autumn statement – The Church of England in Parliament

Bishop of Manchester responds to Chancellor’s Autumn Statement, raising issues in mental healthcare funding and the ongoing cost of living crisis

The Bishop of Manchester spoke in a debate on the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement on 29th November 2023, welcoming the uprating of benefits and rise in the national living wage and calling for further commitment to funding for mental healthcare, and for an independent body to set the rate of benefits to ensure the cost of living are met:

The Lord Bishop of Manchester: My Lords, that felt more like a speech about a future Autumn Statement from a Labour Government than about the current one before us.

I too welcome the Minister to her new role and look forward to hearing from her often in this House. However, I suspect that, even if you are a Treasury Minister, every Autumn Statement feels like a missed opportunity. There are always things that each one of us would have liked to have seen given a higher priority and areas of spend to which we would have wanted greater resources allocated. There may also be things on which we think too much money is being spent, although they may be a little less common.

I begin by being grateful for a number of items announced this time. I am not sure that I can sustain that congratulatory perspective all the way through my remarks—your Lordships know me too well to expect that—but I will at least start in a positive direction. The uprating of working-age benefits by 6.7% and the 9.8% increase in the national living wage will go some way to stemming or slowing the growth and deepening of poverty among households who are striving and struggling with low-paid and insecure employment. My belief is that the money made available to our lowest-income households should not, however, be subject to annual political whim. More than a triple lock for pensions, we need an independent mechanism to ensure that benefits always cover the basic essentials of living.

Bishop of Birmingham speaks in Lords debate on Chancellor’s Autumn Statement

On 29th November 2016, Lord Young of Cookham moved that the House take note of the economy in the light of the Autumn Statement. The Bishop of Birmingham, the Rt Revd David Urquhart, spoke in the debate:

The Lord Bishop of Birmingham My Lords, the noble Lord mentioned doctrine, and I am sure that the aspirations of the Government’s economic plan fit in perfectly with the newly arrived season of the Christian Advent, where we offer the expectation of a fulfilled and better future, and the hope that the general population will continue to display their usual dependence on the freely available social measures of faith, hope and love. If your Lordships think I am getting too far from the point, when it comes to high economic doctrine or ordinary daily lives, the person on the top of the bus between the centre of Birmingham and Berkeley Green, which I take regularly, might ask me what I was doing tomorrow, and I might say, “I am coming down to Parliament”. “Tell them there are two things that matter: that we get on together and that we have enough to live on”—love and hope. But then we consider the Autumn Statement in the knowledge that the third one—faith—is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Continue reading “Bishop of Birmingham speaks in Lords debate on Chancellor’s Autumn Statement”

Bishop of Portsmouth responds to Chancellor’s Autumn Statement

On 29th November 2016, Lord Young of Cookham moved that the House take note of the economy in the light of the Autumn Statement. The Bishop of Portsmouth, the Rt Revd Christopher Foster, spoke in the debate:

The Lord Bishop of Portsmouth My Lords, after nearly three years in this House, and having had the opportunity to speak in most of the debates responding to the Budget and Autumn Statements, it is not difficult to note the tendency for some contributors to applaud proposals they consider welcome; for others to criticise proposals they consider to have sectional interest or bias; and to have the expectation—or at least the hope—conveyed that the Chancellor and the Government will, and can, do even more when they are praised for welcome initiatives. I want to do a little of that this afternoon, though recognising the restrictions the Chancellor faces. I invite the Minister, and through him the Government, to reflect on what they ought to do—I introduce a moral note in using that phrase—to repair the fractures of trust, address growing injustices that are perceived as more hurtful than inequalities, and create not just a flourishing economy but a nation where people believe there is more that unites us than divides us. Indeed, my question to the Minister is whether the Government can better articulate their rationale and approach in the important area of inequality and injustice. Continue reading “Bishop of Portsmouth responds to Chancellor’s Autumn Statement”

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: