The first part of the Prime Minister’s statement on Church of England appointments was expected. There is a statutory ban on Jews or Catholics ‘advising’ the Monarch in the performance of their role of appointing bishops (and many other senior clergy), so Burnham has to transfer the function to a religiously acceptable colleague, in this case the Lord Chancellor. The fact that neither Keir Starmer’s atheism nor Rishi Sunak’s Hinduism prevented them from performing the function already reveals the absurdity of the arrangement.
But the second part of the statement was not expected: “It is, however, unacceptable for there to be a legislative bar against people of any faith performing all the functions of my office. The Government will therefore introduce a Bill at the earliest possible opportunity to correct this antiquated and archaic anomaly.” A central feature of Establishment is now deemed by the government to be “unacceptable,” “antiquated,” and “archaic.” The law is, of course, patently discriminatory and cries out to be reformed.
In passing, we might ask whether, if it is “unacceptable for there to be a legislative bar against people of any faith performing all the functions” of the PM, how is not unacceptable for there be such a bar against anyone occupying the office of the Monarch (as established in the requirement of ‘Protestant Succession’)? Monarchs can now marry a Catholic but they can’t be one. Catholics have been complaining about that for a long time.
But back to Crown appointments. In fact, the function was already reduced to a procedural formality by Gordon Brown in 2007, who established the practice that the first preference of the Church’s own Crown Nominations Commission would automatically be accepted by the PM on behalf of the Monarch. No PM would subsequently exercise any discretion in the matter, either by opting for the Church’s second choice, or by demanding a third (recent PMs have done both). As a Presbyterian, presumably Brown had an instinct that secular politicians should play no part in the selection of the Church of England’s senior pastors. Certainly, no other Christian or religious body in the UK would tolerate such political interference, however symbolic.
The arrangement is only one of the many anachronisms and improprieties of Establishment (see my Beyond Establishment 2022). A more serious one is that the Church’s own legislation - its ‘Measures’, passed by General Synod - must be approved by Parliament, following vetting by an Ecclesiastical Committee of MPs and Peers. While normally acting as a rubber stamp, the Committee occasionally shows its teeth, as it did earlier this year in blocking (deeming ‘not expedient’) a major reform of Church governance that had taken five years to complete and had been passed almost unanimously in General Synod. The issue has now been thrown back into the Church’s in-tray and and the signs are that it is going to meekly accept defeat, even though the hurdle of parliamentary approval of the Church’s internal decisions is at least as “unacceptable,” “antiquated,” and “archaic” as the Crown’s power over Church appointments.
But Burnham’s response to the obvious discrimination tainting Crown appointments is the wrong one. His proposed bill actually consolidates the PM’s power over the Church when he could be seizing the moment to lay aside all such power. But that is not so simple to achieve. For both the Crown’s power of appointment, and the requirement of parliamentary approval of the Church’s legislation, depend on the larger constitutional apparatus of Establishment rooted in the Act of Supremacy 1534 and its associated cluster of statutes. The latter requirement is also proximately based in the Enabling Act 1919, which would also have to be revisited. If you try to end either of these arrangement, that whole constitutional foundation will come under a highly embarrassing spotlight from which is unlikely to emerge unscathed. This is why the Church’s leadership doesn’t want to talk about it.
Another element the leadership doesn’t want to talk about is the place of the Lords Spiritual. In fact, the right of 26 bishops to sit in the nation’s second legislative chamber long predates the Reformation and has nothing directly to do with the Tudor statutes that brought about Establishment. That right could be ended by Parliament, or voluntarily relinquished (or scaled down) by the Church, without legally tampering with the main pillars of Establishment. Politically, however, if that stone is turned, the same embarrassing spotlight is going to start shining on the whole shebang.
It is doubtful that Burnham, with such a large in-tray, is willing to devote the considerable parliamentary time and political capital such a process would entail. Equally, there is no evidence that the Church’s leadership are the slightest bit prepared for this. So the government will continue to take ad hoc initiatives in this direction via a familiar process of ‘disestablishment by salami-slicing’ – or, in this odd case, an incremental consolidation of Establishment.
If there are conversations between state and Church on these matters, they are being kept secret, which is unacceptable because undemocratic. But so far, the initiative has always come from the side of the state. Brown’s 2007 proposal was unilateral. I have been reliably informed by an episcopal source that No 10 tried to call the then ABC (Rowan Williams) prior to the announcement, but, discovering he was on sabbatical, spoke to the Archbishop of York who apparently said, “yes, that’s fine” (this is how the UK changes its constitution). I’d bet Burnham’s decision was unilateral too - did Lambeth Palace even know the announcement was coming?
When will the Church’s leadership summon up the theological courage and strategic clarity even to start being open to a public conversation on such matters? The usual unthinking mantra from the leadership when the issue surfaces in public consciousness is, “we will continue to serve the nation in these way as long as the nation wants us to.” Grow a spine.