Presentation by the Rt Revd Nigel McCulloch, Bishop of Manchester:
I AM grateful to the business committee for providing this opportunity to brief Synod about
the draft legislation on women in the episcopate, which it committed for revision in committee a year ago. I speak with the agreement of the revision committee and its chair, Clive Mansell. My role has been to chair the steering committee which, under Standing Order 49, is assigned the task of being — and I quote — “in charge of the Measure”. If only it were so simple!
The steering committee and revision committee held their first meetings on 23 April and 1 May respectively, once the submissions from Synod members had been received and studied. Because of the exceptional significance of the task, the appointments committee had chosen eight people to be members of the steering committee and a further 11 to serve with them on the revision committee, making both committees the largest in recent history.
In accordance with convention, the steering committee was appointed from among those who had signalled their general support for the legislation by voting for the July 2008 motion. The other members of the revision committee were drawn from a wide variety of viewpoints.
In just over nine months, the revision committee has now met 13 times, most recently on 22 January. It was clear from the outset that we all faced a daunting task. We had received nearly 300 submissions, including 114 from members of Synod, who, under the Standing Orders, have the right to come and speak to their representations and be present while they are being considered.
Many of the submissions inevitably covered a large number of points. So, some Synod members have had the right to attend a large number of our meetings. Happily, not all of them have chosen to do so, but, even so, it has been an extraordinary logistical challenge for the committee — and especially the staff supporting it — to ensure that everyone has the say that they are entitled to have.
In the normal course of events, revision committees quickly settle down to the task entrusted to them by the Standing Orders, that is — and I quote — to “consider the Measure committed to them, together with any proposals for amendments, clause by clause”.
In this instance, however, both the steering committee and the revision committee were clear very early on that it would not be sensible to try and move straight into clause-by- clause consideration. We agreed we needed first to take representations from those who wanted the shape of the Measure to be of a significantly different kind from what the earlier drafting group had prepared.
Some submissions argued for the creation of additional dioceses. Others proposed the creation of a new, officially recognised, society. Others involved the statutory transfer of certain functions. Others proposed dropping the statutory code of practice, and instead having the simplest form of legislation that would do nothing more than lift the present legal impediment to women becoming bishops.
These were all submissions that Synod members were perfectly entitled to make, and the steering and revision committees had an absolute obligation to take each of them seriously. The specific mandate given by the Synod in July 2008 was, of course, to the earlier legislative drafting group. But — as I made clear to the Synod last February — once the legislative process started, all the earlier arguments could be run again, alongside fresh arguments and proposals.
The consideration of draft legislation always allows for such possibilities. Indeed, it is not uncommon for Synod members to vote to send draft legislation to a revision committee, not because they agree with all of it but because they support the general direction of travel, and want to try and secure significant changes to it in committee. The revision committee has had to listen to and weigh every point.
I hope all of that gives some insight into the nature of the task we have been engaged in, and some of the exceptional challenges with which we have had to wrestle. Against that background, let me come now to explaining where we’ve got to, and what comes next.
Where have we got to? It was only at our tenth meeting, on 26 November, that the revision committee completed the first phase of its work, namely, considering whether to substitute a significantly different approach for the one reflected in the initial draft of the Measure. What we had done in our earlier meetings was to adopt a “traffic light” system of red and amber.
Having heard representations in favour of creating additional dioceses, the committee decided, before the summer, to give that idea the red light. But proposals for a recognised society, some sort of transfer or vesting, or for adopting the simplest possible legislative approach all got initial amber lights, that is to say, we agreed to consider them further.
We then did some serious work on the various models, particularly to tease out the pros and cons of the society model and to understand exactly what it might mean in terms of who exercised what jurisdiction and on whose authority.
After much discussion, we came to the point of decision on 8 October. The revision committee voted by a clear majority to reject the society option, but, by a similarly clear majority, to go for the transfer or vesting route. This meant that, in relation to petitioning parishes, certain functions — though the committee had not agreed which — would be exercised by bishops by virtue of the Measure rather than by way of delegation from the diocesan bishop.
We were then confronted with a dilemma over what, if anything, to say about such a significant decision. We had confirmed at the outset of this exercise that, as is the normal custom with revision committees, we would seek to maintain confidentiality and not offer a running commentary on progress. Nevertheless, we have no sanctions to enforce confidentiality: with 19 members, we are a big group, and, in addition, there are usually several other Synod members present at our discussions.
We were also conscious that people who made submissions would be attending subsequent meetings, and would need to know the changed context in which they were presenting their proposals. So it was clear that news of what we had decided would get out — not necessarily accurately. After discussion, there was agreement across the revision committee that the least bad option was to put out a short factual press release.
Even with the benefit of hindsight, I am not sure that we could have done differently. But it did, in the event, create difficulty for us, and necessitate a further statement when, on 13 November, further work resulted in all the specific proposals for the vesting of particular functions being defeated. The revision committee was simply unable to identify a basis for specifying particular functions for vesting which could command sufficient support, both from those in favour of the ordination of women as bishops and those unable to support that development.
This meant that, after more than six months’ work, the revision committee had rejected all the options which would have involved conferring some measure of jurisdiction on someone other than the diocesan bishop. The legislation that the revision committee sends back to the Synod will, therefore, be on the basis that any arrangements that are made for parishes with conscientious difficulties about women’s ordination will be on the basis of delegation from the diocesan bishops. That much is already clear.
What the committee has been doing since November is to look at the Draft Measure and Amending Canon, clause by clause, to see how much of the original drafts should be retained, whether some provisions should be dropped or modified, and whether others should be added.
Let me in conclusion say a few words about what happens next. We very much regret that the scale of the task made it impossible for us to conclude the revision committee stage in time for this group of sessions. That was always our target, and we really did our level best, though I do need to correct the suggestion that we have missed a deadline set by Synod.
In July 2008, Synod asked the drafting group to conclude its work by February last year — which it did. But the Synod set the revision committee no timetable. It never does when sending legislation off for revision, because each committee has to manage its own affairs as best it can, consistent with Standing Orders.
We have now to complete the detailed scrutiny of the draft legislation and to agree the terms of our report to Synod. This will need to be a comprehensive document, setting out what we decided and why in relation to all of the 114 submissions we received from Synod members.
Our aim is to issue this document, together with the revised draft legislation, so that Synod members have several weeks to consider it before July. Decisions on the amount of time to allow for the “take note” debate on our report, and the revision stage that follows, will be for the business committee, but it has already signalled that it is prepared to make as much time available in July as is needed.
What happens thereafter depends on what decisions the Synod takes. At the Revision Stage, it is open to members to table amendments, whether on large matters or small, inviting the full Synod to take a different view from that reached by the revision committee.
The key point is that the work of the revision committee is just one of many important stages in a long process. The task of the revision committee is to send back to the Synod something that will provide a coherent basis for the next — and potentially most crucial — phase of the discussion, in which the whole Synod will have to revisit many of the arguments with which we have agonised for so long.