A couple of weeks ago I was invited to address the senior officers of Church House in Westminster, as part of their in-service training, about the work of bishops in the House of Lords. A number of them wrote to me afterwards, asking me to give greater publicity to what bishops do in the House of Lords; 'People would like to know,' they said. So as I have now served in the House of Lords for almost seven years, and because my work there inevitably impacts a little upon the life of the diocese, I thought you might be interested to know what I do in the House.

Let's begin with numbers: there are twenty-six bishops in the House of Lords. The Archbishops of Canterbury and York, and the Bishops of Durham, Winchester and London, are there ex officio, which leaves twenty-one diocesan bishops (the rest of us) who enter the House of Lords on a kind of ladder principle. As soon as someone retires, you move further up the ladder until you reach the number twenty-one, and then you are summoned by the Queen to become a 'Lord Spiritual'. It is, as you might imagine, a daunting but exciting privilege to enter the House.

So what do we actually do? We have the same rights and duties as any member of the House but we have the additional duty during our 'duty weeks' of saying prayers at the beginning of each Parliamentary day. The prayers are said in the Chamber - members choose whether or not to be present - and only when the prayers have been said can Parliamentary business begin.

The prayers are significant not only in themselves but also because of the claims that they, and the psalms we use, make about the nature of Parliament. We begin with the reading of a psalm in which we consciously place ourselves in the presence of God. After a Kyrie eleison, the prayers then move firstly to the Lord's prayer, secondly intercessions for the Queen, and then for the Royal Family. At one point in the prayers there is a reference to God:

... who dost from Thy throne behold all the dwellers upon earth.

This is said within a few yards of the royal throne - and the links are obvious. God is the king of heaven and from Him derives all power on earth. More than that, God is also the source of wisdom and law. The prayers not only recognise the absolute power, authority and wisdom of God, but they also recognise our human frailty and so, for example, one of the prayers asks that we may put aside all

... private interests, prejudices and partial affections.

The penultimate prayer is:

Prevent us, O Lord, in all our doings with thy most gracious favour ...

and we end with the Grace.

The very fact that the House of Lords begins with prayer must not be underestimated. Those prayers are a profound reminder of the relationship between lawmakers and God the lawgiver, and a reminder that in eternity all of us, from the highest political leader to the humblest citizen, will be answerable to God.

The physical setting of the prayers, and Parliament itself, also speaks volumes. The Palace of Westminster was severely damaged by fire in 1836 and, as a result, the Parliament building had to be rebuilt. A great debate was held; firstly, to try to decide whether Parliament should remain in Westminster next to the noxious and stinking open sewer of the Thames or whether it should move to Green Park. The decision was made that it should stay where it had always been. Secondly there was the question about architectural style: should it be built in the classic form (think of the Bank of England) or should it be in some other architectural style. Again the debate was long and tough. A competition was held - won by the architect Charles Barry. He picked up the Gothic style of Westminster Hall (which alone had survived the fire) and designed the building we now have. He had as his 'assistant' A W N Pugin, an obsessive genius, who was almost entirely responsible for the interior design of the Houses of Parliament. (There was a long-running dispute about his role in the exterior design but we will leave that to one side.)

Pugin had a very high and idealised view of the Gothic style of architecture, believing it to be the only acceptable style for Christian buildings. He referred to anything in the Classical style as 'pagan'. All those spires, and crockets, and finials, and towers, on the outside of the Houses of Parliament, were, in Pugin's view, necessary for the sovereign authority of Christian England. The fact that Parliament, Westminster Hall and Westminster Abbey have a strong family likeness is not a matter of chance.

Inside, Pugin designed everything in the same high Gothic style, from the chairs to the chandeliers, from the royal throne to the writing desks. It was not only meant to mark Parliament as indelibly Christian in origin and aspiration, but it was also meant to represent the surging confidence of Britain (Pugin believed that Gothic was the natural and authentic English style). In his early career Pugin was a theatre designer, and with his love of ecclesiastical pageantry (he designed vestments, altars, reredoses, lecterns) and his love of theatre, Parliament is designed explicitly for processions and formality, for pomp and circumstance.

So, the prayers are at the heart of Parliamentary proceedings and the building itself, in total and in detail, is distinctly Christian. It does not follow, of course, that everything that happens inside is of a Christian character.

