action team on social exclusion, evidence of a sustained engagement with politics throughout his working life.
In 2000, Bishop David was ordained as the Bishop of Dudley, the second post in the Worcester diocese, where he served for 13 years before being interviewed to become the Bishop of Manchester. A letter from Prime Minister David Cameron recommending him to the Queen followed in a process which neatly illustrates how intertwined the Established Church is with our constitution.
Having been successful at interview, Bishop David has now served as the Bishop of Manchester for 12 years, making him the longest serving Bishop in the Church of England. In 2020, and largely because under a system of seniority it became “his turn”, as he describes it, Bishop David was appointed to the Lords as one of the 26 Lords Spiritual: five seats for the five main bishoprics and 21 rotating seats for other bishops, for those counting.
A year ago, Bishop David was appointed by the archbishops to act as the convenor for the Lords Spiritual in Parliament. It’s an interesting role, which involves coordinating the Church’s Peers in the House of Lords. As he pointed out:
We’re all individuals appointed to the House, so there’s no whipping, and in fact, sometimes you’ll see bishops going into opposite lobbies. I’ve certainly done that. There was an occasion not that long ago when the Bishop of Chester and I had listened to a particular debate on an amendment, a vote was called and he went one way and I went the other. And that’s entirely appropriate. I think it’s important from time to time that we actually do that to signify there’s not a sort of party line.
Where there’s a major piece of legislation, for most policy areas, we have a designated bishop or a small group of bishops in the Lords who have an interest in that policy area. When a Bill is coming up that relates to that area, we look to them to lead for us on it. We have a small WhatsApp group we use to ensure that if somebody can’t be in on a particular day but wants us to flag up an issue that they can take to committee or report stage, then another member of our bench can pick up the issue and run with the ball for a bit.
That substitute bishop is typically the “duty Bishop”, who among other things begins business in the Lords with a prayer. When I spoke with him, Bishop David was acting as the duty Bishop for the day, and I asked him what went into selecting a psalm to open proceedings.
I tend to have a look at what the business is for the day and to get a sense of what the mood of the House has been in recent times. What’s going on in the wider political world? Is this a time of optimism and people want a cheery psalm? Is it a time for consolation? I pick a psalm that I think reflects what I best feel the mood of the House is and what would be most appropriate for people to hear and to prepare us for the business of the day. It’s always encouraging how many people come in for prayers.
Unlike in 1640, today’s House of Lords is made up of Peers with a wide range of faiths, and those who do not consider themselves religious. In this context I asked the bishop what he felt the role of prayer was in the House.
I think it’s still the case that the majority, a considerable majority of people in the UK, profess a religious faith. I think it’s important for people of all faiths that we recognise that when we’re doing important things and making laws for the land, we appreciate that we are doing so not simply as autonomous human beings, but as those led and guided by our faith, by God. In that sense it sets the tone in which we conduct all our business. We go straight from prayers into questions, which can be one of the more feisty bits of the business here on the red benches. Those prayers settle us down at the beginning of the day, and they remind us that there is something greater than our own wisdom and our own voices.
Though less invoked today, an argument for the presence of the Lords Spiritual in the House has often been that they provide a kind of moral leadership to Peers on a range of issues. Bishop David was less sure that “leadership” was the right word, though.
I think instead it’s about making a distinct moral contribution. I think leadership has to be accepted by others, and it’s a slightly grandiose term, but I think the fact that we are there, that we sit in our own particular benches, that we wear the robes that we do in Parliament says that we are seeking to reflect on the business of the day from an informed faith perspective. That faith perspective includes a moral perspective, but we certainly aren’t saying that everybody who disagrees with us is immoral. I think that sometimes governments can feel that because one of us speaks against them, that we are suggesting that they’re immoral and that no Christian could possibly hold the views that they hold. Well, we’re not saying that, but we are saying: here are important moral and ethical insights drawn from a faith tradition, often from those things that are common to most of the major world faiths, which impacts upon the business of the day.
I asked whether there’s an example of a particular Bill where Bishop David felt he or the Lords Spiritual had an impact in this regard.
