On 31st March 2025, the Bishop of Chichester moved that the Chancel Repair (Church Commissioners’ Liability) Measure and the Church Funds Investment Measure be presented for Royal Assent:
Chancel Repair (Church Commissioners’ Liability) Measure
The Lord Bishop of Chichester: That this House do direct that, in accordance with the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act 1919, the Chancel Repair (Church Commissioners’ Liability) Measure be presented to His Majesty for the Royal Assent.
My Lords, this Measure rationalises the legal basis on which the Church Commissioners are obliged to provide funds to repair the chancels of certain parish churches. The existing law in this area has its origins in the time before the dissolution of the monasteries in the 16th century. The rule that applied generally in England was that the people of the parish were responsible for maintaining the nave of the parish church, the main part of the church where the people would generally stand or kneel during services, and the rector of the parish was responsible for the chancel, the eastern-most part of the church that contains the altar and seats the clergy.
Legislation over several centuries, beginning in the 1530s and concluding with the establishment of the Church Commissioners in 1947, has resulted in the commissioners inheriting some of the land that had once formed part of the endowment of a rectory. That ownership carries with it the rector’s liability to keep in repair the chancel of the relevant parish church.
The commissioners’ land carries liability for around 350 parish churches. In some cases, the commissioners have the whole liability. In other cases, they share it with other landowners. In 2023, they incurred net expenditure of around £354,000 on chancel repairs, which was considerably down on £608,000, which occurred in 2022. They expect expenditure for 2024 and 2025 to be in the region of £1.2 million for each year.
Cathedral chapters also carry liability for the chancels of around 200 parish churches. The Church Commissioners currently have a statutory power to make grants to chapters to cover these liabilities. In 2023, the commissioners made net grants of about £124,000 to chapters for this purpose, meeting the entirety of cathedral chapters’ liabilities in this regard.
When land that carries chancel repair liability is sold, the purchaser takes on that liability, provided that it is registered against the title of the land before the sale takes place. That has the potential to reduce the value of the land in question and result in lower sale proceeds than would otherwise be the case. If the liability is not registered against the title of the land, the purchaser takes the land free of the liability, in which case the parish loses out because the liability, in effect, disappears.
This Measure will cut through some of those complex issues. It will detach chancel liability from any land that currently belongs to the Church Commissioners and turn it into a free-standing statutory obligation on the commissioners to make the relevant payments. That will mean that parishes will no longer need to go to the trouble of registering chancel repair liability for which the commissioners are responsible. Those parishes will continue to be entitled to receive payments from the commissioners to maintain the chancels of their churches, and the commissioners will be able to sell land without having to reduce the sale price to take account of a liability having been registered against the title.
The Measure also helps cathedral chapters: instead of having to rely on grants from the commissioners to offset their liability to repair the chancels of various parish churches, chapters will no longer carry the liability at all. It will be transferred to the commissioners, who will become subject to a direct statutory obligation to meet the liabilities that, until now, have fallen on cathedrals. As noble Lords will be aware from its report, the Ecclesiastical Committee has considered the Measure and found it to be expedient. I beg to move.
Baroness Harris of Richmond (LD) [V]: My Lords, I will be brief. The Ecclesiastical Committee, under our excellent chair, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, considered these Measures on 3 February this year, as we have heard, after they had gone through all the synod’s scrutiny. Before I begin, I must declare my interests: I am high steward of Ripon Cathedral in North Yorkshire—as we have heard, cathedrals are also mentioned in the Measure—and I have a nephew who is a parish priest on the Isle of Man, although that is exempt from these Measures at the moment.
The first Measure, on chancel repair et cetera, is about an enforceable liability to repair or contribute to the repair of the chancel of a parish church. In essence, it would detach the Church Commissioners’ liability from the affected land and convert it into a free-standing statutory duty, as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chichester told us clearly. This would enable the Church Commissioners to sell any land they own, free of responsibility for the repair of any chancel liabilities. The commissioners would continue to be liable to repair the chancel as a continuing statutory duty, even after they sell any land for which there is a chancel repair liability.
The Measure also makes provision for the conversion of the current statutory chancel repair duty of the chapter of each cathedral into a statutory duty of the commissioners. It does not abolish chancel repair liability or change the liability of third parties to pay contributions to any chancel repair that is needed. As the right reverend Prelate has already told us, we were happy to accept this Measure, as proposed by the synod.
Baroness Butler Sloss (CB): My Lords, as your Lordships’ House has heard, I am chair of the Ecclesiastical Committee. The committee heard a considerable amount of evidence from the Church, and a number of MPs who are part of the Ecclesiastical Committee asked some very relevant questions, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, who has just spoken. We were satisfied, according to the 1919 statute that sets up the Ecclesiastical Committee, that it was “expedient”—that is the phrase used in the statute—to pass this Measure to this House.
