The archbishop of Canterbury has delivered a critique of tax cuts for the wealthy, saying he is “deeply sceptical” of trickle-down economics and could see “no moral case” for a government setting budgets that disproportionately affect the poor.
In an interview with the Guardian while on his tour of Australia, Justin Welby said that although he did not wish to be party political, he could not see why the rich should be given more money, as they were more likely to simply save rather than spend the extra pounds.
When asked if he thought Liz Truss’s government should U-turn on its current policies, he said: “I don’t know if it’s U-turning … or rethinking. I think there’s lots of ways … there are lots of ways of addressing the problem.”
In the wide-ranging conversation, the archbishop also revealed how he had been “terrified” during the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II, with the eyes of the world on his every move.
And he affirmed his view that the church should be doing more to encourage followers to take direct action on climate change.
Welby is currently in Australia touring some of the areas most affected by climate change.
He has visited the northern New South Wales town of Lismore, which was ravaged by two consecutive floods in February and March, and is still struggling to recover.
At the weekend, he travelled to Thursday Island, where locals are dealing with rising sea levels, and is on Monday scheduled to ordain two Aboriginal women as priests during a visit to the community of Yarrabah, near Cairns in Queensland.
But it is his views on the British economy which will be closely read in London, as Truss fights for her political survival after a botched mini-budget that would have given billions to some of the wealthiest in society.
Asked about the winter the UK was facing and the cost of living crisis, Welby told the Guardian that food banks were already overwhelmed.
“I’m extremely concerned. Really, really concerned. We have seen in some areas food bank use already going up 400%. At a recent meeting of the bishops, someone said: ‘I just don’t know how this diocese will cope in meeting the social needs.’
“It just feels like a monstrous wave coming at us and we know it is going to hit. We can do our best to prepare for it but it’s very very difficult.”
Speaking at St Andrew’s Anglican church, Welby addressed the question of tax cuts for the wealthy.
“I’m not going to make a party political point because both parties are deeply divided and I’m not going to talk about Australia because I just don’t know the situation. But in the UK, the priority is the cost of living, with the poorest.
“And from an economics point of view, I’m deeply sceptical about trickle-down theory. You know, if you cut money for the rich, ever since [John Maynard] Keynes wrote his general theory in 1936, whenever it was, he showed very clearly that the rich save if they’ve got enough to live on.
“So if you want to generate spending in the economy, you put more money into the hands of those who need the money to buy food, to buy goods, to buy basic necessities.”
When pressed whether he could see any moral case for governments setting budgets that disproportionately affect the poor, he said: “No, I can’t see a moral case for it. No.”
He continued: “There are lots of ways of addressing the problem. It’s not a problem of inequality, it’s a problem of spreading wealth sufficiently in order to ensure that those at the lower end of the scale can both heat and eat and have a reasonable standard of living. And that is essential.
“One of the big areas we see in the UK in the latest figures is a very, very high level of people on sick leave. So although unemployment is low, productivity is not rising because so many people are on long-term sick leave. And because people aren’t being trained enough … those are the things that will grow the economy.”
Welby was also asked about climate activism and whether the church should be doing more to encourage followers to take direct action on climate.
“Yes, they definitely should. An awful lot of people are. And they should be encouraging. And you know, they are, we are collectively doing as much as we can.
“Seeing the devastation here, the biggest flood in history, it just brings it home that the impact of climate change is life and death for a huge number of people already, let alone in a few years.
“Why are people hanging back? Because it is so easy for short-termist issues to displace long-termist. Urgent and immensely important short-termist issues, for instance the Ukraine war – they have to be dealt with but there is only so much bandwidth in government and governments run out of bandwidth to deal with that and the long term.
“And governments in democratic countries change regularly so they don’t have the long-term view and if you have got a major war, you know, you say to people, you say to people in the Ukraine that climate change is a huge threat and they say: ‘Yeah we know that but our question is are we going to be alive in three months?’ Not what is going to happen in 2050. If we get to 2050, that is good news.
“So I think there is that urgency that displaces equally threatening but less visible problems.”
Asked about his participation in the Queen’s funeral he said: “There were two things that stick in my memory. One, there was a family in the middle of it really grieving desperately. It was a family funeral.
“The second was that there were x billion people around the world watching and 100 something heads of state in front of me who could learn from her example.
“Putting it in a clear Christian context and calling on people to respond to that was the privilege of a lifetime. It just felt for me … I couldn’t believe I was doing it. I got up in the pulpit and thought, I’m going to have to wake up. Am I really here?”
Asked if it was like an out of body experience, he replied: “No. I was just terrified.”
• This article was amended on 19 October 2022. An earlier version referred to the visit being the first to Australia by an archbishop of Canterbury in 75 years, rather than the first to the diocese of Grafton in 72 years.
