I have today published a new parliamentary briefing on the draft Clergy Conduct Measure — the legislation intended to replace the Clergy Discipline Measure (CDM). You can read the full briefing here.

This paper is addressed to members of Parliament’s Ecclesiastical Committee, the small but powerful body charged under the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act 1919 with deciding whether a Church Measure is “expedient” before it proceeds to Parliament for approval.

Why does this matter?

Because Church of England Measures are not amendable in Parliament. If the Ecclesiastical Committee deems a Measure expedient, it typically goes through both Houses “on the nod.” The Committee is therefore one of the few constitutional safeguards between defective church legislation and automatic parliamentary approval.

Last year, the Committee found the Clergy Conduct Measure not expedient. Its primary — though not only — concern was that the draft legislation provided for tribunals to sit in private by default. Last month, the General Synod amended the Measure so that tribunals are to sit in public by default. That sounds like progress — and, formally, it is. But experience under the existing regime shows that statutory wording and operational reality are not always the same thing. The real question is this: what does “public” mean in practice?

Under the current CDM, tribunals have described decisions as being “handed down in public” even where:

• there was no public listing of the hearing;
• no notice to the press;
• no opportunity for observation;
• and the decision simply appeared online as a PDF after the event.

That is not open justice as most lawyers — or most ordinary people — would understand it.

The new Measure still leaves the crucial detail to Rules that Parliament has not seen. Those Rules will determine when hearings can be private, how listing works, what gets published, and what doesn’t. Senior figures at Synod have argued that Parliament should not see those draft Rules at all.

In other words, MPs are being asked to approve the skeleton of a system without seeing the operating manual.

That is not how constitutional law is supposed to work.

The briefing also addresses something far more troubling: how serious sexual misconduct has been framed under the current system.

In one case involving what in law amounted to statutory rape of a minor, the Deputy President of Tribunals, Judge David Turner KC, described the conduct as “an intimate sexual relationship.” The decision itself recorded the victim’s account of grooming, fear and horror. Yet the public-facing description suggested mutuality. A child cannot consent in law. Language matters.

In another case, allegations of grooming, sexual assault and indecent exposure were reframed in tribunal language around “romantic affection” from a vulnerable complainant. She had no standing to challenge that framing.

The Clergy Conduct Measure does nothing to change that imbalance. Complainants still cannot challenge charges. They cannot appeal determinations. They cannot require correction of misleading public language.

If a statutory disciplinary regime cannot accurately describe sexual abuse in its own determinations, and offers no mechanism for the affected person to challenge the wording, that is not merely poor drafting. It is a safeguarding failure.

The briefing also examines structural independence. Under the proposed system, investigators, assessors and tribunal administration sit within the Archbishops’ Council’s legal team. In response to a recent data request, it was stated that even the President of Tribunals sits within that structure.

Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights requires an independent and impartial tribunal. Independence is not a matter of personal integrity; it is a matter of institutional design.

The Ecclesiastical Committee has already once found this Measure not expedient. It was right to do so.

The amended version still leaves core safeguards to Rules not before Parliament. It still replicates the tribunal structure that has produced the very problems survivors have experienced under the CDM. It still relies heavily on assurances of transparency rather than embedding it in statute.

Parliament deserves to see how a disciplinary system will operate before it approves it.

Survivors deserve a system that does not soften abuse into “relationships” or reduce serious misconduct to opaque headings.

The Ecclesiastical Committee has a constitutional duty. I hope members will read the new briefing carefully and consider whether it can honestly be said that this Measure, as drafted, is expedient.

Because if Parliament approves it without clarity, the consequences will not be theoretical. They will be borne by real people navigating a system that once again operates behind the curtain.

• Click here to read the full briefing.

The post Parliament is being asked to approve a disciplinary system it is not allowed to see appeared first on Church Abuse.

I have just published a new detailed briefing, critically examining the Archbishops’ Council’s latest proposals for independent safeguarding in the Church of England.

The briefing document, written for Synod members, MPs, trustees, and all those concerned with safeguarding reform, sets out why the latest proposals, to be debated by the General Synod later this month, fall far short of what is needed.

