THE General Synod voted overwhelmingly against a proposed increase of £1000 in burial fees, after a debate of nearly three hours on Friday morning.
There were 20 pages of amendments to the Fees Order. Speaker after speaker referred to the strength of feeling in parishes and the pastoral importance of funeral ministry.
The proposal arose out of a Synod fringe meeting in York in July, at which it was suggested that parochial fees relating to a body or cremated remains in a churchyard were out of line with fees charged for woodland burials. Archbishops’ Council staff researched a range of fees for these and for burials conducted by local authorities.
A Parochial Fees Order for the next five years was put forward as a means of helping many rural churches with open churchyards and bringing C of E burial fees more in line with burial fees elsewhere. Under the new order, burial of a body in a churchyard immediately after a service in church would be £1390; for burial on a separate occasion, it would be £1425.
The Archbishops’ Council had an open mind on the matter, Carl Hughes (Archbishops’ Council) said in his introduction, but it would like the Synod to come to a decision that day. He later reiterated the “slight irony” that there was “no pressure from the Archbishops’ Council to increase burial fees. . . Not increasing would be no problem to us.”
First to speak was the Bishop of Blackburn, the Rt Revd Philip North, who asked for an adjournment. There was an intense debate to be had about the level of fees, he said. There were philosophical questions about how fees should be set, and deeper issues about the accessibility of Occasional Offices to low-income communities — but this was not the way to do it, he argued.
“I do not believe that we will resolve these issues by countless amendments on the floor of the Synod,” he said. “All that will do is take all day, push important matters of business out of the Synod, and result in the most terrible mess.”
The debate went ahead, however.
Amanda Robbie (Lichfield) was typical of many speakers when she said of the order, “It would be embarrassing, indefensible; it would decimate our ministry. . . It’s a holy calling, an opportunity to stand alongside the grieving. It would decimate our ministry. It’s a really bad idea.”
Several personal stories were told. Clergy spoke of growth coming from funerals ministry and of the likely impact on the community.
“It’s important that we are reactive to what we see in the world,” the Revd Graham Kirk-Spriggs (Norwich) said. “This massive hike would be bad for our reputation in the community and a pastoral nightmare for clergy. We are a Church, not a business.”
Robin Lunn (Worcester), bringing an amendment to substitute for the immediate increase a £200 annual increase for five years, was “shocked” at what amounted to a 350-per-cent increase. “We’re in danger of a cost-of-dying crisis,” he said. “It’s morally wrong.”
The Revd Paul Benfield (Blackburn) had received more responses to this issue than to any other issue ever, he said, “even Living in Love and Faith. It’s pastorally inept and would cause great damage to our work in the parishes of this land.”
The complex series of grouped amendments, chiefly brought by the Revd Jonathan Macy (Southwark), necessarily related to different types of burial and cremation fees.
The Bishop of Birkenhead, the Rt Revd Julie Conalty (Northern Suffragans), was prepared to “support any amendment if it will keep the fee down. Support this amendment,” she urged the Synod in the latter stages. Otherwise, “I may be forced to sell indulgences.”
As an 85-year-old, David Ashton (Leeds) admitted “a keen interest in what we’re debating”.
It was identified that it would also require legislative changes to the Ecclesiastical Fees Measure 1986, which would take three years.
Six amendments were carried to ensure that in every variation of burial and cremation, the figure given had £1000 subtracted. After this, the order was eventually carried by 262-3 with five recorded abstentions.
Mr Hughes praised the Synod for its “patience and perseverance”.
