The next Archbishop of Canterbury is set to be unveiled on Friday, with two women among the frontrunners for the first time in the role’s 1,400-year history.
The announcement will come nearly a year after Justin Welby resigned from the role due to a damning review into the Church of England’s (CoE) handling of a sexual abuse scandal.
The process for choosing the new archbishop is incredibly secretive, being led by a former MI5 spy.
Here’s what you need to know.
Who are the favourites?
There is no official list of candidates, but bookmakers suggest leading contenders include two female diocesan bishops, Rachel Treweek and Guli Francis-Dehqani.
Revd Treweek became the CoE’s first female diocesan bishop in 2015 as the 41st Bishop of Gloucester, having started her life in ordained ministry in 1994.
Image: Rachel Treweek after becoming a bishop in 2015. Pic: Nick Ansell/PA
During her time as bishop, she has launched two campaigns: #Liedentity, aimed at raising awareness of body image anxiety in young people and Fighting for Women’s Justice, aimed at improving the justice system for women.
Another potential candidate is Iranian-born Bishop Guli Francis-Dehqani, who came to the UK aged 13 as a refugee with her parents following the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Image: Guli Francis-Dehqani speaking to Sky News in 2023
Dr Francis-Dehqani is currently lead bishop for housing and is chair of the board of the Church Army.
The Bishop of Leicester, Reverend Martyn Snow, is also a favourite, having served there since 2016.
He was previously the lead bishop for “living in love and faith”, which required him to lead the CoE’s contentious process to bless same-sex couples, but he stepped down earlier this year, saying he could not unite the Church.
Pete Wilcox, Bishop of Sheffield, has reportedly emerged as another frontrunner, having been ordained for more than 30 years. He is also the author of three books and a former senior lecturer in creative writing at Manchester Metropolitan University.
A female archbishop wouldn’t be entirely popular
It’s the first time women are eligible for the role, as female bishops weren’t consecrated by the CoE when the last archbishop was chosen in 2013.
A decade on from when women started being consecrated, they now make up close to a third of all bishops in England.
Image: Lambeth Palace, where the archbishop resides. Pic: iStock
But there are concerns that some conservative Christians would struggle to accept a woman as the symbolic figurehead for 85 million Anglicans worldwide.
The conservative Global Anglican Future Conference, which says it represents the majority of Anglicans worldwide, believes only men should be consecrated as bishops.
What are the job requirements for archbishop?
In June, the Diocese of Canterbury published a so-called ‘statement of needs’ setting out a long list of requirements for the 106th archbishop.
They said the next archbishop would need to be:
• A person with “theological depth” who is a strong communicator with people of all ages and backgrounds.
• Someone of the “utmost integrity who is able to speak honestly” about issues and injustices in the church.
• A “servant leader who shows compassion towards the disadvantaged and marginalised”.
• “Unapologetic about offering a Christian perspective to local, national, and international dialogue”.
• Someone with a willingness to ordain and consecrate both men and women, support the ministry of both, and may themselves be male or female.
• Someone who previously “worked, and will continue to work constructively” around ongoing discussions around blessing services for same-sex couples, but also someone who can “embrace” both those who support and oppose same-sex marriage in the church.
How is the archbishop chosen?
The archbishop is chosen by the Crown Nominations Commission, a committee chaired by Jonathan Evans, a former director-general of the MI5 security service.
The commission is made up of 17 voting members, including five representatives from the global Anglican Communion, three from Canterbury, and six from the CoE’s governing body.
After the group reaches a two-thirds majority on two preferred candidates, the nominations are presented to the prime minister, who selects one to be formally appointed by the King.
Candidates must be aged at least 30 and generally younger than 70, and historically they have been people already holding senior leadership roles in the Church or elsewhere in the Anglican Communion.
Mr Evans previously said he wanted to avoid a list of candidates where all were “white, Oxbridge, male and come from the southeast of England”.
What does the Archbishop of Canterbury do?
The Archbishop of Canterbury is the most senior leader of the Church of England, below the King, who is its supreme governor.
They preside over the church and its work in the southern two-thirds of England, while the Archbishop of York leads in the north.
Along with all bishops, the archbishops determine the direction of the church and make decisions on its role in society.
They also chair the General Synod, which is the church’s ruling committee – made up of bishops, clergy, and laity – that meets twice a year to discuss church law and matters of public interest.
The Archbishop of Canterbury sits in the House of Lords as a ‘Lord Spiritual’, acts as patron for various organisations and charities, and is in charge of the Anglican chaplains for each of the British Armed Forces.
“That smell of maggots, rotting food and maggots, my house smells like that.”
For Louise, not her real name, home has become a hell she cannot escape.
“We just couldn’t move for flies, and then we noticed an increase in rats,” she says.
Louise lives near Bolton House Road in Wigan. At the end of a row of terraced houses sits a former scrapyard, which has been transformed into an industrial-scale illegal dump site.
