Lord Strathcarron (Con)

My Lords, I shall speak to this group of amendments in particular and would argue for the retention of the Bishops as currently constituted. I fully appreciate the arguments advanced by noble Lords supporting the group of amendments and equally the intellectual arguments against the Bishops remaining here as advanced by Humanists UK and others. To the charge sheet against the Bishops, I would add that they are also extremely frustrating politically—at least to those of us on this side of the House—as between 2019 and the last general election they voted with the Government only 4% of the time. Often during the long evenings spent in the Division Lobbies, it seemed as if the Bishops were pre-programmed to vote against anything the Conservative Government were doing, just because it was the Conservative Government doing it. I also appreciate that they should more accurately be called Lords religious rather than Lords spiritual, as there is precious little spiritual, and a lot religious, in their involvement with identity politics and every fashionable left-wing cause that comes their way. I also appreciate that they are historically illiterate, as seen by the £1 billion target for reparations, supporting the view of the recent Archbishop of Canterbury that the British more or less invented slavery and did absolutely nothing to end it. I also appreciate that they are corporately cataclysmically incompetent, spending precious funds on meaningless virtue signalling while parishes are crumbling around the country. Nevertheless, the Bishops do represent a continuity with our constitution, history and culture and their presence here acknowledges that there is a power to be considered beyond the material and the political and one which still guides many lives. It is right that this part of life is acknowledged to exist by the Bishops being here. I would also argue that their presence here is a reminder of our religious history on whose behalf many of our laws were written, making what the Bishops represent a kind of canvas on which is painted much about the British constitution we hold dear and which can easily be taken for granted. My argument for the Bishops is that, if we are to lose the soul of this House by removing the hereditaries, we should at least keep the heart of it as represented by the Bishops.