Women bishops: Church of England synod votes for new law. The Archbishop of Canterbury: "I am actually extremely optimistic on the basis of the change of mood."

The Church of England's ruling general synod has voted to restart work on allowing women to become bishops. Delegates voted by 319 to 84 to move forward on a new draft law, although this isn't expected to get final approval until July or November 2015. Previous attempts at creating similar legislation have been thrown out because of internal disagreements. The Archbishop of Canterbury said he remained "extremely optimistic" agreement could be reached.

The last attempt to introduce women bishops was narrowly defeated at a synod meeting in November. It passed in the Houses of Bishops and Clergy, but failed to gain the required two-thirds majority in the House of Laity. The lay members who blocked the draft law said it gave traditionalist parishes inadequate guarantees of access to an alternative, male, bishop.

Mood shift: Following the vote, the Most Reverend Justin Welby said: "There is a strong desire to get it done. We aren't at the stage of saying should we ordain women as bishops, we are at the stage of saying we are going to ordain women as bishops, how do we go about that? It is going to take a little while, we are going to have to go on working at it, there has been such a shift in mood over the last six months. I remain extremely optimistic."