On 8th January 2021 the Second Church Estates Commissioner, Andrew Selous MP, gave the following written answers to questions from MPs:
Charitable Donations
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP (Con, The Cotswolds): To ask the Member for South West Bedfordshire, representing the Church Commissioners, what assessment the Church of England has made of the potential merits of establishing an app to enable contactless donations to be given via a QR code in the context of the covid-19 outbreak.
Andrew Selous MP (Con, South West Bedfordshire): The Church of England’s central purchasing facility ‘Parish Buying(opens in a new tab)’ has been rolling out electronic and contactless giving across the parishes and cathedral since 2018. Parish Buying has negotiated a discounted rate for churches to take online donations given through GiveALittle(opens in a new tab). Nearly 2,000 churches have set up GiveALittle accounts so far.
The national Church is funding premium membership of this service for all parishes, enabling people to make gift aid declarations and to make regular monthly donations online. The GiveALittle system allows a church to publish a giving page or make a QR code available to enable people to give quickly and simply. Guidance for parishes is available here(opens in a new tab).
Training is available online(opens in a new tab) for parishes on many giving issues, including online giving, and there is extensive guidance on both Parish Buying(opens in a new tab) and Parish Resources(opens in a new tab) websites. GiveALittle also has an app available for contactless devices(opens in a new tab), and this enables the public who may wish to donate to churches to continue to make donations. This year the Church will begin the rolling out of free contactless devices to half Church of England parishes, and many have already installed them following the successful trials in 2018.
Religious Buildings: Planning Permission
Valerie Vaz MP (Labour, Walsall South): To ask the Member for South West Bedfordshire, representing the Church Commissioners, what steps he is taking to support building development for historic places of worship.
Andrew Selous: Advice and support for parishes and cathedrals is available via the Church of England’s platform ‘Church Care’, this website acts as a portal for advice on management, maintenance, development and grants available to parishes and cathedrals.
During the pandemic period, £30m of grants that have been awarded to Church of England churches and cathedrals from a combination of the Government’s Culture Recovery Fund (CRF) and the National Lottery Heritage Fund’s Emergency Fund. The Church of England is grateful for this support and recognition by the Government of the key role these buildings play in their local communities.
The grants awarded by the Culture Recovery Fund were allocated to 227 churches and cathedrals with 43% of this money is going to the 30% most deprived parishes – over £12.9m; 20% of the money going to the 10% most deprived parishes, totalling over £5.9m.
The Lichfield Diocese received of six grants totalling £342,825 from the Culture Recovery Fund and the National Lottery Heritage Emergency Fund, this included five awards to parish churches totalling £199,925 and a grant to Lichfield Cathedral of £142,900
A second Culture Recovery Fund has now launched, and churches with listed buildings are being encouraged to apply for support.
Religious Buildings: Disadvantaged
Valerie Vaz: To ask the Member for South West Bedfordshire, representing the Church Commissioners, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of support available to places of worship in areas of high deprivation; and if he will make a statement.
Andrew Selous: While the primary responsibility for decisions on resourcing mission and ministry rests with the dioceses, the Church Commissioners have provided an extra resource to dioceses (distributed by The Archbishops’ Council) to support mission and ministry in deprived communities in the form of Lowest Income Communities Funding. Across England, £82.1m has been allocated by the Commissioners for this purpose in 2020-22. Recipient dioceses are required to report on their use of this funding to The Archbishops’ Council each year. The Diocese of Lichfield, which covers Walsall South, will receive over £1.7m of this funding in 2021. In 2019, the diocese allocated some £200,000 of this to support ministry and mission in parishes in Walsall.
The dioceses can also apply for Strategic Development Funding (SDF) for significant projects which support their mission and financial strength, in line with their own strategies. The criteria for this funding seeks to focus on areas of deprivation, and on work with children and young people and within large urban areas. In 2019, £1.7million was awarded to Lichfield Diocese to fund a project to enhance mission and ministry in Telford, which includes some of the diocese’s most deprived areas.
A further £35m Sustainability Funding has also been made available to help diocese whose income has been reduced by the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. This funding is focused on those dioceses with fewer historic assets and whose populations have lower average incomes. Grants worth £15m were made to 24 dioceses in 2020.
Church Commissioners: Land
Kerry McCarthy MP (Lab, Bristol East): To ask the Member for South West Bedfordshire, representing the Church Commissioners:
- pursuant to the Answer of 10 December 2020 to Question 125956, whether the Commissioners in collaboration with the Land Registry has conducted a land survey of land assets held by the Church of England.
- pursuant to the Answer of 10 December 2020 to Question 125956, whether the Commissioners have made an assessment of the level of compliance with the Land Registration Act 2002 of their policy on digitally mapped Church land assets.
Andrew Selous: As a responsible landowner, the Church Commissioners comply with the requirements of the Land Registration Act 2002, and the Church Commissioners are only responsible for the land which they hold, not all Church of England land.
The Church Commissioner’s land has, to a large extent, been registered with the Land Registry, all such information is publicly available via the Land Registry. The 2002 Act does not provide for the Land Registry and the Church Commissioners to collaborate to undertake land surveys, nor does it require the Commissioners to have a policy on digital maps of their landholding.
The Church of England in Parliament 
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