The wagons started coming last winter, “20, maybe 30 times a day,” Louise remembers.
“Eighteen-tonne wagons. Full of all sorts; nappies, black bin rubbish, chemicals, plastic.”
Within a few weeks, she and her neighbours realised the waste was just being dumped, not sorted or managed. It piled up, higher and higher.
They contacted the council, the Environment Agency and the police – but Louise claims no one did anything to stop the lorries.
Her retired neighbour, Tom, says it felt like the authorities “didn’t want to know”.
Though he does remember someone from the council asking him if he could go and “have a look for them” and “report back” information about what sort of waste was being dumped.
Louise and Tom are both so worried about who could be behind this that they are only comfortable speaking anonymously.
The fire which lasted nine days
By July’s heatwave, the site had long been full. The wagons had stopped months earlier, so 25,000 tonnes of waste, several storeys high, sat festering in the sun.
Lorries and vehicles in the former scrapyard lay buried, unseen, beneath the shredded and rotting filth – and then the fire started.
For nine days, dozens of firefighters from across Greater Manchester fought to bring the fire under control.
Image: Pic: Wigan Council
Image: Pic: Wigan Today
The nearby primary school had to shut due to the acrid smoke.
The sheer amount of water needed by fire engines to tackle the blaze left residents without any – while many were forced to keep their windows and doors shut in the 30C-plus heat.
Some were left with chest infections, others were hospitalised.
“I think it’s awful to let people live with that toxic rubbish right next to our house after us all asking for help and nothing’s materialised,” Louise says.
The crime costing the economy billions
Sky News has been investigating how, across the country, waste crime is a growing scourge and a booming business being exploited by criminal gangs.
Being paid to remove rubbish only to dump it illegally without sorting it or paying tax is an easy way of making huge amounts of money, with poorly enforced legal repercussions and a huge cost to the environment.
It’s something the previous head of the Environment Agency called “the new narcotics”.
The residents of Bolton House Road are not the only victims of this toxic dump.
Last winter, Neil Hardwick rented out three diggers to an individual, unaware of the growing illegal dump site in Wigan.
By March of this year, he had not received several rental payments and had received a call from the Environment Agency warning him about what was happening at the site.
Image: Neil and Carla Hardwick
With his daughter Carla, he went to Bolton House Road in an attempt to retrieve the machinery, worth approximately £300,000 in total.
At the site, Carla says a group of men slapped her, as well as spat at her. The men allegedly told her father: “We want you to give us £100,000, and we’ll allow you to take your diggers back, or we can cut your throat.”
Carla and Neil say an officer from Greater Manchester Police dismissed their report, and claimed their machinery was not stolen.
That officer also threatened to arrest the pair if they did not leave the area, they say.
“I just wanted us to get those machines back. But the fact that a man can spit in a woman’s face and get away with it, and the police are not interested, well, it is maddening,” Carla said.
The Hardwicks returned to the site 10 days later with officers from the National Crime Agency but found their machines smashed up and destroyed.
Mr Hardwick said the ordeal was “absolutely soul-destroying”.
“It’s caused us so much grief, damage to business, just absolutely brought us to our knees,” he said.
Image: A vehicle used to transport waste to the illegal dump
Greater Manchester Police told Sky News there is an ongoing complaint relating to the incident involving Neil and Carla Hardwick at Bolton House Road, and “this process will take time”.
“As part of this complaint, our Professional Standards Directorate are assessing all elements of the investigation including all crimes and reviewing bodyworn footage,” a spokesperson said.
The £4.5m bill
Finding out how the illegal dump in Wigan happened, and who’s responsible, is hugely challenging.
The landowner has not responded to Sky, nor have the companies which allegedly own the lorries seen by residents transporting the waste.
They appear to be either refuse or haulage companies that boast of their environmentally friendly credentials.
Image: The firms seen moving waste to the illegal dump did not reply to Sky News
One company’s website claims it diverts most of its waste away from landfill, and advertises its “innovative approach” to waste management.
“We’re passionate about the environment,” the website says.
Josh Simons, the local Labour MP, has been outraged by the case.
Speaking before his promotion to the Cabinet Office, he said it is “buck-passing” between Wigan Council, the police, and the Environment Agency.
Mr Simons says he was told at the start of the year that there was a criminal investigation, “and therefore no action can be taken to prevent people from dumping more on the site or intervening”.
“That just doesn’t seem right to me,” he says.
He also says information and financial support from the Environment Agency to Wigan Council has been poor.
“The number [the council] have come up with is about £4.5m to clear the waste.
“Anybody who knows local authority budgets at the moment knows they don’t have nearly five million pounds stashed behind the sofa. So what’s supposed to happen?”
The land itself is not worth £4.5m – and Mr Simons thinks this makes working-class areas uniquely vulnerable to this kind of crime.