On most areas of public policy different bishops have different interests and passions. What we’re trying to do is not simply speak as another person with political interests, but to see if we can contribute something that reflects a faith perspective. I’ll often mention a Bible story, or quote from Scripture somewhere in what I’m saying or relate my contribution to something that is commonly held by religious believers, not necessarily Christians or just Anglicans, and try to bring that to the Bill. Yesterday when I was speaking in a debate about the Financial Services and Markets Bill, it was about the extent to which financial bodies should have regard to environmental considerations. I was very much drawing on what it means for us to be stewards of God’s earth, rather than simply those who are appointed to exploit and abuse it to meet our own ends.
Different bishops will do that on different subjects. I’ve always had an interest in matters to do with poverty and inclusion. I actually managed to get an amendment through in a Bill last summer, now the Renters’ Rights Act. I put an amendment at committee stage and spoke to it. The minister said she was interested in what I’d said and asked me to meet with her before report stage. Eventually she came to adopt the amendment, which, though we lost Conservative support, was fantastic. The amendment got through and I co-signed it at the report stage. It was about balancing the rights of renters and landlords and local authorities appropriately when Environmental Health wants to come in and take a look at premisses.
Unlike most other Peers, though, Lords Spiritual have to balance their attendance in the House with their working commitments. This leads to statistically lower attendance than the Lords Temporal on average. I ask Bishop David about the challenges in balancing these roles.
Clearly some bishops are more frequent attenders or are more engaged with the House depending on what the business is. If a particular Bill is going through that a specific bishop is taking an interest in, then they’ll obviously do what they can to work around their diary. It’s amazing what’s possible these days with Zoom or Teams, though other portals are available. I’ve just come off an hour-long meeting with my diocesan secretary and chief executive before coming into the House. I can do that here in a way that I couldn’t have done a decade ago, so managing our time has become easier in that sense. But some bishops, particularly newly appointed bishops, may have more difficulty. They may have had to inherit things in their diocese that need a lot of their time and attention, and some others have diocese that are far farther away from London, at least than Manchester. I’m two hours on the train to Euston, but if you’re the Bishop of Truro or Carlisle, it’s a bit longer. So we have to recognise people’s availability, particularly at short notice, may be limited. We make the effort to attend whenever there is relevant business, though, and we have a parliamentary team who keep an eye out in case a bishop is struggling with attendance and then see if there’s things we can do to help with that. We have people like Hannah [Bishop David’s parliamentary researcher] who works for me and a couple of other bishops, as well as a core parliamentary team in the Church of England who are able to work on the administrative backlog for us. For example, Hannah will often lay oral questions for me and put my name down to speak in debates, as well as preparing notes for speeches and the like for me and my colleagues. Their work for us in this, and with research, and admin, clears a lot of time so that when I’m here I can be focused on things which I have to do in person.
Bishop David and Hannah went on to explain that the parliamentary team for the Church is about 15 to 20 people in total, which is split between researchers and central staff. The team is divided among policy areas, along with a director of parliamentary affairs. Much of that team is funded by the daily allowance given to the bishops by Parliament when they attend the House of Lords, which is then passed on. Given the challenges of in-person attendance, some aspects of engaging with the business of the House can be challenging. But there are ways around this. Bishop David gave the example of select committees:
We often sit on committees as a supernumerary. Most committees typically have a membership of twelve plus the chair. If we wish to sit on a committee, where we have a bishop who has a particular interest and has the time to attend, they’re often put down as a supernumerary, a thirteenth post. By convention, we always have a bishop on the communications committee of the House.
In contrast, quite unusually, for the Assisted Dying Bill when a special committee was set up at very short notice, it proved very difficult to find a thirteenth position. In that case, the opposition Chief Whip, Baroness Williams of Trafford, kindly ceded one of the Conservative places so that there could be a bishop on the committee. The Bishop of Newcastle then sat on that. The talk at the moment is that there’s going to be a committee formed fairly soon for the Draft Conversion Practices Bill. I’ve been speaking to officials about that because we’re quite interested in having a place on that. The General Synod voted overwhelmingly in favour of banning conversion practices back in 2017, so we have skin in the game on that one.
It’s in such contributions that Bishop David feels the Lords Spiritual excel. When asked whether their status within the UK’s constitutional tradition justifies their continued place in the Lords, he suggested we have to look at things in the round.
