The Bishop of St Albans received the following written answers on 21st October 2024:
The Lord Bishop of St Albans asked His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the issue of ‘farmwashing’ by retailers; and what steps they intend to take to tackle this issue.
Continue reading “Bishop of St Albans asks about environmental issues in retail and industry”The Bishop of St Albans received the following written answers on 21st October 2024:
The Lord Bishop of St Albans asked His Majesty’s Government what steps they will take to develop the Children’s Social Care National Framework and outcomes further to include the voice of children and young people.
Continue reading “Bishop of St Albans asks about support for children in local authority care”On 21st October 2024, the Bishop of Leicester asked a question on the impact of the current benefits system on children from lower-income families:
The Lord Bishop of Leicester: My Lords, in his review, Sir David Bell looked at the attainment gap between children from less privileged and more privileged backgrounds. Can the Government commit to ensuring that the ministerial taskforce on child poverty will look at the impact of the current benefits system on children from lower-income families?
Continue reading “Bishop of Leicester asks about the impact of the current benefits system on children”
The Bishop of Sheffield spoke in support of the Refugees (Family Reunion) Bill, a private members bill tabled by Baroness Hamwee, at its second reading on 18th October:
The Lord Bishop of Sheffield: My Lords, I commend the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, for bringing forward this important Bill, and I acknowledge the work of other noble Lords on similar Bills.
The sustained interest in a Bill of this kind should tell us something: that the current route to family reunion is unduly restrictive and prohibitive. Government data shows that in 2023 there were over 7,000 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in the care of local authorities in the UK, 141 of those in the communities that I serve as bishop in Doncaster, Rotherham and Sheffield.
Continue reading “Refugees (Family Reunion) Bill: Bishop of Sheffield welcomes new routes for refugees”On 18th October 2024, the Bishop of Sheffield spoke at the second reading of the Education (Values of British Citizenship) Bill, a private members bill tabled by Lord Harries of Pentregarth, supporting the bill and welcoming provision to improve provision for education on religion and the environment:
The Lord Bishop of Sheffield: My Lords, I too congratulate the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, on bringing forward this Private Member’s Bill, and indeed on the many years of thinking and hard work which have brought the Bill to this point. I welcome the Bill, support its aims and heartily welcome the five specific headings, which together give some definition of what is meant by “British values” in an educational context.
Especially in an educational context, it will be vital to foster a culture in which these headline categories are inhabited in a meaningful way. This kind of culture is capable of being fostered as much in the teaching of maths and science as through the teaching of citizenship, PSHE or RE, but these latter subjects provide an opportunity for values to be addressed directly and explicitly. I shall say something further about RE in particular, but the list of values identified in the Bill includes respect for the environment, and I would also like to say something about the potential for a natural history GSCE.
Continue reading “Education (Values of British Citizenship) Bill: Bishop of Sheffield speaks in support of legislation”The Bishop of Norwich received the following written answer on 18th October 2024:
The Lord Bishop of Norwich asked His Majesty’s Government whether they plan to publish the National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan, in accordance with the commitment of the United Nations Biodiversity Conference Canada in 2022, before COP 16 starts in Colombia on 21 October.
Continue reading “Bishop of Norwich asks about biodiversity strategy”The Bishop of Sheffield spoke in a debate commemorating the 40th anniversary of the 1984 famine in Ethiopia, stressing the need to act to prevent famines and similar crises before they occur:
The Lord Bishop of Sheffield: My Lords, I too am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, for securing this important debate and for the opportunity to contribute to it.
I remember 1984 very vividly. That summer, I graduated from university and got married, and early that autumn, I began training for ordained ministry. I have clear memories of the powerful BBC news coverage of the Ethiopian famine—which, as the noble Baroness reminded us, was broadcast exactly 40 years ago this month—and of the Band Aid Christmas single that year and the Live Aid concerts of 1985. Those events were all quite formative for me.
In retrospect, our crowd-sourced responses to the famine in 1984 were naive, not least in treating the famine as simply a natural disaster and in failing to take into account the human factors that contributed to it, including both the global climate emergency, or global warming as we were just beginning to call it then, and the more local political and military practices. Although we may have learned a good deal in the past 40 years, and although we may be significantly more sophisticated now in our analysis of the causes of famine in that part of the world, it is evident that we are barely more effective at responding to it, let alone at preventing it. Both those aims are urgent: we need to respond effectively to the current crisis, and we need to improve our capacity to anticipate and therefore to forestall future famines.
Continue reading “Bishop of Sheffield speaks in debate on 40th anniversary of famine in Ethiopia”The Bishop of Leicester took part in a debate on global conflict and the UN sustainable development goals on 17th October 2024, raising the need for increased understanding and cooperation across faith groups and communities:
The Lord Bishop of Leicester: My Lords, I too am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, for securing this debate in advance of the Budget, which is due to be delivered in a fortnight’s time. Undoubtedly, that Budget will involve difficult decisions and sacrifices. It is easy to lose sight of how very fortunate we are as a nation when compared with many others around the world.
As noble Lords have mentioned, the UN has warned that progress towards the sustainable development goals has ground to a halt and in some cases been reversed. Over the last year, the prospect of achieving the 16th sustainable development goal of
“peaceful and inclusive societies”
for sustainable development, and
“access to justice for all”
has seemed even further out of reach as war in the Middle East has become broader and deeper, and multiple conflicts in Africa have also worsened.
Continue reading “Bishop of Leicester speaks in debate on sustainable development”On 17th October 2024, Marsha de Cordova MP, the Second Church Estates Commissioner, gave the following answers to questions from MPs:
Small Rural Communities
Ms Julie Minns MP (Lab, Carlisle) asked: What steps the Church of England is taking to support parish life in small rural communities.
Continue reading “Church Commissioners Questions: Rural Communities, Former Church Sites, Access to Places of Worship, Independent Safeguarding Board Review, Recognition of Positive Impact, Interfaith Understanding, Ordination of Women: 30th Anniversary, Restoration Funding,”The Bishop of Sheffield asked a question on government plans to tackle regional inequalities in education outcomes on 17th October 2024, during a discussion on equality of opportunity in the education sector:
The Lord Bishop of Sheffield: My Lords, according to data published by the Education Policy Institute, disadvantaged learners in Yorkshire and the Humber are typically 21.4 months behind their more advantaged learners by the end of secondary school. This is opposed to a disadvantage gap of half that size, at just 10.4 months, in London. What steps will the Government take to reduce such perniciously stubborn regional inequalities in educational outcomes?
Continue reading “Bishop of Sheffield asks about tackling regional inequalities in education”
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