Archbishop, can we start by just getting
one thing clear? Have you ruled yourself
out of contention for the top job?
>> Well, first of all, lovely to be with
you, I have the top job. I am the
Archbishop of York. Um, but I'm a member
of what's called the Crown Nominations
Commission, which is the the body that
makes a nomination to the crown about
the next Archbishop of Canterbury. So,
by definition, if you're a member of
that body, you are not a candidate for
the post.
>> Okay. Uh the the other question people
are asking about this is it took 48
hours to elect a pope. Why has it taken
best part of a year to uh get the new
archbishop of Canterbury in place?
>> So that's a long story which I'm sure
your viewers don't want to hear. But the
short version of the long story is that
usually we would appoint an archbishop
ahead of the retirement of the the the
sitting bishop. So when I became
Archbishop of York, I was appointed
eight months or so ahead of Archbishop
Centamu's retirement. That would have
been the case this year. But of course,
the circumstances of uh Justin Welbby's
leaving and his resignation
um has uh rather
styied the system and uh so it it
appears to be taking longer. Um but
>> it's a new situation. It's a new
situation and our process does involve
massive consultations with people um
which which I'm rather proud of.
>> All right. Well, look, we'll come back
to the situation of the church a bit
later, but let's talk about the issue
that you um have raised with a letter
that signed with other faith leaders
about child poverty. What is the point
of what you're trying to say?
Well, at at its simplest, uh it it is
simply a shameful scandal that in a
wealthy country like ours,
there are children every day, I mean
thousands of children every day going to
school hungry, don't have a proper
mattress to sleep on, um have all the
stigma um and the lifelimiting impacts
of of of poverty. It shouldn't be this
way, which I know everyone agrees on it
shouldn't be this way,
but at the moment I don't believe we
have the holistic systemic approach to
addressing it, which is needed. So I've
been here today in Middlesborough
speaking with uh various people who are
involved locally in addressing the needs
of child poverty to to learn about
what's happening and to hopefully be a
voice to say we can do better. You um
say along with other faith leaders in
this letter that the government should
get rid of the uh benefits limit to two
children. What's the case for that?
>> Well, the case for that is very simple
and and listening to the people I've
been with this morning, I mean, one of
them said almost the first thing that
was said in the meeting, there is no
route to the ending of child poverty,
which does not include addressing the
two child limit. We actually heard
stories of, you know, real stories of
people with more than two children and
the impact this has on their lives. We
are storing up trouble for ourselves as
a nation whereby we push whole families
and individual children into poverty
because of this particular limit. Um and
so uh overnight if we changed it we
would lift thousands of children and
families out of poverty. The child
poverty action group says that there are
more than 100 children uh pushed into
poverty every day. Uh 100 extra children
pushed into poverty every day and they
attribute the largest cause I suppose uh
child poverty to this two child limit.
Now the government says it's going it
was going to examine is going to produce
a strategy on child poverty. It was
meant to come on come in this earlier
this year. They say it's going to come
before the end of the year. Um how much
does it bother you that actually with
this extra number 100 plus going in to
child poverty every day that that uh
strategy has been delayed?
>> Well, it's it's hugely frustrating and
it's and it's deeply shaming for us as a
nation. I've been speaking this morning
about some of my own direct experiences
with uh communities and schools that I
serve uh here in the north of England um
across you know particularly here in
T-side in Cleveland. I was at a school
last year where
I mean the children come to school with
an empty lunchbox. Um I used to send my
kids to school with a lunch box. It was
my job to make the lunch in the morning.
The kids go with an empty lungs botch
because there's a breakfast club at the
school.
Virtually all the children at the school
are on free school meals. And then at
the end of the day, they set up a
trestle table in the playground
with the local food bank to give
children that's when they fill up their
empty lunchbox. They take it home so
that they can have some tea. Now, we
know that the two child limit is one of
the contributing factors to growing
child poverty.
Therefore, it is that policy that is
creating that situation. Um, now I know
these things cost money of of course
they do. But the cost of not doing
something, the economic
difficulties we're storing up for
ourselves by, you know, listening to
people this morning, they said over and
over again, you only get one childhood.
