The United Kingdom’s House of Lords rejected a series of proposals that would have reduced the representation of the Lords Spiritual, 26 Church of England bishops who sit in the chamber.
Debate lasted for almost six hours on March 12 on several proposed amendments to the Hereditary Peers Bill, a proposal for reforming the centuries-old body put forward by Keir Starmer’s Labour government last year.
Amendment 33, proposed by David Maclean, Lord Bencathra, a former Conservative Party minister, would have reduced the number of Lords Spiritual from 26 to five—the two archbishops and three nominated by General Synod. Amendment 78, by the Earl of Dundee, Alexander Henry Scrymgeour, proposed a smaller reduction, to 20.
Other amendments proposed admitting no new Lords Spiritual, establishing an internal vetting process, and adding additional Lords Spiritual to represent different faith groups.
“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,” Bishop Pete Wilcox of Sheffield said on behalf of his fellow bishops about the main proposals.
He added that Amendment 33’s proposal to reduce the number of Lords Spiritual to five would place an unmanageable burden on those five bishops, because all bishops have full-time ecclesiastical duties in additional to their roles as parliamentarians, and can only attend some sessions. According to the current calendar, the House of Lords is technically in session 264 days of the year.
Wilcox said that he understood the desire for a robust appointments system that lay behind Baroness Elizabeth Berridge’s proposal that all new Lords Spiritual be approved by a House of Lords committee, and said that he and his fellow bishops “would be open to the direct scrutiny of this House if that is what the House desires.” Berridge had cited concerns about allegations of pressure raised in January by members of the commission that selected the now-disgraced Bishop John Perumbalath of Liverpool.
“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,” Wilcox said.
The Lords Spiritual, he added, “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.”
Welsh politican Baroness Smith of Llanfaes spoke in favor of the amendments, particularly objecting that Scottish and Welsh religious leaders are not afforded any place in the house. “It is, regrettably, another example of the U.K. Parliament’s continuing disproportionate focus on England,” she said, adding that “Beyond the Vatican City and Iran, most countries do not grant automatic seats as lawmakers to religious leaders.”
Smith also cited a September 2024 YouGov survey on the matter, which found that “only 22 percent of respondents believed that the House of Lords should continue reserving places for Church of England bishops. This consensus spans political divides, age groups, gender, and regions,” she said.
“I cannot help feeling a little bit sorry for the right reverend Prelates on the Spiritual Bench,” said Thomas Galbraith, Lord Strathclyde, a Conservative hereditary peer and former Leader of the Lords. “At the moment, they are, fashionably, everybody’s whipping boy or girl. Everybody is rather against the Church of England at the moment. It is leaderless, with no Archbishop of Canterbury. So it is a pretty rotten way of attacking the Church when they are down.”
“Every institution gains from a spiritual dimension,” argued Conservative politician Lord Nicholas True, the Shadow Leader of the House.
“Taking them out now would simply add to instability in the House, give scant recognition to their important role inside and outside the House, including the territorial dimension, and walk without due consideration into a difficult debate on the disestablishment of the Church and, as my noble friend Lord Moore of Etchingham said, perhaps even the role of the monarch in the Church.
“Heaven knows, some of us yearn to hear the Christian voice raised more clearly in witness to the nation and not see it dimmed further,” he said.
Lords Spiritual, several speakers pointed out, have been of the house since the beginnings of Parliament in the 13th century, and until the Reformation-era Dissolution of the Monasteries, they usually formed its largest element, because abbots of greater monasteries were also given seats. The current number of 26 seats was fixed in 1847. There are currently 831 sitting members of the House of Lords, and just over 3 percent are Lords Spiritual.
All amendments concerning the Lords Spiritual were either defeated or withdrawn.
The Rev. Mark Michael is editor-in-chief of The Living Church. An Episcopal priest, he has reported widely on global Anglicanism, and also writes about church history, liturgy, and pastoral ministry.