Report of Proceedings 2020 General Synod November Group of Sessions Monday 23 November 2020 – Wednesday 25 November 2020 Remote Meeting Transcribed by AUSCRIPT LIMITED Central Court, Suite 303, 25 Southampton Buildings, London WC2A 1AL Tel No: 0330 100 5223 Email: [email protected] Full Synod: First Day Monday 23 November 2020 WORSHIP Revd Canon Michael Gisbourne (Chaplain to the General Synod) led the Synod in an act of worship. THE CHAIR The Archbishop of Canterbury (Most Revd & Rt Hon Justin Welby) took the Chair at 1.12 pm ITEM 1 INTRODUCTION AND WELCOMES The Chair: Good afternoon, Synod. In a moment I am going to read out the names of the new members of the Synod. The new members are: the Rt Revd Guli Francis-Dehqani, Bishop of Loughborough, replacing the Rt Revd Alistair Magowan; Dr Brendan Biggs, Diocese of Bristol, replacing Mr Ian Yemm; the Ven. Robert Cooper, Diocese of Durham, replacing the Ven. Ian Jagger; the Revd Jo Pestell, Diocese of Gloucester, replacing the Revd Tudor Griffiths; Canon Karen Czapiewski, Diocese of Gloucester, replacing Mrs Corinne Aldis; Mr Jonathan Walker, Diocese of Leicester, replacing Mr Jonathan Cryer; the Revd Christopher Trundle, Diocese of London, replacing the Revd Dr Sean Doherty; the Revd Elisabeth Goddard, Diocese of London, replacing the Revd Dr Andy Emerton; the Revd Dr Amatu Christian-Iwuagwu, Diocese of London, replacing the Revd Preb. Alan Moses; Mrs Abigail Ogier, Diocese of Manchester, replacing Mr Michael Heppleston; the Revd David Penny, Diocese of Manchester, replacing the Revd Sharon Jones; the Revd Michael Read, Diocese of Manchester, replacing the Ven. Cherry Vann; the Revd Claire Robson, Diocese of Newcastle, replacing the Revd Catherine Pickford; Miss Emily Hobbs, Diocese of Sheffield, replacing Mr Mark Russell; the Revd Christopher Lee, Diocese of Southwell & Nottingham, replacing the Ven. David Picken; the Revd Dr Christian Selvaratnam, Diocese of York, replacing the Revd Peter Moger; the Rt Worshipful Morag Ellis QC, Dean of the Arches, replacing the Rt Worshipful Charles George. Please may we greet them all? You are invited to wave or put up a hand, press a “thumbs up”. That looks wonderful. You do have a “raised thumb” or “clap” icon in Zoom under “options”. You also have, on some of them, a thumbs down. If you do that after a speaker has spoken they will be executed! I am invited and I would like to welcome the ecumenical representatives attending for the first time: Fr Jan Nowotnik, Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales, 2 replacing Fr Patrick Fitzgerald-Lombard, O. Carm, the Revd Tim Meadows, representing the United Reformed Church, and the Revd Dr Paul Goodliff, General Secretary of Churches Together in England. May we greet them all. This concludes our Introductions and Welcomes, and, accordingly, I now hand over to the Chair of our next item of business. THE CHAIR Mr Aiden Hargreaves-Smith (London) took the Chair at 1.14 pm. The Chair: Good afternoon, members of Synod. We are missing you terribly here in Church House. I certainly am. Greetings from here. I hope we will be able to proceed with the forthcoming business in the spirit of being at the forefront of the technological advance that this represents on this occasion. Before we start the first formal item of business for this remote group of sessions, I have been asked to reassure members that we are all here in Church House appropriately socially distanced and are following the guidance related to Covid-19. May I remind members that if you wish to speak on this, or indeed any other item, that you will need to raise the blue hand icon. May I encourage members to use the icon promptly but not prematurely? That will help those who are monitoring these things and keep the business flowing. It will be helpful if you could remember to take the icon down when it is no longer needed. If you wish to raise a point of order at any time, then please send a message to “point of order” in the chat box. This will alert whoever is in the chair at that point that there is a request to make a point of order. Please do bear with us with any technical challenges we may face over the course of this group of sessions. Can I encourage you to see the possible pauses that may occur from time to time not as a delay but as an opportunity to fill the Synod business over the next few days with moments of prayer. ITEM 500 SPECIAL AGENDA I LEGISLATIVE BUSINESS STANDING ORDERS MADE UNDER SECTION 1 OF THE GENERAL SYNOD (REMOTE MEETINGS) (TEMPORARY STANDING ORDERS) MEASURE 2020 (GS 2177) The Chair: We come now to Item 500. In accordance with section 3 of the General Synod (Remote Meetings) (Temporary Standing Orders) Measure 2020, the first item of business at this group of sessions is the question of whether to approve the Special Standing Orders made under that Measure by the officers of the General Synod. The Special Standing Orders in the form made by the officers are set out in GS 2177. 