Again, my Lords, there is very little that I wish to add to what the right reverend Prelate has said, although there is of course more meat in this Measure than in the other. Its purpose is to amend the existing Measure of 2003. I draw attention in this case to the care with which these Measures have been prepared by the legislative committee of the Synod and presented to the Ecclesiastical Committee of Parliament. That was especially so in this case, where the comments and explanations submitted to the Ecclesiastical Committee extend from page 15 to page 35 of its report on the Measure and are exceptionally thorough. I suspect that the committee and the House generally should be very grateful to the legislative committee for taking so much trouble.
As the right reverend Prelate has pointed out, the Measure deals with four areas which are set out on page 15 of the report. Of these, the one which was potentially the most controversial was Clause 1, which has already been touched on by the noble Lord, Lord Judd, relating to misconduct. There were a number of questions on that, at page 83 of the report, starting with a question from Sir Peter Bottomley—question 10—and then a question from the noble Lord, Lord Judd, and finally a question from the noble Lord, Lord Laming. I hope that the noble Lord will agree that all those questions were adequately answered by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Guildford.
The other area of importance was the abolition of the automatic right of appeal; now there needs to be leave to appeal which would come before a court of two. That question was dealt with by Charles George QC, the Dean of the Arches, who made the interesting point that the number of appeals has been extremely small; but he also said that, if minded to refuse leave to appeal, he would always give reasons. Once again, the Ecclesiastical Committee had little difficulty in finding this Measure expedient, so I support the Motion.