HOUSING affordability, overseas aid, conversion-therapy practices, and civil liberties were issues raised by bishops in the remaining King’s Speech debate in the House of Lords on Wednesday and Thursday.
The Bishop of Chelmsford, Dr Guli Francis-Dehqani, told the Upper House on Wednesday: “There is a fundamental moral case for correcting the imbalances, distortions, and injustices in our housing system.”
She continued: “The housing-affordability crisis threatens to unravel the unwritten social contract: that if you get a decent education and then work hard, you should be able to earn enough to save for a deposit, buy a home, get married, start a family, and provide stability for your children until they can do likewise.”
She urged the Government to use the proposed legislation “to address the most acute part of the housing crisis: the affordability of homes, whether for rent or for purchase”, and concluded: “The Church of England is ready to support the soft relational side of place-making, as we strive to offer a Christian presence in every community. We can provide schools, social housing, and management of community centres. Our network of volunteers can offer a welcome, and attend to the spiritual and social welfare of the residents. . . I hope that we will not allow the pressure for action, acute though it is, to deter us from creating a housing system that our children and grandchildren will thank us for.”
The Bishop of Southwark, the Rt Revd Christopher Chessun, on Thursday spoke about ongoing cuts to the overseas-aid budget (News, 28 February 2025). “We on these benches have lamented the retreat from the commitment to 0.7 per cent equivalent of GDP on development aid to 0.5 per cent, and then further to 0.3 per cent, under successive governments, and the very real impact this has had around the world in the serious deterioration in health, education, and nutrition, not to mention the significant diminution of our global reach,” he said.
The Bishop of Manchester, Dr David Walker, began by referring to the Government’s proposals to end “conversion practices”.
“These have severely damaged and traumatised many LGBT people over decades, not least when performed in the name of religion,” he said. “I welcome that promise just as warmly today as I welcomed it from this same Bench on the three or four occasions when it has previously been made. I hope that, this time round, we will actually get to the point of legislating. Indeed, the General Synod of the Church of England overwhelmingly voted to press the Government to do just that.”
Talking about Britain’s “soft power”, he said: “As international threats grow more complex and less overt, Britain’s foreign policy and influence abroad depends less on traditional hard power alone and increasingly on proactive British diplomacy.”
Dr Walker also brought up civil liberties. “Recent years have seen a steady tightening of regulations around protests. This has major implications for the freedom of expression that underpins our liberal society,” he said. “It is crucial that any new government powers are firmly rooted in a commitment to maintain personal liberty and freedom of expression.
“Liberal democracy stands under threat not only from non-democratic standards, but from what Viktor Orbán, lately [Prime Minister] of Hungary, proudly referred to as ‘illiberal democracy’. From Hungary to the USA, we see jurisdictions where votes may still be largely free and fair, but the use of executive patronage and commercial pressure to force the judiciary, the civil service, the press, religious institutions, and businesses to collude with the leaders’ whims and wishes make democracy a very thin defence. That must never happen here.
“This United Kingdom, which I am so proud to serve in your Lordships’ House, is far more than a blot of pink on an increasingly multicoloured map. Britain is a way of life, a way of life inevitably far from perfect, but which can yet be a beacon of hope across the globe. That is what is worth defending. That is what our foreign and defence policies must provide.”