In this setting, what do we do as bishops, apart from the formal and important duty of saying prayers? Well, we take part in debates - and they are essentially of two kinds. There are debates about particular Bills, pieces of legislation sent from the Commons for us to scrutinise, and then there are debates of a more general nature about moral issues facing society and the world. It is impossible to be present for every piece of legislative business, but each of us, as bishops, tends to have a particular interest. We try to be present and take full part in specific subjects. As it happens, I have tended to speak in debates about issues concerning medical ethics, for example on euthanasia and stem-cell research, but I have not confined myself to those subject areas alone. In my last duty week I raised a question about the treatment of asylum seekers and I spoke in a debate about food advertising aimed at young children. We research and write our own speeches, though we receive enormous, unsung, help from staff at Church House. In my seven years, whilst I have spoken on a variety of subjects, I have been deeply involved in three major pieces of legislation: firstly the Mental Capacity Bill; secondly, Lord Joffe's Bill on Assisted Dying; and thirdly - and most recently - on the Bill proposing a new regulatory authority to control research in the use of human tissues and in the field of human fertilisation and embryology.

To be deeply involved in three major Bills on behalf of you, the Church, has been a huge privilege, but it is time consuming and demanding. When you take a lead on a given Bill, it is not simply a question of making speeches. Most of the work is done behind the scenes in conversations with Ministers and those who draft the legislation, and in conversations with other experts in the field. And it involves not only scrutinising all the evidence coming in from interested parties, it also involves much correspondence with individuals and organisations. In the case of the Mental Capacity Bill, which I believe is a noble and remarkable piece of legislation and which took fifteen years to get onto the statute book, I recall being in St Albans Abbey at the Maundy Thursday service and receiving an urgent telephone call asking me to get to Parliament, to help in the very final stages of the Bill, when it looked as though it might have been lost.

In the Assisted Dying Bill, not only did I speak in every debate in the Chamber but I was also invited to be a member of the Select Committee asked to scrutinise the Bill. That, too, was a remarkable privilege - and to be part of a committee which was wrestling with the subject of euthanasia and assisted suicide for months and months involved a colossal amount of work. Not only did we receive almost 15,000 letters from the general public, we also called expert witnesses whom we then cross-examined, and the Committee visited the Netherlands, Switzerland and Oregon, the three places in the world where either euthanasia or assisted suicide are lawful. In addition we had transatlantic video-conferences and, unsurprisingly, met very large numbers of people concerned with the subject. In the end we produced a three-volume report, the Bill was debated and the proposal to introduce euthanasia and assisted suicide into UK law was defeated. It was quite a battle.

I am now serving on the Joint Committee (a mixture of MPs and Lords) investigating a new Bill, which is looking in detail at the regulation of research regarding human fertilisation and embryology in the UK. It's a very complex, scientific, area and massively significant ethical questions need to be addressed. I am doing what I can to raise all the ethical issues and, with other members of the Committee, cross question and examine expert witnesses. The Bill was published on 17 May and the Committee meets for two or three hours twice a week to do its work. We have to complete our task by the middle of July. In my view the Parliamentary process is far too rushed and hectic for a subject which has major consequences for us all.

I have sketched in the work I have done on Bills - on a Select Committee and on a Joint Committee - but some of what we do is necessarily and rightly hidden: all those conversations in the corridors. Three weeks ago, for instance, I was able to have brief conversations with two very eminent peers about medical ethics and with the Parliamentary representative of a Christian think-tank. None of the conversations were pre-planned - but they are very important. Then, in addition, I use my position in the Lords to invite people to lunch or tea, either as a way of thanking them for what they are doing or, in the case of charities of which I am patron, to bring people together with a common interest; that happens on a very regular basis and I treasure the opportunities it gives.

Out of all of this flows media work, often rapid response stuff, maybe for Channel 4 News or for the BBC's Parliamentary programmes, or for local radio.

I see my role, therefore, as privileged and, I hope, significant. What I try to do is to offer myself to God in this work, just as I do in the diocese, praying above all for wisdom, insight and strength. Who knows how long it will be before the House of Lords is reformed again? - that is a matter of party politics - but it also is, in no small way, a matter for the nation, for our self-understanding and our constitutional practice.

I wish I could get the balance right between my national duties and my diocesan ones - but, frankly, I don't know any bishop who thinks he does get it right. I love being in the diocese, but when I get to the House of Lords and am asked by people, affectionately, 'Where have you been? We've missed you!' then I feel I am not spending as much time and effort there as I should. And when I am in the House of Lords, I feel equally that I am not serving you and the diocese as I should. It's a delicate balance and what I try to do is represent you and the Church and things Christian in Parliament, and then try to act as something of a bridge between Parliament and the diocese and the wider community.

And all this is because two thousand years ago a child was born - Son of Man and Son of God - and it is that truth which provides the unity, by God's grace, that holds it all together.

© Christopher William Herbert, 2007