Dear Members of Parliament
Programme Spire and Church Commissioners’ Fund for Healing, Repair and Justice
We note the concerns raised in your 17 December 2025 letter to the Bishop of London regarding the Church Commissioners’ proposed Fund for Healing, Repair and Justice.
The Church Commissioners are committed to transparency and accountability and welcome scrutiny and questions. Our website provides FAQs addressing the issues you raise.
We are also committed to engaging with parliamentarians on our activities. The Second Church Estates Commissioner has provided Parliament with detailed responses throughout 2025. In addition, on 4 November 2025, the Second Church Estates Commissioner hosted a Q&A session at the Palace of Westminster, where Church Commissioners trustees and executives were available to address questions.
The Church Commissioners is a 320-year-old perpetual endowment fund managing a diversified £11.1 billion portfolio to the highest professional, ethical and responsible investment standards, with a mandate to maximise distributions to support the Church of England’s mission in a sustainable manner, regulated by the Charity Commission.
Over the past 30 years, our adherence to those high standards has delivered strong results – an average annual return of just under 10%. Since 2019, distributions to support the ministry of the Church of England have doubled from £790 million per triennium to £1.6 billion today.
In 2019, an investigation into the Church’s historic links to Transatlantic Chattel Enslavement was carried out by independent experts from Grant Thornton. The forensic investigation team employed detailed transaction analysis, account reconstruction and asset tracing.
Their work was underpinned and challenged by historians with significant academic expertise in this area. Further academic work was undertaken in 2025 and reviewed by additional leading historians with expertise in the field.
The Church Commissioners’ historic links to Transatlantic Chattel Enslavement have been demonstrated.
As you will be aware, in this work, the Church Commissioners’ actions are aligned with best practice for top tier responsible investors with long horizons, such as Lloyds of London and several banks and universities, some of which have already taken action.
The work, which began in 2019, reflects our long-standing commitment to risk management (by interrogating historical data to understand present and future risks) and responsible investment. This commitment underpins Programme Spire and, more widely, our moral obligations. Our Board concluded that a transparent understanding of our historic portfolio – including links to Transatlantic Chattel Enslavement – was a prerequisite for responsible asset ownership and robust risk management.
Moreover, as responsible asset owners, the Church Commissioners hold ourselves to the same high standards of professionalism and ethics that we expect from the companies in which we invest.
You expressed concern about the diversion of funds from the ministry of the Church of England. On the contrary, our investment approach has significantly augmented the funds available to the mission and ministry of the Church of England.
The £100 million commitment to a new in-perpetuity fund is consistent with the Church of England’s Fourth Mark of Mission: ‘To transform unjust structures of society, to challenge violence of every kind and pursue peace and reconciliation’. Moreover, it is not ‘reparations’ payable to the descendants of Transatlantic Chattel Enslavement. It is an ambitious proposal which seeks to bring about a more equitable future.
As a Christian responsible investor, theological considerations are essential. A church that ignores our links with a fundamental historic wrong cannot credibly claim moral leadership in the present or the future.
We are taking steps to establish the fund in accordance with the law as applied to charities and will share progress when it is possible to do so.
If you have any residual concerns, please do not hesitate to address them to the Second Church Estates Commissioner, Ms Marsha De Cordova MP.
Yours sincerely,
Alan Smith, First Church Estates Commissioner
Marsha De Cordova MP, Second Church Estates Commissioner
Sir Robert Buckland KC, Third Church Estates Commissioner
John Worth, Chief Executive Officer, Church Commissioners
Cc:
The Rt Revd and Rt Hon Dame Sarah Mullally DBE, Archbishop of Canterbury Designate
The Most Revd and Rt Hon Stephen Cottrell, Archbishop of York
The Rt Revd Stephen Lake, Bishop of Salisbury
The Rt Revd David Walker, Bishop of Manchester and Convenor of the Lords Spiritual
19 January 2026