To ask the right hon. Member for Selby, representing the Church Commissioners, what is the budget of the redundant churches fund.

The maximum budget for the five years beginning on 1 April 1989 is £12·4 million.

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the number of redundant and half-empty churches underlines the need for a more positive message to come from the Church in the 1990s than we heard in the 1980s?

I hope that the leadership of the new Archbishop of Canterbury, the decade of evangelism, and the striking growth in independent, charismatic, Pentecostal and Afro-Asian churches will register a significant growth in the next 10 years.