On the 11th May 2018 the Bishop of Chester spoke during the second reading of Baroness Deech’s Divorce (Financial Provision) Bill. The Bishop spoke about the developments in the approach taken by the Church of England to divorce and supported the outline of the Bill. Bishop Peter highlighted concerns regarding areas of the Bill relating to children, premarital assets and the need for a more adequate safety net. Baroness Vere of Norbiton responded to the debate for the Government and her comments can be found below. The Bill was read a second time and has moved to Committee Stage.
The Lord Bishop of Chester: My Lords, I join others in congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, for her persistence and perseverance in bringing this Bill forward and for her very elegant opening speech.
On 30th April the EU (Withdrawal) Bill entered its fourth day of Report Stage. The Bishop of Leeds, the Rt Revd Nick Baines, spoke on Baroness Massey’s amendment to support children, and Viscount Hailsham’s amendment to give MPs and Peers a meaningful say in the outcome of the Brexit negotiations. His speeches are below:
The Lord Bishop of Norwich: My Lords, we are indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, for the Bill. He has pursued a subject which I think can too easily be treated with mirth, but is not at all funny for those congregations in churches where bats sometimes rule the roost. It is reckoned that about 60% of all 16th-century or earlier churches have bat roosts. It is as significant as that. It is the nature of access to the roofs of medieval churches, I think, which causes the bats to go there, rather than their appreciation of our great, historic heritage. In a diocese such as mine, with 640 churches, of which 550 are medieval, there are places where the bat population outnumbers not simply the congregation but our total number of parishioners.
The Church of England in Parliament 
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