3 Under the Measure the Synod may approve the Special Standing Orders with or without amendment. Due notice has been given of one amendment, which is Item 508 on the Order Paper. As a result, the Special Standing Orders must be dealt with under the Preliminary Motion Procedure provided for in Standing Order 73 of the Standing Orders of the Synod. That procedure involves the following stages. First, the Chair of the House of Laity on behalf of the officers of the Synod will move the preliminary motion: “That the Standing Orders made under section 1 of the General Synod (Remote Meetings) (Temporary Standing Orders) Measure 2020 be considered.” If, following any debate, that motion is carried, I shall invite Mr Lamming to move his amendment. After Mr Lamming has spoken, I shall invite Dr Harrison to speak in reply. If he indicates support for the amendment, the debate on the amendment can continue and a vote can be taken on it. If he indicates that he does not support the amendment, the amendment will lapse unless 40 members indicate by means of a Zoom poll at that time that they wish the debate to continue and a vote to be taken on the amendment. Once the amendment has been dealt with, Dr Harrison will then move the final motion: “That the Standing Orders made under section 1 of the General Synod (Remote Meetings) (Temporary Standing Orders) Measure 2020 be approved.” ITEM 500A The Chair: I now call the Chair of the House of Laity Dr Jamie Harrison to move Item 500A: “That the Standing Orders made under section 1 of the General Synod (Remote Meetings) (Temporary Standing Orders) Measure 2020 be considered”. He has up to ten minutes. Canon Dr Jamie Harrison (Durham): Chair, you will be aware, as will members of Synod, that this item, Item 500, is both the first item on our agenda in this group of sessions and the first item ever to be debated remotely, in this case through Zoom, and voted upon via an external voting platform. It is, of course, a great sadness that this is in the context of a Covid epidemic and that we meet during an ongoing worldwide pandemic, with its huge cost in illness and, sadly, significant loss of life. When we met as a Synod in September, some physically in the chamber at Church House Westminster and others supporting and praying online, we passed the Remote Meetings Measure. The Measure was reported on favourably by the Ecclesiastical Committee of Parliament and, following resolutions in both Houses of Parliament, received Royal Assent on 4 November 2020. In a speech back in September I noted that should we not take this route of using such Special Standing Orders that Synod would go into a form of a hibernation, and, of course, with the ongoing concerns with us still of coronavirus infection rates, a physical meeting of the Synod in February remains uncertain. We can only hope and pray that 4 we will be able to meet together in York next July for the final group of sessions of this extended quinquennium. The Measure before us provides for the six officers of the Synod to make Special Standing Orders to enable the Synod to meet and to transact business remotely. As required by the Measure, the officers consulted the Business Committee and the Standing Orders Committee on the draft Standing Orders. Positives were received from both groups and the officers made the Special Standing Orders in the form set out in GS 2177. These Special Standing Orders are now subject to approval by the Synod, with or without amendment. That is the purpose of this debate. Once agreed, the Measure comes into force with immediate effect. The text of GS 2177 is, I believe, quite straightforward and does not require line-by-line exposition. In summary, the approach taken in the Special Standing Orders is to enable Synod to follow, as closely as the technology will permit, the procedures that we normally would use at physical meetings. The procedures adopted for remote meetings should therefore remain reasonably familiar to members even if some of the details are necessarily different. At this point I would like to make reference to David Lammings’ amendment, which is Item 508 and appears on Order Paper IV. He proposes that the results of simple votes, that is those taken using a Zoom poll rather than using the external platform, should not lead to the names of those voting for or against or stating an abstention being published.