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Marriages and Civil Partnerships (Approved Premises) (Amendment) Regulations 2011

I am not concerned with that legal opinion; I am trying to make a different point, which it is clear I did not do effectively enough. What I am saying is that pressure will be put upon incumbents throughout the Church of England, notwithstanding that legal opinion, which may or not be correct—and there is an element of doubt. We have a specific provision in this country for the established Church of England, as has been referred to by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Blackburn. With the agreement of Parliament, we do not legislate over and above, or directly at, the Church of England; rather, we receive the measures that the church—initially through the Church Assembly but in more recent years through the General Synod—has thought fit to pass. Those measures come before the Ecclesiastical Committee, on which I had the privilege to sit for some 40 years—indeed, I was for 10 years on the General Synod as well—which is one of the few committees comprised of Members of both Houses of Parliament. That committee has one duty and one duty alone: it has to deem the measure expedient or not. If it deems the measure expedient, the measure then comes before the two Houses of Parliament separately, either on the Floors of the Chambers or in Committee, where it can be voted upon. It is very unusual for a measure to be rejected—in my 40 years on the Ecclesiastical Committee I can think of only one such measure, which concerned provisions for churchwardens. I can think of others, such as the prayer book measure and the ordination of women measure, which engendered very real debate in both Houses, but at the end of the day those measures were passed. It seems to me that there ought to be proper recognition of the position of the Church of England. I am in no sense seeking to make comments about civil partnerships. I listened to the moving speech of the noble Lord, Lord Collins. We all have many friends who have gone through civil partnerships, whatever our views on marriage might be. As the noble Baroness made plain when she introduced this debate today, that is not what we are discussing. It is important that the Church of England should have its special position recognised and there should be exemption for it, so that it is up to the synod to decide whether it wishes to pass a measure.