The briefing explains that, despite years of promises and external scrutiny, the Church’s new safeguarding plans do not deliver genuine independence. Instead, they propose a slow, staged approach that keeps real control within existing Church structures for years to come. The analysis highlights how this approach fails to meet the expectations of victims and survivors, the requirements set out by the Charity Commission, and the calls for urgent action from General Synod and Parliament.

Key sections of the briefing cover the collapse of the Independent Safeguarding Board, the findings of the Jay Review, and the recent intervention by the Charity Commission. It argues that the Church’s current direction represents a retreat from previous commitments and risks further eroding trust among survivors and the wider public.

The document also challenges the claim that all IICSA recommendations have been delivered, pointing out that true independence in safeguarding remains undelivered.

The briefing concludes with a call for Synod and Parliament to reject the current proposals and instead demand a credible, accelerated route to statutory independent safeguarding, with robust interim measures in place.

It also offers a suggested amendment for Synod members to use, ensuring that reform is not delayed any further.

For anyone interested in the future of safeguarding in the Church of England, this briefing provides a clear, evidence-based summary of why urgent, decisive action is needed now.

You can download it here [PDF].

The post Delay and control: the problems with the Archbishops’ Council’s safeguarding plans appeared first on Church Abuse.

One of the least understood – and most consequential – features of the Church of England is the way its legislation becomes law.

Measures passed by the General Synod do not remain internal church rules. Once approved by Parliament, they have the same legal force as Acts of Parliament. They can shape safeguarding systems, disciplinary regimes, rights of access to information, and the treatment of victims and survivors.

Yet Parliament does not scrutinise these Measures in the way it scrutinises Bills.

This is not because Parliament chooses not to. It is because the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act 1919 does not allow it to.

My first background briefing explains why that matters.

The 1919 Act created a constitutional settlement that reflected the assumptions of a very different era. Under it, Parliament may approve or reject a Measure, but it may not amend it. It may identify defects, but it may not require them to be corrected. Even when serious concerns are raised, Parliament’s only option is an all-or-nothing decision.

Worse still, the Act restricts transparency. A Parliamentary committee examining a Measure cannot necessarily publish its conclusions independently. In effect, an external body – the Church of England – is placed in a position of controlling whether and how Parliament’s concerns are made public.

That is constitutionally extraordinary.

This briefing does not argue that Parliament should rewrite ecclesiastical legislation. It does not trespass into theology. What it does is set out, carefully and factually, how the current framework limits democratic accountability, and why those limits have real consequences.

In particular, it explains how safeguarding and disciplinary systems have been enacted with the force of statute, while being insulated from the normal corrective processes that apply to other legislation.

If you want to understand why Parliament keeps approving legislation it cannot fix – and why “scrutiny” in this context often amounts to little more than observation – this briefing provides the necessary background.

It is written to be durable, accessible, and usable.

• You can download the full briefing here.

The post Why the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act 1919 needs urgent review appeared first on Church Abuse.

The draft Clergy Conduct Measure is being presented as reform. It is not.

At least, it cannot be assessed as reform while the rules that will govern its operation remain unseen.

My second background briefing focuses on a single, fundamental problem: Parliament and the General Synod are being asked to approve a statutory disciplinary regime without sight of the rules that will determine how it actually works in practice.

This is not a technical quibble. It goes to the heart of legislative scrutiny.

Time and again, Parliament has made clear that it cannot properly assess legislation where decisive detail is deferred to later rules or regulations. In the case of the draft Clergy Conduct Measure, those concerns were explicit. Draft rules were requested. They were not provided.

Instead, approval is being sought on the basis of assurances – some of which have already proved unreliable.

The briefing documents how Synod was given inaccurate information during earlier stages of the Measure’s passage, how those errors were never formally corrected, and how Parliament was subsequently presented with a misleading account of Synod’s deliberations.

It also explains why claims that draft rules “cannot yet be produced” do not withstand scrutiny, and why precedent within the Church itself demonstrates that this is a matter of choice, not necessity.

Crucially, the briefing situates the draft Measure within a wider pattern: framework legislation that preserves internal control, displaces scrutiny, and pushes key safeguards into opaque processes that sit beyond effective oversight.

This is not about personalities. It is about structure.

If you are being asked to trust that this Measure will operate fairly, transparently, and independently once enacted, this briefing explains why trust is not a substitute for scrutiny – and why approval without rules is constitutionally and practically untenable.

