CLERGY TERMS OF SERVICE

In February, the Synod revised the draft legislation on clergy terms of service.Footnote ¹ Attention was chiefly focused on the parts of the draft Ecclesiastical Offices (Terms of Service) Measure dealing with the vesting of parsonage houses; in the event, the Synod voted to reject those provisions under which ownership of parsonage houses would have been transferred from the incumbent to the diocesan parsonages board. In contrast, the draft of the Regulations to be made under the Measure, which will specify the detailed terms of service, was accepted without amendment.

In July, the Measure was given final approval by overwhelming majorities in each House and moved into the Parliamentary stages of the process. Since the Regulations cannot finally be approved by the Synod until the Measure has received Parliamentary approval and Royal Assent, they are unlikely to return to the Synod before July 2009, with the result that ‘common tenure’ is not expected to come into force before 2010.

THE DIOCESES, PASTORAL AND MISSION MEASURE 2007

February brought the final stages of the legislative process relating to the Dioceses, Pastoral and Mission Measure 2007.Footnote ² The Synod approved a Code of Practice made by the House of Bishops in relation to the new concept of ‘mission initiative’ established under Part V of the Measure. It also formally promulged Amending Canon No 27, which makes a number of consequential amendments to the Canons.Footnote ³

AMENDING CANON NO 28

In February, the Synod revised draft Amending Canon No 28, which removes from Canon B 44 the requirement for an ‘Anglican Eucharist’ to be celebrated in every parish in a local ecumenical project on certain days and provides guidance to bishops on how they should in consequence exercise their discretion to dispense with celebrating Holy Communion in that context, given the Canon's requirement that it be celebrated with ‘reasonable frequency’. As Article 7 business, the draft Amending Canon stood committed to the House of Bishops to decide whether to return it to the Synod for final approval.

NEW LEGISLATION

In February, the Synod gave first consideration to the draft Church of England Pensions (Amendment) Measure, which extends for a further seven years (to 2018) the power that the Church Commissioners have to spend capital to meet their liabilities under the past service clergy pension scheme. Unusually, all the remaining legislative stages for the draft Measure were completed in July, so that it too moved into the Parliamentary stages of the process.

February also saw a further draft Church of England (Miscellaneous Provisions) Measure, which will make a number of technical and non-controversial changes to ecclesiastical law; its revision stage was taken successfully in July.

The third piece of legislation introduced in February was the draft Ecclesiastical Fees (Amendment) Measure. One aim of this is to change the composition of the Fees Advisory Commission, which prepares the orders dealing with the fees of legal officers and ecclesiastical judges presented to Synod every July. But its principal purpose is to give effect to recommendations made by a group set up by the Archbishops' Council to consider the legal framework for parochial fees. The recommendations were contained in Four Funerals and a Wedding, which was before the Synod but was not debated as such.

The group proposed a new statutory framework that would allow implementation through subsequent fees orders and guidance issued by the Archbishops' Council. It also proposed a number of specific changes, including that fees orders normally be made once every five years (rather than annually), that the fee currently paid to the incumbent should be paid to the diocese, that fees no longer be charged for publishing banns of marriage and that, in suitable cases, it should be possible to waive the fees otherwise payable.

In February, the debate on the motion for first consideration of the draft Measure was adjourned because of members' unhappiness that they were being asked to begin the legislative process before debating the proposals embodied in the draft legislation. But in July, following a debate on the group's report and a supplementary report, the Synod accepted its recommendations. The draft Measure will be reintroduced in February 2009.

Two further pieces of draft legislation were introduced in July: the Vacancies in Suffragan Sees and Other Ecclesiastical Offices Measure and the Crown Benefices (Parish Representatives) Measure. Both give effect to decisions taken by the Synod in February in response to recommendations made by the Archbishops in the light of the Review of Senior Church Appointments and the Government's Green Paper, The Governance of Britain.

The first Measure removes the need for two names to be presented to the Queen when a suffragan bishop is nominated, thus removing the need for the Crown to exercise even a formal choice between candidates. It also alters the historic rules of law under which, in some circumstances, the Sovereign has the right to patronage not normally in her gift, including where a diocesan see is vacant or where an incumbent is appointed to a diocesan bishopric. The second Measure extends to Crown livings (benefices to which the Crown or the Duchies of Cornwall or Lancaster appoint) the same rights of veto over the appointment of the incumbent granted to any other parish.

The Synod also approved the Vacancy in See Committees (Amendment) Regulation 2008, which makes some small changes to the Regulation for setting up committees in each diocese to prepare a statement of the diocese's needs during a vacancy in the see and to elect six diocesan members to the Crown Nominations Commission. Following an amendment moved in the Synod, the Regulation will prevent more than one member of the bishop's staff being elected to the Commission.

CONSECRATION OF WOMEN TO THE EPISCOPATE

In July, the Synod gave lengthy consideration to the report of the Women Bishops Legislative Drafting Group (‘the Manchester Report’). This report gave the Synod a number of options for the kinds of provision that might be made for those conscientiously opposed to the ministry of women as priests and bishops if the Church of England decides to allow the consecration of women as bishops. In light of the report's analysis, a motion was put on behalf of the House of Bishops proposing that special arrangements be made, within the existing structures of the Church of England, for those who, as a matter of theological conviction, will not be able to receive the ministry of women as bishops or priests and that those arrangements should be contained in a national code of practice to which all concerned would be required to have regard. The motion was carried substantially in the form proposed by the House of Bishops, subject to the addition of an express requirement that the code of practice be a ‘statutory’ one. The matter has been referred back to the Legislative Drafting Group to complete its work in the light of the Synod's decision and in consultation with the House of Bishops, with a view to introducing draft legislation (including the first draft of a code of practice) into the Synod in February 2009.