And if we don't invest in those
children, if if they don't have enough
to eat, that has a direct impact on
their education and their educational
achievement and therefore a direct
impact on what that child's life is
going to be like as an adult, which will
end up costing us even more money.
Some of your parishioners and you know
of course you're an archbishop but you
have uh parishioners and you are by
nature a vicar would say that's all very
well but the choice to have a third or a
fourth or a fifth or any number of
children these days is the parents
choice. Why should everybody else in the
church have to subsidize the somebody
else's choice uh to have more children
than two?
>> Yeah. So I I'm I understand and I'm not
without sympathy with those who make
such arguments, but I disagree
profoundly for various reasons. One that
some of the reasons people have more
than one child are not as simple as
those choices. I heard this morning
about a family where it was a second
marriage. One person enters the marriage
with two children that the the other
partner also has two children from a
previous marriage. Then the partner
dies. The mother ends up with four
children. But but even so, even leaving
aside those more exceptional
circumstances,
I don't believe we achieve the society
we want to achieve by kind of social
engineering the size of families by by
punishing the third child by by
blighting the third child's life.
There's other ways in which we can
address those issues. Um and of course
the best way of addressing those issues
of overpopulation, family size is not
through punishing a third child. born
into this world and blighting their life
but through proper education. How do we
get proper education in our poorest
communities? It's actually through
feeding children, giving them a proper
home. Um so we have to see these things
are joined up and I don't see how
punishing a parent for having a third
child is is going to achieve anything.
>> Uh you've been working with the foreign
prime minister Gordon Brown on this. Um
Mr. Brown says that we should pay for
this
>> by a new tax or further taxes on
gambling. Um, more generally, and
because this is your betick really, um,
do you think that there's a case for
extending and increasing what people
call sin taxes, taxes on things that are
bad for us, gambling, alcohol, sugar,
and so on.
>> Yeah. So, obviously I speak to you as a
church leader, not a politician, not an
economist. Um, but I hope I'm not naive
in the way I look at these things. I
think my primary role is to take a moral
and ethical argument about in a wealthy
society like ours, we should not be
accepting of such high levels of of
poverty and we should address it.
Obviously, that needs to be paid for.
And I think we do need to be open to
fresh thinking about how that happens.
And so I'm really interested in Gordon
Brown's proposals. Um the the two which
I think are the headline ones are I
think I'm right in saying we have the
lowest levy on gambling in amongst um
you know European nations. So that is
obviously something we could and should
look at and I I would have no trouble in
supporting that. But he's also
mentioned, you know, we the people of
this country bailed out the banks in
2008, 2009, whenever it was. They are
now making record profits. This is about
what kind of society do we want to be?
What are the values that underpin it?
And how do we all make our contribution?
There's another territory on which that
issue of what kind of society we want to
be, what our values and so on is very
hot. Let's put it that way at the
moment. and that is the issue of
migration and particularly asylum
seekers. Um without going into the sort
of whole detail of it, there's an
argument that's now being made that the
rights of asylum seekers are being
treated above those of local people and
specifically in relation to asylum
hotels. The government wants to be able
to put people in asylum hotels for a
while. They want to get rid of them. Um,
can you understand uh that some of the
people that you minister to feel
resentful that perhaps the interests of
people who haven't grown up here and
haven't contributed and so on yet are
being put before theirs?