The argument of tradition is not one that will sustain the presence of the bishops on its own. That said, there is some merit to it. Every bill has on its face that it’s enacted by his King’s most excellent Majesty with the consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Commons. We are named on the front page of every Act of Parliament and we should recognise the part we play within that, within the House. If you look more broadly, trying to unpick the Establishment of the Church of England, you’ve got a lot of things which fall apart when you do that.
There have been many times where parties in their manifestos have talked about radical reform to the House of Lords, and we’ve seen in practice that that’s harder to achieve than it is to wish for, and it comes along with a lot of risk of babies and bathwater when tampering with the constitution. Of course, nobody today would set up the constitution the way it has been set up, but why set up a new one when you’ve got one which has evolved steadily over many centuries? We may make changes over time, and the introduction of life peers was a major change, which has led naturally in a sense to the exclusion of the Hereditary Peers.
Currently there’s talk about a mandatory retirement age or a maximum length of term in the House, or in upping the attendance requirement. So, I think there are little tweaks that can be done, but I think on the whole that we as Lords Spiritual offer something that is distinctive as a contribution to the House and not simply in leading it in prayers. Some members perhaps don’t appreciate this, but as I said, we aren’t here being Church of England partisans. No. When I was taking a Church of England measure through the House last Wednesday, that was specifically about the Church of England, but for the most part what we’re doing is simply saying people’s faith and people’s core values really matter.
There are some aspects of the Lords’ procedures which are specific to Church of England bishops, though. In addition to leading the day’s prayers, Lords Spiritual receive precedence when asking questions, albeit, within the confines of the self-regulating house.
Apart from a bishop who has won a question in the ballot in the normal way, we will restrict ourselves to one supplementary question across the four questions on the day. So yesterday, I actually wanted to ask a supplementary to the first oral question, but a colleague had already got in and said he was going to ask one on the third question. In the end he decided he didn’t want to ask it after all and so I missed my turn. So yesterday, no bishop actually asked a question. Oh well!
But that’s the deal. When it comes to debates, if a bishop stands up, unless a frontbencher stands up, then the bishop will get precedence. But once again, we use that carefully. We don’t dominate discussion and we normally wait until there’s been a chance for at least one speech from all the other major groupings in the House; the Government, the opposition, the Liberal Democrats and the cross benchers. So I often say when there’s a debate with a speakers list, I usually expect to bat at number five and to come in after the opening speeches from other parts of the House. That’s part of the House, and its ability to regulate its business to ensure it hears from all parts of the House.
I think it’s partly because it’s felt it’s not really appropriate for bishops to be involved in a shouting match. Sometimes in the Lords, it’s who shouts the loudest and the most often, then everyone sits down. I think there’s a lack of seemliness in that, so the convention exists that when a bishop stands, others will sit down. Often, one of us will stand, and if somebody else is also standing at the same time, we’ll sit down that first time, but we have then sent a signal to the house that we wish to speak.
While traditions like these still govern some of the arrangements in the House of Lords, certain changes have been introduced. To take one example, women bishops are now fast-tracked into positions as Lords Spiritual. As Bishop David explained:
Back in 2015 when we agreed that women could be bishops in advance of the first women being appointed to a diocesan bishop, we got an Act of Parliament which said that for ten years, if there were women in the queue they would take precedence. In 2025, or late 2024, as that was coming to an end, there remained two sunset clauses, which were either the ten years or when numbers became 50/50. The numbers hadn’t reached that point yet, and so we asked and gained from Parliament an amendment to that Act to extend it for another five years. So, that’s now got a final sunset clause of 2030, by which stage we’ll probably be a bit closer to 50/50 on the numbers.
In this sense, the bishops are perhaps ahead of other areas of the Lords when it comes to reform, though some people still regard their very presence as an anachronism. With this in mind, I asked Bishop David directly whether he still felt there was a role for Lords Spiritual in Parliament.
