Scheme of church to welcome new prison (8)
I believe the answer is:
conspire
'scheme' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'church to welcome new prison' is the wordplay.
'church' becomes 'ce' (abbreviation for Church of England).
'to welcome' indicates putting letters inside (in sense of 'inviting in').
'new' indicates an anagram.
'prison' with letters rearranged gives 'onspir'.
'ce' enclosing 'onspir' is 'CONSPIRE'.
'of' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for conspire that I've seen before include "So prince is given to plan secretly with others" , "'Plot, connive (8)'" , "Collude" , "Secretly plan together" , "implicated in plot" .)