Lords Spiritual (Women) Bill completes Commons stages

Today, the Lords Spiritual (Women) Bill completed all its stages in the House of Commons. The Bill was read a second time, committee stage was taken in Committee of the whole House from which it emerged unamended (which meant that it did not require a report stage), it was read the third time, and passed.

Second reading debate is here and committee and third reading here: the Bill now goes to the Lords, where it will go through the entire process all over again.

2 thoughts on “Lords Spiritual (Women) Bill completes Commons stages

  1. By my reckoning, looking at dates of retirement etc, we are quite likely to end up with a majority of women bishops in the HoL by the end of the ten years. Will there then be a Lords Spiritual (Men) Bill? Or perhaps amend this one, so that it no longer takes effect when the number of men and women Lords Spiritual is equal?

  2. The period of 10 years is an exceedingly long time in politics – it equates to two fixed-term Parliaments and during this time it is more than likely that the composition of the Upper House will again come under scrutiny. During yesterday’s debate, Stephen Twigg, (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op), reiterated the position of the Labour Party, which has declared that it proposes to abolish the House of Lords and replace it with an elected Senate, (HC Hansard 19 Jan 2015 Vol 591(94) Col 37).

    Equally important, the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Sam Gyimah) pointed out, (Col 34) that the key driver to the percentage of women within the Lords Spiritual is “not the length of the sunset clause per se, but how speedily the Church appoints women to be bishops”.

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