>> Oh. Oh, yeah. I absolutely can. Um, not
not least a single mom with three
children who's being penalized for
having that third child. Of course, I
understand that. But it's what is the
solution? Um the solution isn't to
stigmatize asylum seekers. In the same
way, it's not the solution to punish and
stigmatize uh single moms with three
children. That the the solution must be
to look at what are the causes of these
things and to address those in a
holistic long-term way. Well, that's
true in the long term, but this weekend
there are people in asylum hotels and
there have been people last week uh in
the last week or two outside saying not
in our
>> I understand that. But the reason that
happened this weekend is because of
long-term failures to address the
long-term issues that lead to to to
people seeking asylum. And you know I
make no apology for saying we need a big
holistic and in this case international
vision for saying why is there the mass
migration of peoples across our world at
the moment. We know why it's because of
climate change. It's because of
conflict. Um it's because of lack of
international development and
investment. These are the things that
that drive it. It's also a lack of safe
routes for asylum seekers into our
country. So what's your response to
those people who are saying policy
should be you land here uh unlawfully uh
you get locked up and you get deported
straight away. No ifs, no buts. Well,
I'd say to them uh you haven't solved a
problem. You've just you've just you've
put it somewhere else and you've done
nothing to address the issue of what
brings people to this country. And so if
you think that's the answer, you will
discover in due course that all you have
done is made the problem worse. So don't
misunderstand me. I have every sympathy
with those who find this difficult.
every sympathy as I do with those living
in poverty. But I don't think we should
um well, we should actively resist the
kind of isolationist short-term
kneejerk, you know, send them in this
case, send them home or or in the cases
of poverty to say, you know, there's the
deserving poor and the undeserving poor
and you know, it's your fault because
you had a third child. We have to resist
those narratives and say we can address
these things but we need we need
holistic long-term joined up thinking
>> uh to let's put a name on it. Is that
your message to Mr. Farage?
>> Well well well it is I mean Mr. Farage
is saying the things he's saying but he
is not offering any long-term to
solution to the big issues which are
convulsing our world which lead to this
and uh I I I see no other way. Let me
just finally talk to you about the
church's moral authority and there are
two aspects of this. First of all, many
politicians would say, well, look, this
is all very nice and it's, you know,
>> it's good that you uh faith leaders are
taking an interest in the world, but in
the real world, these choices are about
tradeoffs. They are, do we have the
money to lift this cap? Uh, do we have
the money and space to put these people
in hotels? And it's fine for you guys to
take the position you take, but we
actually have to make the decision. The
moral authority of the church is not
>> not tackling the actual problem.
>> Yeah. So I I understand that. I'd say
two things. First of all, I I I won't
apologize
for crying out uh when I see injustice
and poverty and saying which I think we
all agree with. It shouldn't be like
this. I don't do it to shame or blame
politicians. I don't believe I I believe
in and trust our politicians. Nobody
gets up in the morning to say I'm going
to introduce policies which mean
children go hungry. But the fact is
children go hungry and somebody does
need to say that clearly. So that's the
first thing. Second thing is the church
is on the ground in every community that
we live in. um we we follow Jesus Christ
who tells us that we must love our
neighbors as ourselves
and and those things do and can work
themselves out in practical policies.
And once you catch hold of that vision
that we are one humanity and that my
interests and your interests are tied in
with each other then that does begin to
change the political dial. La last point
really. Um we're talking about the
church's moral authority. Has it been
undermined by the controversies over
safeguarding? You yourself
>> have been called on to resign by uh one
of your fellow bishops last year because
>> uh of what she said were your failings
in this area. But essentially the point
is does the church still retain the
moral authority to be a credible witness
on these issues?
So, I know that the church has been
shamed and humbled by our failings,
particularly these failings we're
talking about in areas of safeguarding.
And and I want to take every opportunity
to apologize to victims and survivors
and those whose confidence in the church
has been knocked by those failings.
But a core value and a core belief of
the church is of humility, penitence
and the belief that all of us can be
better than we are. All of us can start
again, that there can be change.
And we have been humbled by our
failings. But I believe it can make us a
more humble church.
and and I do believe that I want there
to be a society where there is
accountability
but where there is also the opportunity
to learn and start again. So the church
of England and many other denominations
and indeed many other institutions have
learned so much in the last 20 years in
these areas. that learning goes on and I
I want to say sorry for my personal
failings in this part. But I also want
to say clearly that I am learning and I
am determined to be part of the change
that will rebuild the trust that I know
has been knocked and sometimes broken in
the last year or so.
>> Thank you.
Thank you.