On 11th January 2024, Andrew Selous MP, representing the Church Commissioners, gave the following answers to MPs in the House of Commons:
Choral Music: Cathedrals
Michael Fabricant MP (Con, Lichfield) asked: Whether the Commissioners are taking steps to support choral music in cathedrals.
Andrew Selous MP (Con, South West Bedfordshire): The Church Commissioners provided £1 million to support music in cathedrals during the pandemic. That sum was match funded by the Cathedral Music Trust. The commissioners are extremely grateful to the trust for doing what it did to help ensure that worship in our cathedrals remains of the highest calibre.
The Bishop of Newcastle made her maiden speech during the King’s Speech debate on 14th November 2023, welcoming the government’s proposed Media Bill:
The Lord Bishop of Newcastle: My Lords, it is a pleasure to be making my Maiden Speech in this House and in this particular debate. I offer my sincere thanks to your Lordships for the kind welcome extended to me and I pay tribute to the dedicated parliamentary staff, whose commitment to public service is exemplary.
The gracious Speech set out the bare bones of a legislative programme that will reveal its detail as we go. However, before making one or two observations on that, I will set out what I hope I might bring to the collective wisdom and discourse of this House from my experiences across the world. I began my ministry as a bishop in Aotearoa/New Zealand, as Bishop of Waikato. My years of working closely with that land’s indigenous people, the Māori, taught me much about the challenges and the joys of collaboration amid difference, division and the complexities of history. There are many phrases of wisdom that I learnt in this context: that leadership in the public square is like climbing a mountain—the higher you go the better the views but the more unpredictable the weather systems.
On 3rd November 2022, the House of Lords held a debate on public service broadcasting to mark the centenary of the BBC. The Bishop of Leeds spoke in the debate, with specific reference to the value of UK public service broadcasting worldwide, and the future of Channel 4:
The Lord Bishop of Leeds: My Lords, I too am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Foster, for securing this very important debate. Before saying anything further on the theme, I want to express thanks to and admiration for those who prepared the Library briefing. I have been knocking around these issues for a couple of decades, and this briefing is a model of narrative accuracy and concision.
Public service broadcasting in the UK is unique on the planet and one area in which this country is genuinely a world leader, which is why it is so important that, in the centenary year of the BBC and the day after the 40th birthday of Channel 4, we assess the value of what we have and steel ourselves against the ideologically driven impulse to diminish it. Yesterday, I asked a friend who works in public service broadcasting what she would focus on in a debate such as this. Her response was immediate: imagine a world without it. That is, imagine a world in which broadcasting serves only narrow cultural or political interests and is subject purely to commercial or transactional persuasion. I might put it like this: look at broadcasting in the United States. Price is not the same as value.
The Bishop of Chichester asked a question during a discussion on the Broadcasting Sector White Paper on 11th July 2022:
The Lord Bishop of Chichester: My Lords, the Government’s Up Next policy paper claims that
“public service broadcasters … develop skills and talent, drive growth right across the creative industries”.
Will the Minister undertake to widen the Government’s vision for broadcasting to ensure that we also hear how skills and talents will be developed among pupils, students and young performers and designers when at present curriculum incentive and public investment are so often lacking in this area in our schools, colleges and universities?
The Bishop of Southwark received the following written answer on 6th June 2022:
The Lord Bishop of Southwark asked Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the report by Reporters Without Borders that there have been more than 140 instances of violence by Israeli security forces against journalists in Friday protests since March 2018.
“When people are too scared to express their genuinely held and legally protected beliefs, that is very dangerous for democracy.”
On 10th December 2021 in the House of Lords the Archbishop of Canterbury held a debate on freedom of speech. His opening and closing remarks are below, and the full debate including the contributions of Peers and the Opposition and Government response, can be read in Hansard, here.
Moved by The Archbishop of Canterbury: That this House takes note of contemporary challenges to freedom of speech, and the role of public, private and civil society sectors in upholding freedom of speech.
The Archbishop of Canterbury: My Lords, I am most grateful to the Leader of the House, the usual channels, all noble Lords who have taken the trouble to be here today and, especially, the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, for answering on behalf of the Government in order that we may have this debate. It is a return to an Advent tradition, interrupted in recent years by elections and pandemics. Should your Lordships worry that I am infectious in some way, I have been tested to the limits of testing. I have my granddaughter’s cold, for which I would like to record my grateful thanks.
