IN HIS presidential address, the Archbishop of York referred to a letter sent to faith leaders by the new Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer. “It is clear that he sees and wants to understand more about the impact people of faith have on communities today.

“Let’s be clear, we know that politicians of all parties admire and covet the values that underpin our faith . . . that it is our instinct to put the needs of others before our own.

“But this is where we may need to be a bit more bold. We need to say that these values that we hold dear, these values that shape our life and witness, they do not exist in a vacuum. They come from and are shaped by beliefs and practices; what God has done for us in Jesus Christ, and what we do in response: the daily reading of scripture, the life of prayer and worship, the iron rations of the sacramental life. Then these values then become real and become the lived outworking of a Christian life.”

Before beginning his address, the first item of business, Archbishop Cottrell said that he had made a mistake, last year, when he had told the Synod that the decision by the Archbishops’ Council to disband the Independent Safeguarding Board (ISB) and sack its members had been “unanimous” (News, 14 July 2023).

“It has come to my attention that when I spoke in the ISB debate at the July Synod in 2023 I mistakenly said that the decision by the Archbishops’ Council to terminate the contracts of the two remaining members of the ISB was unanimous,” he said.

Dr Sarah Wilkinson’s report on the demise of the ISB, which was published in December (News, 15 December 2023), recorded that the Council had voted by 11 to four to terminate the contracts of Dame Jasvinder Sanghera and Steve Reeves the next day, four members abstaining.

Archbishop Cottrell told the Synod: “I spoke incorrectly, and, since it’s been pointed out to me, I wanted to take this opportunity to apologise and to put the record straight.”