My Lords, I apologise to the House for having jumped the gun. I talked about the expeditious way in which our chairman of the Ecclesiastical Committee had enabled us to get through the business very effectively, and perhaps I was hoping that we could expedite the discussion here—but the House, I hope, will forgive me for having jumped the gun on this Measure.
I support strongly what the noble and learned Lord has just said. The Measure was extremely well put forward. The witnesses from the church who appeared before us were extremely helpful and the right reverend Prelate has in his masterful way put very clearly to us the essence of what it is all about.
I think that the House will find it reassuring that some things are being tightened up, and that applies particularly to some of the social issues which preoccupy us a great deal today regarding child abuse and the rest. I am sure that we welcome the stronger provisions which will now be in place.
In the operation of the law, I always hope that there will be a certain amount of space for interpretation, because I do not see the law as being absolutely rigid. Very firm principles are established in the law and the job of those responsible for administering it is to take those principles extremely seriously and apply them, but there is always room for judgment.
One thing about which the church is deeply concerned is racism. The provision to which I am referring makes particular reference to this. It is clear that the church does not wish anyone speaking in its name to endorse the existence of a political party which is regarded by the church as incompatible in its manifesto and policies with its teachings. The provision goes into the very difficult area of distinguishing between what a party stands for, and what its policies and manifesto are, and any particular policy that may come from that background with which it might be quite possible in isolation, taken away from that party’s expression of it, to be strongly in favour. The provision tries to deal with whether a clergy man or woman who was speaking in favour of a policy—it might be to do with housing, for example—would be allowed to speak about their attitude towards that particular proposal as long as they were not endorsing the party.
I am not a lawyer, but it strikes me that there is a good deal of ambiguity about that. I do not see how you can have an absolute dividing line. If a political party was getting a great deal of publicity for a particular aspect of its policy and a clergy person was then, understandably, to say, “This policy is absolutely in line with Christian teaching and something that we should take very seriously”, that will be interpreted by an awful lot of people as an endorsement of the political party. I do not for a moment suggest that we need to sort that out further at this stage, but it is important to draw attention to the fact that there will be ambiguity there which will need a great deal of firm interpretation by the church. I see the possibility of disturbing events in future.
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