A CROSS-APPEAL from Bishop Richard Inwood will be made to an Employment Appeal Tribunal in September, during the hearing for an initial appeal made by Canon Jeremy Pemberton.

Canon Pemberton took Bishop Inwood, then Acting Bishop of Southwell & Nottingham, to an employment tribunal under the Equality Act, in 2014. He argued that Bishop Inwood, by removing his permission to officiate and further refusing to grant him the necessary licence to take up a new post as an NHS chaplain in the diocese, had discriminated against him. Bishop Inwood had cited Canon Pemberton’s decision to enter into a same-sex marriage.

The tribunal dismissed Canon Pemberton’s claims last year (News, 6 November), but he won the right to appeal. A hearing is scheduled to take place in London on 8 and 9 September.

On Tuesday, the Employment Appeal Tribunal confirmed that a cross-appeal from Bishop Inwood would be heard at the same time. A statement from the diocese of Southwell & Nottingham confirmed that, in his document resisting Canon Pemberton’s appeal, Bishop Inwood “both sought to uphold the decision of the tribunal and to provide additional points not included in the tribunal’s decision as to why that decision was correct. In two instances the Employment Appeal Tribunal has decided to treat these additional points as being advanced by way of a cross appeal.”