The Ecclesiastical Law Society (ELS) is a charity whose object is ‘to promote education in ecclesiastical law for the benefit of the public, including in particular the clergy and laity of the Church of England’. The ELS Committee has recently begun a review of this part of the society's work and this piece is a part of that review. This article seeks to set out what is currently happening and to solicit views on how our education work could be developed. The current education function may be described under three headings.

In the Parliamentary report for February to May I wrote that Lord Falconer's Assisted Dying Bill, reintroduced under the new ballot procedure for private Peers' bills, had little chance of becoming law in the current session. As it turned out, that judgment was a little premature, because Rob Marris came first in the Commons ballot for private Members' bills and decided to introduce an Assisted Dying (No 2) Bill in similar terms to Lord Falconer's. In the event, however, when his Bill had its second reading debate on 11 September – the first occasion on which the Commons had had an opportunity to debate the matter since 1997 – it was decisively defeated, by 330 votes to 118.

In January 2013 the Australian Government established the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. The terms of reference require the Royal Commission to inquire as what should be done to eliminate or reduce impediments that currently exist for responding appropriately to child sexual abuse and related matters in institutional contexts, including addressing failures in, and impediments to, reporting, investigating and responding to allegations and incidents of abuse. Further, the Commission is directed to focus on systemic issues and to be informed by an understanding of individual cases. In November 2013 the Royal Commission held a public hearing into the Anglican Diocese of Grafton's response to child sexual abuse at the North Coast Children's Home and in October 2014 published its Report.

On 9 May, the EU Justice Sub-Committee of the House of Lords, chaired by Baroness Helena Kennedy QC, published a report on the Government's proposals to repeal the Human Rights Act and replace it with a new Bill of Rights – and suggested that there was a forceful case for a Government rethink:

In October 2015 the Secretary of State for Scotland announced that the Government would bring forward an amendment to the Scotland Bill at consideration stage in the Commons to devolve responsibility for abortion law to the Scottish Parliament. It duly did so: see clause 50 of the Lords Bill as brought from the Commons. At the time of writing the Bill was being considered in the Lords.

This report covers the final three of the groups of sessions of the General Synod elected in 2010.

The General Assembly met in Edinburgh from 16 to 22 May, with the Rt Revd Dr Angus Morrison, Minister of the United Parish of Orwell and Portmoak in the Presbytery of Perth, installed as Moderator. Dr Morrison was to be Moderator at the 2014 Assembly; however, he stood down early due to health reason and was re-elected and installed this year. This year's Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly was Lord Hope of Craighead KT PC, who has served successively as Lord President of the Court of Session and Lord Justice General in Scotland, then as a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary and finally as Deputy President of the Supreme Court.

The Church in Wales Review had recommended that the Diocese of Llandaff be designated the permanent archiepiscopal see and that the diocese should have an area bishop with a legally designated area of pastoral responsibility. In his presidential address in September, the archbishop recognised that it was a difficult question but one that needed to be faced because of the dual role of archbishop and diocesan bishop, the relentless workload and the need for the archbishop to be located in Cardiff. It had been the subject of several reports and Governing Body motions in the past but with no change to the present situation.