Archbishop warns against welfare dependency

The Archbishop of Canterbury has warned that communities are not helped by a dependency on welfare.

Addressing the Welsh Assembly, Dr Rowan Williams said that the challenge was to find a balance between statutory provision and local initiative.

He said that society should not assume that all problems can be solved “top down from the state, because that is no more faithful or helpful to community than anything else”.

The Archbishop suggested that a mutual taking of responsibility “pushes back at a passive welfarism”.

“That is, an assumption that the state is a provider of solutions and solver of all problems,” he said.

While the achievements of public welfare in Britain have been “enormous”, the Archbishop said there was “some substance” to suspicions about welfarism.

“There is a problem about dependency, there is a problem about assuming somebody else resolves the problems, and there is certainly a problem about centralised state provision as the solution to everything," he said.

“And those who have recently, from both left and right, pointed out that welfarism is not good news for those who want a mutually responsible, active and creative community, have not been wrong.”

Instead, the Archbishop suggested a model for community in which people take responsibility for each other. This, he said, represented a community “in the fullest sense”.