I do not want to weary the House with a succession of dates, which are really the legal steps one after the other which were taken with all propriety by the Organisation Committee, the Bishop of London and, in their turn, by Church commissioners.

The Church Commissioners, for whom I speak tonight, had the task of drafting the scheme in its legal sense and then, as they are charged to do under the terms of the Reorganisation Measure of 1944, of sending out notices to those who have to be informed when a draft scheme is proposed so that they may have the proper opportunity provided by the law for registering objections to it if they wish to do so.

The Church Commissioners sent out the notices in the form expressly laid down in Section 52 of the Reorganisation Measure. They sent them out by post to the last known adresses of those to whom they had to be sent. They did not have to send one to the priest-in-charge; Canon Satterthwaite was not directly sent a notice. They sent one, as they are charged to do, to the Secretary of the Guild Church Council, by name, at his address. It so happened that the Secretary of that Council, Mr. Pearson, was having his holiday at the time and got back late, with only one or two days before the six weeks were up in which it was open to anybody to make an objection.

In the event, the Church Commissioners received no objections and they had every right to regard the scheme as an unopposed one because obviously the Guild Church Council had itself gone so far, and had accepted the principle of the scheme, as to set up a chapel committee and to pass the resolution which I quoted asking that the building be rebuilt as a cultural centre with a chapel.

I turn to the question of the doubt which has been thrown by the hon. Member for Barking on the legality of the processes under which the church, once designated in the Act of 1952 as a Guild church, may be, in the convenient phrase which the hon. Member used, "deguilded". The Church Commissioners have taken counsel's opinion and, furthermore, they have taken the opinion of two separate counsels, and, as a result, they are quite satisfied about the insertion in the Guild Churches Act, 1952, of Section 27, conveying a cross-reference into the Reorganisation Measure of 1944 and making Guild churches subject, if anybody wanted them to be subject, at a later date, to the Reorganisation Measure.

They are quite satisfied that paragraph (c) of Section 20 of the Measure, which states that a church may be appropriated, does, in fact, involve the very process of appropriation to another use and, therefore, destroys the hitherto Guild status of the church. That is why this paragraph is mentioned in the Guild Churches Act. Indeed, one of the other processes might have been asked for by somebody, namely, demolition. If the church had been demolished, who could then have said that it still retained its status as a Guild church? That could not be so.

Therefore, it is the opinion of the Church Commissioners, fortified by the opinion of learned counsel whom they have consulted, that the process under which this scheme was laid on the Table of the House, nearly 28 days ago, is absolutely legal. They believe that the scheme was virtually unopposed, although subject to lengthy discussion in the London Diocesan Reorganisation Committee and at a meeting of Guild Church Council itself.

It is with that knowledge that they, themselves, having acted most scrupulously in the duties imposed by the Reorganisation Measure, cannot see lit to withdraw the scheme and wish that the Motion to disapprove of it should be negatived if and when it is put to the House.

I should like, briefly, to answer the questions put to me by my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, West (Mr. Robert Cooke). He asked what safeguards there are for the priest-in-charge in so far as his career is concerned. The safeguards are, I think, ample, because Canon Satterthwaite is the Guild Vicar of St. Dunstan's-in-the-West, which has the appropriate stipend for a Guild vicar. He is also Secretary-General of the Archbishop's Committee on Foreign Relations and, I believe, receives an appropriate remuneration for that. I do not think that there should be any worry on that aspect of this case.

As to what will happen to the building, I can tell the House that the exterior will be restored to present the appearance as nearly as possible to what the great architect, Wren, saw when he had finished his work three centuries ago. As to the interior, copies of the scheme, which were available in the Vote Office, show that the inside of the building is divided as to about two-thirds for the chapel that is to be created in the east and middle portions, and as to the remaining one-third, towards the extreme west, for the offices of the Diocesan Guild of Christian Stewardship.

I cannot say whether any memorials that may be on the walls of the church building in that portion that is to remain as offices will be readily accessible to the public, but I can say that the greater part of the building, the chapel, to which are to be removed the church fittings, which have been carefully looked after and are ready to be reinstalled, will be open to the public at reasonable times.

After the explanation I have given, I trust that the hon. Member for Barking will withdraw the Motion.