|TOP|The Church of England has welcomed reports that the Home Office has abandoned plans to close places of worship linked to ‘extremism’ following a consultation exercise.

The Bishop of Southwark, the Rt. Rev. Tom Butler, previously criticised the proposals which would have given police the power to seek a court order for the temporary closure of a place of worship on the suspicion alone that extremist behaviour or terrorist activity was taking place there.

Rev. Butler responded to the results of the government consultation saying, “I think it is wise that the government has had second thoughts on this element of their proposals”.

“We thought it was a disproportionate response to a problem that could better be tackled in other ways,” he said.

At the outset of the government consultation process, the Bishop of Southwark had said: “Of course I support the principle of dealing with extremist activity, but targeting places of worship under blanket provisions is excessive and disproportionate.”

|QUOTE|He added that of the 40,000 churches in Britain, of which 16,000 are the Church of England, there has never been any suggestion of behaviour related to terrorism in any of them.

Rev. Butler said the only case in the public domain where there was any potential link between a place of worship and terrorist activity was Finsbury Park mosque and “Even in that case, the problem was resolved by the management committee within the present law”, he said.

“Public access to Church of England churches has for long been guaranteed by legislation, giving all members of the public the right to enter during times of public worship,” said Rev. Butler.

“To legislate for restrictions on this right would raise significant issues of freedom of worship.”

He added: “When responding to the Home Office consultation we shall make these points robustly and ask why places of worship are being singled out when other buildings have been more significantly linked with the activity of terrorists.”