Katie Lam MP has challenged controversial plans in the Church of England to set up a £100m investment fund to address historic links to transatlantic slavery.
She claimed that Project Spire, and its proposed Fund for Healing, Repair and Justice, is “illegal” and called the plans “disastrous”, arguing that the money should instead be spent on struggling parishes.
Project Spire was launched in 2023 after research commissioned by the Church concluded that the Queen Anne’s Bounty, a predecessor endowment fund of the Church Commissioners, had links to transatlantic chattel slavery through investments and benefactions.
Lam, the Conservative MP for Weald of Kent, said the justification for the project was “a complete joke” and that diverting funds away from struggling parishes was “absurd”.
“The Church of England is planning to give away £100m in slavery reparations and their justification is a complete joke,” she said in a video posted on X.
“Apparently they’re required to do so because a fund established by Queen Anne in 1704 had invested in a company involved in the West African slave trade.
“The problem is that it turns out that the supposed link between the Church and slavery is fake.
“The original report seems to have confused South Sea Securities, which would have been money invested in the slave trade, with South Sea Annuities, which is just money that was lent to the British government.
“There is no evidence that the Church of England made any money at all from the slave trade in this way. And even so, this idea that we are uniquely guilty for historic slavery and therefore to pay reparations is totally wrong.
“Almost every society in the world participated in slavery at some point in its history. The unique thing about Britain is the fact that we spent so much time and money on trying to end the slave trade.
“We were only the second country in the world to decide to do so and we spent a huge amount of money, political capital, and ultimately the lives of navy sailors doing it.
“And if that weren’t bad enough, to fund all of this, the Church is using a charitable fund that is supposed to be used on maintaining local parish churches. That is illegal.”
She added, “The idea that the Church of England should now, hundreds of years later, pay £100m in slavery reparations, while so many parish churches are literally crumbling is absurd.”
Jamie Franklin, priest in charge at Holy Trinity Winchester and host of the Irreverend podcast, agreed with Lam, calling her comments “a very good, concise summary of the principal reasons why Project Spire is such a complete scandal”.
“The Church Commissioners should be using far more of the £11.8 billion fund at their disposal to fund parish ministry, not engaging in illegal acts of virtue-signalling,” he said.
Lam was one of 24 Conservative MPs, together with four members of the House of Lords, who wrote to Archbishop of Canterbury, Sarah Mullally, late last year calling for a re-think.
In the letter, they said the project was based “on highly contested interpretations of history” and that the Church Commissioners’ endowment must be used instead to support parish ministry and the maintenance of church buildings, as well as the Church’s historic records.
“At a moment when churches across the country are struggling to keep their doors open – many even falling into disrepair – it’s wrong to try and justify diverting £100 million to a project entirely separate from those core obligations,” the letter read.
The Church of England’s July meeting of the General Synod confirmed that over £1.15m has already been spent on Project Spire.
The Bishop of Norwich, Graham Usher, said the expense had come from “proportionate research into the Commissioners’ historical sources of funds and consideration of appropriate responses, including necessary legal advice and stakeholder engagement”.
The Church of England has denied that the fund is illegal, with Bishop Usher saying, “The Commissioners ensure that expenditure is applied only within their charitable purposes and powers.”
He confirmed, though, that the project has been held up due to a legal challenge which has prevented the Church from being able to register the Fund for Healing, Repair and Justice with the Charity Commission. No details were given about the party taking legal action against it.
Recent polling suggested strong opposition to Project Spire among churchgoers, with 81 per cent of respondents saying the fund should be used to support local parishes, and 61 per cent saying they may cease providing financial support to the Church of England altogether if the plans go ahead.
The Church has doubled down on the project, with Bishop Usher insisting it has “not been abandoned”.
“We continue to be outraged by our historic links to African chattel enslavement and our part in the responsibility for the enduring legacies of this abhorrent past that continue to affect the lives of people today,” he said in answers to Synod questions.