Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Scriven has his name to Amendments 48 and 49 but is unable to be here, sadly, so let me speak briefly from our Benches. I declare my interests as a member of the Church of England and as a former member of the Westminster Abbey Foundation; I am still active with it. I am very disappointed that the noble Lord, Lord Moore, did not suggest that abbots should be restored to their places here. Clearly, if we are discussing longer-term reform of the Lords, we need to address the question of the Bishops. At the same time, we might as well—other noble Lords have done this via Amendment 34 —address the question of faith representation in the House. In my lifetime, I have seen the Church of England—and certainly Westminster Abbey—become much more welcoming to ecumenical arrangements of all sorts. The Cardinal Archbishop has read the lesson in Westminster Abbey several times. I have been to a joint Jewish-Christian service in the abbey. I have listened to readings of the Koran in the middle of an abbey service. That is part of how the Church of England now tries to maintain its position as a national Church representing all faiths. It is worth mentioning in passing that this House is not entirely without representation of other Churches and faiths. My namesake was the Moderator of the Church of Scotland two years ago and the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths of Burry Port, is one of the most distinguished Methodists. The noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger, was the lead rabbi of Liberal Judaism, and we had a retired Chief Rabbi on the Benches of our House for some time. There is a broader question, which we clearly need to address, about the role of representatives of faith in a different House, if we are slowly moving further in that direction. The Bishops need to respond to that, and I hope they will contribute to that debate. That is as far as we need to go when discussing this Bill because it is not necessarily part of the Bill. But in the broader, wider discussion that we are unavoidably finding ourselves having in Committee, that has to be one of the questions under discussion. The noble Lord, Lord Moore, did not remark that there were only 14 or 15 Bishops in the Middle Ages, as I remember, and that the reason the number was fixed at 26 was because the number of dioceses was mushrooming so fast in the course of the 19th century. Perhaps that is the number we should go back to as an interim measure, but I look forward to hearing from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Sheffield if he is about to contribute to the debate.