The Church of Scotland (Lord High Commissioner) Bill was introduced to the House of Commons and given its First Reading on Thursday 13 February. MPs will next consider the Bill at Second Reading on Tuesday 4 March, followed by all remaining stages on the same day.
The two-clause Bill makes “provision for persons of the Roman Catholic faith to be eligible to hold the office of His Majesty’s High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland” and repeals the bar in s.12 of the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829:
“1 Holding of office of Lord High Commissioner by Roman Catholic
(1) A person of the Roman Catholic faith may hold the office of His Majesty’s High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.
(2) In section 12 of the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829 (offices withheld from Roman Catholics) omit ‘; or his Majesty’s high commissioner to the general assembly of the Church of Scotland’.”.
Clause 2 provides that the Act may be cited as the Church of Scotland (Lord High Commissioner) Act 2025, extends to the whole of the UK and comes into force on the day on which it is passed.
Under the existing legislation, the office of Lord High Commissioner may be held by persons of any faith or none – except for Roman Catholics. The practical effect of the Bill will be to permit the upcoming appointment of Lady Elish Angiolini LT, a practising Roman Catholic, as Lord High Commissioner for 2025. The Government’s press release says that her appointment “will be a significant gesture of unity, goodwill and collaboration between the Church of Scotland and the Catholic Church in Scotland, following the St Margaret Declaration signed in 2022”.
The press release link seems to be https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill/59-01/0185/240185.pdf and not to the press release.
Thanks: I’ve fixed it.
It may be [only] a ceremonial role—according to Wikipedia, the Lord High Commissioner is “the monarch’s personal representative to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland (the Kirk), reflecting the Church’s role as the national church of Scotland and the monarch’s role as protector and member of that Church”—but it does seem odd that anyone, whether of any faith, other than RC, or none, can be the Lord High Commissioner. Does this mean that, under the existing law, a Buddhist monk, or a Muslim Imam could be the LCH?
Incidentally, I note from Wikipedia that the current LHC is the Duke of Edinburgh (Prince Edward); why he is standing down?
Thanks David. My thoughts were coloured by experience of sectarian issues in South Lanarkshire in the 1980s.
Recent LHCs all seem to have done one or two years. It’s his second time around – as Earl of Wessex he served for 2014.
It was I who added that bit, and on my reading of the legislation, the only persons currently debarred from the office are Roman Catholics. So yes: HM could appoint a Buddhist monk.
Paras 4 and 22 of the Explanatory Notes to the Bill confirm this.
It’s odd – but I think, right, that this does not engage the legislative consent mechanism for the Scottish Parliament. The Scottish Parliament’s website says that it is any laws affecting Scotland – and on the face of it this is exactly that – but I guess oppression of Catholicism isn’t a devolved matter… more seriously, human rights is devolved, and you might argue that this is about freedom of religion; I wonder if the argument is instead that the constitutional position of the Crown is a reserved matter?
I think the point may be that the 1829 Act is an issue of constitutional law – and constitutional law is not a devolved matter.
It’s also interesting that when Parliament wants to (or, perhaps I should say, the Government is willing to agree), time is made available to insert a Bill dealing with a (hopefully) non-controversial matter in, what otherwise, is claimed to be a busy legislative programme that allows for no such additional business. Contrast the response to the Church of England when, during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, Parliament, or the then Government, rebuffed a request for Parliament to pass emergency legislation to enable General Synod to meet remotely, thus necessitating a special ‘in-person’ meeting of the Synod in London on 24 September 2020 to debate and pass a Measure [the ‘General Synod (Remote Meetings) Measure 2020] to achieve the desired result.