The Bishop of Sheffield spoke in a debate on the Hereditary Peers Bill on 12th March 2025, opposing amendments that would reduce the number of Lords Spiritual in the House Lords. Hansard Volume 844: Columns 785 Wednesday 12 March 2025:

The Lord Bishop of Sheffield: My Lords, I am sorry to disappoint the noble Lord, Lord Moore, in the fact that the Bench of Bishops is briefly going to speak up on its own behalf. He may be surprised, as may many noble Lords opposite, that in the first eight months of the current Parliament the Bishops have voted 29 times, and only five times with the Labour Government. The Bishops are not party political; we really do seek to improve and scrutinise legislation. That is by the way.

I am grateful for the opportunity offered by this range of amendments to address some of the concerns expressed by Members of this Committee about the place and role of those of us who serve on these Benches. Although we are not whipped and do not have a party line, the Lords spiritual are pretty much all of one mind that your Lordships’ House would benefit from some reform, not least to do with numbers and patronage. As noble Lords would expect, we believe that a reformed House of Lords should include Lords spiritual and should continue to reflect the present constitutional arrangement.

I will try to speak briefly to all the amendments in this group, taking first Amendments 33 and 78, which seek to reduce the number of Lords spiritual serving on these Benches. Amendment 33 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, would reduce the number from its current 26 to five—the two Archbishops and three others nominated by the Church’s General Synod.

In practice, since every one of the Lords spiritual has full-time responsibilities outside this place, a reduction to five would make it impossible for the remaining Lords spiritual to perform their functions as parliamentarians alongside their duties as diocesan bishops or primates. Although there are at present 26 Lords spiritual, noble Lords will notice that we are never by any means all present at any one time. That is because the demands of our other responsibilities prevent it. Only a minority of Lords spiritual are able to be present in this Chamber on any given day, and I urge noble Lords to keep this in mind in any consideration of a reduction in the number of those serving on these Benches.

Amendment 78 in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, seeks to reduce the Lords spiritual by a smaller number, to 20. As in the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, there is no obvious rationale for the number chosen. We are very open to the possibility of a reduction in the size of your Lordships’ House as a whole, with consequences for the Bench of Bishops, but we believe that a conversation about the number of Bishops should take place as part of a comprehensive review of membership of this House. We would warmly welcome representations not just from other Christian denominations but from other faith groups in this country.

Amendments 48 and 49 in the name of the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, would prevent new Lords spiritual receiving writs to join the House but would allow current Bishops to remain until retirement and would not prevent someone who is a Bishop being made a life Peer. However, the amendment would permit a bishop to enter for the purposes of reading Prayers. While we appreciate the latter aspect of this amendment, we note that the role of the Lords spiritual is much more than mere chaplaincy. We highly value the privilege of leading your Lordships’ House in prayer, but we do not regard that as our only, nor always our most significant, contribution.

Ultimately, on these Benches we oppose these amendments on the basis that they would effectively sever the constitutional link between Church and state. This limited Bill is not the place to settle questions about the constitutional status of the established Church of England—that is a bigger discussion for another time.

Finally, Amendment 90B in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, would amend the Bishoprics Act 1878 so that the issuing of writs to Lords spiritual would be subject to the approval and effective veto of the House of Lords Appointments Commission. I understand the noble Baroness’s desire for the appointments process for diocesan bishops who become Lords spiritual to be robust. We on these Benches share that view and, indeed, would be open to the direct scrutiny of this House if that is what the House desires. However, there is already a stringent process for assessing propriety in the appointment of the diocesan bishops who subsequently become Lords spiritual. In fact, I venture to suggest that, while of course not perfect, the process overseen by the Crown Nominations Commission in the discernment of new diocesan bishops is at least as thorough as the other processes used to appoint Members to this House. Moreover, Writs of Summons to Lords spiritual are issued by the operation of law, not by the will of the Prime Minister or the Leader of the Opposition, so any involvement of the House of Lords Appointments Commission would need to be quite carefully calibrated.

Noble Lords will hardly be surprised to learn that we on these Benches are not able to support this group of amendments.