This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from the King’s Research Portal at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/ Parliament and the Church of England The Making of Ecclesiastical Law Khan, Asma Awarding institution: King's College London The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. END USER LICENCE AGREEMENT Unless another licence is stated on the immediately following page this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the work Under the following conditions: Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Non Commercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes. 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Parliament and the Church of England: The Making of Ecclesiastical Law Asma Said Khan Dissertation Submitted for the PhD Degree 2011 School of Law Kings College London Page 1 of 327 ABSTRACT This thesis examines one of the pillars of the constitutional link between Church and State. It focuses on the unique process by which Church legislations (Measures) are drafted by a legislative body of the Church (the General Synod) and presented to Parliament for approval. The thesis looks at the role played by Parliament and examines how well it performs this role. The responsibility for scrutinising Measures lies with a joint committee of both houses, the Ecclesiastical Committee. This Committee cannot amend a Measure and can only declare it expedient and present it before the House for approval or reject it. An analysis of this legislative process is missing in the current literature. This thesis aims to fill this gap and provide a study supported by case studies of this important legislative process. The first part of this thesis analyses this process in detail together with the role of the Ecclesiastical Committee. The case studies illustrate how parliamentary scrutiny of ecclesiastical measures has become more interventionist than the restrictive framework set up by the 1919 Enabling Act. The Appointment of Bishops Measure 1984 was passed by a deeply-divided Ecclesiastical Committee. Once the Measure reached the House of Commons, members of the Committee who had opposed it, presented their views before the House. The Measure was rejected by the Commons. The Clergy Ordination Measure 1989 faced a difficult passage through the Committee, as members were unhappy about the changed voting system used by the General Synod to pass this Measure. The Priests (Ordination of Women) Measure 1993 saw the Church having to concede to demands to include opponents to this Measure in the joint consultation process. The final case study is the Churchwardens Measure 2001, which was rejected twice by the Ecclesiastical Committee. Eventually the Measure was passed after the Church accepted all its recommendations. The third section with Comment and Analysis on the research addresses the wider context of Church-state relations today and the pressures and challenges upon the future of establishment and, with it, the place of Parliament in the making of ecclesiastical law. The greater scrutiny of ecclesiastical legislation has arguably ensured that the Church of England has been more open to broader opinions in society. On the other hand, the way in which the legislative procedure works has also sometimes enabled narrow interests in Parliament and in the Church to set the agenda or to block change. Although reform in the immediate future is unlikely, the link between Parliament and the Synod has been the object of criticism in some political and religious quarters (particularly from those who support disestablishment). At some point administrative changes to ecclesiastical law-making is likely. The thesis concludes that given the important role played by Parliament in legislating for the Church, misguided or badly structured reforms can have serious consequences for the established Church and the Monarchy to which it is so closely linked. Page 2 of 327 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am indebted to my supervisor Professor Blackburn for his encouragement and support. My interest in this topic began as an undergraduate studying Advanced Constitution Law with Professor Blackburn. It has taken time to get this far. The journey has had its ups and downs but has been very fulfilling intellectually and I am grateful to have had the opportunity to research a topic that really interested me. I would like to thank my examiner for the upgrade viva, Professor Paul Mitchell, for his suggestions on how I could narrow the field of research on this subject. I am also grateful to Charlotte Smith for explaining the finer points of Church of English History to me. And I would also like to thank Professor Penny Green, for her emotional support during difficult times. I am grateful to Dr. Cian Murphy for always being available to answer my questions and for being so positive in all his email communications with me in the final stages of writing up. And thank you to Annette Lee, for dealing with all my administrative issues with such patience and efficiency. I would like to thank Michael Scott-Joynt, the Bishop of Winchester and Colin Buchanan, the then Bishop of Woolwich for giving me interviews before I began work on my thesis. I am grateful for their time and willingness to answer questions. It was a wonderful opportunity to listen to two Church of England clerics with very different views on the relationship of Church and State. Finally on a personal note, I would like to thank R. Claude, Sue Hubble, Mushtaq Khan, Asha Pradhan and Shefaly Yogendra for their advice and support. I dedicate this thesis to my two boys, Ariz and Fariz. Page 3 of 327 CONTENTS PART I - ESTABLISHMENT .......................................................................................... 7 CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................... 7 1.1 The aim of the Thesis ...................................................................................................... 7 1.2 Why is the relationship of State and Church in England relevant for this century? ....... 9 1.3 Comparative Perspective .............................................................................................. 15 1.4 Methodology and Structure .......................................................................................... 20 CHAPTER 2. THE HISTORICAL SETTLEMENT ............................................................................ 22 2.1 The historical background of the break with Rome ...................................................... 23 2.2 The influence of Parliament .......................................................................................... 32 2.3 The role of the Church of England in Nation-building .................................................. 37 2.4 The role of Parliament .................................................................................................. 39 2.5 Toleration ...................................................................................................................... 45 2.6 The historical background and World War I ................................................................. 47 2.7 A new vision .................................................................................................................. 51 2.8 Centralization and Change ............................................................................................ 56 2.9 The Selborne