Lord Griffiths of Bury Port (Lab): My Lords, I do not know whether it is appropriate for me to contribute, but I feel I must. I was also part of the committee coming to the conclusion that the noble and learned Baroness has just mentioned. My degree in theology at Cambridge clearly did not fit me for understanding the complexities of land tenure in parish churches, but I just wished—I know that this is a silly thing to say—that all the chancels in Methodist churches that I know about could have been included in the Measure being put forward.
Lord Scriven (LD): My Lords, I wish to follow on the noble Lord’s last comment: of course they would not, because the Methodist Church is not the established Church. That is why we are discussing this issue: because it is the established Church. I think that most people watching this—I declare my interest as a member of the National Secular Society—will be surprised that, in 2025, we have to debate this based on the established Church and the archaic nature of one Church in this land.
I appreciate that the right reverend Prelate has to come and speak to this Measure because of the position that the established Church is in and the privilege that the Bishops sometimes get to be able to plead to Parliament about some special interest for the established Church, but I wish to place on record not just my voice but that of many people. The very fact that we have an established Church and these archaic rules means that this Parliament has to take this up. It would be better, eventually, for the Church to be disestablished and to be in control of its own rules and laws and not subject to the need for Parliament and parliamentary time.
The Lord Bishop of Chichester: My Lords, I thank noble Lords for the comments that have been made, and I am especially grateful for the interest and support of Methodists, who view the matter from a different perspective. Perhaps I may comment on the place of the Church of England in the history of the land. We are very aware of being the stewards of a large part of this nation’s history. Much of it is invested in the physicality of our church buildings, and I regard this process as one in which we are transparent and accountable for how we discharge that responsibility, so I hope that this will not be regarded as time that is wasted.
Lord Moraes (Lab, Government Whip): My Lords, I understand that, under this procedure, there is no reply from the Government.
Motion agreed.
Church Funds Investment Measure
The Lord Bishop of Chichester: That this House do direct that, in accordance with the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act 1919, the Church Funds Investment Measure be presented to His Majesty for the Royal Assent.
My Lords, this is another piece of reforming legislation; it updates legislation dating from 1958, which enables various Church of England bodies to invest in pooled funds. These are known collectively as the CBF Church of England funds. Approximately 11,500 Church bodies invest in these funds; they include diocesan boards of finance, parochial church councils and cathedral chapters. The current assets of the funds are in the region of £3 billion.
The legislation authorising these pooled investment funds—the Church Funds Investment Measure 1958—is out of date and prevents those funds being regulated funds. To address this, the measure provides for the transfer of the CBF Church of England funds to what is known as a charity-authorised investment fund. The structure for this type of fund was created in 2016 by the Financial Conduct Authority working with the Charity Commission. It has significant advantages for investors. First, charity-authorised investment funds are jointly regulated by the Charity Commission and the Financial Conduct Authority. This offers investors greater protection and reassurance that the funds are regulated and overseen in accordance with industry best practice while maintaining their charitable status. Secondly, no VAT is payable on the fees of the managers of these funds, resulting in a modest saving for charities that invest in them.
The Measure permits the trustee of the CBF Church of England funds to transfer the assets of those funds to a charity-authorised investment fund. The result will be the CBF Church of England funds, instead of being unregulated as is currently the case, will become authorised and regulated jointly by the Financial Conduct Authority and the Charity Commission. Value added tax will also cease to be payable on investment managers’ fees, resulting in a cost saving to church investors. Again, the Ecclesiastical Committee has found the Measure to be expedient. I beg to move.
Baroness Butler Sloss: My Lords, as the House knows, I am chairman of the Ecclesiastical Committee. We considered this Measure, we heard evidence from the Church and we deemed it expedient.
Perhaps I could just add that, since the Church of England is the established Church, it is entirely appropriate that suitable Measures from synod should become Acts of Parliament, which is what is happening at the moment—and these two Measures are appropriately being brought to this House.
Lord Scriven (LD): My Lords, no one disputes that the present system creates this for Parliament. My argument is not that it is happening; my argument is that it should not happen because we should not have an established Church. It is quite incredible—and I hope that the outside world listens to this debate—that the Church of England suddenly has a £3 billion fund that it now wishes to be regulated, which is good, but also that it can save money by not paying VAT. Again I point out that, by having the Bishops in this House, the Church has a special and privileged position to be able to argue for that. So while the system of the established church remains, Parliament’s time is going to be wasted with this kind of discussion about the governance of the Church of England, when with any other church it would be for the equivalent of the synod to make that decision without having to come to this Parliament to make the decision of synod. That is all my argument is—that, regardless of whether this is a good or a bad Measure, it should not be coming to Parliament because we should not have an established Church; it should be an equal church among many religions and faiths across the country, and Parliament should be debating other things rather than the internal governance and how to use £3 billion of the Church of England’s funds.
The Lord Bishop of Chichester: I am grateful for the comments that have been made. I leave the matter at that. We greatly value the leadership of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. I would like to record, if I may, our thanks to her for her diligent chairing of the Ecclesiastical Committee.
Motion agreed.
The Church of England in Parliament 
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