The Church Commissioners have been accused of a "profound failure of judgment" over a £100 million slavery reparations scheme. Tory Shadow Home Office Minister Katie Lam described the project, known as Spire, as the work of "a Church leadership gripped by ideology and detached from legal and historical reality."
Disputed research and political backlash
The fund, officially called the Fund for Healing, Repair and Justice, was established after the Church Commissioners stated that their historic endowment, the Queen Anne's Bounty, had profited from the slave trade. Historians dispute this claim, leading to a feud between Church leaders and campaigners.
Church officials have pledged to invest £100 million over nine years, aiming to eventually build a £1 billion fund for reparative justice. The scheme has sparked outrage from MPs and campaigners who argue that money intended for parish churches is being diverted to a politically driven project.
Criticism from MPs and historians
Ms Lam said: "Money intended to support priests and parishes should not be diverted into a politically fashionable reparations scheme built on discredited research. The Church appears to be trying to rewrite the rules governing charitable funds by the back door." She added: "Worse, it is pressing ahead despite the overwhelming majority of Anglican churchgoers wanting this money spent on local churches, not slavery reparations."
She urged the Church to "abandon Project Spire and return to its core mission of supporting parishes, serving communities and preserving the institutions entrusted to its care." The Commissioners responded by branding her criticism "the same false claims we have corrected time and again" and insisting: "We stand by our research [...] the facts could not be clearer."
Legal challenges and historical dispute
MPs and peers wrote to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dame Sarah Mullally, in December urging her to halt the fund, but she refused. The Church is also facing a legal challenge over the scheme, with groups including Save the Parish and History Reclaimed disputing the historical research underpinning it.
Professor Richard Dale, a historian, slammed the "narrative propagated by Church leaders" to justify Project Spire as "demonstrably false." He stated there was "incontrovertible evidence that Queen Anne's Bounty's investments earned not one penny from the slave trade." In a brutal takedown, he said the Church and its advisors had "deluded themselves and misled everyone else."
Church's position and assurances
The Church of England says the fund will not make direct payments to descendants of enslaved people, but will instead distribute grants to businesses and community projects. It insists no diocese will be worse off financially as a result of Project Spire, and that the funding comes "from the Church Commissioners' income from its assets, not from donations made by parishioners, which are not affected in any way."