• The full briefing is available to download here.

The post The draft Clergy Conduct Measure: why approval without draft rules is untenable appeared first on Church Abuse.

This site exists because the Church of England has failed to tell the truth about itself.

For years, churchabuse.uk has documented safeguarding failures, institutional defensiveness, procedural injustice and the routine prioritisation of reputation over people. Much of that work has been done through blog posts: immediate, reactive, often written in response to breaking developments or first-hand testimony.

That work will continue. It is essential.

But it is not sufficient on its own.

Blog posts are designed for immediacy. They respond to events as they unfold. They challenge statements, expose contradictions, and record failures in real time. What they are not designed to do is provide a stable, long-lasting factual foundation that can be relied on months or years later by people trying to understand how Church systems actually work.

That is why I am now publishing formal background briefings.

What the briefings are – and what they are not

The briefings are intended to sit alongside this site, not replace it.

They are not opinion pieces. They are not campaign leaflets. They are not “explainers” written to flatter institutional narratives. They are structured, evidence-based documents that set out how particular systems, legal frameworks or decision-making processes operate, and why those structures produce the outcomes they do.

They are written to be durable.

A blog post is often anchored to a moment: a Synod debate, a report, a court hearing, a press statement. A briefing is designed to remain useful long after that moment has passed. It should still make sense when quoted by a journalist, read by a parliamentarian, used by a survivor trying to understand a process, or relied upon by someone encountering these issues for the first time.

In short, blog posts deal with events. Briefings deal with architecture.

They exist because one of the Church of England’s most effective defensive strategies is fragmentation: scattering responsibility across Measures, rules, guidance, committees, working groups and unpublished conventions until accountability dissolves. Briefings pull those strands together in one place.

Why launch them now?

Because the same patterns keep repeating.

Every few years, the Church announces reform. Every few years, it insists that lessons have been learned. And every few years, survivors find themselves confronting the same secrecy, the same lack of independence, the same procedural barriers, dressed up in new language.

That is not an accident. It is the product of how power is structured.

If reform is to be meaningful, it has to be informed by an understanding of the systems that shape outcomes regardless of intent. That requires more than commentary. It requires clear, accessible, factual accounts that do not rely on institutional goodwill or selective disclosure.

The briefings are an attempt to provide that.

Why these two briefings first?

Although the briefing series is intended to range widely – across safeguarding, governance, accountability, redress and institutional power – the first two published briefings focus on issues that are foundational.

The first examines the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act 1919: the constitutional framework that governs how Church legislation acquires the force of an Act of Parliament. This is not an abstract constitutional curiosity. It is the mechanism that explains why Parliament is repeatedly asked to approve legislation affecting safeguarding and discipline while being structurally prevented from amending it.

Until that framework is understood, debates about individual Measures risk missing the point. The briefing therefore focuses on process rather than theology, and on democratic accountability rather than ecclesiastical autonomy.

The second briefing addresses the draft Clergy Conduct Measure. It does so not to rehearse every criticism already made on this site, but to isolate a central problem: the attempt to secure final approval for a statutory disciplinary system without providing the rules that will determine how it operates in practice.

That issue goes well beyond one Measure. It speaks to a wider legislative habit within the Church: deferring decisive detail, limiting scrutiny, and relying on assurances that are neither binding nor transparent. The briefing sets out why Parliament has repeatedly objected to this approach, and why those objections matter.

These subjects were chosen first because they illuminate how institutional failure is embedded upstream, long before individual cases collapse downstream.

What comes next

These briefings are not a closed set. They are the beginning of a body of work intended to grow over time.

Future briefings will address other areas where survivors, advocates and observers are routinely expected to navigate opaque systems with little reliable information: safeguarding structures, redress mechanisms, the use of guidance in place of law, and the concentration of power within internal legal processes.

Each briefing will be focused, finite and written to stand alone.

They are offered freely because information should not be gated by institutional convenience. They are published separately from this site so that they can be read, shared and cited without being lost in the flow of blog commentary.

The blog will continue to do what it does best: challenge, provoke, and record institutional failure as it happens.

The briefings exist so that when the Church once again claims that “lessons have been learned”, there is a clear, factual record explaining why the system was never designed to learn them in the first place.

The post Why I am publishing background briefings – and why they matter appeared first on Church Abuse.