Public Bodies Bill [HL]

I shall give way to the right reverend Prelate but I shall just finish this one point. The Church of England has to learn that, if it is to continue to have a place in our society, it has to show a generosity of spirit which it has not shown in this debate. It has not yet understood that it is the guardian of something that it did not buy. A bishop bought these pictures, and a church with which it is no longer connected built those great palaces. The Church of England has a duty to respect the past. It has a duty to pass it on to the future and not to say to today’s generation, ““I’m very sorry, it’s nothing to do with us. We can sell this, use the money and it will go””. It cannot do that and still claim the privileges for which I have fought, and will continue to fight, even though I am not an Anglican. However, every time it does not understand what my noble friend Lord Inglewood was saying, it undermines the establishment of the Church of England.