Image: The funding and powers of the Environment Agency need to change, says Josh Simons MP
Paul Barton, director for environment at Wigan Council, said: “Our top priority is to ensure those residents feel heard and safe while the Environment Agency carries out their investigation with our full cooperation.
“We want the site to be cleared as a matter of urgency and are continuing to work with the Environment Agency to survey and sample the waste so polluters/landowners – who are the responsible parties – can progress this as soon as possible.”
Paul Clements, director of operations at the Environment Agency, said: “We are prioritising local people, businesses and the nearby school as we work… to deal with this illegal waste site as quickly as possible.
“Our staff continue to visit the site and at the forefront of our minds is the impact the illegal waste is having on the local community.
“We are continuing to progress our criminal investigation as a priority. This includes actively pursuing many lines of enquiry, interviewing under caution and using the enforcement tools available to us.”
Additional reporting by Adam Parker, OSINT editor, and Niamh Lynch, planning producer
The Environment Agency (EA), police and other agencies are failing to stop fly-tipping by organised crime groups, a cross-party group of peers has found.
In a damning letter to the government, members of the House of Lords’ Environment and Climate Change Committee called for an independent review of waste crime, with the current approach “inadequate”.
Their report described the EA as “slow to respond to even the most flagrant and serious illegality” – and said its taskforce on waste crime appears “ineffective”.
Police are accused of showing a “lack of interest” in the crime, while penalties for criminals do not match their profits and are “insufficient to deter future offending”.
Sky News has been investigating the boom in waste crime – a trade so lucrative it has been named the “new narcotics”.
Our most recent investigation found that for months the Environment Agency failed to prevent 20 lorries a day dumping industrial levels of waste at the end of a residential street in Wigan.
Over the summer, the 25,000 tonnes of rubbish burnt for nine days – making life hell for residents.
In July, we tracked down a group of suspected organised fly-tippers who waved wads of cash on TikTok after appearing to dump waste in the countryside and in farmers’ fields.
The Lords’ committee has called for the EA’s Joint Unit for Waste Crime to do more to encourage collaboration between various authorities, and for the Department for Environment, Rural and Food Affairs to develop and publish targets for tackling this issue.
Peers have also demanded an end to what they call the “merry-go-round of reporting” where members of the public who report fly-tipping and waste crime in their area get bounced between various agencies.
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Criminals benefitting from trash
This is something Sky News has often heard from victims – they will call the police, only to be told to speak to the council, which then pushes them over to the EA.
Peers want a “single telephone number and web portal” which would triage responsibility for each case.
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The boom in waste crime
An EA spokesperson said: “We recognise the recommendations of the report and are committed to doing more.
“Last year alone, our dedicated teams shut down 462 illegal waste sites and prevented nearly 34,000 tonnes of waste being illegally exported – showing that we can make real change despite the challenges involved.”
The King has been heckled over his brother Prince Andrew’s relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein during a visit to a cathedral.
Charles was shouted at by a man in the crowd outside Lichfield Cathedral in Staffordshire on Monday, who asked: “How long have you known about Andrew and Epstein?”
The protester, who was filming on a mobile phone, also said: “Have you asked the police to cover up for Andrew? Should MPs be allowed to debate the royals in the House of Commons?”
Image: King Charles during his visit to Lichfield Cathedral. Pic: AP
The King did not respond to the comments, which came as the monarchy faces increasing pressure to resolve the controversy surrounding Andrew, who earlier this month said he would stop using his Duke of York title and his knighthood after revelations in the posthumous memoir of sex assault accuser Virginia Giuffre.
The prince has always strenuously denied all allegations against him from the late Ms Giuffre.
At the moment, Andrew resides at Royal Lodge, a Windsor mansion where he effectively lives rent-free. He’s done so since 2003.
Obstacles to a settlement are reportedly where the prince, who remains eighth in line to the throne, will live and what financial recompense he will receive for the funds he spent renovating the home.
The Sun reported he is keen on Harry and Meghan’s former home Frogmore Cottage.
Image: Prince Andrew and Jeffrey Epstein. Pics: PA/Sipa/Shutterstock
‘The royals need to be challenged’
Calls are still growing for Andrew’s dukedom to be revoked, which can only be done by an act of parliament.
Downing Street has indicated it its reluctance to do so, suggesting the King would not want the issue to take up politicians’ time.
Graham Smith, chief executive of anti-monarchy group Republic, said: “The royals need to be challenged, and if the politicians won’t do the job and the police won’t investigate, then more and more members of the public will be asking tough questions.”
He said he believed Monday’s heckler was “one of our own members but doing their own thing”.
After the visit to the cathedral, the King laid flowers at the UK’s first national memorial commemorating LGBT armed forces.
He was joined by dozens of serving and former members of the armed forces, as he met veterans who told of the trauma inflicted by the military’s former “gay ban”.
The memorial, titled An Opened Letter, was unveiled at the National Memorial Arboretum.