Cash for cemeteries is stealth Church Tax

COMMUNITY Councils in Wales are taxing residents to give money to the Church for the upkeep of churchyards and incorporated graveyards. This is despite the warnings from qualified legal professionals that this practice isn’t confirmed as lawful.

The 1894 Local Government Act (England and Wales) expressly prohibited councils from spending any money on maintaining or improving church property. In practice this includes the church building itself, the churchyard and the church hall. In 2014, Brandon Lewis MP, at the time Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at DCMS, confirmed that the Government agreed that the 1894 prohibition is still in force.

The Church claims that it is entitled to financial assistance from councils due to the 1972 Local Government Act that enabled local councils to offer financial support for cemeteries (owned by local authorities or private concerns) and burial grounds. The Church argues that the graveyards within their churchyards are burial grounds. Legal experts and the UK Government consider the specific 1894 prohibition on funding of church property to be stronger in law than the generalising term “burial ground”.

The 1972 Act also specifically refers to “Closed Churchyards” in enabling councils to financially support them. This suggests that the spirit of the Act was to enable local councils to financially assist with the upkeep of closed churchyards, while maintaining the prohibition on financial support of churches that remain open.

Our communities have people of different faiths and no faith. We should not be taxing people because our established Church is failing to engage with communities and to fundraise. For churches to survive, they need to engage and become relevant to communities again. I believe that insular churches, surviving on taxes from communities, will continue to see their congregations and relevance decline.

It’s my opinion that the tax community councils charge their communities to give to the Church should be considered a Church Tax.

Cllr Ian Perry St Nicholas, Vale of Glamorgan