The Rt Rev Tim Stevens, Bishop of Leicester, in an extensive article in The Daily Telegraph comments:
Though he ceased to be Archbishop of Canterbury nearly a decade ago, Lord Carey, as a life peer, is entitled to express his opinions on issues of national importance.
But the point of debate in Parliament is that we listen to each others views before making up our minds.
Many Peers last Monday were persuaded to support the Bishops’ amendment by the power of the arguments they heard.
This makes it all the more disappointing to me that Lord Carey was not present to hear them.
Yet much of what Lord Carey had to say this week accords with the views of the Bishops.
Firstly, I and most within the Church have supported the principle of a reduction in the welfare budget. We have listened carefully to the arguments that a cap on benefits is necessary, even if we retain concerns about its application.
Secondly, we did not vote against the cap itself, even if we have questions about the principle. We agree wholeheartedly that work is the best route out of poverty and that reducing state dependency is an overall necessity.
On all that we agree.
However, I disagree profoundly with the Government’s and Lord Carey’s view that our action in the Lords was about prolonging a culture of welfare dependency, or the implication that increased material poverty for some is a price worth paying to alleviate what some have described as the poverty of aspiration.
Like others in the Church, I see the real effects of poverty on families and communities in my own diocese on a regular basis.
Child Benefit has always been a benefit paid to working and non-working families.
It has not previously been means-tested and is payable to the main carer, to help with the cost of having children.
For many it is a lifeline.