BISHOPS are to remain in a reformed House of Lords, it has been recommended, though their number will be reduced from the present 26 down to 12.
The reduction is proportionate to the overall reduction in membership of the House of Lords, from 800 to 300, 80 per cent of whom would be elected, and 20 per cent appointed.
The recommendation has been made by the Joint Committee on House of Lords Reform, which has been considering plans for reform of the Second Chamber for the past year. It is to publish its final report on 23 April.
The Second Church Estates Commissioner, Tony Baldry MP, said that the recommendation to keep the Lords Spiritual was “very good indeed”, and was in part due to the work of the Bishop of Leicester, the Rt Revd Tim Stevens, who served on the committee.
Mr Baldry said that reform was still a long way ahead, and that there would be a battle in the House of Commons to have the proposal as it stood accepted.
“We are a long way off the end game. The House of Commons has yet to agree any proposal on Lords reform; so we are in very unpredictable territory,” he said.
The draft Bill proposes that the bishops are to remain able to claim allowances as other peers do.
In matters of the “serious offence provision”, the draft Bill assumes that the bishops would be “subject to the disciplinary procedures established by the Church of England”.
The General Synod would need to reconsider how bishops were appointed to the Lords in future, he said, and in particular whether it kept seats for the two Archbishops, and the Bishops of Winchester, London and Durham, as has always been the case.
Last year, the Archbishop of Canterbury told the joint select committee on the draft reform Bill that the House of Bishops accepted the need for “a proportionate reduction”, but he said that bishops “would have to face how we best facilitate the participation of smaller numbers of bishops in a more demanding regime” (News, 2 December).
Dr Williams said that the bishops “are not there to represent the Church of England’s interests: they are there as bishops of the realm, who have taken on the role of attempting to speak for the needs of a wide variety of faith communities.”