There has been a sustained progressive attenuation in the relationship between the Church of England and the State, and this process seems likely to continue.
The role of bishops in the House of Lords has been considered above. Their disappearance from the second chamber could well take place and would form another step towards disestablishment. The role of the monarch has already been considered too, and the possibility of change there has been noted. The way bishops are appointed has also been referred to, and just as this was quite fundamentally altered in the late 1970s with the setting up of the Crown Appointments Commission, so it may be altered again. The case for doing so would in many minds be strengthened by the removal of bishops from the Lords.
Parliament’s role in legislating has diminished over the years with legislation establishing the Church Assembly in 1919 then Synodical government in 1970. The Synod now proposes Measures, which Parliament must accept or reject but cannot amend. Measures have to be considered by a Joint Committee (of Lords and Commons), which has to report on the expediency of the proposed Measure “especially in relation to the constitutional rights of all Her Majesty’s subjects”. A Measure, if rejected in either House, can be laid again. This happened when the Commons rejected the Clergy Ordination Measure relating to the ordination of women. But the present system does allow for the possibility that those who object to a Measure prepared by Synod can seek to generate enough opposition in Parliament to block the Measure concerned. In effect, this is what happened on the ordination of women, when the Commons rejected the Measure in a thin House late at night. Measures are introduced by bishops in the Lords or the second Church Estates Commissioner (an MP appointed to this role by the Church) in the Commons. The MP in this office also answers questions in Parliament on a regular basis concerning Church matters (a procedure which curiously has no parallel in the Lords). The General Synod also has the power to legislate directly, by canon, for the life of the Church, without recourse to Parliament.
There are a plethora of arguments surrounding the whole question of establishment. From a constitutional standpoint the ‘privileged’ position of the Church of England is certainly much reduced today as compared to the past, as is the degree of legal regulation imposed by virtue of its established status. Where such regulation exists conventions have developed about its use. Thus, attempts by parliamentarians to use parliamentary means to legislate for the Church of England are generally eschewed by fellow parliamentarians (for example, over ‘Prayer Book protection’). If circumstances were to change and the Church to find Parliament imposing what it did not want, or failing to agree what it proposed, then the Church would certainly have to reconsider its position.
There could come a point where the continued attenuation of Church and State resulted in an ‘effective disestablishment’ (bishops gone from the Lords, and the Crown declining to take part in their appointment any more; Parliament deciding to abandon procedures for enacting Measures; Parliament deciding to repeal statutory bars on the throne being held by a Roman Catholic[1]; and so on). Alternatively, disestablishment could come about ‘big bang style’ if either party, Church or State, were to seek it. But the ‘big bang’ might turn out to be a dull damp squib as politicians and lawyers grappled with obscure details and unexpected consequences. Disestablishment could hardly be any simpler than the supposedly straightforward task of abolishing the Lord Chancellor!
[1] A Royal Marriages (Freedom of Religion) Bill was introduced in the House of Commons on 8 March 2005.