I think for largely pragmatic reasons, yes. I think we add value. We bring something distinctive and of the nation to the House. In a country where faith is still important and in a world where many of the most controversial and difficult problems have faith issues at the heart of them, we reflect that. How could you possibly debate war in the Middle East, or even understand Russia without understanding the place that faith plays in those societies? So that kind of religious literacy, at that level, which yes, other Lords Temporal may also have, but we bring it by the bucket. It’s at the heart of who we are and we particularly pay attention to it when we’re speaking.
The current combination in the House is a good one. We have bishops who sit because of the way the constitution has evolved, but then behind me sits Lord Griffiths, a former methodist minister, and across from me is a Sikh Conservative Peer, with Jewish Peers and Muslim Peers alongside who bring different faith perspectives. As bishops we offer something over and above the Lords Temporal, though. It came up recently when I was dealing with some amendments on the education of ultra-Orthodox Jewish children a few months ago in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. There, it really mattered to Jewish Peers in the House that I was able to speak up and give an external voice in support of what they were asking for, but one which came directly from a faith perspective.
Did it follow, then, that the roles of Lords Spiritual should be expanded to encompass other religions?
Well, already the House of Lords Appointments Commission looks at the balance of membership of the House and ensures that there is faith representation, but the question is very difficult unless it is a Crown office. I am appointed by the King, and therefore it’s appropriate for me to be appointed outside of HoLAC. It’s difficult to come to a point where we have alternative private institutions effectively appointing somebody to the House of Lords. Instead, it has be done through the proper channels, so I think there’s a practical challenge to be overcome there.
I do think there is scope in a couple of areas for reform, though. I think attendance could be looked at a little bit. I don’t think we need to set it too high because we don’t want to make it difficult for people who are absolutely experts on one particular area and we perhaps need them on that day, but we don’t need them week in week out, but we need to manage that.
Alongside that, there could be a maximum term for Life Peers, though it would mean we lose some good people. But actually, you know, you do get people who are old and frail and carry on when probably they shouldn’t, so that should be looked at. I will say, too, what I think everybody says, that there’s too much power in the hands of the Prime Minister over appointments.
There’s a role for political appointments, to manage their front benches and have people who are able to hold ministerial roles and the like, but I think that the House should be a little bit smaller and should be more based on skills and experience, which includes skills in the political arena, but also skills and experience in the life of the nation.
As Bishop David went on to argue, though, he feels more significant changes to the constitutional arrangement, for example an elected House of Lords, were likely to run into problems:
I think the danger is if you go for an elected House, even a substantially elected House, you hit the American problem. When the second chamber has sufficient stature, it becomes hard to stick to the Salisbury convention, and I think the Commons must be preeminent. We must have a system to ensure that happens. The fact that we’re not elected means that ultimately, we hold our hands up and say, we’ve given this our best shot, but if you’re insistent, you are the elected government of the day and you have the mandate of the people. We have advised you as best we could, and revised to the best extent we can, but it’s your call.
Without that dynamic, you lose to either paralysis or a lack of scrutiny, which are the two ways the American system goes, depending on whether the Houses are under the control of the same party or not.
The House of Lords is a popular target for public disquiet with the political system, and not without reason. It can be slow-moving, and efforts at significant reform have been being frustrated for hundreds of years.
The departure of the last remaining Hereditary Peers earlier this year, though, acts as a significant bookend. With only appointed Peers remaining, it seems likely that attention and clamour for reform will come to focus on the Lords Spiritual in the near future. Whatever position one takes on the issue, understanding the reality of the Lords Spiritual and their role within the House seems a prerequisite to that discussion.
Across our interview, Bishop David was passionate about explaining his work and the work of the Lords Spiritual in the House. I’m sure when the debate on their future comes, he will be a strong and persuasive advocate for their continuing presence in the House of Lords.
Dexter Govan.
The Constitution Society would like to thank the Rt Rev. the Lord Bishop of Manchester for speaking to the Society.
Dr Dexter Govan is Director of Research for the Constitution Society. He holds a doctorate from the University of Edinburgh and is a historian of unionism in Britain and Ireland. He has worked as a Press Officer in the Scottish Parliament and retains an interest in contemporary Scottish politics and the territorial constitution.
The Constitution Society is committed to the promotion of informed debate and is politically impartial.Any views expressed in this article are the personal views of the author and not those of The Constitution Society.