We on these Benches have our critics—I have a large number—but for all our present failings you would be hard-pressed to find a more disastrous move by the Lords spiritual than when, in 1831, 21 of them lined up behind the Duke of Wellington and opposed the Great Reform Bill. Had they voted the other way, it would have passed. The people, denied their rights, responded with riots, and bishops were particularly targeted, some with violence. In Bristol, the Bishop’s Palace was burned down. A dead cat was thrown at my predecessor Archbishop Howley, narrowly missing him but striking his chaplain in the face. “Be glad it wasn’t a live one,” Howley is reported to have responded.
I start with this dive into the past because it illustrates a present point. The grey area between, on the one hand, peaceful protest and reasoned criticism and, on the other, incitement to hatred or to violence is one that we are still trying to navigate today. The Church of England knows about that. I must start by suggesting that our society should never follow our historical example of coercion, Test Acts and punishment. There is still a prison at Lambeth Palace at the top of the Lollards’ Tower, with room for eight people. It was used for the Lollards—I have a little list.
“search engines free of advertising, social networking freed from the blind pursuit of profit, messaging services which do not mine our data—and all protecting the rights of the child? Perhaps the Government might be willing to explore this kind of radical intervention—social media in public service—in this vital area”
On 10th December 2021 the Bishop of Oxford spoke in a House of Lords debate led by the Archbishop of Canterbury on contemporary challenges to freedom of speech and the role of the public, private and third sectors in upholding it:
The Lord Bishop of Oxford: My Lords, it is a great privilege and honour, as always, to follow the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, one of my distinguished predecessors. I am grateful for this timely debate and to the most reverend Primate for his very comprehensive introduction. In a few days’ time, as we have heard, the scrutiny committee of both Houses will publish its report on the online safety legislation: a potentially vital web of provisions to prevent harm to individuals and, I hope, to society.
“Calm scrutiny will cause people with power, whoever and wherever they may be, whatever they may say, however loudly they may speak, one and all, to be uncomfortable. This applies as much to the Bishops of the Church of England as to anyone else”.
On 2nd December 2021 the Bishop of Liverpool, Rt Revd Paul Bayes, made his maiden speech in the House of Lords, during a debate led by Lord Bragg “That this House takes note of the BBC’s value to the United Kingdom and a wider global audience and the case for Her Majesty’s Government giving it greater support.”
The Lord Bishop of Liverpool (Maiden Speech): My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to address your Lordships for the first time and on this subject, and for the privilege of following the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord McNally, for his kind words*. I thank all noble Lords for the warmth of the welcome that I have received, and, for the quality of briefing and induction from the officers and staff of your Lordships’ House, which has been exemplary and profoundly helpful.
I speak as one whose first degree was in drama and theatre arts, and who was almost employed by the BBC as a trainee script editor in what was then called “English Regions Drama”, at the Pebble Mill studios in Birmingham, in 1975. With whatever wisdom, I chose instead to enter the ordained ministry of the Church, and there have been times when I have felt that I chose the lower calling. Forty-two years of ministry in six different dioceses have culminated in the enormous privilege of my being appointed Bishop of Liverpool in 2014. I have been preferred to your Lordships’ House late in my ministry, but I am very grateful to be here and to receive wisdom for at least a few months.
Among its many dimensions, I want to speak of what the BBC does uniquely in our fragmented public square. To me, the gift and value of public service broadcasting is a matter of form before it is a matter of content: it rests on the decision to assume a tone of voice. The value of the BBC to this nation and our global position is rooted in its decision to be calm, to choose a particular volume and quality of scrutiny and to sustain it, no matter how unpopular it may be.
On 24th June 2021, the Bishop of Lincoln asked a question during a debate on efforts related to transparency at the BBC:
The Lord Bishop of Lincoln: My Lords, does the Minister agree that the success of global Britain requires support and celebration of those things that the rest of the world most values in the UK, which provide soft power and promote bonds of affection and trust? Will she then congratulate BBC News on the finding in the most recent Reuters Institute Digital News Report that it is among the most trusted news brands in the United States, Canada, India and South Africa? In most cases, it is more trusted than domestic news providers.
The Bishop of Oxford tabled a question on new media legislation in Australia and the potential for similar legislation in the UK on 25th February 2021:
The Lord Bishop of Oxford [V]: To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of (1) the proposed legislation in Australia for a news media and digital platforms mandatory bargaining code, and (2) the case for similar such legislation in the United Kingdom.
The Church of England in Parliament 
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