The Bishop should keep his vote in Legislative Council and Tynwald.

Juan Watterson’s select committee on the function of Tynwald was asked to consider whether the Bishop should be included when deciding whether Legislative Council had a ’quorum’, ie, enough members present to deal with matters, and whether he should be allowed to abstain from voting.

Although it was not actually asked to include whether the Bishop should be allowed vote at all, the committee decided to do so anyway.

The report explained: ’A proposal that the Bishop be deprived of his vote has been rejected twice - once on the basis of a disagreement between the branches and once (in July 2017) on the basis of being rejected in both branches.

’Although this is not the question that Tynwald referred to us for consideration and report, it is part of the background that we are entitled to consider. A decision on whether the Lord Bishop should retain his vote sets the context in which the other matters should be decided.’

It noted that the likelihood would be that the loss of the Bishop’s right to vote would lead to the Isle of Man becoming part of another Church of England diocese, rather than one in its own right.

’We believe that this would have a detrimental impact on the island’s status and influence,’ the report states.

In addition, with there being eight other voting MLCs, the presence of the Bishop’s voted reduced the number of times of the President of Tynwald needing to give a casting vote, which has to be in line with how the Keys voted.

The issue of whether the Bishop should count towards a quorum arose because of the number of times he could be called away on other business. There was concern this could cause problems if more than four Legislative Council vacancies came up for election at any particular time, but the committee pointed out the President of Tynwald could reduce the required quorum in exceptional circumstances.

The committee also investigated whether the bishop should be allowed to abstain from votes that were purely procedural or political.

Previous Bishop Robert Paterson told the Lisvane inquiry: ’There are times, particularly when the Bishop has been caught having voted in such a way that it divides the Houses, when it would have been much better if I had been able simply to escape.’

But the committee said that Tynwald members were required to cast votes if present in the chamber at the appropriate time.

It recommended that the Bishop should retain his vote, that he should not be allowed to abstain and that he should form part of the quorum.